Clo~,Rej,OZ

We are now Australian!

2012-01-26T13:22:00.004+10:00

We are still here, in Australia. We have been here so long that we got our citizenship today! Here are some pictures from the ceremony which was held by the Rotary Club at our local High School here in The Gap.

Gabe's outfit

Waiting for the ceremony to begin

From this time forward
I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people,
whose democratic beliefs I share,
whose rights and liberties I respect, and
whose laws I will uphold and obey.

Our friends Dan & Amy became Australians a little while ago now, their baby Eva is citizen by birth

A newly Australian family

Two Australian families

Official picture (missing councillor Knapp, but including MP Kate Jones)

Our little family during the official photoshoot. Gabe is starting a cold...

Three Years in Australia today!

2010-07-27T13:40:00.005+10:00

We have been in Australia for three years today. It has been great overall. Lots has happened and time flew by...

We've landed with a work visa, few suitcases and our house packed into a container, knowing hardly anyone here. Now we have established our little family here and made some amazing friends.

So much has happened... I found some work, we found a house, we went camping, we traveled to Cairns, I hurt my foot kickboxing, our house was damaged by a storm, we went to visit Canada, Rej lost his job, Rej found a new job, we got pregnant, we had lots of visitors, Gabriel was born, we wrecked our car (on going for four months...), we got a truck, we severely lacked sleep and now here we are: today we have been here three years! Life goes on!

As a sample day, here is what we've done today. Gabriel woke up at 5 a.m. after "sleeping through the night" for the first time (in bed at 6 p.m., feed from 11:15-11:45). We had brekkie and Rej put him back to bed at 6:45 for his nap while he went to work. When Gabe woke up, I played with him, showed him to my parents on the webcam. After his second nap, we went off to the shops to have in picture taken for his Canadian passport application (and citizenship card). We came back here rather fast as he was hungry. He fed, played a bit in his swing and is now having his third nap while I type this. What's next for today? Eating rice cereals and bananas (maybe we will try avocado again too), some naked time, maybe a baby massage, then possibly a fourth nap, or walk in pram if it doesn't rain...

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T17:50:00.006+10:00

Not much happening today but Rej found time to make me pancakes for breakfast...

... while Gabriel was artificially entertained by the Neglect-o-tron...

... later I found time to make a little fish to complete the Neglect-o-tron...

Thanks to our friends Leigh and John for lending us this fabulous swing, Gabriel loves it!

The beginning of a new adventure

2010-03-10T10:59:00.005+10:00

There will now be a third participant to our Australian adventures. Gabriel was born on 28 February, weighting 3.765 kg (~8 lbs 5 oz) and measuring 51 cm. We are now home for a few weeks, with his grand-parents Poirier. As soon as we start getting out and about again, we will resume our Australian adventures blog!

Breakfast with the birds

2010-02-13T10:03:00.001+10:00

We invited the lorikeets to come have breakfast with us this morning. Mom had one condition: that their plate be set at the opposite end of the table.

Beach day

2010-01-28T19:58:00.005+10:00

It's been very hot and I'm a bit too clumsy for extreme activities that imply seeing your feet, therefore, the beach is always an appropriate activity for a Sunday! We picked up Erika and headed to Currumbin, by Elephant Rock. It was very nice to swim in the water, but our umbrella isn't UV proof, so we got sunburned.

What I like most about the beach these days is the possibility of laying on my belly! Rej has become an expert at bump-hole digging!

Last beach camping before becoming parents!

2010-01-19T07:49:00.004+10:00

We went for our last beach camping weekend before the baby's birth, to Noosa North Shore with the "gang" (Kate and Morgan, the Purdys, Amy). Rej didn't bring his camera "because we already took pictures there" (that's where there were the camels on the beach...).

We had a great weekend, amazing food and company, lots of fun. Only a few events such as everyone catching sunburns (and Shamus really not liking to put sunscreen on his burns the next day!), Morgan being stung by a blue bottle jellyfish (but no one got the honour of peeing on him) and the Purdy's car battery being flat when time came to drive home (but thankfully Rej was able to borrow jumping cables from someone... it's just not something everyone carries here). Otherwise, it was another of these "perfect camping weekends"...

Noosa North Shore, 16 January (picture taken by Amy)

Mystery Gift

2010-01-06T12:49:00.006+10:00

We just received a parcel containing two bike hoists from a shop called BigShop in Capalaba, Qld. The parcel didn't contain any note, message, invoice, receipt, so we are very curious as to whom sent us this great present! Is it you?

Thank you, whom you might be! Rej will install it when he cleans up the garage, soon I hope!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T08:18:00.002+10:00

Let's forget about how late we are with blogging, the August pictures and jump to the present, Christmas!

I spent four hours sewing on Christmas Eve and made these for the kiddies:

The first one is for Shamus, second for Breagha and last for Calypso

When I was done sewing, I set the table for our Christmas Eve dinner. We were eleven total, 4 couples, two kids and a baby.

The pine cones I had picked were very humid so I had to dry them in the oven!

Then, last finishing touches as I prepared the punch for the drivers and pregnant lady. I used my mold from Lee Valley to make a pretty star with the cranberry juice.

Yes, my belly is huge! I'm now 32 weeks.

Then people started to arrive and Shamus and Breagha just couldn't wait to open some presents!

Shamus got some new transformers, which kept him and his dad very busy!

The kids were very quiet after they had new stuff to play with!

Stacey, Breagha, Shamus, Darryl and Nick

Breagha got some makeup!

Then, it was food time. I had ordered a 5kg (11 lbs) ham. Rej had roasted it the night before so we could serve it cold without having to heat up the house with the oven. It was delicious. Which is good because we will be eating it for the next few days!

Everyone sat down and honoured the tradition of over-eating. We didn't take a picture of the desserts but they were also really good. Especially the profiteroles made by Emilie! mmmm...

Shamus, Darryl, Mariana, Emilie, Clo, Breagha, Stacey, Nick and Christophe

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Australian Football League - 11 July

2009-11-29T09:22:00.004+10:00

Did I mention I was way behind on the blog? I still had these pictures from the AFL game we went to in July to post!

We were invited by my colleague, friend, mentor and Lions' Season Ticket Holder, Harold, for the second time. Harold has been very committed to helping us discover Australia. He has also brought me a bunya pine cone and made me discover custard apples.

The game is played in on the cricket grounds so the field is circular. The players are very athletic and they run, jump, dribble an oval shaped ball and kick it high in the air. The game is very aerial, with passes high in the air as well. It rarely stops so the rhythm is very entertaining.

The field is huge!

Now, food-wise, when you go to the game, forget about hotdogs. It's all about the pies! They are meat pies with sauce in them. Some are pretty tasty! Another big food thing is the all dressed baked potato. When you think all dressed, think ALL dressed. I've seen a guy eat one with even pineapples on it!

July is in the coolest of winter for us and the stadium being outside, we wore our warm jackets.

The game that day was pretty good, although they played a bit dirty and more on to the ground than usual, which isn't as spectacular as the aerial bits. The Lions did very well this season and finished sixth in the league.

AFL is my favourite Australian sport. As far as Australian things go, it's much better than vegemite and I would say even better than the tasty TimTam biscuits. Mmmm... I hope our children will pick this sport to play, rather than cricket!

Our friends the MacPurdys attended the same game and took some closer pictures, which you can view here.

Email us your address please!

2009-11-17T16:32:00.002+10:00

I'm just updating my Christmas mailing list and I notice I have fragmentary/out-of-date information for a lot of youse, whether you are in Canada or in Australia or elsewhere in the world.

After washing my mobile with the laundry a year ago, my computer's hard-drive blew a few months back, so I lost all of my contacts within the past year and I don't seem to have recovered everything yet.

So if you read this, please email us your details (mailing address, home phone, mobile).

Also, why don't you take this opportunity to write us a bit of how you are going?

I know we have been very lenient on the blog lately. I still have material from July to post! I promess I will do a big catch up one day! For now, all you need to know is that we are going well, still exploring new beaches in South-East Queensland on the weekends and enjoying our adventures in Australia very much!

Quilt Show

2009-10-27T08:52:00.003+10:00

I visited the Queensland Quilt Show last weekend with Catherine, Amy and You-Nay. There were so many nice quilts, I had to take some pictures to share them with the quilters I know in Canada.

If you would like to view them too, just click here:

Queensland Quilt Show 2009

You can view the winning quilts here as well: http://www.qldquilters.com/show.html

Also, I know we haven't posted much lately, but we have been out an about, with the gang from Edmonton and with our friends here. So we will have to make a post soon.

In the mean time, you can check Mariana's post on our last camping trip: http://mexicandownunder.blogspot.com/2009/10/camping-experience.html . Because she arrived on Saturday morning, she missed all the car digging on the Friday night. Both our car and Dan and Amy's got bugged in two different sandpits. Our car took four guys over two hours (and lots of beers) to dig out. The advantage when you dig a car out of sand versus snow is that you're not freezing your hands off!

River Fire 2009

2009-09-24T21:51:00.005+10:00

It was that time of the year again, our 3rd river fire and this year we got a sweet spot on the river side with a fireworks barge right in front of us.
Here's some pics and a video montage of the best bits.

That's a military jet doing a fuel dump at the end of the video. Loud!

Fraser Island Safari

2009-08-20T19:04:00.023+10:00

We booked a 2-day tour with the Fraser Island Company and we were very happy with our experience.

We left on Sunday morning from Hervey Bay, boarded the bus and headed towards the ferry. Once on the island the real "safari" part began. The "roads" are one-way sand tracks full of ruts and bumps. After a bit of driving, our first stop was for a swim at Lake Birrabeen. The lake has very pure water so you can drink as you swim.

The water was refreshing and we were quite happy to swim!

When we emerged from the rain forest and started driving on the beach, the road got much smoother. Our guide made us stop to show us how the aborigines would catch pippis to eat on the beach but since we have caught clams in New Brunswick, we were not that impressed. But this dingo footprint caught our attention:

Dingo footprint (no pets are allowed so it can't be a domestic dog)

Our guide took us to Indian Head, where we had a nice view of the island. We even saw some whales going around the Cape.

Your favourite bloggers at Indian Head, Fraser Island, Qld

On our way back to our resort we saw this dingo walking around the beach.

Fraser Island dingoes are the purest in eastern Australia

It was fishing season so I think the dingo was hoping for a good catch

Our resort at Happy Valley was fine for sleeping, except for Rej and Simon holding a snoring competition!

The next morning, on our way to see the coloured sands, the guide offered us to catch this little plane for a quick tour of the island. Simon and Mélanie went and really enjoyed it.

The Coloured Sands is a spot were you can see layers of sand of different colours on the cliffs. The sand on Fraser Island comes from rivers in New South Wales and is carried along the East Coast of Australia and because Fraser "sticks out" on the East Coast, it "lands" there. But depending from what river system it came from, the sand has different colours. Quite spectacular.

This is the Maheno shipwreck. It was built in Scotland in 1905, used as a hospital ship during World War I and sold for steel in 1935. However it was caught in a cyclone during transport and it washed ashore on the island in 1935.

Maheno Shipwreck viewed by Clo

Maheno Shipwreck viewed by Rej

We went for a swim at Eli Creek, again a place where you can drink as you swim. The thing to do there was to "walk" through the creek.

Simon during our "walk" in the creek

Rej waiting for us at the bus, with a fresh coconut

Our guide took us to a desert part of the island where we could go around and try to find as many different colours of sand as possible.

Our last stop on Monday was a walk through the rainforest in the "Central Station" area. It was nice and refreshing. There are huge threes growing. It's amazing what can grow on an island made of pure sand.

We had a nice ferry ride at sunset. Beautiful. Like the island. And the trip.

Whale watching in Hervey Bay

2009-08-20T19:01:00.003+10:00

We took a few days off work and headed North with Simon and Mélanie. We started our journey with an afternoon of whale watching. We got to see the humpbacks from pretty close, but mostly I got to eat like a starving backpackers at their buffet as I had taken some morning sickness medication (Maxolon) in order to cope with potential seasickness and I had appetite for the first time in weeks! Unfortunately, it was also the bit where I had a metallic taste in my mouth so nothing tasted that great, but still, I got to eat which was a big plus!

