January 26, Australia day, is the anniversary of ships arriving in Sydney carrying a load of Convicts.

This past weekend Andrew and I kept pretty busy. Saturday we bummed around a bit before going to see the WNBL Canberra Capitols play the Sydney Heat. I'm not too into basketball but by the end of the game I was on the edge of my seat cheering along with the rest of the crowd waiting to see if we would make it through the semi-finals. We won by two points in overtime, it was amazing! On the way out we decided that if they get a home game for the finals we'll be there.

Sunday we were going to go to the beach for the day but we got halfway there and saw that it was still so cloudy, I checked and it was going to be cloudy, slightly drizzly and only a little warm all day. We decided to head back instead of wasting our time driving down on a crappy day. Instead we spent the day relaxing at home watching movies.

Monday for pre-Australia day we went over to the Walkers for a bbq before heading to Parliament House lawn for Day 1 of Australia Day celebration. They announced Australian of the Year and had 6 or so bands play. We were pretty excited in a dorky way for Hailey Warner, she was runner up Australian Idol this year and Andrew and I were cheering for her during the competition.

I have to say that people give Americans crap all the time for being patriotic but we are nothing compared to an Aussie on Australia Day. Any day of the year you can walk into an Aussie bar anyhow and if you yell out "Aussie Aussie Aussie" the entire bar will answer you back with a resounding "Oi! Oi! Oi!". I have never seen such patriotism as I did as the celebrations Monday night. There were shirts (tee, tank, halter), hats (bucket, baseball, straw, jester, cowboy), stickers, tattoos, flip flops, sneakers, shorts, underwear, bras, bathing suits for me and women, towels, coolers, kuzzes, tents, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, buttons, coloured wigs, flags of all kinds, small flags, car flags, flags made into dresses, shirts, skirts, capes, really little flags, bunting, beach balls, balloons, blow up kangaroos, inflatable number 1 fingers, inflatable bats, umbrellas, and that's just what I can remember seeing last night. It's beyond absurd. And these are normal people, on 4th of July there are some people who go all out and will wear hats, shirts or something but this crowd was covered with it, our group was overflowing with Kate and her friends covered in flags of all kinds.

Andrew and Nathan relaxing before the show

Look at all the crazy Aussies

Andrew all Red Sox-ed out

It was a whole lot of fun to listen to all the music and just relax in the warmth for the evening. They even did a flyover with their equivalent of the Blue Angels, it was really cool to watch.

Tuesday for actual Australia Day we decided to sleep in before heading to Pine Island to swim for a few hours. The day was nice and relaxing, as most of our days are, swimming then down to the city to meet Dave for a drink before watching the massive amount of fireworks going on on the river.

Down at Pine Island

Good first Australia Day in Australia all around. The half week back at work was really slow and painful but completely worth it for last weekend.

Dropbears are an evil species of koala that fall from trees and attack humans.

The evil strain of koala don't actually exist. The story was created to fool Americans.

I'm slowly catching up with myself, only a week and a half behind now, yay!

Last Saturday we got up at the crack of dawn for Damien to pick us up at 6:30 and make the longer drive down to Thredbo, which is about twenty minutes past Jindabyne where the Walkers have their lake house. We were going to Thredbo for the Thredbo Blues Festival. Andrew and Damien have been going to this for years, and they've been getting their early for years just so they can get "the perfect seats" which are on the tops side of the pool surrounded by umbrellas in view of the bands. I have to admit it was a good spot to sit but the two of them were so nervous the last half hour of the drive that we'd get there and someone else would have taken their spot, discovered how wonderful it is up there and beaten us there. Apparently the panic is a yearly tradition as well. Andrew and I left Damien to park the car so Andrew could run up and secure our spot, make sure we were safe for another year. When I rounded the bend to the pool at 9:30am it was completely empty except for Andrew and the people setting up for the festival.

The festival didn't actually start until 11am so g [the g was Andrew's contribution to the blog, he felt left out], so people didn't start showing up until 10:30 or so. We did end having a great view of everything though, and were covered by shade for most of the day. The first band sounded like we were in a dentist office so we ignored them. The second one, Gail Page, absolutely blew our socks off. She had 3 guitars and at one point had another one of the performers for the day come play as her second pianist. They were just incredible.

The boys by the pool

It was a bit chilly, hence the hoodie

The crowds around the pool, the bands were playing at the red and white stripped tent

Andrew loves making faces behind me when we try and take a nice photo:


The boys were very excited about Bondi Cigars, who were the last ones to play poolside, so we took a quick dip in the pool while we waited for them to come on. Another great band to listen to but at the end of the day I still think Gail Page was my favorite.

After the last band at the pool we decided to ditch our pool gear at the car and go to one of the bars that had three more hopefully good, acts on. Andrew broke my only pair of shows on the way to the car and they were beyond repair, a good reason as to why girls should always bring two pairs of shoes everywhere they go. Luckily Damien saved the day with his Chuck Taylor Converse that he lent to me so I wouldn't be barefoot.

We did a bit of dance and jamming with the bands until probably 1 at which point I was done for, so Andrew and I headed back to the car to crash while Damien stayed on til the end with the last band. We had figured sleeping in Damien's beast of a SUV wouldn't be a problem because of it's size but the back seat wouldn't fold down. So it was either cramped falling off the back seat, or half sitting up freezing in the front seat, I tried both and it did not provide for a good nights sleep. We've already decided we're booking a room soon for next year so everything isn't sold out like it was this year.

