August in Oz

Hi Everyone,

Just a few photos of our August here so far. It's been a lovely month, full of sunshine and blue skies. The picture above is a little gross, sorry, but at the start of the soccer season a few months ago, a couple fat chicks stepped on my feet as they were marking me. My big toenails have been getting darker and darker ever since... not so pretty, but playing is so much fun that I don't care that much.

A couple weekends ago our soccer team had a fundraiser called a "sausage sizzle," which is basically the same thing as a hot dog stand, except they serve them on slices of bread instead of buns... I guess it's the cheaper way of doing things, and a big Aussie tradition. We made lots of money for our team, so that was good.

And then last weekend our friend Chris from church had a "Where's Waldo?" themed birthday party. We all had to come dressed up like Waldo, and had a big scavenger hunt around town in teams of 4. It was all on foot, and we had to do things like count fence posts, find road-kill, bring home the largest branch, calculate random admission prices at the pool, buy the largest item we could find for under $2, etc.

Our team had a couple really fast running guys on it, so they ran ahead for lots of the answers, which helped us as there was a time limit of two hours to complete all 4 sheets. In the end our team won and got a couple boxes of chocolates as a prize... fun times!

That's all for now. This week will be a normal teaching week for us, and then next week we'll both be away on camps with our kids for the week. I'm going to Brisbane, and Andrew is going to the Sunshine Coast.

Talk soon,

~Corinna

Brissy Weekend

Last weekend Andrew and I flew down to Brisbane to hang out with our good friends Erica & Alan for the weekend... these are some friends we met in China. She's Australian, and he's American, and they're trying to get citizenship in each others' countries, and therefore flying back and forth a lot. This has got them an over-abundance of frequent flyer points, which they are very generous with: they flew us down from Rocky on their points... all we had to pay for was the flight taxes not covered by the points... a very good price for us!

Our trip began with us driving to the Rocky airport where parking is $20 a day... so we conveniently parked our little car in a field near the airport... only in Rocky! (see pic above)

Once we arrived in Brisbane, we were supposed to drive up to a little seaside town called Noosa , but our accommodation there fell through (long story), so we just stayed with A&E at her uncle's big house in Brisbane. From there we drove down to the Gold Coast and hung out at the beach, ate ice cream, etc... good times! You can see from the picture that it's beautiful weather, but not quite real hot beach weather, especially as it was a bit breezy by the ocean.

The highlight of the trip was connecting A&E with our other good friends in Brisbane, Dave & Niki. Have you ever experienced that where you have some great friends who've never met each other, but you just know they'd get along so well? Well, this was the case for these 4 friends of ours, and it finally worked out to connect them all.

We all went out for dinner together to a restaurant called "Hog's Breath," (appetizing name, I know!), and everyone had a great time, just as we predicted. We hope to make this more of a usual event in the future... it is so nice to be around like-minded people where everyone has a great time together.


After dinner we went to "Cold Rock Ice Creamery"... this place where they make whatever flavor ice cream you want... delish!!

Here is Erica's uncle's house in Brisbane... it looks like a normal sized house from the front, but it goes WAY back from here. It has 8 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and a huge kitchen and family room.


The downstairs bathroom is rather small though... check out the toilet: when you push the flusher, the sink automatically turns on (which is part of the top of the toilet... as you can see). Good idea, but kind of awkward to use, especially when you're trying to brush your teeth and have to lean over the toilet... hope you don't drop your toothbrush! :)

On our flight back to Rocky, we thought it was interesting how you check in at the airport. You know how when you fly, you can use the self check-in at computers in the terminal? Well, they used to just have one or two self check-in computers and heaps of real check-in staff at the counters, but now Qantas has the reverse: only two real check-in staff, and mostly self check-in computers. I guess they're trying to give you very little options but to use the automated systems. Bye bye jobs.

On another note, this past week I organized a huge field trip for all the Year 7s at our school. We are learning about the Great Barrier Reef, so our field trip went to a lot of related sites near the beach, which was cool...

...until one of our kids went wacko out-of-control and ran down the mountain we'd just hiked up. A slip and a collision with a tree caused him to cut his cheek open. Ron, (a teacher I work with), and I gave him a quick first-aid clean-up, but the cut looked rather deep and wouldn't stop bleeding, so it was off to the ER... me and the kid (while all the other kids went off to the next site).

The hospital I took him to near the beach had a quick look at him and confirmed that he needed stitches, but couldn't get to him for 1-2 hours they said, so we ended up taking him back to Rocky on the school bus with the rest of the kids... his mom picked him up from there and has hopefully got him all stitched up by now! I wouldn't know as he didn't appear at school the next day (Friday)... hope he's alright!

