Sept/Oct 2012

Hey Guys,

Sept and Oct have flown by, so here's a quick re-cap in pictures...

First and most importantly, Steve and Christina got married in Vancouver in Sept... Andrew went back for the wedding, and had a great time.  Congrats, you two, and welcome to the family, Christina- so glad to have you as a Nairn-sister, and looking forward to fun times ahead.  

While Andrew was away, my friend Sunelle stayed with me and we got up to all kinds of antics, including going to a Bec Laughton show in town... good times:

Changing subjects, at our beach there is a kids program called "Nippers" which teaches kids beach safety and trains them up to become pre-life guards.  You can see how packed the beach was on this early morning... every cap-color was a different age group; the green-capped kids you can see here were 5 and so tiny.  They do all these races on the sand, and then hop in the water for some swimming exercises.  

In early Oct we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with some Canadian friends we had met at the Canada Day party in Brisbane in July.  Such good times. 

It was a complete turkey dinner... but no pumpkin pie... doesn't seem to exist here.  I've put in a formal request at our grocery store to at least stock canned pumpkin so I can make it next year. 

And then some new Canadian friends we've met in our area... Graeme and Monica.  They are both doing their one-year post-grad teaching degree here (like Andrew and I did at UBC)... we had them over for dinner a few weeks ago, and have also been running, boating (see pics below), and have a hiking trip planned.  

Last weekend Andrew and I renewed our First Aid and CPR course, which took all day.  I think I've done this course about 5 times now since high school.  First Aid is good for 2-3 years, but CPR is only good for 12 months before you have to renew.  Here's Andrew giving "Little Anne" a good pumping:

And some more new friends... Alistair and Adri, who I met at work.  They've just moved here from South Africa, and we are having plenty of fun with them and their 4 kids.  They also live really near the beach, like us, but about a 25-minute walk/5 minute drive north.  On Sat night we were kicking a soccer ball around the beach... great way to end the day.

The weather here is definitely warming up now, so we are back to our broad-brimmed hats outside... you would get SO burned without them.   (I think it looks like there's a bird sitting on Andrew's head here.)

Ah yes, here are the boating pics... we rented a little 4-horse-powered "tinny" (what they call a tin fishing boat here) and cruised thru the canals for a couple hours (same place we kayaked with Gill and Tony when they were here).  Here's Graeme and Monica:

And me driving the boat (I sucked)... when you're steering this contraption, moving it to the left makes you go right and vice versa... never quite got that thru my head.   A very wiggly ride. 

Some rooftop sangria and snacks at Graeme and Monica's place as the sun set:

A meal with our friends Greg and Sunelle... we met them when we lived up in Rocky, and they have just moved down here... this was their "Welcome to the Coast" lunch.  So glad to have them here with us now.   Greg is a policeman, and he actually will have the pleasure of patrolling our beaches on a little 4x4.  Not too shabby of a job :)

And the latest big event was the Matchbox 20 concert... the tickets were a birthday present for Andrew, but he had to wait a few weeks for the concert to actually happen...

Before the concert we met up with our good friends Dave and Niki for dinner at an Asian place...

... and then arrived at the concert a little early... the lights were still on and it was amazing how many people were packed into the Brisbane Entertainment Centre.  

The show was so cool and I'm so glad we got to go.  Nothing like live music.  By the way, one of the opening bands was also really good... check out "Evermore" online (their latest album, Follow the Sun, is terrific.)  

In other news, work seems to be winding down for me now, as we're getting close to the end of the school year (4 weeks to go).  The grade 12s have just finished now, so all the teachers who normally teach grade 12 are being given all the work that sub/supply teachers normally get, so it's slim pickings for us.  Oh well, plenty for me to do around home working on my other projects, so it's not all bad.

That's all for now.  Can't believe how soon we'll be heading back to Vancouver for a visit... just over 4 weeks now.  Getting excited, making lists, arranging calendars, etc. 

Talk soon,

~Corinna for Team AC

ps- please let me know if you'd like to see more/less pictures and writing in our blog posts... I can tailor to suit :)  Keep in mind this post was twice as long as usual as I had to cover 2 months instead of 1, like I normally do.