Favourite Hot Air Balloon Pictures

Almost every morning we see hot air balloons from our windows. Depending on the wind patterns the balloons can end up in very different locations around the city. It's always a contest in the morning among the kids to be the first to spot the balloons.

Melbourne Marathon

No - this is not a post telling you that we ran in the actual marathon. Both the marathon and half marathon passed by our apartment. The highlight of the race for us turned out to be watching many of the "overhydrated" male runners veer off the course to use the bushes directly across the road from our apartment. When we spotted the first guy we weren't quite sure what was going on, but when more and more blokes followed suit, it became evident what they were doing. The funniest bit was when there were 6 guys lined up at the same bush. At that point we just had to take a picture, unfortunately we only caught one guy. Keep in mind that there was a toilet not more than 50 yards down the road.

Australian Rules Football Grand Final (Super Bowl)

The whole family has really gotten into Australian Rules Football while we've been here. Colin played "Footy" this past winter and loved it.

Football is very important in Melbourne, we were told by multiple people when we first moved here that we needed to choose a team. So without much forethought we choose a team based in the neighborhood we live in. Our adopted team, the St. Kilda Saints, are best known as perennial losers. Their first, last and only Grand Final victory came in 1967. But this year, out of the blue, they had the best record in the regular season, got the top seed in the playoffs and made it to the Grand Final. Grand Final week was really fun, there were lots of activities all around the city and everyone was talking about the big game.

The pillars of City Hall were draped in St. Kilda colours.

St. Kilda cupcakes for Colin's Birthday

The most popular show in Australia is "The Footy Show". It's a mix of a traditional pre-game show and Saturday Night Live. Sounds like a strange mix, but it really works. John and I became fans during the season and I was able to get tickets to the Grand Final show. It was Awesome.

The kids and I went downtown for the Grand Final parade.

We had expected to enjoy a Saturday afternoon barby and watch the game at home. But an extremely generous friend of ours got a couple of extra tickets and offered them to John and Colin. Getting tickets for the Grand Final is like getting tickets for the Super Bowl. It's nearly impossible to get tickets unless you are willing to pay a ton of money.

MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) seating compacity 100,000.

The game was incredible, very intense. The Saints led for almost the whole game, but in the end fell just short.

Picture with our fiend's daughters taken about 3o minutes after the game. Colin was devastated by the loss, but did his best to try and look happy for the picture.

Following the game our friend somberly told John that Melbourne has two seasons, footy and boring. We have now entered boring, which has proven to be true.

Only in Australia -El Camino Alive and Well

For those of you who thought the reverse mullet of the automobile world (party in front, work in back) died in the 1970's, think again. The El Camino is in fact alive and well, having taken refuge down under. It is unbelievable the number of these that you see down here. We rarely see an SUV or a true pickup truck, but can't go two minutes on the road without seeing a "Ute" as they call them here.

Below is a sampling of some of our favourite utes that we have seen.

Wait, there is more. They are even seen as Taxis.

And our all time favourite Ute, the El Camino Police Car.

Luna Park

About a kilometer from our apartment is one of the Melbourne's famous landmarks, Luna Park. Luna Park is an "old school" amusement park similar to Coney Island or the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. The kids had been asking to go for months so on a chilly afternoon in April we went and they loved it.

This is how Jared plays games! He was quite proficient in getting the balls, but did get his head stuck on the way out.

Can you tell which ride Jared liked most? He refused to get off and rode for almost an entire hour.

One of the hit rides of the afternoon was Shock Drop. Colin was not keen to go on it at first and reluctantly went with Bella. As you can see from the first two pictures, Colin did not like the ride and left Bella to ride on her own. At the end of the day, Colin had gotten over his initial fears, loved this ride and went on all of the big roller coasters.

Wilsons Promontory

On the Saturday of Easter Weekend we went to Wilsons Promontory. It had reopened the previous weekend for tourists after the devastating bush fires that had swept through a lot of Victoria during February. Wilsons Prom is the southern most point of mainland Australia.

We went down to Tidal River for a bit to play in the river.

We then went to Squeaky Beach. The two beaches are only 5 minutes apart but are very different. Both are really nice but as you can see in the pictures Squeaky Beach has unbelievably fine white sand whereas at Tidal River the sand is darker with much bigger grains.

Brooklyn took at least 100 pictures during the afternoon and caught many poses from the other children.

At the end of the day we saw these beautiful Crimson Rosellas in the trees with the burnt forest in the background.

One year in OZ

As of today we have been in Australia for one year. In honour of our one year anniversary and in response to multiple enquires, we decided to let you in on a little secret! John does in fact work here, a lot! While it is true that we have seen a lot of the sites over here on the other side of the world, our day to day life is far from spectacular. John works. Colin, Brooklyn and Isabella go to school. Jared is a two year old. Jenny does mom things...including cleaning, driving and laundry. Really not too different from our lives in Dallas.

Only in Australia

Another example of the "big things" erected throughout Australia is this Giant Earthworm. This structure, located in South Gippsland, Victoria, is in honour of Megascolides Australis. More commonly known as The Giant Gippsland Earthworm, it is the largest worm in the world. There is a museum inside the giant earth worm structure and you used to be able to handle the worms but scientists found that any human contact would shorten the lives of the earthworms to a few weeks. Now when you go to the museum you can only see pictures.

Phillip Island

We went to Phillip Island for Good Friday and spent the day at AMAZE'N Things. We had so much fun playing mini golf, going through the wooden maze, and exploring the weird and wild illusions.

The sunset that night was brilliant.

The Melbourne Grand Prix

The Melbourne Grand Prix was held at the end of March. It is a Formula 1 race that goes around Albert Park lake. From our place we were only able to see a portion of the race, but we definitely heard the whole thing.

The coolest thing about race week were the number of fly overs that we got to see. One of our favourites was the F18, although it was unbelievably loud. The planes would fly straight down our street and turn around right past our building. The kids would race around the apartment watching them turn around and then run out to the balcony to watch them head back up the street.

These aeroplanes practiced their formations for a few weeks before the race.

A huge (literally) highlight was seeing this Qantas 747 fly right past our place. It is a massive aeroplane and it was crazy to see it so close.

Sassafras

We spent a gorgeous fall day in the quaint village of Sassafras at the foot of the Dandenong Ranges. This village is only 40 minutes away from Melbourne and is surrounded by temperate rain forest. We went on two bush walks through trees and to a waterfall and then spent time at lookouts over Melbourne and the Yarra Valley. May 22, 2009

View of downtown Melbourne

View of Yarra Valley

All She Wants for Christmas...

Her two front teeth

No Wait... her three front teeth

Brooklyn lost her first top tooth during dinner while we were on our holiday at Woodside Beach with friends last week. Jenny pulled her second top tooth on Wednesday night of this week and then Brooklyn pulled out her 3rd top tooth on Thursday after school! Needless to say, the Tooth Fairy has racked up frequent flyer points coming to our house.

Only in Australia

We were very confused when we first started seeing these signs in Australia. We had noted that Australians are very gracious in giving asylum to just about anyone, however, we found it a bit disingenuous that the refuges were expected to gather themselves on "islands" in the middle of major roads. Turns out a "Refuge Island" is just an Australian name for median. Go figure.

Winter Uniform

In honour of the fact that the Northern Hemisphere is heading toward winter, we thought we would commiserate by letting you see what Colin and Brooklyn wore all winter. They are now in their 4th term at school and that means that they can wear summer uniform again. Yeah for warm weather.