Our Sept School Holidays

We're just at the tail-end of our 2 weeks of Sept school holidays, which were very needed after an extremely busy 3rd term. We were both SO ready for some time off, and have spent the past couple weeks sleeping a lot, and also getting heaps of things done. I just looked at my to-do list yesterday and counted over 30 things I've accomplished over the past 2 weeks. I love ticking things off lists!

The first weekend of the holidays we drove down to the Sunshine Coast, which is where we'll be moving in a few months. We couldn't be more excited, as this has always been our "dream location" in Australia! To give you an idea, the Sunny Coast is about 100km north of Brisbane, and about 700km south of Rockhampton, so it took us most of the day to drive down.

The first night on the Sunny Coast we stayed in the prestigious "Palms Motor Inn," which would have been more accurately named the "Runway Motor Inn" as we soon discovered we were directly under the flight path for planes taking off from the small regional airport nearby. They were seriously about 20 feet overhead... slightly loud! Here are a few pics of our fancy accommodations :)

When we woke up on Mon morning we were in a rush to get to my interview at Coolum, and Andrew was preparing my breakfast... oatmeal and strawberries. He served me strawberries that looked like this:

... the tops were all bitten off. When I asked him what was up with that, he said there was no knife, so he had to bite off the green parts. I had to laugh... especially since there was a knife right under the sink!

This pic is of Andrew holding up our lunch which we purchased at IGA (behind him) on the drive down the coast. We tend to do things like lunch pretty simply and just get back on the road.

After the Runway Motor Inn, we spent the rest of the week at our friend Line's house on the Sunny Coast. Here's Andrew watching her kids, Max and Isobel, play computer games. They are great kids and we had a good time hanging out with them.


We also got to spend some time on the beach, and exploring the neighborhoods where we hope to be renting next year. We now have a much better feel for what we're looking for.

The beaches down there are SO beautiful! Fine white sand, blue waters, etc!

To give you a bit more information on what the deal is for next year, Andrew just got a job at a private school called Suncoast Christian College... you can check it out at http://www.suncoastcc.qld.edu.au/ He'll be starting in Jan and teaching Sr Math and Science.

I'm still looking for work in the area, and had an interview at Coolum Beach Christian College a couple weeks ago (that's why we drove down). It went well, but they don't have any positions available (it's a super small school). I asked them to keep me in mind in case anything opens up, which they said they'd do. If I really can't find a teaching position, I can always sub for a while. I'm really not too worried about it at this point.



One more pic that I recently came across: while I was in Canada at Em and Brendan's wedding in April, Andrew went camping to the beach with his friend Dave, and here was his message in the sand to the newlyweds:

More blogging to come in a couple weeks :)

~Corinna

Andrew's 35th Birthday

A couple weeks ago Andrew celebrated his 35th birthday... fun times! It was a Wed morning so we had to go to work, but we started the day with a few presents and cards.

I did a travel theme and got him a carry-on suitcase, and filled it with little things he'll need for our upcoming trip to Thailand. I had a lot of fun planning it and putting it together, and he had a good time opening it and unwrapping all the little things inside.



On the Friday night we had a party at our place... it ended up being pretty tame as a lot of people couldn't make it due to leaving on holidays that night (it was the first night of our school holidays and I figured people wouldn't be leaving town till Sat or Sun, but I was wrong). Anyways, we still had about 10 people over for pizza and dessert.



The pic above is of our friends Sarah and Julian who are expecting their first baby in January. Julian was trying to feel the baby kick for the first time, but he kept missing it, so Sarah was trying really hard to get his hand in the right place... exciting times for them!

ps- if you sent a card, see if you can spot it in the pic above (on the windowsill in the background)... they're all there! Thanks so much to those of you who made Andrew's birthday special by calling and/or sending a card... he felt very loved and remembered!

Year 7 Camp, 2011

Andrew and I just got back from our camps yesterday... it was a super full-on week, but the kids had a great time. Andrew went on the Year 10 camp to the Sunshine Coast where they did raft-building, zip-lining, and surfing... a very outdoorsy focus.

I went on the Year 7 camp to Brisbane where we did heaps of different activities. Andrew didn't take any pics this year, so all the pics on this post are from my camp. To start out with, one of our two buses broke down an hour out of Rocky (see above).

