Hong Kong

In October John took a business trip to Hong Kong. It's an amazing city with a lot to see and do, a great place to visit, but would be a hard place to live.

View from the "peak" on Hong Kong Island.

Cable car that goes up the mountain to the "peak".

View of Hong Kong Island from John's hotel room.

View of the Harbour, mid-afternoon. Check out the smog, one of the reasons it would be tough to live in Hong Kong.

Streets of Hong Kong, everyone lives in a high rise apartment.

John stayed over the weekend and attended church at this downtown chapel.

Views up and down the street from the chapel.

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.

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.

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.