These whales got really close to another boat. We were very jealous.

Then we got our own whales. The crew told us to wag our arms, which I did dutyfully.

This whale is showing us its nose while exhaling in front of Fraser Island.

It was a pretty good experience, but next time Rej will bring a bigger zoom as there is no guarantee they will come close to your boat. And I think next time will be in a few years from now, I like dolphins and turtles better!

Dinner on the summit of Mount Coot-tha

2009-08-20T18:47:00.003+10:00

Our friends Simon and Mélanie are visiting us from Paris this August so we thought we should start their trip by giving them a good view of Brisbane. And we had never tried the restaurant at the summit of Mount Coot-tha so this was a great chance of doing both.

I had read some so-so reviews of the food and price of the restaurant but in the end we were quite happy with the quality of food and service we got for the price. And it was a Tuesday night so the place was pretty quiet which was very nice. We had some smoked kangaroo as an appetizer and Rej ate a Moreton Bay bug.

The guys brought their cameras and the tripod to get some nice pictures after dinner.

Brisbane by night, Tuesday 4 August 2009, 22:30.

My first quilt square!

2009-07-31T17:10:00.005+10:00

Did I mention I am member of a Crunch Club? If not, I'm telling you. Crunch stands for "Craft at lunch". We meet up, mostly with my ex-colleagues of regional development and we sit together at lunch once a week and work on whatever craft we feel like. We started in January and it's been lots of fun. I got to finish the scarf I started knitting in 2003 (not that I have any chance of wearing it in Queensland) and I have been working on finishing the yellow camisole I started knitting in 2002 (singlet for the Australian readers).

The club has also set itself a few challenges. One was to make a cushion on the theme of Queensland's regions and the Falcon's Nest (our initial meeting spot). I didn't participate because I still have two cushions to finish at home, but the results were fantastic (see here).

The next challenge was to make a baby quilt square for a collective for Esther's baby quilt. I worked with Esther last year and to me she will always be the "Centres of Enterprise - Cairns" girl. So I was inspired by this picture Dan took on our dive trip to the Geat Barrier Reef in May:

I really wanted to put this picture on our "Underwater" post, but the colourful fish is in the way. This fish must really like the camera because it was stalking Rej during our first trip to the reef last year

So, from the picture, I started drawing. Unfortunately, my talents are pretty limited. So I got Rej to help. He has a much better sense of proportions and what looks cute:

Then we went fabric shopping. I took Rej again because he also has a good sense of colours and contrasts. I tried to go to a fabric shop at Brookside mall but it's been closed for a while (apparently it's the second time I take Rej there in vain... I forgot. I must be getting old). So Rej took me to Spotlight (kinda Michaels meets Fabricland) and helped pick these fabrics:

Back to the house, I got busy turning the drawing into a pattern:

Then, after lots of burned fingers and starch (I didn't think of threading it around a piece of cardboard until I was doing the white of the eye), I had all the pieces ready to sew on:

At that point I had to take a week's break to think about how to sew it. Finally I concluded a narrow short zigzag would do the trick and be solid enough for a child to munch on.

Then I had to figure out how to do the eye... I had some white fabric, so that bit was easy. But Spotlight was out of anything black when I went (fabric remnants, yarn, felt, embroidery thread...). My colleague Danielle is an embroiderer so she came to the rescue with both the thread and the crash-embroidery course. I can now do a satin stitch! I'm pretty happy with the final result:

Esther's baby is due at the end of August and she promised a picture of the final quilt. From the other squares I've seen, it's going to be a beautiful, exentric and varied patchwork! But it will be full of love.

Photo outing

2009-07-26T14:05:00.006+10:00

This Saturday Rej and Dan decided to go for a bike ride, so Amy suggested we get our cameras and go practice what we learned in our photography course.

Dan getting ready

So we let the boys go ride Gap Creek and we headed towards the Enoggera Reservoir, one of my favourite walking spots. On the way we made a pit stop to say hi to the alpacas who live by the roundabout.

This alpaca conveniently posed for me

As usual, the reservoir in mid-afternoon had the sun facing us which isn't great for pictures. And the ducks were pretty far for taking duck pictures as well.

Can you see the ducks? Neither can I, but they are there. I do like how the sunlight is showing at the corner of this picture but I would have taken a couple less tree trunks.

On the way up Mount Pleasant, I thought this young jacaranda looked cool. I'll have to come back when it blooms.

I wish the house behind didn't have scaffoldings, but hey, not everything can be perfect!

I always thought lantana flowers were pretty. They are a major weed here, so I guess I'm like my Chinese neighbour in Edmonton who keep the dandelions in her lawn because they were "so pretty".

Not sure where the focus is, it was a bit windy

So windy I had to use manual focus on this one!

I love bottlebrushes.

I also tried our new 50mm portrait lens on Amy when we got home, but I overexposed my shots and the focus isn't that good either so I will spare you those... I need to practice more for portrait. Everything I guess. I'm still confused with aperture and focal lenght and all that. But, it's getting better.

Birdies and photo course

2009-06-27T17:20:00.006+10:00

Last weekend was pretty quiet. In the morning we did some gardening as someone at my work was giving away orchids so we planted them in our garden. We also had a few Australian natives (mostly bottlebrushes) that we had bought and still had to plant.

Then we cleaned up to go out for dinner and just as we were ready to leave, guess who paid us a visit? The lorikeets! They are getting really eager to feed now, sometimes they land on the bowl before I even have shut the patio door. So we thought, why not try feeding them from our hands?

Typically, the second one is more nervous. It also is the one that will "grab" with its little claws. It hurts a bit... well, a lot!

They are so cute though. It's so worth it!

On Sunday afternoon I picked up Amy and Stacey and we headed out to Wynnum for our "Introduction to Digital Photography" course. In four hours we learned tons. Now we only have to practice!
This picture was taken in Aperture Value mode, with a 4.0 aperture, at an ISO of 800, which gave me a shutter speed of 1/6 of a second. By the time we learned the manual mode, it was getting too dark for pictures without the flash, but we did learn the manual mode as well.

Now I only have to practice.

In any case, Rej planned everything for the next step: photo editing. He programmed us some plugins and wrote us a little tutorial. Want to learn as well? Check it out here!

Baby-sitting Shamus and Breagha

2009-06-25T18:54:00.005+10:00

For Stacey's birthday I offered to baby-sit the kids so her and Darryl could have some time to themselves. They can get a baby-sitter but it's a lot of money here (think $25/hour) and it would be more complicated to have one stay for the night. So we took on the kids on Saturday afternoon while Darryl and Stacey went on a 24-hour getaway to Byron Bay.

As soon as the kids arrived, we got them busy so they wouldn't have time to miss their parents. We "played" two songs in Guitar Hero (Breagha loves to "have purple hair") and then went off to the secret park for a few hours. We didn't take pictures at the secret park because, well, if we did, you might recognize it and it wouldn't be a secret park anymore, wouldn't it? Anyways, it's a great park and the kids loved it. Breagha especially liked to man the flower shop. I (Clo writting here) must have bought 50 different "flowers" that afternoon. And our spider family had a great time hanging out on the giant web, although I became a scorpion at some point.

Back home as the sun was starting to set. Rej started getting the fixtures for dinner ready while I put the kids in our (massive) bath tub with some bubble bath. They had never had a bubble bath and they really enjoyed themselves.

After the bath, they got to be "little chefs" like Rémi (in Ratatouille) and they each made their own pizza. We figured that way they would like it! Shamus ate half of his, and Breagha two or three slices. That, washed down with chocolate milk, and toppped with rice krispies squares (got my hands on some Made in USA marshmallows!) and I was really full!

Little chefs have to wear aprons!

After dinner was movie time so we got the kids ready for their "camping night" and they got their snacks out. I can't believe they were still hungry after dinner. So we watched Robots (an animated movie). Then we brushed out teeth, read a couple stories (including glow-in-the-dark stickers) and went to bed.

There were crums all over their sleeping bags! Must not have been very comfy!

They slept like logs through the night, but I was very worried they would need to go pee or have a nightmare so I must have checked on them at least five times!

Breagha kept rolling onto the floor and Shamus going in the middle!

Breagha got up at 7:30 when I checked on her and we had to wake Shamus up at 8 when the pancakes were ready. Shamus even showed me a finger meaning "one more minute please"... such a teenager already!

Rej helped Shamus make a lobster with his pancake. It was actually a trick to get him to eat some fruit as apparently he doesn't like strawberries, but ssshhh... we won't tell him!

After brekkie we were off by foot to another secret park.

Ready to find some bugs, with the butterfly net, collection box and night-vision goggles (!)

On the way we saw some ducks then we caught a few tadpoles and looked at them with the magnifying glass.

We wanted the kids to get closer to get a picture but they somehow were not keen on getting too close to wild animals!

Breagha loves the swing.

My arms were sore at the end of the day!

Rej got them going on another kind of swing, but they didn't like it as much...

After that, Rej took the kids to a pile of wood chips to go fossil hunting. They loved it and had wood all over their clothes. We also did some crafting and watched one more movie. We built a house of cushions and blankets and read some more books.

The kids were really good. They didn't cry or didn't fight at all. Actually, they were just getting ready to fight before their parents arrived and I had just pulled out a sheet of stickers to divert their attention.

We were very tired by the time the kids left. Especially me since I had not really slept. Poor Dan and Amy had very boring guests over that night for dinner!

We will baby-sit again, but, as I told Stacey, "maybe not next weekend"!

Melbourne with Cari and Steve

2009-06-22T18:50:00.010+10:00

For the June long weekend (Queen's Birthday here), we went to Melbourne to visit our good friends Cari and Steve who recently relocated there.

They picked us up at the airport on Friday night and took us to their cute townhouse by the Melbourne Cricket Ground. It was really good to catch up!

Cari made us pancakes on Saturday morning and we walked over the singing bridge (which wasn't performing that morning) to the city centre. When we got there, we saw this cool sound and light exhibit:

I have to admit that I had imagined there would be an "Old Melbourne" like there is an Old Quebec City or an Old Port in Montreal. I was a bit disappointed to see there are lots of new buildings surrounding the old ones. I would say maybe five new buildings for every old one.

Still, the city has some charm and I loved walking through these super cute alleys:

This alley reminded me of Quebec City! Cute and bordered by good food outlets!

We watched some candy making first hand and drank the best belgian hot chocolate ever.

We went to the Queen Victoria Market which are huge and impressive. We bought some nice baguette, fromage and pâté, along with some fresh fruit (including delicious crunchy pears). I was too busy looking everywhere to take pictures and Rej's didn't turn out good enough to post as it was fairly dark in there and so busy! But, we had a great time. Even if we couldn't find Rej a ukulele.

Cari, not far from the market

We had lunch at a nice greek restaurant (did I mention the food is awesome in Melbourne?) and I got my fix of cabbage rolls (been craving them since we moved out of Edmonchuk). We had some delicious baklava, lookum (turkish delight) and rice pudding for dessert. Mmmmm... We were stuffed!

We headed home for some wine and chat. Had our baguette, fromage and pâté, along with fresh fruit for dinner and headed out to this great beer place to meet with some of Rej's ex-coworkers, Rohan and Matt. The beer place offers beers from all over the world. I myself satisfied my longing for a Warsteiner while Rej sampled a few Belgian beers. We had lots of fun but eventually had to go home because I was falling asleep at the table!

Sunday morning we had breakfast near Steve and Cari's place and took the train out to St. Kilda. St. Kilda is the beachy part of Melbourne and you can see how nice it must be in the summer because even on a winter rainy day it looks really good!

Your favourite bloggers

A few boats in St. Kilda with Melbourne's CBD in background

Don't believe his face, Steve was actually quite happy we came to visit!

The best part of our walk on the pier is that I saw two little penguins sleeping in the rocks! First I heard them, then I saw one, then I saw another one. I was quite excited. They typically spend their day in the water fishing so you only expect to see them at dawn or at dusk, but those two must have decided to stay in bed that day. They were quite deep into the rocks and we didn't want to spook them with a flash, so no picture to show. But it was GREAT!