When it became evident that it couldn't be fixed on the spot, the other bus kept going with most of the kids, and a few of us stayed behind with the broken down one, waiting for a replacement bus to come pick us up. The only problem was that it was quite hot out (and the air conditioning wasn't working anymore), so they opened the luggage compartment underneath the bus for whoever wanted to sit in there to wait it out (see above).

One kid started having diarrhea around this time, so he's the one in the pic lying in the background, moaning and wanting to go home... I told him to suck it up, and he ended up having a great week!

Eventually we got a new bus and caught up to the first group. Altogether we spent about 9 hours on the bus that day.

Our first night was spent at "Underwater World" on the Sunshine Coast where we all got to sleep on the floor amongst the fish tanks, which was a cool experience for the kids (not so much for us teachers who are a bit past our sleeping-on-the-floor-is-fun days!).

They took us on a big tour of their facility, including a cool underwater tunnel (see above) that has a moving sidewalk. So you stand there, being moved throughout the tunnel, and watching all the fish, sharks, and stingrays swimming above and beside you. Most of the lights are turned off, so it's kind of dark, with a real blue, underwater feel. The kids also got to feed chunks of meat to the sharks from above the tunnel, which was really neat/freaky!


The next day we got on the bus again and went to the Abbey museum where there is a bunch of ancient stuff. I still think museums are boring, but I faked it for the kids since they were supposed to be interested in all that old stuff.

Outside the museum they gave us all archery lessons, which was fun. Us teachers also got to have a go for a while... we tried to see who could get the arrows the furthest. Thankfully all the arrows had rubber stoppers on the end (instead of the pointy tips)... always good when you're around 60 kids with bows and arrows!

From the museum we drove to our accommodation for the next 3 nights, which was a Baptist camp/conference center. After having dinner there, we got back on the bus and went ice skating. It's funny because ice skating is a normal thing for me, but for most of the kids it was their very first time, and they were pretty enamored by it. They all did well and there were thankfully no injuries. Didn't get any pics of it, unfortunately. I was too busy doing my triple axles. :)

The next morning we got back on that wretched bus and drove to CSIRO, which is a big science centre in Brisbane. They have a fantastic kids program where they have all these experiments set up for the kids to do. It is really well prepared, the kids have a great time, and the teachers get to sit back and watch for a little while. Good times.

Later that day we went for a tour of the Parliament House in Brisbane, which was very interesting. Similar system to ours in Canada. The kids had to wear their formal school uniform on this day of camp only, as parliament is a formal place.

They even got to go sit in the actual room where parliament is held (it wasn't in session that day). The kids all chose a seat to sit in, and then tour guide told them who usually sits in that seat. They all thought it was pretty funny when it was a man who usually sits in that seat, but a Year 7 girl was sitting in it right then (and vice versa). (See below)

That afternoon we also took the kids shopping to Indooroopilly, a huge shopping mall in Brisbane... the kids loved it and bought lots of presents for their families. In the evening we took the City Cat (like the SeaBus) up the Brisbane river so they could see all the city's sights lit up at night.

The next morning we got back on the bus (you guessed it!), and drove nearly 2 hours to Sea World on the Gold Coast. Here we got to watch the Sea Lion show, followed by the Dolphin Show, both of which were great. Then the kids had the rest of the afternoon to ride the roller coasters, see the displays, and eat cotton candy, etc.

At Sea World they have lots of different displays, but the new one this year was the Penguin Encounter... I'd never seen penguins so up close before... very neat. They have the prettiest color of yellow on their chests.

On Friday morning we got on the bus very early and headed back to Rocky. It was a 10.5 hour trip, and as soon as we got back I had to rush off to my soccer game. It was the semi-finals game, and we won 2-1, so now we are in the preliminaries game next Friday. If we lose we come 3rd overall. If we win, we play again the following week for 1st or 2nd place out of the 14 teams. Then it's all over after that. It's been a great season and I've learned a lot about soccer. Such a great game!

Regarding our job-search, it's in full swing. We've both applied for a number of positions, and hope to be interviewing during our school holidays in a couple weeks. That means another drive to the Brisbane area, but at least this time it'll be in our little blue hot-rod, not on that bus!

That's all for now... back in a week or two with another post hopefully.

~Corinna for Team AC