Jan-Feb 2013

 

 Hey Guys,

Well, the last few months have been pretty crazy.  First, we returned in early January from our amazing trip home to Vancouver.  I won't post pics of that since most people who read this blog were there anyways and don't really need another recap.  Suffice it to say that we had a wonderful time and had a jam-packed schedule. 

One big newsy item is that I recently got a job… very unexpected since it wasn't posted, I didn't apply for it, and just randomly got an email one day asking if I would be interested.  I popped in a few days later for an interview, and was hired the next day.  I'm teaching kindergarten to grade 5 PE, grade 9 English and Socials, and grade 10/11 modern history, so a very mixed bag in all.  The school is a very small Christian school out in the bush… today was not the first time I saw kangaroos hopping by the window :)



My job is only 3 days a week (Tues-Thurs), and the other 2 days I'm available for subbing.  The first few weeks of school I didn't have any sub work (too early yet), but the past 3 days that I've been available I worked. 

Andrew is also working at a new school this year, which he is loving.  It's only 7 minutes from our house, so his commute is waaaay, shorter than it was last year, plus he's only teaching Math this year (not Science as well like he was last year), so he has a lot less to prepare.  He's still working away on his Masters, which he'll finish this June.  He's definitely looking forward to being done as it's such a time-eater. 

I will let the pics and captions tell the rest of our Jan-Feb story:

A few weeks ago we had a massive storm ("ex-cyclone Oswald") which brought a ton of rain and... foam.  Basically the ocean pounding across the coffee rock on our beaches produced foam that washed up over the road, and went as high as the first story of the Thai restaurant we love to go to at the bottom of our street (see below).  It looked like a giant snowstorm had hit, only when we went outside to investigate, we got sunburned ;)

There were heaps of people out surveying the foam, playing in it, taking pictures, etc.  Shortly thereafter it rained again, which melted the foam down.  The poor restaurant was filthy on the outside, and the entire hotel needed to be pressure-washed the whole next day.

We also had a power outage for 4 days, which meant dinner by camp-light (see above), storing groceries at neighbors', and cooking there too.  They were very kind to us and gave us a key to their place so we could come and go as we needed.  It was pretty strange, but out of the 18 apartments in our building, only 3 were without power. 

The storm left a lot of destruction:

We've also been enjoying dinners with friends, and above, celebrating Australia Day with our friends Matt and Line.  (Matt lost his arm in a motorcycle accident ages ago... he has a tattoo on that shoulder that says "ouch").  He's pretty amazing with what he can all do though... super fit.

 Here is my classroom door on the first day of school... pretty much NO Australian can pronounce our last name, so I spelled it out for them just to set the record straight from the start.  We usually get "Non, None, Nan, Naan, Nay-yan," or some variation on that theme.

 We've also done another hike up Mt. Coolum again... a quick easy hike with a beautiful view. 

 The first weekend of school we spent a few days shopping for new work clothes and shoes for Andrew... and here's the result.  Pretty spiffy, eh?  These kind of dress shoes you wear without socks (or tiny nearly-invisible ones in this case), but then he was informed that this isn't the proper dress code at his school... so now he has to wear socks half-way up to his knees... bummer.

Another shot at the top of Mt. Coolum with my friend Monica, who is also Canadian.

 My friend Christie and I also took a little surfing lesson a few weeks ago, which was helpful.  Love this sport. 

 Our good friend Becky from England came to stay with us for a few nights last weekend... she used to live in our building, went traveling around Australia, and came back here again before flying back home last week... this is us having a BBQ at the beach with her on Valentine's Day. 

 And speaking of Valentine's Day, we got this great Bamix hand mixer that we are loving so far... so easy to use and clean.  Here I was making healthy pancakes... Andrew definitely didn't love them. 

And finally, we got a new car... a silver 2008 Hyundai Getz that we got second-hand after looking at several of them.  They are so common here that it's not unusual to find yourself parked next to an identical one.  Kind of like the Honda Civi phenomenon in BC.  (ours is on the left in case you were wondering).

We still have the old one (the "Blue Flame"), but since we're both working now, we needed a second car for sure.  I get to drive the new one to work since my commute is 3x as long as Andrew's, but we both drive it on the weekends... it's our "fancy car"... the newest we've ever owned.

Okay, that's it for now... talk soon.  Hope you're all doing well.  Let us know what's new. 

~Corinna for Team AC