Cari and I did a few shops in St. Kilda and Cari found me a really cute purple top at this hippie shop. I really like it! It was pouring rain while we were shopping though so Rej snapped this pic on the main drag in St. Kilda:

We also had some great cakes in St. Kilda. Mmmm.... Did I mention food in Melbourne is amazing?

Sunday night we went to the Best Pizzeria Ever. It's called Pizza Navona and it's in South Yarra, Steve and Cari's new neighbourhood (they were moving the day after we left). The pizza was so good and the ambience in the pizzeria was great. We'll have to get the Dickinsons to FedEx us some one day. Mmmmm... Did I mention Melbourne has delicious food?

Monday was the holiday so we had kept that day to go tour wineries. We went to the Yarra Valley. It's literally half-an-hour drive from Melbourne and it has over 80 wineries, all pretty close to each other. Great! We had lunch and wine tasting at Victoria's oldest winery, Yering Station. They make a great chardonnay and a very nice pinot noir. Mmmmm... did I mention...?

We also went to the Yarra Valley Dairy, saw the cows, tasted the cheese and fell in love with their chevre. Mmmmm.... did I mention...?

We also went for a walk downtown Healesville and Cari and I did a killing at the op shops (used stuff). I got some knitting needles for $1! We finished our tour in a classy way by visiting Domaine Chandon. By then, we didn't have much interest left in tasting (!) but it was nice to see the winery and we got to hear a bit of a tour about "la méthode champenoise" (how to make the bubbles in the bubbly).

Vines growing at Domaine Chandon

On Monday night we went out to a very nice Vietnamese restaurant. Probably the best Vietnamese food I've had since my auntie cooked for me!

Tuesday was our shopping day. We sent the boys over to Glick's to stock up on Jewish bagels. Rej bought us a dozen that we brought back in our suitcase, froze are are now eating with parcimony. We'll need the Dickinsons to post us some more soon. Mmmmmm... Did I mention Melbourne has great bagels?

Cari and I went shopping on a street nearby their place that has lots of outlets. We had lots of fun. We got matching T-shirts (mine purple, Cari's teal), then I found a very nice red raincoat with matching scarf (perfect for Brisbane monsoon!) and I bought my first ever pair of leggings. Cari found a few more tops. We had lunch at a great organic grocery store (which will unfortunately close down soon). Between the cold, rain and organic store, I would have believed myself in Vancouver in the winter. Exactly the same feel.

So, Rej and I left loaded with bagels, wine, goat cheese and new clothes. Thankfully I had brought and empty suitcase! It was a great weekend and we look forward to visiting the Dickinsons again. And to the great food ... but I mentioned that, right?

Blog strike

2009-06-18T06:15:00.002+10:00

Rej is on blog strike. We have tons of pictures from our trip to Melbourne and also pictures from our 27 1/2 hours of baby-sitting to post for you, but his motivation is so low he doesn't even want to sort them out! He says we rarely get any comment from outside Australia anyways.

If you are reading the blog and would like us to continue posting, post a comment to help motivate Rej!

Here is how to post a comment:

Click on "Comments" at the bottom of this post
Write your comment in the text box
If you don't have a google login, just click the "anonymous" option (you can type you name in your message)
Hit "Publish"

Too easy!

Lovebirds and Enoggera Reservoir

2009-05-30T17:47:00.004+10:00

We've been attracting lorikeets to our yard for a few months now and finally, they seem to be comfortable enough to exhibit some very natural, wild behavior right under our eyes! I was hanging out in the backyard and there were five of them in the trees, two couples and one lonely one. I had feed for them and the bird bath, but no one was interested. It was, indeed, grooming time. Everyone was grooming their feathers and scratching. However, it's hard to scratch your own head with your own beak, isn't it? That's when the mate comes in handy. You scratch my head, I scratch yours...

The other day we went for a walk around the Enoggera Reservoir in late afternoon. Rej snapped a few pictures. All of them are HDR (high dynamic range).

Underwater pictures

2009-05-18T21:00:00.003+10:00

Better late than never, right ? Here's a small selection from the 250+ pics I took underwater during our recent 3-day dive trip on the Great Barrier Reef.

Blue spotted stingray

A lemon damsel next to some soft coral

Six-banded Angelfish

More coral (there was lots!)

Giant clam

Some more live coral

White-tip reef shark (~1.5m)

A coral garden

A close-up view of some live coral

These pics were taken with my "old" DSLR with a 60mm macro inside a soft plastic underwater case (good to about 8m)

And here's something I put together with videos that Dan took with his point-and-shoot and underwater hard case.

Dive boat

2009-05-10T18:26:00.006+10:00

Here's a few pics aboard the dive boat we took last weekend...

Our cabin, which looks bigger because of the wide angle lens, but don't be fooled, it was tiny!

The lower back deck, from which we departed for each dive... See the skipper relaxing while the boat is anchored.

We attended a dive brief prior to every dive to know the site map and our dive plan. As an example: go down the anchor line, set the compass to 180 degrees, swim about 20 meters until you reach the first bommie, swim around the bommie clock-wise, set the compass to the reciprocal heading of 0 degrees, swim toward the boat, make a safety stop of 3 minutes on the 5-meter bar that's hanging from the boat. Sounds simple but Rej and I got lost SO MANY TIMES. Nothing looks more like a bommie than another bommie!

As you can see on the picture, we were starting early in the morning. This picture was taken on our third day. We entered the water at 6:30, while the sun was rising. On this picture the dive supervisor is telling us: "there might be turtles and sharks on the edge of the reef. They will try to attract you to the deeper area DO NOT FOLLOW them. They DO NOT want you to be able to do your second dive"... Too funny the dive supervisor. We'll remember his "speaker fish" forever. (For the non-divers, if you want to do many dives in one day, there are limitations on the time and depth you can go)

Pre-sunrise on the Great Barrier Reef.

Your favourite bloggers...

And to complete my Tablelands pictures, here's our cheese platter... mmm... The olives, the jam, the fruits and veggies were all locally produced as well. The strawberries were the best ones we ate in Australia so far!

Tuesday in the Tablelands

2009-05-08T20:30:00.007+10:00

After our scuba diving weekend we spent a decompression day touring the Tablelands (close to Cairns) prior to flying back home. Because Rej just bought a new camera, I got to use his "old camera". So here are a few pictures I snapped. I'll let Rej complete with his when he posts the scuba pictures.

So Dan, Amy, Rej and I left Cairns in the morning and drove through Edmonton (Qld) to Millaa Millaa.

Rej enjoying a Pasito in Millaa Millaa while wearing his new shark t-shirt

The famous Millaa Millaa waterfalls

I think they are Queensland's most photographed waterfalls. I've even seen wedding pictures taken there.

Amy and Dan at the Millaa Millaa falls

I think it's pretty common for people to swim at the bottom of the falls. However, after three days of scuba diving, we were very happy to stay DRY!

The falls are quite tall and impressive

The Zillie Falls, on the same circuit as the Millaa Milla Falls

The Ellinjaa Falls, also on the same circuit

Ellinjaa Falls

The lush tropical vegetation at the bottom of the Ellinjaa Falls

We reckon these must be figs...

The vegetation is very dense and can take over!

The scenery was fabulous!

After touring the falls we went to a dairy and farm, Mungalli Creek Dairy. As we arrived there was a milk truck arriving, so I had to take a picture. I'm not sure if he was delivering farm milk to the dairy or collecting milk from the farm. I didn't see any cows close to the dairy, only some heifer calves.

Tiny milk truck

The view from the dairy.

We had lunch at the dairy, a delicious cheese platter (Rej took a pic for you). Then we went on to a coffee roasting place in Mareeba to taste some coffees, teas and chocolates. It was a great day of tourism!

Fall camping in Noosa

2009-04-27T18:27:00.011+10:00

We had a perfect camping weekend. The weather was perfect, the water temperature was perfect, the food was tasty, the company was great even the kids didn't fight or cry. Perrrrrfect!

We didn't take much pictures during the day but you can view the MacPurdy's here and Mariana's here.

Rej here: The night sky was nice and clear so I attempted some long exposure pics of the stars. Nothing in particular to see, but the milky way does look nice ...

1 minute exposure time

3 minute exposure time

10 minute exposure time !

After the kids went to bed we had to keep entertained so we cracked up fresh glow sticks and decided to go all artsy... Here's an example of the results:

Modern art... made by 8 sane adults

We were not convinced by the talent in our artistic expression so we decided to channel our creative energy by writting words... Let's see if you get the message!

with

Camping with friends is what this weekend was all about! However, we have this special message for our friends Cari and Steve, who recently relocated to Melbourne:

Bird taming

2009-04-10T17:14:00.013+10:00

We promised you a bird update some time ago, so here it is. We came back from our long Christmas holiday to find that our backyard still attracts birds...

This is the first and only time we had a brush turkey in our yard. Cool, eh?

We were quite worried that after five weeks, our cockatoos would have forgotten us and would have stopped coming to the feeder. No chance! We came back, put seeds and they were there that very afternoon! Even Manuel, our hand-climbing cockatoo came back, but he made a girlfriend and he's a bit of a snob now, doesn't like to climb on our hand as much...

Rej has to be a lot more persuasive than before Christmas to get Manuel to climb on his hand!

Having cockatoos waking you up with their screeching at sunrise wasn't that nice and exotic anymore. We were starting to think maybe we should add a roof to our feeder so only small birds could get to it. That's when the Dickinsons came it and bought us this great new feeder, hand-made, from the Eumundi Markets on the Sunshine Coast, as a present for doggy-sitting Jesse for a weekend. Rej got us some brackets and installed the new feeder. In the begining, no bird could figure out how to get in there. It was quite funny to see the cockatoos land on the roof and slide down!

Then, some figured out that a bit of stretching could get them to the precious seeds!

We decided to start feeding a special mix to attract the super cute rainbow lorikeets instead of cockatoos. However, the lorikeets couldn't make a landing on the feeder and get to the feed, they would land on the fence and whistle and scream helplessly. So Rej added some branches to the feeder for the birds to perch on and it totally worked!

Happy lorikeets that can now make it to the feed!

So, the lorikeets have been coming at sunrise every morning for a while now. So last Sunday, they were on the fence waiting for me to replenish the feeder and they seemed very interested by the bowl in which I had the food, so I thought, if cockatoos can do it, the lorikeets can also probably eat from the bowl in my hand. It took several minutes and I couldn't move at all or they would get scared and go away, but I did it!

One even licked my finger!

Today we've had honeyeaters come to the feeder for the first time. They eat the lorikeets feed as well (they naturally feed on the same bottle brush trees as the loris).

Bluefaced honey eaters hanging out at our feeder (the one that doesn't have a blue face is a juvenile)

On Tuesday morning this week I had the lorikeets land on the bowl of feed in my hands for the first time. It was great! One of them had his belly rubbing against my fingers and he was really soft, a bit humid from the rain and I could feel his body heat. Needless to say I had a great Tuesday!

So we repeated the exercise this morning and Rej filmed this great video for you:

The lorikeets can feed for several minutes in our hands, and it gets quite heavy to hold the plate steady with the birds on it, so this afternoon I tried feeding them the lazy way.

Look at the wings of the flying one!

I had a great afternoon, very relaxing! Now, I would like to wish everyone a happy Easter (or a 'appy Heaster with my French accent).

Here in Australia, they also wish everyone a "safe" Easter, as I think the death toll on the roads that weekend is usually pretty bad. Drive safe everyone, think and don't drink before you drive!

Tupperware Party

2009-04-05T12:21:00.005+10:00

I hosted my first Tupperware party last night. Yesterday was a rainy day so I decided to try all these hors-d'oeuvres recipes from my Canadian Living January 2009 magazine. I made five different canapés and a loaf of banana bread for dessert.

Shrimp and dill salad cucumber bite, homemade tapenade and marinated feta canapé, mini quiche lorraine, smoked salmon cucumber bite and liver pâté and caramelised onion canapé. Mmmm...

