christmas card 2010

here is our christmas card

Many Memories Tree Christmas 5x7 folded card

Personalize your Christmas photo cards at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

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Jack - the odyssey begins!

So 2008 was about Australia and Thailand. 2009 was South America - we hiked Macchu Picchu and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I'll have to post some pictures of Peru soon! We had hoped to head to Africa next year but that continent will have to wait a bit. 2010 has been a year of immense change... we bought a house and a car, had a baby and grieved our beloved dog. The only travelling we did this year was up to Sudbury, over to the cottage and out to Calgary!

And now the holidays are upon us now! I hope to mail out photo christmas cards soon since not everyone has had the chance to meet our little guy. Shutterfly has some very nice cards and other projects!! They are having a promotion about free photocards (http://bit.ly/sfly2010). Check out these sites for some ideas:

http://bit.ly/sfly2010
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/new-years-cards
http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars/wall-calendars

I am thinking about this one:





or this one...



or maybe this one??


I like the multi-picture option since we have a million pictures of Jack!!

Well Happy Holidays everyone. Until next time....

Queensland trip

We went to Queensland on the east coast of Australia for our anniversary in September. We went snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef near Cairns and then farther north at Cape Tribulation (MUCH better up north).



We spent four days at Cape Tribulation - where the rainforest meets the reef. We stayed in a treetop bungalow and went horseback riding along the beach and hiking through the rainforest!

we stayed at Coconut Beach Resort - a very appropriate name

the view from our room

Cape Tribulation beach

After Cape Tribulation, we went to Fraser Island - a nature lover's paradise. Here is a sample of the many creatures we saw...

goanna

carpet python (not poisonous)

sea snake (poisonous)

young female dingo who sat down right in front of us!

kookaburra (noisy bird who sounds like he is laughing)

dugong (cousin to the manatee)

azure kingfisher

pretty moth/butterfly?

brahminy's kite

wolf spider (poisonous)

honeyeater (one of many birds we saw on a morning bird-watching walk)

The island is actually one of the largest islands made completely of sand - you HAVE to be in a 4x4 to get around to the beautiful lakes perched in sand dunes. Here are some other highlights...

Maheno shipwreck (what's left of it anyways)

Lake Birrabeen (a perched blue lake with white sand)

Scribbly gum tree (from an insect)

another kind of gum tree in the rainforest on Fraser Island

paperbark gum trees (had fish cooked in paperbark one night)

sunset at the pier on our last night

just before sunset

Fraser Island from the airplane (with the perched lakes and sand dunes)

Sydney from the air (touched down briefly to switch planes - the weather was crap again in Sydney)

Road trip with Marisa and Pania

We went for a road trip August 2nd with our friends Marisa and Pania. We headed north of Melbourne and checked out the Organ Pipes - a lava rock formation that looks exactly like it sounds!


Then we headed over to Hanging Rock - apparently four schoolgirls disappeared during a picnic near Hanging Rock and three were never found!!


We also went for a detour to Sunbury to find the Rupertswood mansion - the home of "The Ashes". The Ashes itself is a famous cricket match between Australia and England that dates back to 1882. It got that funny name when Australia beat England for the first time - a newspaper reported that English cricket had died, and the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. When the English team came to Australia the next year, they stayed at Rupertswood. The lady of the estate gave the English captain a small urn to be used as a perpetual trophy for matches between the two countries. We didn't find that urn but we did enjoy wandering around the mansion - no one was around and felt like we owned it!!


We headed over the Daylesford and checked out The Chocolate Mill - probably the best hot chocolate I have ever had in my life!!

Footy!

Kat's first footy game was the Hawthorne-Collingwood game with Chris and Marisa on August 1st. There were over 50,000 people there and boy do they ever love their Australian Rules football!!

Each team has specific colours and people are pretty die-hard supporters as you can tell by the sea of black and white (Collingwood colours)!

This is Lance "Buddy" Franklin - Hawthorne's star player

Had my first meat pie - a tradition at the footy!

Queenscliffe

On July 26th-27th, we went to Lucinda's family beach house in Queenscliffe - which is just west of Melbourne about an hour or so. We had a lovely dinner and lots of wine and conversation... and the next day we went for brunch at one of the cafes and then strolled around funky little shops. We also went for a walk along the beach and found some interesting things.

Birthdays!!

Kat's birthday weekend started off with an evening at Melbourne's famous Circus Oz - two hours of amazing acrobatic performances and comedy!!


Kate, our flatmate, was a sweetheart and made sure the tradition of a birthday apple pie continued!!

Kat's birthday surprise was a dinner on the Colonial Tram Car Restaurant! We enjoyed a yummy five course meal while we slowly trundled through the city!! We also popped into Crowne Casino briefly for a spin on the one-armed bandits while we waited for the tram to pull up!!




We also watched the sunrise at Chris' work on Kat's actual birthday - we got to sleep in because it is winter here and the sun didn't rise until 7:36!


For Chris' birthday weekend, we went to "the SNOW" as they call it here! We went to Mt. Buller - about fours away from Melbourne. They had been having record snowfall and the conditions were actually not bad. Chris snowboarded while Kat tried to ski on the first day. We were feeling a little sore the next day so we went snowshoeing for a change of pace. I think hiking through the snow gum forests on fresh powder in the silence was our favorite part of the weekend!!