(Check out his sweet bandage-job I gave him on his right check... I almost taped his nostrils shut by accident, but adjusted the tape so he could actually breathe!):

Well, that's all our news for now... stay tuned for the next installment in a week or two.

~Corinna (for the Team)

A Birthday Party for Karen

A few weeks ago we had our friends Karen and Paula (from work) over for dinner. It turned out to be Karen's birthday that day (we didn't know this when we invited her), so I decided we should do it up a little. A made a quick trip to the dollar store for some crazy streamers, balloons, hats, etc.

Karen and Paula are both originally from South Africa, so Andrew and I feel like we have a bit in common with them, being foreigners here. They have given us so many tips and bits of advice over the months... it's great.

After dinner, I had set up a treasure hunt for Karen to find her present from us. I wrote clues on sticky notes, and one clue led to the next. For example, one clue was "This sucks," so to find her next clue, she had to go the vacuum cleaner (but she had to figure out what I meant by the clue and where to look). Another clue was "Never mix your darks and lights," and she had to look in the washing machine for it. In the picture you can see her looking right past the clue, into the machine! ha ha!

I think there were about 6 or 7 clues in total around the house. In the end, the present was hidden in the shower... it was a few boxes of a soap that she really likes. All in all it was a really fun time.


Last night we went to our friend Hannah's birthday party... it was an outdoor party, which is funny b/c it's freezing at night right now. Thankfully, she had big outdoor heaters in the backyard which we all gathered around to keep warm. I'll try to post some pics of it next time.

Bye for now!

~Corinna

Lately...

Check out the size bugs we get around our place! Wowzers! This one was outside our screen door, luckily, but just hung out there for a couple of days until Andrew flicked him away from the inside of the screen. (If you can't tell from the picture, he's almost as long as your hand...crazy!)

Thankfully we haven't seen any snakes around our place, but our neighbor said he saw a big black one a couple months ago outside his front door, so now I'm a bit paranoid about coming in/out our front door at night... I always keep the light on out there so I can see them.

In other news, this weekend has been pretty calm, apart from getting all our usual chores, groceries, etc done, which always seems to take a while. Next weekend we're both playing on worship team at church, and going to our friend Hannah's birthday party.

The weekend after that we're flying down to Brisbane to spend some time with our friends Erica & Alan (who we met in China). We'll be driving to Noosa with them and spending the night there at a hotel... fun times! Noosa is one of the BEST tourist spots in Queensland... it has beautiful beaches, good shopping, restaurants, etc. Think Robson St. beside a gorgeous beach!

That's about all for now. Hope you're doing well!

~Corinna

Our Cairns Trip

We've just come back from a really nice trip to Cairns... it's the biggest city in northern Australia, and being closer to the equator, it's warm year-round. Actually, in the summer months (Nov-March) it's REALLY humid up there, so we thought we'd be timing it right by going in the cooler "dry season" (which is now). Our plan backfired on us a bit as we happened to have the ONE wet/windy/cooler week of the entire dry season, but we tried to make the best of it anyways.

Here are loads of pictures to show what we did (in random order)... I'll explain underneath each one.

We rented a car and drove up to Port Douglas one day (about 75 minutes north of Cairns)... it's a small town that kinda has a West Van feel to it... very nice. Here we are overlooking "4 Mile Beach." There are crocodile signs everywhere though, so we didn't swim here (plus the weather was cool and windy.) The next day we took the car up to a small mountain town called Kuranda, which is a little hippie place. They have a few little markets and restaurants, but it was pouring rain, so we didn't stay for long.


The reception area of our "resort."


The night markets in Cairns. Mom, remember the Pearl Market and the Fabric Market in Shanghai? This was kinda like it, but much smaller, cleaner, more civilized, and no bargaining! We got a nice Chinese massage here for $15.


This was a random guy we saw out in the street blowing his didgeridoo. He had all his worldly possessions tied to the roof of his filthy van, and seemed to not own a pair of shoes, but didn't care at all! Very amusing!


This is the esplanade that goes along the waterfront in Cairns... a nice place for a walk/run/rollerblade, etc. When the tide is out it looks like a giant mud flat for about a mile out, due to all the dredging they've done to keep the shipping lines open. Kind of a yucky view. But when the tide comes in, it looks like a normal ocean... you'd never know the water is only about 2 feet deep.


