October

Hey Guys,

Hope you're all doing well. October has been great for us, and things are really starting to heat up here. Today it's 30 degrees, and I'm sure we've each had 4 litres of water already... so hot!

Andrew is doing well with his Masters... working on courses #3 and 4 and getting A's on everything. In fact, he's sitting right next to me, typing up his midterm assignment, so we're side-by-side on our laptops... how romantic :)

Sometimes I find him sleeping (like above) when he's supposed to be reading... some of the stuff he has to read is pretty dry, so I don't blame him!



This has been an exciting month for me as I got my first cheque in the mail from Google. As you might know, I put up Google Ads on my website a few months ago, and every time you reach a certain income they pop your money in the mail to you. It took ages to come as it was from the States, but ordered in Ireland and mailed from Sweden to Australia... I thought for sure someone had robbed it out of our mailbox, but nope, just slow snail-mail.


Since it's getting hot out, I'm making more salady-stuff to eat. Somewhere in my subconscious memory I could "taste" this salad that my mom used to always make and take along on picnics with us to Cultus Lake when we were little, so I tried my best to remember what was in it and copy it, and it tastes great.

If you want to try it, it's just a can of chick peas (garbanzo beans), lentils, large can of tuna, about 30 green olives sliced into thirds, parsley, a bit of olive oil, lemon juice, and salt. It makes about 3 portions, and since Andrew won't go near it, I'm good to go for 3 days!



Last night we went to a 30th birthday party for our friend Monty, whom we work with. It was an 80's themed party and people did a great job dressing up. My favorite was Julian's purple mo-hawk (above) and Arno's Super Mario costume... didn't get a picture of that one.

Monty's father-in-law, Ron, did a great job BBQ'ing in a somewhat-80's chef outfit. There were about 30 people there, so he had a big job! The party was really well done with slinkys hanging from the walls, 80's expressions, rubix cubes, and a huge outdoor screen playing 80's music videos. We also had to do a quiz on Monty's life and the winners got goodie bags. Fun times!



Last but not least, our friend Steph from work had her second little baby girl this month, Penelope May, and I went to visit her in the hospital the next day... isn't she cute?! Andrew and I took a meal to her house a few days later and played with her other daughter, Lillian who's nearly 3, so we definitely got our fill of little kids for the week!

Penelope kept on crying whenever I held her, so I got lots of practice jiggling her up and down to quiet her down. I think I got the hang of it after a couple hours.

In other news, we've pretty much got our move organized for December, including a moving truck, carpet cleaner, etc. Hard to believe we'll be outta here in just over 5 weeks... can't wait for the next adventure!

Talk soon,

~Corinna for Team AC

Happy 1st Anniversary, Austin & Heather!

First of all, we just want to congratulate Heather and Austin on their 1-year anniversary this weekend! Hope Year 2 is double as good as the first!

You can see I think of you guys all the time since your wedding picture is hanging on the side of our fridge. It's funny because you mailed us a thank-you card and pictures last year, and it arrived while were in Vancouver at Christmas. Well, somehow our mail got blown out of our mailbox, and since we had all that flooding, the photos and card were in pretty rough shape when we opened the envelope in January after we got back. I think we managed to save one pic though, and that's the one on the fridge (see above).

In other news, remember when we first moved to Rocky last year and I posted a picture of the neighbor's pool? It looked like this:


Crystal blue waters, inviting, wonderful. Well, fast-forward 15 months, and she hasn't used the pool ONCE! In fact, she's totally given up on even cleaning it, and it now looks like this:

Disgusting. There are pretty much lily-pads growing on top of it now, birds regularly wash/poop in it, and there are all types of insects doing breast-stroke across the water. Since our house is a couple feet higher than hers, I don't think she can see the water from her windows, but we have the perfect, un-appetizing few of it from our kitchen window. Gross. O well, only 8 weeks till we move out of here... shall not make a big deal out of it.

Speaking of our yard, here's Andrew enjoying lunch outside today on our patio (and yes, he is wearing pants, not just a necklace!):


This week it went from our winter weather (comfortably warm) to boiling hot almost overnight. We have officially removed the blanket from our bed for the rest of the year and are now just using a thin sheet at night. We're also wearing as little clothing as possible, and have the overhead fans on all the time to keep cool.

It's really nice to have warm temps as long as you don't have to do too much, otherwise you really start sweating. It's 31 today, and pretty much meant to stay like that for the foreseeable future on the forecast.

We haven't had ANY rain in about 2 months now... not that we miss it, but everything is super dry outside, and if even just one yahoo drops a match or cigarette outside we'll be having massive forest-fires. Surrounding towns have already started having them, so sometimes we get smoke blowing into Rocky, which can get pretty stinky.

With all the dryness, my skin is getting totally lizard-y, despite exfoliating and lotioning regularly. I've finally had to resort to rubbing Jojoba oil onto my legs because they looked so nasty. And it's not from being out in the sun too much... just from the dryness.

Finally, a couple pics from our soccer awards night last night. It was fun to get all dressed up with the girls on our team... funny because normally we just see each other in soccer gear, so this was a nice change.


It was basically a dinner (not so tasty, unfortunately) held in a big tent outside our soccer club, and then speeches and awards for best player, most improved, etc. A bit boring since there were a lot of teams there so I didn't know most of the people getting awards, but it as fun when it was our team's turn.

That's all for now, folks... talk soon! Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, and hope Mum & Dad have fun in Osoyoos, and Mom & Dad have a blast in Las Vegas! Woo hoo!

~Corinna for Team AC

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

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