Guests arrived around 7 and the demonstration began. Kate volunteered to help demonstrate the cocktail recipe. (I forgot to open the flash so pictures are dark and fuzzy).

The guests seemed to like it and I had tons of fun!

Mariana, Amy, Kiri, Leigh and Allison

(with the flash, although focus seems to be on the tupperwares!)

Final product of the demonstration: Tequila Sunrise!

Rej started his new job

2009-04-02T19:47:00.002+10:00

So, we officially have our new visa, allowing us to stay until March 2013. And Rej started work on Tuesday. I think he's still a bit lost, not sure exactly what he'll be doing, but I think he's been enjoying the work camaraderie again (had lunch with 14 ex-Pandemites on Tuesday!). They have a few things they might want him to work on, so I think he is curious to see what it will end up being.

From what I gather, they are running out of office space, so his chair is in the kitchen. However, he says his computer is super nice with a 24" flat screen and one of the boss brings his puppy to work so Rej got to play with it a bit on the first day. He has a spot to park his motorcycle, which is good. Core hours are from 10 to 4 so he doesn't feel bad leaving before 5 to beat the traffic, especially since he's in at 7:15! There are quite a bit of restaurants around so he's been trying new places for lunch.

That's about it for his first three days!

Weekend update for Cari

2009-03-31T20:05:00.002+10:00

Here you go girl!

Friday night I went to the Australia ballet in the Botanical Gardens with Catherine, Mariana and Stacey. It was great and it was free. And it was a beautiful night, not cold, not warm, no mozzies.

Saturday Rej and I worked on the yard a bit more. I planted some ground covers in the front, one is a really cute little bottlebrush. Rej spread some rocks under my clothes line so if I drop clothes on the ground they won't fall on dirt. Then I vaccumed. Exciting, hey?

Saturday night Erika came over for her going away diner. She flew back to Quebec on Sunday morning. We spent Earth Hour with her, chatting by candlelight in the living room.

Sunday we went to New Farm Park on our motorcycle to say goodbye to Rowan, Margo and Anara. It was very windy. We came back home early to finish planting some plants Rej had removed from the garden. Sunday night we watched a lot of "30 Rocks" episodes.

That was my weekend update for Cari, since she asked!

Visa approved!

2009-03-25T21:21:00.001+10:00

Rej starts work on the 31st! He only has a few days to finish all the yard work he has undertaken...

Camping at Lamington National Park

2009-03-12T17:08:00.015+10:00

Another fun camping trip last weekend with "the gang". We went to Lamington national park which is at the border of Queensland and New South Wales. Lots of pics were taken. Here's a few:

There were red-neck pademelons (very small wallabies) all over the campsite.

There were also lots of Crimson Rosellas

Clo just put out her hand and one flew right on. We concluded these were the ones used to being fed at the centre next-door. So we got out some granola and fed them.

Maybe my head looks like a big egg?

Clo's morning hair looks like a nest ! ;-)

Later, we went on a short hike to a lookout overlooking some falls.

The falls

The Saturday hiking group

By Sunday, the Dickinsons had joined us and we went on another (longer) hike to see more falls.

Clo and I inside a strangler fig. The fig tree strangles the host tree, which eventually dies and leaves a hollow shell.

View from inside

We also visited some trails where you could go climbing REALLY high into the canopy. I'd like to say it was worth it, but the view wasn't that impressive and it was a hard climb ...

Erika almost at the top.

I woke up before everybody at the campground to find the whole place covered in Pademelons!

Rej says: "That's a lot of 'melons"

also pictured: one brush turkey

This is a Bower Bird nest, the male builds a big nest then tries to attract a female by decorating it with blue objects. It's good to see mother nature figured out what to do with plastic!

The boys on a big fig tree

The whole gang by the falls

There were some big boulders to climb over, but views were worth it!

Here's a cool photographic technique I played around with on this trip: High Dynamic Range images (HDR for short). The idea is that no camera sensor can capture the subtle levels of light that our eyes can. You can rarely get your white highlights properly exposed without losing all detail in the dark areas and vice-versa. The best you can get with a decent sensor is a "proper" scene exposure which looks something like this.

But our eyes can see more detail than that. We can achieve a better result by taking the same picture at three different exposures: one underexposed to capture detail in the bright areas, one proper exposure for the medium areas, and one overexposed to get the details in the shadows. Combine them all in a piece of software called Photomatix and it "flattens" them to something like this:

Hi-res version (makes a nice desktop background!)

Some more HDR pics:

We live in paradise

2009-03-08T20:40:00.001+10:00

Some news... finally!

2009-02-25T19:02:00.006+10:00

We haven't felt like blogging much since we came back from our Christmas holiday. I have to say that Rej's first day at work pretty much set the tone for the past few weeks. They were told the mother company wanted to let them go and they could try to become an independant studio, which meant laying off half the studio's staff. So, on his third day back Rej lost half his coworkers. Sad.

Then started the emotional rollercoasters of trying to become an independant studio. First they tried to find a publisher for the game. After a few hopes and let-downs, they came to the conclusion that no one would publish them at that point. So the studio was officially closed and Rej was laid off a couple weeks ago. They then tried to re-start the company with an investor. However, the investor pulled out on Sunday night. I guess the global financial crisis is making everyone more risk averse.

No company, no job. No job, no work visa for Rej. No visa for Rej, no visa for Clo. No visa, no house... Pretty bad news really!

We had been thinking about this eventuality since we got the first bad news. We concluded we would like to stay in Brisbane at least a few more years and hopefully get our permanent residency. Who knows, maybe even breed some little Aussies... ;)

So, Plan A was to find a job and a visa here. Plan B was to sell, pack and move back to Canada.

Monday morning Rej got busy and sent resumes to all the companies in Brisbane. Some of his ex-coworkers put a good word in for him and on Monday afternoon he had a phone call from one company. On Tuesday morning he interviewed for an senior tool programmer's position on the engine team with Krome Studios. He was quite happy with his interview and seem quite excited about the job. He received an offer on Tuesday night.

It is Wednesday night now and Rej will take the offer. It will take a few more weeks before the new visa is issued so he'll be a house-husband for a little while. I can keep working over this period as I can 'bridge' between the two work visas. Phew!

We are pretty happy that he found a job this fast. We will try to get permanent residency in the upcoming months so that we are not so dependent on Rej's job.

The sad news is that a few of our friends are applying for jobs outside Brisbane so it's going to feel a bit empty here. :(

That's it, that's the big news for us.

Otherwise we've been doing the usual: beach, BBQs, physio for my foot, feeding the cockatoos in our yard, etc..

We have millions of pictures to post so we'll have to do a lot of sorting, especially since we were not done posting pictures from our Christmas holiday!

Hockey pictures

2009-02-08T21:03:00.003+10:00

Back in Oakville before Christmas we got to see Rej's brother, Marc, play hockey. He's the goalie for three teams this season so he plays a lot during a week.

A bit of action to start the game...

He had a shutout that game. Unfortunately the opposite team wasn't as good as his so we didn't get to see much action in Marc's corner. He even had frozen feet at the end of the game!

Ice Hotel

2009-02-03T21:30:00.011+10:00

The blog timeline is a bit screwed up here... So in January in Quebec City, we took Brianna and Julia out to the Ice Hotel at La station touristique Duchesnay. The hotel only lives for a few months per year and luckily for us it was opening that weekend. They were not completely done building it but it already looked amazing!

Brianna, Julia and Clo by the entrance

In the lobby

Julia and Brianna at the reception desk

Me, dragging my mutant foot through the hotel

Julia and I at the coffee bar

Brianna drinking her hot chocolate in one of the rooms

Each rooms has a different theme and displays different artwork. This one had scupted snow walls. Others had ice sculptures... the lighting was also different in everyroom.

The hotel also has an ice slide (lots of fun!) and an ice chapel for those wanted to get married there. When we visited, only about one quarter of it was build. Even as a Canadian I was very impressed by it.

Christmas with the Waines

2009-02-03T21:18:00.003+10:00

While we were in Oakville we had dinner with Rej's aunt Marie and his uncle Doug and his cousins Barbara and Stephen. It was really nice to see them again and to catch up!

Winter fly-fishing in Ontario

2009-02-03T21:13:00.002+10:00

We are really late on the blog and I don't know if we will ever catch up but I found these pictures of Rej's brother fly-fishing in Oakville in December and I thought they were worth a post!

Rej's brother, Marc, loves fly-fishing to the point that he does it all year-round. It takes a lot of ice to prevent him from doing it! So while we were holidaying with the family Rej went with his bro to take a few pics...

The river

It was cold!

Marc

If I remember well he didn't catch anything that day. Anyways, he always puts it back so it's not like we would have eaten it for dinner! A few days after these shots were taken the weather got colder and it snowed a lot. The next time Marc went to go fishing the river was covered in ice and running out of its bed...

Old Quebec with Brianna and Julia

2009-01-09T07:57:00.007+10:00

We met up with Brianna and Julia for a few days and showed them around the old city. You rarely get an excuse to be a tourist in a town you grew up in, so this was a great chance for us. It was fairly cold (-13 Celcius) and humid.

We first stopped at this little ice bar in the middle of one of the touristy alleys where people sell paintings (even in the winter) and each had a glass of Caribou by the fireplace. Caribou is what Quebecers use to get drunk when they're outside and it's freezing. It's warm Port wine mixed with another strong alcohol, usually vodka.

Santé!

The often-photographed Petit-Champlain

This tourist shop had mounted Moose and Elk heads

Here are the girls in one of the oldest parts of Quebec, saying hi to everyone back in Brizzy.

St-Louis gate

Quebec Parliament

This fountain was moved from France to celebrate Quebec's 400 years in 2008.

The famous Chateau Frontenac, a classy hotel.

Montmorency Falls, just outside Quebec. They're taller than Niagara!

A nice glass of wine and cheese at Clo's parent's place.

Quebec City, post ice storm.

2008-12-31T01:53:00.006+10:00

We've been in Quebec city for a few days now and we've seen rain, snow and freezing rain. The rain got rid of most of the snow accumulation and once frozen, created some nasty road conditions. Luckily, winter tires are now mandatory throughout the province, so the damage was minimal.

Last evening, just before setting, the sun poked through the clouds just long enough to go take some pictures (and freeze my hands a little). I borrowed Clo's dad's wide angle lens for these shots. (Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM)

These were all taken in the park in front Clo's parent's place. There are some really nice old trees that lit up nicely with the low, glowing sun.

No snowmobiles allowed !

Wide angle tree tops.

A late game of family hockey at the rink.

Sunset over a frozen puddle.

Family Time in Oakville, ON

2008-12-24T11:17:00.005+10:00

We've been in Oakville since 10 December now and while my foot hasn't allowed us to do a whole lot outside the house, I can say it's been really nice to sleep in and spend lots of time with the family. We've been taking picture here and there. Here's a sample of shots we've taken since we got here...

Cecile always bakes lots of goodies for Christmas. This year I got to help assembling mice and mini-burgers...

Chocolate mice... mmm!

Challenge: find the tiny one with large ears, the huge one with small ears and the one with her ears down. I like diversity in mice.

Rej showing stuff to his dad on the laptop while Cecile chats with her sister Louise in Nova Scotia

Rej got to practice his Canadian snow shoveling skills more than once already. This is the most snow we've seen in Oakville but they haven't called the army to help shovelling yet. He also practiced the art of pushing cars through snow with the neighbour's car (pictured here) and his brother's car (for two blocks!)

Who said only parrots were colourful?

Every night Cecile plays solitaire over the net with her sis Louise... well, that's when Louise has electricity.

Rej and his brother Marc-André watched lots of "Kids in the Hall" sketches on YouTube

I had brought my cookie cutters over to make some marsupial-shaped gingerbread cookies

(AKA gingernuts biscuits)

Rej got tired of me documenting our daily life...

I've been stuffing myself with foods you can't find in Australia: ketchup chips, rootbeer, clementines, Kashi GoLean Crunch morning cereal, cream in my coffee and, not the least, Rej's mom's cooking!!!