Along the water they have all these free exercise stations... kind of like a mini gym. So you can walk/run along the ocean path, and then stop at all these little stations for some extra exercise. A lot of kids use it for a playground though... guess it's still fun!


As you know, Andrew is guitar-crazy, which means we always seek out all guitar stores in whichever town we visit. This time it worked out perfectly since the weather was so shabby... I packed along a book so I wouldn't get bored. He had a great time and ended up buying a new pedal for his electric guitar (which is something you plug the guitar into to give it more "crunch.")


Here is our hotel room... we spent as little time here as possible since it didn't smell too good. I think it used to be a smoking room since that's what it smelled like. The smoking area was also directly outside our room, so we had some nice whiffs coming through. Luckily it had a TV, so we watched Wimbledon quite a bit at night.


Our hotel was quite a ways away from down town, so we usually rode the city bus ("Sunbus") into town... it was a great way to see more of the town and meet lots of interesting people to have conversations with. The only bad thing about it was that it took 30 minutes each way, when driving directly took about 8 minutes. We decided to skip the bus one day and walk into town, but that took 1.5 hours and took us down a busy highway, thru the industrial area, and also near the dump, so it stank. We stuck to Sunbus after that!


The skate-park along Esplanade... you can go skateboarding with an ocean-view! You can see the hospital right behind the skate-park, which I think is a very logical location. Also, there was this tree (on the left) that was full of old skate shoes and bike tires... kind of nice... new decorating idea!


All over town they were selling these didgeridoos (an Aboriginal instrument that you blow into and it makes this deep, interesting "woofing" sound)... I was gonna try it, but then thought that heaps of other tourists would have already done the same thing before me, so decided to keep my mouth off it and just pretend!


Lots of gelato in Cairns... yum, my fav!! I had it quite a few times since they don't have it in Rocky and I don't know when I'm gonna have it next!


Hands-down the BEST meal we had was at the Bavarian Beerhouse... authentic German food served by waiters in Lederhosen, and the whole place smelled like Oma's house before Sunday lunch! The German Lowenbrau beer was even served in nice Steins and tasted great with the food.


Another view of the Esplanade and mud flats at low tide. The big white building in the distance is the Shangri-La hotel, which is the place we used to relax (in the lobby) when we were tired of walking around in the rain, but didn't want to hop on Sunbus back to our place yet.


We checked out the big marina, full of nice boats. We didn't go on the boats out to the Great Barrier Reef though since the weather wasn't great.


In one of the music stores we met a salesgirl called Tiffany, who we started chatting with, and she ended up inviting us to her church called Freshwater Church. It took some figuring out how to get there on Sunbus (since it was a little ways out of town), but was really good. It reminded us of Hillsongs church in Sydney, but on a smaller scale.


One day we rented these yellow scooters (motorbikes) and toured ourselves around all the rain-forest attractions. One of the places was called "Crystal Cascades," which was a series of little waterfalls and swimming holes (minus the crocs!). If it had been warmer, it would have been a fabulous place for a dip! We settled for a walk along the the path beside the falls.


Here's us on the scooters. Behind us you can see the waterfall at the Barron Gorge. The scooters were SO much fun... I would definitely recommend them if you ever go to Cairns.

All in all it was a great trip. I know the weather wasn't awesome, but it was just so nice to get away together, to be out of Rocky for a bit and see something new. We didn't talk about work at ALL, and ate so much great food (Japanese, Chinese, Turkish, Mexican, Indian, German, Italian, and Thai).

It was also nice that Andrew finished his first masters course just in time for us to go away. While we were up in Cairns, he got an email from his prof saying he got an A on his course, so that was encouraging since he'd put SO much work into it.

Anyways, that's it for now! Hope you enjoyed!

Track & Field

This past weekend I've been competing in a big track & field competition (they call it an "Athletics Carnival" in Australia) here in Rocky. Some of my students at school do track & field and invited me to come be in this competition. I didn't really want to at first, seeing as it took up the entire weekend, but then I realized it was on the first weekend of school holidays, so I've got two weeks to rest up after the competition.

Last week we had to "nominate" for events (that means "sign up" here)... since I haven't done most of these events this high school, I figured what the heck, I'll just sign up for pretty much every single event! It seemed like a good idea at the time (when I was checking off the little boxes on the paper), but after actually doing all 11 events this weekend (after my soccer game on Friday night), I'm a little sore.

I've never been that awesome at track & field, but since having my big birthday I'm officially in the "veterans" category now. The sad part about this is that it sounds like I'm old now, but the good part is that there's not as much competition in this category, meaning I can get medals more easily... woo hoo!