Damien was lucky because he has a swag that he brought along with him. A swag is some weird combination of cushy roll-up and sleeping bag all in a one and waterproof. Damien took his portable, sleep anywhere swag and threw it up on the roof. It made for pure entertainment the next morning when cars drove by and saw him up there.



We packed up pretty early and made our way to Jindabyne for breakfast before heading the rest of the way home. The rest of the weekend was spent lying on the coach, eating take away pizza and watching movies, the best way to spend a Sunday in my book.

Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut !, Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.

So I'm now back into the mix with work after a lovely Christmas holiday. Starting the Monday before Christmas we had carols over at Andrew's parents house which meant snacks, drinks and off key singing. They even did an Australian version of "Jingle all the way". Judy had bought some egg nog from the store and was delighted when we all enjoyed a glass, with a touch of brandy of course. It was a really fun evening and could have only been better if there was a chill in the air instead of the heat.

Our funky looking Christmas tree

We were released from work on Christmas Eve at 11:30am which was great because then I got to spend the rest of the day with Andrew who was off from work. We decided to be french for the day and headed down to the river with a picnic of bread, cheese and fruit. We got a whole stretch of beach just to ourselves, sadly it was an overcast day so we only stayed for half an hour before heading home to switch for our bikes and food for a bbq. We sat down by the lake with our delicious meal and drinks watching the wind blow people all over the lake before joining Bonnie and Damen, plus baby Connor on the other side of the lake.

Our empty riverside we got all to our self

Christmas day I woke up early, cause really, who sleeps in on Christmas. Since Andrew's one Christmas request was to get to sleep in I left him alone and went to begin making the traditional eggs benedict and skype with my parents who were at home with Jess and Nana and Papa before heading off to the Christmas Eve service.

The eggs turned out alright but I can imagine it will only get better over time, I accidentally overcooked the eggs, which looked nothing like the perfect orbs my father comes out with, and the sauce was a little to thin, but it still tasted delicious.

After breakfast we did presents here for the two of us (I got really swank Gucci perfume, the only Gucci anything I've ever owned) and presents from my family. Then we headed over to Andrew's parents house for our stockings and more presents, I got this awesome picnic basket that comes with 4 settings of plates, flatware and wine glasses. It even has toothpicks and salt and pepper shakes, plus a waterproof blanket inside. We haven't gotten a chance to use it yet but next weekend we probably will. Oh, and Andrew got a big George Forman grill, we've used it heaps already, it makes cooking and cleaning so much easier.

So at Andrew's parents we did all the presents and had dinner, Andrew's aunt and his cousins came over so I got to meet more family members, I've almost met them all now. After dinner we played this cute Christmas game about Lefty the Elf, everyone had a present and everytime Judy said "left" or "right" in the story we had to pass the present in that direction. At the end of the story we got the present and if it was something you could wear you had to put it on (Andrew got a baseball cap covered in silver glitter). We made the rounds to see a few friends before ending our Christmas night back at home.

Boxing Day we decided to relax and not do too much. We skyped with my family for a while, the video was delayed by about a minute and a half so we couldn't see what was going on with what we heard. Everyone had a great time walking behind the person talking and pulling faces that we wouldn't see until long after the culpurate was gone. I spent most of the rest of Boxing Day off shopping with Kate and Judy. Boxing Day in Australia is big on shopping like Black Friday in the states, which they, for obvious reasons, don't celebrate.

The day after Boxing Day, we've got no name for it, we drove down to Jindabyne where Andrew's parents have a townhouse. Jindabyne is on a lake and close to the ski fields so during the summer they take the boat out and swim and during the winter hit the slopes. We took a walk around the lake and through part of town on the first night and spent more time relaxing. Monday we were taken by boat to this secluded stretch of beach that we had all to ourselves. We set up our towels, tent and portable grill. The water felt great so we spent the morning and afternoon relaxing and swimming.

Our private beach for the day

Austin decided my leg was the perfect place to lie down and wouldn't move

We were trying to teach Jessie how to swim, this is the closest she got while we were there
but apparently a few days later she was swimming all over the place

We didn't do too much else until New Years Eve, we decided that we should take advantage of not doing anything before we had to go back to work. For New Years we started out with Kate at the parents house since they were still down at the lake and then Damen picked us up for us all to head into the city with Bonnie and Connor for a drink before going back to their place. We kept harassing them about what irresponsable parents they were bringing their baby out to the bar so Bonnie made Andrew push the pram back to the car so he'd get the funny looks and they walked behind us complaining like we had about them. It was a fairly quite evening back at their place, they have two other friends who just had babies so they came over with the kids. Even still I figure it was nice of us to not make them sit at home just them and the kid on their first New Years Eve with him. It was good fun.

The day after New Years we went back to being bums. Saturday we went with Will, Pip, his brothers and sister plus their partners to a water park called Jamberoo. It wasn't nearly as big as the one we used to go to back in Texas but it was so much fun. It kept pouring down rain so we were absolutely soaked before we even went on our first ride, and let me tell you, playing mini golf in the rain is so much fun. We went on the rides heaps of times until we were all just a little battered and bruised.

This past Monday we had to head back to work but it's been a slow week because most people are still out on holiday, I don't think I would make it back to work if I took an extra week off, it was hard enough to go back after just two weeks off. Now it's back to the grindstone although we should have some good events on the horizon.