Christmas Tree

2008-12-21T08:19:00.003+10:00

Clo and I assembled (yes, it's artificial) and decorated the Christmas tree today. Amy and Dan gave us this really nice cockatoo tree ornament, so we brought it along to have a little piece of "home" while we visit the parents. Here's some pics, complete with a touch of xmas bloom effect for the magic of the season.

Early Christmas card from Canada

2008-12-18T09:27:00.005+10:00

We got some snow this morning so Rej filmed the local wildlife.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Vacation Itinerary

2008-12-18T07:32:00.000+10:00

View Larger Map

Canadian Vacation: Whistler, B.C.

2008-12-14T09:57:00.008+10:00

Our friends Sarah and George from Edmonton flew to Vancouver for a visit with us. On Sunday they picked us up in Squamish and we all headed to Whistler. It was very cloudy and cold, we couldn't really see the hills and the snow base on the ski hill was 47 cm so we didn't feel sorry at all that we couldn't ski!

We got to the village and there were lots of dispalys for the upcoming winter olympic games. Some of the events will be held in Vancouver, some will be in Whistler.

Sarah and Clo in a bobsleigh

Rej, Sarah and Clo on the podium

George curling on the carpet

Because of my foot situation, we had to keep it pretty easy. So we went for lunch at a nice brewery. I had a root beer but it wasn't very fizzy, so I'll have to get a can soon!

Clo and Sarah warming up by the wood fire

George and Rej ordered beer "samples"... portions were generous!

Sarah and I went to get our nails done while the guys walked around the village. There were lots of Christmas lights around and it was very pretty!

Christmas lights in Whistler village before dusk

Christmas lights on the main

Our nails... mine were a festive purple and Sarah's were "Brisbane Bronze" (that's the real name!)

We went for are super nice dinner at the Rim Rock Café, everything was SO good!!!

Thanks for meeting us Sarah and George! We had a great day!!!

Canadian Holiday: Squamish B.C.

2008-12-13T12:02:00.013+10:00

We had really good flights. Our travel agent Melanie had booked me wheelchairs for getting through airports and that was most helpful. Thanks Melanie!

The Qantas staff was super nice, pushing me around airports.We got to go through the priority lines at every security check. Our flights went really well. I watched 3 movies and two TV shows and tried to sleep a little but it was hard because we were travelling during the "day" in Brisbane. There were lots of kids and babies on our flights and they all were well-behaved. Our ears didn't suffer at all so we think the plane was well pressurised.

We landed in Vancouver and the Air Canada staff drove us around in one of the golf cart and we did "drive-thru" customs. It was great!

We arrived in Squamish on a cloudy day. It ended up being the nicest weather we got there! It was really nice to visit with David and Genevieve after so long (2004 for me and 2005 for Rej!).

After lunch (I had my ketchup flavoured chips, yeah!), David drove us to the river to see the bald eagles (it's the season). They were there, but on the other side of the river and Rej did not bring his big zoom lens so we couldn't make very good pictures of them. But we got this shot of the river:

Later that day David and Genevieve took us to a "secret spot" where we were sure to see some eagles. Here's a picture of a young bald eagle. His head isn't white yet:

Juvenile Bald Eagle

With the bad weather and my damaged foot, we've been pretty quiet. The guys played Gears of War 2 on the Xbox a couple nights, while Genevieve and I chatted, read and puddled around the house. Check out the guys' great posture:

Genevieve, Rej and David

Every day I do my physio stretches and exercises. My foot has been feeling better since the day before we left. I don't feel any pain on my injury anymore, just stiffness and cramps from not moving in the orthopedic walking boot. Illa, one of David and Genevieve's two malamutes, decided she should have a stretch with me on the yoga mat. Cute, eh? Not so cute a few days later when she started growling at me because she figured I was threatening her status in the hierarchy. She's an alpha dog. No question! And she doesn't like girls, but she loved Rej. That's alright, the male dog, Tuumbaq, likes me.

Clo and Illa

On our last day David received his brand new downhill bike. It's a Trek. He was quite happy! Here's a picture of him in his home "shop":

David and his brand new Trek

Thanks David and Genevieve for having us!

Next post: daytrip to Whistler!

Always empty your pockets...

2008-11-28T14:10:00.002+10:00

... before putting your clothes in the washing machine. Need I say more?

If you want to reach us this weekend, please phone the house or send us an email!

Sadly, I'm a mutant

2008-11-22T15:01:00.005+10:00

Looks like I won't be skiing, skating or even walking on two feet on my Canadian holiday.

I went to the sports doctor this morning and he recommended I spend an extra six weeks on crutches. I am devastated. What kind of a winter holiday will that be? How will I get through airports? It's totally gonna suck.

The doctor suggested getting an orthopedic support boot so I could get through airports. That'll help a bit, but it's an open toe thing so I'm gonna freeze my toes when I get to Canada! And walking in crutches on icey sidewalks and in snow banks is not going to be fun at all.

I started crying in the doctor's office when he said six weeks. I'm still crying a bit. I'm so disappointed. I was SO looking forward to some winter outdoors fun. Now I'll be stuck inside with my foot up. I was very optimistic and I thought if I followed the physio's advice I would heal up in time and be ok to ski. Grrrr... I guess it was wishful thinking.

So the diagnosis is that my sprained ankle is more like a sprained foot. I'm a mutant. I have an accessory navicular. That's a spare bone inside my left foot, next to the (normal) navicular.

I've injured the tendon (tib post) between the accessory and the normal navicular. Because that tendon is paramont in holding the foot's arch up when weight bearing, I can't put weight on that foot until it heals. And it takes a long time to heal. I hurt it on 30 October and it should be healed in January, if all goes well. If, not, I'll have to meet with a foot surgeon to review options.

Between that and the storms, it's been a rough week!

Video of Sunday's storm

2008-11-21T09:10:00.003+10:00

Someone sent this link around at work, it was taken from someone's balcony in our neighborhood. Pretty scary towards the middle!

Second storm

2008-11-20T11:24:00.003+10:00

All is still well but we got hit by another storm last night so we didn't sleep much. We went to be around 9:30 and there was lots of lightning. At about 11 we could hear a lot of thunder and it was raining. At about 2 a.m. there were very strong winds from the West and torrential rains. We got lucky again, no dammage, just a couple wet towels on our patio.

Everyone in our neighbourhood who had damaged roofs from the Sunday storm has had water in their house again. Poor them.

And they forecast another storm tonight.

The good news is the dam water levels were up by 1.36% this morning.

I've got the power!

2008-11-19T14:53:00.001+10:00

Good news, the power is finally back. I learned it on Energex's website and it was confirmed by our neighbour Sim. Yeah!

It really took them 48 hours from Monday PM. Oh well, I can't wait to have a hot shower and run my dryer and the aircon to dry stuff a bit.

Disaster, day 4

2008-11-19T10:27:00.005+10:00

Here are some pics I took from the morning following the storm.

This is our front yard, not too bad, a few broken branches and hail-damaged plants.

The view from our backyard has definitely changed. There used to be this nice line of trees, plus all the big trees in the park next door. Most of that is gone now.

Last night we emptied out the fridge, as food was starting to get warm. We borrowed an extra cooler from Dan and Amy and managed to get most of the food in it.

I've been using my helmet-mounted mountain bike LED lights as a flashlight because they're so powerful, and if you point them at the white ceiling, you get a pretty good ambient light for meals as well.

I'm really hoping we get power back today, because we have a lot of wet towels and clothes to wash/dry. I think the A/C will be running on drying mode for a few days too, because the weather outside looks like it will get worst before it gets better.

Disaster update

2008-11-18T15:45:00.002+10:00

We are now OK to drink the bird-poo water straight from the tap, without boiling it. Tests have shown it never was unsafe. One less hassle. Now if the power could just come back on, we could turn the A/C or heat on to dry off our stuff. And if the rain could stop, that would help everyone with roof damage. Oh well, one thing at a time!

I'll be pretty happy to drink some cockatoo-poo water tonight. Cheers!

Beautiful one day, disastrous the next!

2008-11-17T16:37:00.004+10:00

Our suburb was hit by a major storm on Sunday night. The good news is Rej and I are healthy, our house is OK and our car is OK. There was lots of rain (66 mm), big winds (90 km/h) and hail (plus the usual thunder and lightening).

We were driving back from the beach so we didn't see everything in our suburb but we got to taste it as we had left our living room windows open. The rain came in and soaked everything from ceiling to floors. Luckily Erika was with us when we got home and she helped us clean up. We had to wipe and remove everything (furniture, electronics, books, CDs, etc..) from the living room before rolling the carpet and underlay. We will get a new carpet, it was just soaked and it won't dry this week with rain forecasted for every day. And we have no more power.

Our garden got hit by the hail which shredded my favourite bromeliad and broke off a few branches. Our biggest loss is all the trees in the park next door that were sheltering us from the neighbour's view. We now have a lot of new neighbours.

We won't have power for another 48 hours says the power company and our water is not drinkable anymore since a roof full of bird poo collapsed on the reservoir.

A neighbouring house on Payne Road with tarps on the roof and soaked insulation out

Broken trees with bits of tin roofs

Gutter hanging on powerline and portapotty that was carried away for several meters

More broken trees (all the pictures are on Payne Rd)

This side street was almost completely blocked still on Monday morning

Unlucky parking spot

Energex crews at work trying to rebuild the powerlines

Here's a couple links:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/17/2421265.htm

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/collapse-contaminates-water/2008/11/17/1226770337911.html

More photos: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/gallery/0,23816,5035825-17382,00.html#

Melbourne Cup

2008-11-07T12:19:00.008+10:00

Melbourne Cup is a horse race held annually. It is a very strong Australian tradition. People stop work to enjoy a glass of bubbly and a bite to eat and watch it togheter (it was at 2 p.m. in Queensland). Ladies even dress up as if they were going to the races, wearing fascinators and dresses. Because I wasn't working last year (and we didn't have TV) this year was my very first Melbourne Cup. I loved it.

My office organised a luncheon and we had sweeps (that's bets that are not official... $1 and $2 each). The food was cooked by one of my coworkers and really tasty (roast chicken, ham, coleslaw, potatoe salad, humus, guacamole... everything home made! mmm...).

The profits from our luncheon were donated to save the Northen Hairy-Nosed Wombat, a cute marsupial which came really close to extinction. You can help save him too: http://www.wombatfoundation.com.au/

The race doesn't last very long, but it was lots of fun to watch and the two first horses came really close in the end so it was exciting. I had the luck of the beginer: I had bet $5 total on three horses and I won first horse in a $2 pool and last horse in the $1 pool. So I made $21 net! And I donated $20 to save the wombats.

Here are a few pictures. (They are not in order as I find if I re-order them the links to enlarge them break and I can't be bothered with copy-pasting html code... )

Me with my $20 and a plush wombat

During the race. We were watching on a projector.

My coworker Al thinking of how he can raise more money for the wombats (ok, watching the race really!)

Tight at the finish line!

With all my coworkers

My three horses. Viewed came first if I well remember!

Coworkers shot

My fascinator, made of cockatoo feathers I collected in my backyard from our very own wild cockatoos. I didn't pluck them, they lose them when they fight. That was about one week's worth of feathers. I washed them in eucalyptus soap and blew dried them. I used a glue gun to make the fascinator.

It's Movember

2008-11-07T12:12:00.004+10:00

But Rej refused to grow a moustache... Luckily, I have a couple work colleagues, the Northern Hairy MO-ed Wombats, who are doing it!

Craft Fair

2008-10-29T13:14:00.003+10:00

There was craft fair and quilt show in Brisbane last weekend. So I went with my friends Catherine and You-Nay. We started by touring the quilt show. Some very nice work was on display! Here's a few pics...

Catherine posing in front of her quilt. It's her first entry in a show and it's a nice one!

This quilt is made with small pieces of fabric. In case you don't recognize him, it's the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin. From close you could see he had some flowers on his nose.

There was a quilt contest on the theme of the Royal Flying Doctors, a favourite charity in Australia. Again, some fine work was on display!