Overall it went really well. To put it plainly, the fat chicks were better than me at the throwing events (shot put, javelin, and discus), but I was better at the running and jumping events (60m, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, long jump, triple jump, and high jump).

Actually, to be honest the high jump didn't work out so well for me. I was the only woman veteran who entered, but I managed to knock the bar off onto the flop mat a couple times (as I was jumping), and then landed directly on the bar! It KILLED!! I have some nice bruises on my bottom and back now to show for it.

Luckily I got some rewards for all my efforts this weekend though: a sweet sock-tan, and:


Andrew and I are really looking forward to our trip to Cairns... we leave tomorrow morning for the week, and will be checking out the Great Barrier Reef, etc. It'll be great to get away together, especially since Andrew's been working really hard on his masters and we haven't been able to spend as much time together as we usually do.

... so watch this space for a Cairns post in a couple weeks!

Becoming Citizens

A few weeks ago, Andrew and I had the privilege of attending an Australian citizenship ceremony as our friend Karen and her family (from South Africa) were becoming citizens. They have been in Australia for 5.5 years now, and it was finally time for them to get it.

The ceremony was held outdoors at Rocky's "Heritage Village." The mayor and officials spoke from underneath the gazebo, alongside a huge cardboard cut-out of Queen Elizabeth... see if you can spot her above.

All the people becoming citizens (and us, the audience) sat underneath these huge tents facing the gazebo. The people becoming citizens were broken into two groups: those who had "under God" in their citizenship oath, and those who didn't.

It was interesting b/c many of the people becoming citizens wore clothing from their original countries (eg- see the guy in the yellow shirt above?... he's wearing this skirt/wrap... not sure where from). In the mayor's address, he made sure to say that becoming a citizen of Australia does not mean that you forget your original country, or that those memories are lost. I bet this was comforting for some of the people who came to Australia b/c of unsafe conditions in their home countries (as opposed to us who are here purely for the awesome warm weather!)

Here's Karen, her husband, and three boys getting their citizenship certificates and shaking the mayor's hand. It was a bit of an emotional experience.


Andrew works under Karen (she is the Math coordinator at our school) and she's been a great friend to us, so it was special for us to be there for her.

After the ceremony they had a "parade of nations" through Heritage Village... so many countries carrying their flags and dressed in their national dress.

All in all it was a great experience to witness!

This is Winter?

A couple weeks ago Andrew and I went to the beach for the afternoon. We were just going to go to the main beach, but then we bumped into our friend, Therese, from work. She has a 4x4 and was just about to drive up the beach with her family, and invited us along.

Driving on sand feels similar to driving in snow... it skitters around a bit. We drove up about 8km to a place on the beach where there were hardly any other people and hung out there for a bit. We still can't get over the fact that "winter" here is about 23 degrees during the day. It's also the dry season, so almost every single day is sunny with blue skies... you can definitely get a good tan in this! (It does get quite a bit colder at night and in the early mornings, but that's okay).

We were trying to take a self-pic on the beach that day, but it's a bit tricky with the iPhone b/c you can't feel where the button is, so you don't always really know when it's gonna take the pic. I think Andrew wobbled the camera a bit here, so we ended up looking a bit weird:


And here's a pic of Therese, Alex, and baby Lily:


Yay for "winter"!!

Batching

Andrew and I recently read this book called "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Timothy Ferriss. If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend it. I don't necessarily agree with everything in it, but he has some great ideas, one of them being "batching."

The idea behind this concept is to do certain things all at once in order to save time. For example, in the book Tim shares that he only does his laundry once every two weeks, deals with his mail once a week, and only checks his email twice a day.

I thought it was a good idea, but not all his examples would have worked for Andrew and I, so I started thinking about changes I could make to incorporate batching into my life to save time. One of the major things I thought of was making meals... I realized I was pulling the SAME things out of the fridge every night to make my lunch for work for the next day. So I thought, "why not do it all at once for the week?"...


... so I did. On Saturday afternoons I have started making 5 containers of veggie-styled lasagna (it keeps fine for Mon-Fri). I hard-boil and peel all the eggs I'll need for breakfast for the week. I bake all the muffins, granola bars, whatever and wrap them individually, I wash and cut up a huge ziploc bag of celery, etc.


Then I stick it all in our midget-sized fridge and just pull it out every morning before work. True, it makes Sat afternoons a bit annoying (when I'd rather be relaxing in the sun), but it is a big time-saver, and it makes me feel like I have some "time off" on weekday evenings after being at work all day already.

Good times!