After that we had an elbowing session with the thousands of other crafty ladies as we walked through the displays. I enjoyed two demonstrations of embossing and I bought a few cute stamps and some ribon for my next cushion. I registered my interest into the scrapbooking show that will be held in June. I think I'd like to attend some workshops and learn from the pros!

Morning routine

2008-10-24T15:58:00.005+10:00

Here are some pictures of our morning routine, to get to work...

I put my gloves on

I back up (my feet barely touch the ground!)

Rej puts his boots on

We warm up the engines on the "choke"

Rej, ready to go

We're going!

We're gone!

Belated Birthday Post

2008-10-24T15:19:00.004+10:00

I turned 30 a couple weeks ago and I celebrated! Before breakfast even I got to unwrap a present from our friends Sarah and Al whom have been living with us for a few weeks with their 8-month-old baby Connor. It's a necklace of blue pearls from the Sunshine Coast.

When I got to work, my colleagues had put little birthday signs for me (with Canada flags!) and I had some pressies waiting (that's Australian for present) and a large glittery card. They surprised me with a birthday cake for morning tea and also took me out for lunch (I picked the "Public Service Club" and I ate like a child: saussages in gravy with fries! mmm...).

My birthday cake at work

With my colleagues Chloe and Terry

Quickly blowing the candles before raising the fire alarm! Under Jenepher's supervision

Cutting the cake with some help. My bosses Louise and Chloe are working in the background. We had a busy day

Before supper I got to unwrap my pressies from my family and open up my birthday cards. Then Rej took me out to the Breakfast Creek Hotel for a nice steak dinner. We miss Alberta beef!

We were supposed to go camping on the beach for my birthday weekend but it was pouring rain so we postponned it (see pictures below!). So we organised a last minute barbecue at our place... Here are some pics:

Birthday girl with her "30th" champagne glass, her new earrings, new necklace and new gerberra flower

The "gang"... Kate, Sarah, Erika, Mariana, Nick, Al and half of baby Connor

Cari baked me some birthday cupcakes and she had glow-in-the-dark butterflies on it. Rej found frangipani candles. Cute, eh?

Mariana helping with dishes...

Nick and Steve playing Guitar Hero in the living room. We bought that game a few weeks ago and it is a lot of fun!

Beach Camping

2008-10-21T19:32:00.011+10:00

We spent last weekend up by Noosa national park doing some camping with the "regular camping gang": Cari ,Steve, Amy, Dan, Stacey, Darryl and the kids. We stayed on some private land right by the beach. The land belongs to friends of friends of ours ...

This was our setup, they have a rainwater tank plus a small "kitchen" area on a cement pad covered in AstroTurf.

And this is looking back towards the ocean. You can see the beach is very close.

The beach is open for 4x4 car traffic, but we also saw dirtbikes, horses and camels.

The girls playing in the "middle of the road"

Here's a few random beach shots

We also saw quite a few critters, for more on that, head over to the Gecko Hunter

Stitch'n Bitch!

2008-10-04T08:10:00.003+10:00

I had invited a few girls over for a craft night yesterday. The concept is simple: everyone brings the craft they are working on at the moment and we sit together and chat as we craft. The name "Stitch'n Bitch" was brought forward by Cari. No need to say that no boy is allowed. So Rej had to find something else to do (in this case, play videogames all evening).

Last night's Stitch'n Bitch was more or less productive.

My coworker Catherine was making faces for her dolls. She makes the most beautiful soft dolls... she's a quilter and you can really see how much effort she puts in every one of them. Here's a link to see the finished product: http://www.madebymaisie.typepad.com/

Cari had a major headache so she didn't craft in the end. You-Nay got her art book out but never got the pencil out! Stacey was enjoying her Friday night glass of wine before cutting her pattern... which never got cut! And Mariana had said from the start that she was in for the chat... she still has to find what kind of craft she might undertake!

Stitching and chatting... Catherine, Cari, You-Nay, Mariana and Stacey

Cari nursing her headache on the comfy chair

Chatting the night away...

The girls had brought a lot of food with them. Rej was quite hungry when he got home so that was a good thing!!! Thanks girls!

As for my own crafting, I was making a cushion for our living room out of some teatowels. I decided I wanted to have frayed edges so Catherine gave me some directions as to how to cut the fabric and wash it with a pair of jeans to get the fraying going. This morning I was very curious when I opened my washing machine and very pleased when I say the result. The fraying is just what I wanted. Now I have to put some velcro on to close it. Once it is finished I'll post a pic.

It was a very nice way to start the weekend... which should be beautiful (remember, Brisbane: beautiful one day, perfect the next!).

Cockatoo Feeding Video

2008-09-21T07:11:00.003+10:00

Rej put this video on the French blog... We are speaking French on it, but it is pretty self-explanatory... Yes, that's a wild one. He just started doing this trick last week. Now, we want to teach them to say "Chicken".

http://clo-la-patate.blogspot.com/2008/09/cockatoo-feeding-video.html

Our first vacation in Australia

2008-08-19T20:47:00.016+10:00

Clo and I had not taken any real time off since we got here, and we had not been anywhere further than 1 hours drive away, so we decided to book a last-minute week off and head to Port Douglas, about 60km north of Cairns in northern Queensland.

Grab a chair and some bandwidth, this is going to be a big post ...

Day 0: Arrive late afternoon and settle in.

We booked a 1 bedroom apartment in a nice resort just off the main stretch, and only minutes from the beach.

The view

Our private "hot" tub ... it wasn't really hot, but we got a little BBQ !

Day 1 - Breakfast with the birds

We had heard about this place from a few people. It's a wildlife sanctuary that offers a breakfast buffet. No you don't eat the wildlife, you have your breakfast and if you're lucky, birds come and steal your food! You're officially not supposed to feed the birds but one of the ladies working there told us if we gave the lorikeets grapes, that would be ok. After breakkie we went through the aviary and got to feed more birds. It was great.

Clo tries to touch the busy lori's. She got bit shortly after this pic was taken :-p

The rest of the day was spent at the beach and around town, checking out the many shops.

Day 2 - The Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation

We really wanted to see the Daintree forest, it's listed as a world heritage site and it's a true tropical rainforest. The hikes were short, mostly-paved and packed with other tourists, but the road driving in definitely made my top 5. Imagine a super twisty single-lane through lush rainforest canopies and vine loops hanging above the road. Too bad the rental Kia (automatic) wasn't worthy.

In the middle of the Daintree forest is Cape Tribulation, a small beach where the rainforest meets the Reef. The boulders in the panorama are actually coral formations.

Badly stiched panorama, but you get the idea...

Oh, and the beaches are FULL of coconut palms! Needless to say, I went out hunting and found a few of them and enjoyed the true tropical experience of eating fresh coconut on the beach.

Day 3 - The Great Barrier Reef

"The freakin' Great Barrier Reef!" That's what I kept saying over and over in my head for the first 10 minutes in the water, I swear. We booked a day trip with SilverSonic, which included 2 dives and unlimited snorkeling time. The water was pretty cold (remember, "winter") and Clo's lips were dark blue coming out from the second dive, but it was worth it. I have to admit I was expecting more soft coral (think Anemones) and more brightly colored coral and fish, but maybe that's just from too much Finding Nemo. It was great, we saw cool things on the dives, but most of the life is at 1m below sea level, so snorkeling is great too. Plus Steve was nice enough to lend me his Canon Powershot and underwater housing so I could take pics while snorkeling. Here goes...

Our trusty vessel

This is what the reef looks like from the surface

... and this is what it looks like up close

This is the closest I came to finding Nemo

Look at the colors on this fish!

He kept swiming around my mask and got into half of my pics at this site ... hihi

More of Nemo's friends

These giant clams can grow up to 2m wide, this one was ~1m, very colorful

Day 4 - Atherton Tablelands

If you go inland from Port Douglas through the aboriginal reserve village of Mossman, you'll go through rainforest. Then, as you go around the mountain range, it gets really dry. We stopped off at Mossman gorge, which had a nice hiking trail that ran along the gorge.

Me taking the picture above this one

There's lots of Sugar cane plantations on the lower lands and lots of different crops growing in the highlands. We visited a mango plantation as well as a coffee plantation. Then we visited a place that roasts coffee from all over the world. This place also had a coffee culture museum with lots of old machines.

Sugar cane harvest around Mossman

Mango plantation, they keep the trees small to help with picking

Termite mounds are everywhere in the tablelands

Ripe coffee cherries

Custom-build coffee harvester

Vintage coffee machines

... and grinders

Day 5 - Crocodiles

If you're going up north, you have to see crocs. All of the rivers have warning signs that say not to swim in them because of crocs, but you'll rarely ever see a croc. So rather than take the chance and book a river tour, we decided to visit a more touristy croc farm. They had hundreds of 'em.

Croc show, would you get this close ?

Taunting the locals with a headless chicken

Day 6 - Beach

On our last day, we spent a fair bit of time at the beach. Probably too long actually because we both got sunburns even with SPF30+ sunscreen. No pics, but I did take this one at another beach. If you look down at the sand you'll see thousands of tiny sand balls a few millimeters across, and if you stick around long enough you'll see who makes them. Tiny crabs roll up wet sand and move it away to dig a burrow.

There you go, if you read all the way here, thanks. Hope you enjoyed.

Birdie Bike Wash

2008-07-13T18:22:00.003+10:00

We had a pretty quiet weekend. We phoned our parents, installed a new chain on my mountain bike, went mountain biking both days and washed our bikes on Sunday. But, most of all, we spent our weekend parrot-watching. Our bird feeder is quite popular now and we get sulfur-crested cockatoos (the big white ones) coming every day and also rainbow lorikeets most days (pictured below). The lorikeets can be quite aggressive and chase the other birds away from the tray, even the big cockatoos. But they are so cute!

I tried hand-feeding the lorikeets a few times, but they don't trust me yet. However, they let me be pretty close to them when I'm working around the garden.

Rainbow

2008-07-07T12:55:00.005+10:00

I work on the 25th floor of a building downtown Brisbane and some of my colleagues do get a view. Today is a mix of sun and clouds, so we got to see this rainbow at noon. Pretty nice.
On the bottom right corner of the picture you can see Southbank, where the World Expo was held in 1988. It has a big lagoon for swimming and lots of entertainement around.

The bridge on the left hand side is the Captain Cook bridge, with the Riverside Expressway running on it.

This ends our guided tour of Brisbane for today. Thanks for attending.

Camping in the Bunya Mountains

2008-07-05T16:35:00.011+10:00

For the last weekend of June we went camping with the gang to Bunya Mountains National Park. Rej and I drove out through the back roads on Friday night for over three hours. We followed blindly the instructions from our GPS and that got to be pretty scary. We had not clicked the option "avoid unsealed roads" so we ended up driving some narrow 4x4 track in pitch black. I was scared, but Rej did amazing driving through that. He also avoided hitting a couple pademelons playing the old "deer in the headlight" game at the park entrance.

The park got its name from the bunya pines that grow in the area. The produce their enourmous pine cones (see here for pictures) every few years. The Aborigines used to gather in the area whenever the cones could be harvested and have some kind of long lasting feast. Apparently their diet was pretty poor in starchy foods so the pine nuts were a welcome addition. We tried some roasted ones and it is not as bad as I thought it would be. It tastes better than Vegemite but not as good as Tim Tams, as Australian food goes.

Bunya Pine Trees

The view from our first hike

The little breakfast-bird we had this trip. It was too small to steal toasts, unlike the kookaburras from the previous trip! We think it's an Eastern Yellow Robin.

Dan making friends with a cactus.

Cactus bloom

Our second walk took us through these really cool grass-trees (xanthorroea I think), some of which were over 900 years old.

The MacPurdys at sunset.

Dan and Amy at sunset.

The Dickinsons at sunset (see a trend here?)

Clo and Rej before sunset.

Sun starting to set behind the really cool and old grass-trees.

More sunset (it was the whole point of this second hike).

On Sunday the gang split in two, with the NovaScotians going to a winery while Amy, Dan, Rej and I (Clo) went on a third hike. We picked this hike where we were to see a few waterfalls. However, in a drought affected area, you can't expect the Niagara. Well, there was a bit of water dripping along the rock, at least. And we went trough a really nice rainforest. We also had a nice cheese and cracker break on a bench on top of a hill in a clearing, with a nice view. I would say it was still worth it even if the falls were pretty dry! Oh, and we found some trap-door spider nests (but didn't see the spiders... phew).

Walking through the ferns.

It was overall a very good trip. The hikes were not as spectacular as at Girraween National Park, but the campground we had was very nice and quiet and there was only one other couple on the second night, so we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves.

There were a few possums looking for food around the campground at night, but they were not as fat as the previous trip. However, one of them climbed the tree above our tents and peed right on the Dickinson's tent! I thought that was pretty funny.

Another little adventure: on Saturday night, Cari, Stacey and I were doing dishes. The possums had been around and were not shy to come really close to us. At one point Stacey starts screaming and climbs onto the picnic table yelling "something brushed my leg!". Well, in no time both Cari and I were also perched up the picnic table. When we looked under the table to see if the "beast" was there, we could only see a fallen dishcloth. So much for a wild beast!

Also, an interesting fact: we drove through a town called Blackbutt. We all wondered where that name came from. Well, apparently it's from a type of eucalyptus tree that grows in the area.

There are more pictures posted on the Dickinson's and the MacPurdy's blogs.

Life isn't Perfect

2008-06-30T17:07:00.003+10:00

But is still overall pretty good, don't worry.

However, I now realise that we (I mostly) have been blogging about the "happy things" of moving to Australia, but have voluntarily not talked about the "not-so-happy-things" of moving overseas. I just figured that all you wanted was pretty pictures and adventurous stories. Well. We've had a lot of that and you were able to read it. However, life isn't perfect and I don't wake up smiling and full of energy every day and some days I just feel like crap and that's the way it is.

I would like to say that "I didn't move all the way to Australia to cry" but that would be fooling myself and I have been doing that for many months now. Until I got sick last week and went to the doctor and she couldn't find anything wrong with me until she asked "have you been feeling homesick lately?" and I was going to say "no" but then I burst into tears and had to admit I had. It was the truth. No more lying to myself. Here it is, written white on black on the internet:

I am feeling homesick.

I was expecting to move here and feel happy every day. That's what I was expecting from myself: live a perfect life in Australia. My life was never perfect in Canada. If you know me well enough, you know I've done my fair share of crying there too. That's just part of life and part of me: I am human and I have feelings and I cry. So why did I expect that I would not be sad or homesick in Australia?

I have these great expectations for myself. I should be more than perfect. I should be a superhero. I can do anything, as long as someone can teach me. I get over any fear: drowning when scuba diving, tearing my body apart falling of a motorbike or breaking all my bones coming off my mountain bike. Well, it turns out that I just can't get over my fear of snakes and I have no desire to work at it. I could probably go to reptile zoos and pet them and learn to like them, but I don't want to ask this from myself. I just am not the superhero I expected myself to be.

I had great expectations when I started my master's too. I was going to be a super efficient student who would work really hard to get it done in one year. When that didn't happen, I was going to finish it by the evenings and weekends while working full-time in a job where I committed 100% of myself. When that didn't work (and I ended up crying), I was going to work on it on my days off and some Saturdays. When we decided to move to Australia, I was going to work full-time on my thesis for a few months from the other side of the planet and get it done. Well, you know what? All these expectations I had for myself were unrealistic in the first place. Finishing a thesis that is barely started when you are isolated in Australia and your entire department is on the other end of the planet isn't realistic. I have to review my expectations.

I was expecting that I would not feel homesick. I had lived 4000 kilometres away from "home", I had established new roots there, why couldn't I do the same in Australia? Well, I was forgetting about how homesick I had felt in Edmonton that first autumn. I think I kind of knew that I would have a cultural shock at one point, but I didn't want it to imply feeling homesick.

I don't even know what I am homesick for. Family? Friends? Quebec City? Edmonton? Driving on the right side of the road? Maybe I'm homesick for the idea of Canada.

It's all the little things that are different here that get me. I went to buy vitamins, but the only brand I knew was Centrum (and I don't like them). All these little things get annoying when you're already feeling homesick. I had to settle for some Aussie vitamins with a kangaroo on them.

Anyways, I read today that we are getting a Costco in Brisbane. The first one in all of Australia and it's coming here just for me! :D

I know I'll get over the homesickness. I'll adapt. I'll eventually embrace Australia just like I had embraced Alberta. I just need time. And I need to stop lying to myself. I'm not perfect. I'm not a superhero. I get sad. I can only accomplish so much in one day. I cry. I cry in front of people. I'm human.

If you've read this till the end, thank you. If you haven't because you only come here for the pretty pictures, that's ok. I forgive you. I like pretty pictures too. We'll post some from our camping trip of last weekend soon.

My Little Motorcycle

2008-06-22T21:47:00.003+10:00

My coworker Terry surprised me with a present this week: a little motorcycle! It's a really nice plush toy, super cute, with a headlight and some chrome pipes. I love it. I brought it home to show Rej, but I'm keeping it at the office for a while now. Funny that someone would think of making a plush toy motorcycle, eh?

An Australian Breakfast

2008-06-22T21:36:00.004+10:00

Australians cook everything on the barbie. Even breakie. We had to try this, so we bought the little rings and Rej got to work one morning... Here's the proof a bloke can cook some good tucker on the barbie. He roasted the English muffins and the bacon. He cooked the eggs in the rings and then assembled them with some tasty cheese (that would be called cheddar in Canada).

Sunday Parrots

2008-06-22T21:32:00.002+10:00

Sunday morning. Rej is making French toasts while I sip my coffee. I look outside and I see a cockatoo in my bird-feeder. Quite exciting!

Then a second cockatoo arrives, its head crown up, shrieking like a smoker and rocking like a heavy metal singer.

The second cockatoo joined the first one on the bird-feeder.

They ate almost symmetrically.

Toe-scratching.

We got to watch them most of the day, as they eventually went to eat clover in the park next door. They came back to the bird-feeder later in the day as well. Pretty cool cockatoos!

Gotta Post This!

2008-05-30T13:19:00.002+10:00

Did you know that Australia has a National Public Toilet Map? Yeah yeah, I'm not kidding! You can view it here: http://www.toiletmap.gov.au/default.aspx . You can enter a postcode to find the nearest toilet or even plan a journey according to public toilets! Quite handy. But I had a good chuckle when I discovered it, searching for a regional development project!

Here's some background on why the Australian government developped it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Public_Toilet_Map.

May be Rej will download the map for our GPS! :)

Camping at Girraween

2008-05-28T20:45:00.006+10:00

We went on our first Australian camping trip last weekend. All the details are written on the French blog, or you can go read the Dickinson's or the MacPurdy's blog for the English stories and lots more pictures!

The Dickinson's: http://thedickinsons.blogspot.com/2008/05/campingfriday-night-and-saturday.html

The MacPurdy's: http://macpurdys.blogspot.com/2008/05/girraween-national-park-1st-camping.html

Lots of kangaroos camping with us.

Sunday morning kangaroos.

Crimson Rosellas and a magpie.

Shamus obeying Rej's request to make the rosellas take off.

Toast-thief kookaburras.

Garbage-thief possum.

Hard-to-split red wood.

The Sphinx, from Castle Rock.

Dan, Steve and Rej at the top of Castle Rock.

Legs shot, or the best picture I (Clo) have taken in a while!

Steep downhill from Castle Rock, especially towards the end of a 10-km hike.

Toilet-kangaroos waiting for us at the bottom.

Sunday morning hand warming.

Sunday morning frisbee game between Shamus and patient-Dan

Superb red tree in cute-town Stanthorpe, Queensland's coldest town. As Canadians, we loved it.

We loved our first camping weekend and can't wait to go back, discover more about Australia's natural wonders...

First Bike Friend!

2008-05-18T10:10:00.010+10:00

We finally have a friend to bike with! How do you find a biking friend in a new place? You can either attempt to get friendly with bikers on the trails, or you can convert your new friends to biking.

We tried the first option in November, when we meet some Queenslanders at the entrance of a trail and they offered to show us the good runs. However, on a +32 C humid afternoon, Rej and I ended up all white and sweaty, on the verge of throwing up after half-hour. Technically we were fine and could keep up to the Queenslanders but we were not acclimatised yet. So we had to bail out before crashing.

When Dan told Rej he was looking into getting back into mountain biking after several years off (last time he biked, there was no suspension and he didn't even have V-brakes!), we were super excited. Dan found a previously enjoyed 2007 Giant Reign for sale on the Gold Coast, so Rej made the trip with him on Thursday night to go get it. It was in mint condition and has very good components (better than my 2004 RM Slayer!). Great deal!

So, Saturday morning was the test. We made plans for a 9:30 ride. Rej tore his last pair of contacts so he had to go for an emergency eye exam at the local optometrist, which luckily opens at 9. He came back with a trial set of contacts. We got Dan geared up with a helmet, some gloves and a hydra pack and rode the 1.3 km to the trail head.

Rocket Frog was quite dry and powdery, but not sketchy. Dan amazingly remembers all his skills from the old days, so he had no trouble keeping up to Rej. We crossed Gap Creek Road and did Pony Express. This little video of Dan was taken at the end of Pony Express:

After that, we rode DirtGirl, which was a lot shorter than we remembered. We stopped at the picnic area to eat a bar and this little magpie came to check out Rej's bike:

We then made our way back up. Rej took the fireroad while Dan and I climbed Rocket Frog. I always like the feeling of climbing berms. By the time we got home it was noon and getting a bit hot, but we were quite happy from our ride!

Now, all I need is a girlfriend to ride with! Maybe if I'm patient I'll be able to convince Amy, Dan's fiancee, to come and try? I miss my DirtGirls and my fellow sisters from the dysfonctional familly bike gang: Michelle, Jan, Darlene, Caroline, Priscilla, Sherryl... where are you? ;)

Bird Feeder Visitors

2008-05-14T22:03:00.004+10:00

We installed a bird feeder in hopes of attracting parrots, especially galahs to our yard. However, they seem to prefer the clover field next to the house (see the Gecko Hunter's blog). So we have to settle for magpies, doves and even crows. So I'm starting to wonder whether it's worth putting any more seeds! Although I was very optimistic the first weekend that we installed it when I saw a pale headed rosella feeding in it!

House Warming Party

2008-05-13T20:39:00.003+10:00

We had invited lots of people to our house-warming party on Saturday. We had each invited all our work team and I also some additional friends. In the end, no one came from my work, but lots of people came from Pandemic Studios. Overall we had 30 guests. Because it was Mother's
Day weekend, some people were coming before or aftern another party. People started arriving at 3 and we went to the park next door to throw the frisbee and kick some soccer balls. There were several kids so they liked that. We fired up the BBQ at dusk and got the food out. We had set up a "buffet table" in the dinning room (this picture doesn't work, sorry).

Rej had made a potatoe salad, I had made a spinach and mandarine salad, a vegetarian dish in my crockpot and we had lots of cheeses and dips with crackers and bread. For dessert we had watermelon and I had made some chocolate chip macademia cookies. Cari had sent a dessert too, some type of chocolate squares (delicious).

We had cleaned the entire house, so we took some pictures before people got there. Here's our bedroom with our new furniture we got in February:

Here's our living room with the couch we received that very morning. We barely had time to spray it with Scotch Guard to prevent stains before the party!

Unfortunately, we were too busy with the food to take pictures during the party, but it was lots of fun! Australians like their food and we received lots of comments and recipe requests. The cheese platter was all gone (except for a tiny piece of edam). Because we had started early and there were kids, it finished early. We were in bed by 10:30, wow!

Labour Day

2008-05-06T16:50:00.004+10:00

We had Monday off for Labour Day, so we were meeting with some friends at New Farm Park for a picnic. Parks have electric BBQs here so you can cook your meet. And you're allowed to drink alcohol.

Mike and Mireille (their son Jason in the stroller), Margot and Rowan

The guys played frisbee, despite the crowd. Rej got a few action shots!

Darryl

Mike

Rowan

Dan

The kids were tired after playing all morning so they were napping in the strollers!

Stacey & Shamus

Sarah & Connor (13 weeks-old)

Dirtbiking Course

2008-05-04T21:04:00.005+10:00

We had scheduled our dirtbiking course for the last Sunday of April. The day came and I was scared stiff from my previous experience. I didn't sleep well the night before and my stomach was hurting in the morning. We had to leave by 9:30 to drive 90 km of highway to get to the course. I was as scared of driving this long on the highway as I was to go back in dirt. By 8:30 I was in tears, panicked. By 9:00 I had calmed myself and decided not to go. Then I started crying again because I was ashamed not to go. In the end I decided that it was better to die of fear than of shame. So I went. Rej was very patient during that critical hour and throughout the day.

We stopped for gas and to stretch our legs a few times on the way in, so it really wasn't so bad.

When we got to the farm where the course was, we first saw a bunch of five-year olds driving in circles on mini-bikes. That made me feel confident that I could do it. Someone told us to go higher up for our course. That's when I saw our course, which included jumps and pros jumping them. I was re-scared.

The jumps

Dirtbiking at a young age requires a lot of parental support. Each time a kid's bike stalled, the dad would be running to help with a jug of petro and a toolbox! It is quite funny to see a six-foot tall man try to kick-start a 50CCs!

Our instructors getting ready to show us the neutral position (standing up on the foot-pegs, knees bent squeezing the seat, elbows bent outward, body over the handle bar). Ben is sponsored by Honda. Ritchie is sponsored by Yamaha.

The farm had a nice view on the Glass House Mountains and the weather was clear so we could see far.

Rej and I taking a break... or a brake ;)

Instructors up front, students behind. Except for a couple dads taking the course with their kids, we were the oldests.

Bubble head. I have the forehead of a mutant and couldn't find a dirtbiking helmet on time for the course. I finally found one yesterday, too late. I never had this problem with cycle helmets, but then, they are so much more adjustable.

In the end, all we did was a little circuit next to the jumps, but not in the jumps. Phew! Actually, we did go in the jumps at the end of the day, but very slowly. I did the entire course in first gear, that gives you an idea. Rej made a little video with me, but it's rrrrrreally not impressive (I get lapped by kids) and boring, so I'll spare you that!

The 90-km trip back home went well, but our bums were really sore by then, and so were our muscles. We were sore for a few days... But we really liked our day. I liked riding in the sand. And the fact there were no rocks or steep hills on the loop.

All's well that ends well.

Ladies' Day at the Races

2008-04-13T07:29:00.008+10:00

Pandemic organised a ladies' day out at the races for the Pandemite ladies and female partners yesterday. Races are an Australian tradition. Girls really dress up for them, wearing dresses, high heels, hats and fascinators (a feathery hair ornament). It's a big social event. While we were in the "Go Red" section which was really catered for women, you could tell that the "normal" section was really a meat market.

We all met at the studio for a few mimosas and then headed out to the racecourse. Everyone was really dressed up!

Waiting for the other girls to arrive.

The other girls arriving

The Go Red zone means that we were under red tents, so a lot of my pictures turned out very red!

Amy getting ready for her next bet. She's wearing a fascinator.

Stacey met these kids (they're probably nineteen) at the betting table and following their advice, she betted on this horse that actually came in first, so they came back to chat with her after.

These are the starting gates from which the races start.

It got to be quite hot under the tents so we would go hangout under the umbrella, where there was more of a breeze.

It's hard to get a clear picture of the horses because they run so fast!

Horses coming in. See the palm trees in the background?

Chatting in the red zone.

You-Nay posing for me!

Stacey looking glamourous.

Getting ready for the next race. You-Nay and I betted on number 11: Monashee Prince. I really went by the name, as I know nothing about race horses!

We took a bus back to the Valley to finish the night at the Fringe Bar. This picture is at the bar. However, Amy and I got our men to meet us there so we could go out for supper. When Rej arrived at the bar, the girls gave him a screaming welcome (Boy! Alert!). He even stripped one shirt button for them!

There were eight races throughout the day. I bet on every one of them (between $2 and $5) and ended up spending a whole $21 to win $8.80 on the very last race. Not bad! Betting on every race definitely kept my interest up the whole afternoon and I was really excited when my horse placed second in the last race. I had a couple horses place fourth as well, but that didn't win me anything.

It was a really fun day and it's always good to meet the other Pandemic partners. I think it's great that the company is making the effort to organise social events like this one and it really makes me feel more welcome to Australia. Plus, knowing the other partners makes the company parties where the boys are invited so much more fun, because I don't have to spend all my time next to Rej if I know lots of other people!

April Fool's Snake

2008-04-01T15:29:00.004+10:00

Today, April 1, I wasn't feeling really good when I got to work. I had a runny nose and was feeling feverish, so I decided to come home before it got worse. I napped all morning and when I got up in the afternoon, checkout what was outside our office window:

I will let Rej identify it and post more pics on his Gecko Hunter blog, but I wanted to give you a preview...

Easter Party!

2008-03-24T09:39:00.008+10:00

We were invited over at the Dickinsons for Easter. We said we would bring dessert...

Rej made some chocolates...

I made cupcakes!

My favourite face for pictures

Rej started taking all these pictures of Steve doing weird faces... this is just the first one..

The Dickinsons had a nice set up going on in their living room. And Breagha was the centre of attention most of the evening... Her brother Shamus was watching the Incredibles in the spare bedroom, we almost didn't see him!

Stacey, Breagha and I having a good time

Breagha is already a shoe girl at 20 months! What will it be at 20 years?

Morgan and Steve

Breagha played with her shoes for over half and hour... she's easy to entertain!

How many pictures of Breagha did Rej take???

I bet you know her name by now... starts with a B

Lady Amy enjoying a glass of rosé

The sippy cup was abandonned...

...so the shoe could become a pretend phone in this very serious game
Fun fun fun! Cari, Dan, Steve and Kristy

Jessie the Easter Bunny

Kristy is telling us this story about how she dared her brother to jump out of the car... but we all misunderstood her Aussie accent... To us it sounded that she did her brother or dated her brother... Poor Kristy, misunderstood in her own country!

She was really good about it though and had a good laugh with us!

Morgan and Kate

Steve and baby Jessie, with Steve in the background

Thinking Darryl

Learnin' young to appreciate beer...

Kate

Easter Bilby!

2008-03-19T20:45:00.003+10:00

I was mentionning to my colleagues how much more chocolate eggs and how less chocolate bunnies I had seen in the stores here than in Canada and they told me "We might not have lots of chocolate bunnies, but we have chocolate bilbies!" That really sparked my curiosity.

The bilby is the cutest little marsupial and it is endangered. So when you buy a chocolate bilby, 50 cents go to the Save the Bilby Fund. Rej and I are lucky enough to have seen a live bilby when we went to the Ekka in August, when the fund was raising money.

So, I went and bought Rej this dark chocolate bilby. Can't wait to see what Australian chocolate animal he will get me. Koala? Kangaroo? Sea turtle? I just hope it won't be a snake or a spider...

Want to see furry bilbies pictures? Visit http://www.easterbilby.com.au/

Now that I think about it, I can see why chocolate bunnies are not so popular... with the whole rabbit as an invasive species thing...

Dirt Biking at Mount Mee

2008-03-19T20:23:00.003+10:00

Note: if you can read French, I think the French post is better.

Warning: not for the faint of heart!

We went dirtbiking on Saturday at this provincial park about 65 km from our place. The begining of the trail was really nice, with some little hills and a creek crossing. We liked it. We stopped for a break and took this picture:

At a road crossing (Rej is hidding the yellow part of his bike)

We decided to come back using the other trail, thinking it would be just the same as the one we came on. Big mistake. It was a lot steeper. We were doing fine though. Up to this hill:

I managed to get down the hill on the compression in first gear, like a pro. I was right behind Rej, so when he stopped to see how I was doing, I grabbed the front brake. That's when I got to taste dirt, collected a bruise on my knee and crooked my handle bar. Rej was really sorry. He picked me up and we just had to continue in order to get out of there. We took the pic so we could remember the hill and left.

The trail was still going down after that. I wasn't too concerned because I had already made it on the first section (like a pro, remember). Turns out this second section was a lot steeper and rockier. I was going way too fast. I tried to use my back brake but couldn't find it with my big boot. Tried to reach for the front brake, gave some throttle instead. Great, I was now going faster. Finally was able to touch the front brake, but didn't want to give too much given the previous wipeout. The bike was fishtailing by then and I was just hanging on, using all my mountain biker skills. I was yelling very loud in my helmet. I made it down and up the next hill and told Rej that I almost died.

We made our way out of this crazy trail onto the fireroad. I was really slow on the fireroad. We stopped for gas on the way back. I really felt like going to pee, but in all this gear it's a big commitment, so I gave more throttle and made it home. I had a huge cry after my shower to get out all the emotion that I had to keep in during the ride.

Post-mortem:
1- I will register us to our free dirtbike course that I've postponed so we learn proper technique.
2- I will do squats so I have enough strenght to stand on my pegs longer.
3- I will not go back to Mount Mee for dirtbiking in a really really long time!

On an other topic, on Friday we installed our garage shelves and it looks great! We got to store our camping and biking gear and some tools. All we are missing is now a workbench. We've also posted the giant drawing that our biking friends in Edmonton made for us before our departure.

This picture is already out-of-date, as I got a new handlebar and new hand protectors (white instead of alien green... ooops, I mean "Kawasaki green"... right). Anyways, it shows the shelves...

Oh! And we received our Canadian lawn mower from Lee Valley (we are so crazy, we had it shipped UPS!). It works so well. We finally have decent looking cut grass. No picture though.

Biking in Brisbane Forest Park

2008-03-15T18:12:00.004+10:00

We're lucky enough to live right by parkland over here. We know there are trails in the park, but it takes a good map to find them. So far we've spotted a few but last weekend we went further (and higher) to hunt for the GOOD trails. Turns out the 30min fireroad climb was worth it, we found two really well-groomed trails: Pipeline and Death Adder. We rode down Pipeline and came up death adder, next time we'll try the other way around. They were both what I'd consider Blue DH trails and ~2-3km each. Lots of fun.

Rock berm in pipeline

Some Aussie "shore"

Cactus growing in Death Adder

It was a pretty hot day (~28C) , Clo packed some ice in her Camelback but then ran out of water. Her solution: stick the ice-filled bladder down her back to cool off and make some water. She was pretty proud and said it was the best idea she's had in a long time.

On an Island

2008-03-05T20:58:00.006+10:00

The "boys" (Dan, Steve and Rej) had organized us a weekend on North Stradbroke Island (aka Straddie), so as the "girls" (Amy, Cari and Clo), we got to enjoy it. We went scuba diving, did a long bush walk to see Blue Lake, had supper at a resort, did early morning yoga on the beach, ate a great breakfast and spent a few hours on the beach (long enough for some of us to catch sunburns). It was really fun and holiday-ish to go there even if "just" for the weekend. I think taking the ferry is part of what makes it feel like a holiday.

We only had brought the small "sports camera" with the underwater pack, so we don't have many pictures (but you can check the Dickinsons's blog as Kodak-Steve took plenty:

http://thedickinsons.blogspot.com/2008/03/stradbroke-island.html).

Here are the pictures we have anyways!

6 a.m. Saturday monring: Cari and I assembling our scuba kits under Steve's supervision

A brown seagull. We have no clue how it got to be this colour, it's not common here either.

The ocean was quite agitated and there were lots of waves

The underwater visibility at the beach wasn't good, so no fish pic (but we saw lots of fish during our dives, espically puffer fish)

Surfer dudes full of pink zink

You can tell we've ben having monsoon rain for the past two months as the island was very lush and beautiful!

The island is quite close to Brisbane (about 50 minutes from our house and 40 minutes on the ferry) so we hope to go back. We had rented a house for really cheap that looked like a ski cabin... but the subtropical kind.