Another Aussie Christmas Adventure

 Christmas holidays flew by for us, one minute I was leaving work on Christmas Eve ready for a nice relaxing holiday, the next thing I know it's the 4th of January and I'm right back in the office. Now during that time we did manage to fit quite a bit in to our schedule.


Christmas Eve Andrew and I both finished work at noon and headed home so I could get some cooking done for Christmas dinner at the Walker house. Before we had a chance to make dinner we were invited over to Pam and Malcolm Holley's house (Simon's parents and Judy and Paul's best friends) for dinner and to meet Simon's fiance Becky. Paul and Judy wandered over a bit later with Kate for a quick nightcap before heading to bed, Kate gave Andrew and I strict orders about being at their house by 10am the next morning since I had said she wasn't allowed to open her Santa Sack (stocking) until we got there.
Christmas morning Andrew and I were up and moving around fairly early, we had a large pile of presents under our tree from each other and my family that we decided to start with before heading to the Walker's. I have to say, Andrew and I got completely spoiled this year, by each other and everyone else. After a phone call from Kate at 9:30, just to make sure we weren't going to be late, we grabbed Coopa, all the food and headed out the door.

Kate made pancakes for breakfast that we had to enjoy quickly so that Andrew and I could go on a scavenger hunt for some of our presents. We were led on a chase all around the house before finding the presents in the garage. Andrew's new whipper snipper was too big to wrap, as was the tent and umbrella we were given, good timing too because we were camping for New Years Eve. Kate quickly dragged us back upstairs to go through our Santa Sacks, open family presents and begin our eating and drinking for the day. Andrew's Aunt Karen and cousin Tristan came over a bit before noon, bringing more food with them, and the serious eating began.

 We made some fake snow to play with and help make the house more Christmas like

Andrew struggles with a mind puzzle he got for Christmas, I had already completed it and put it back together

Success!

Queen of Class (that is a potatoe she is eating)

Around 3 we pushed ourselves away from the table and us kids walked down the road to, try and follow the connection, Kate Holley's (Simon's twin sister/Pam and Malcom's youngest daughter) husband's (Mitch) parent's house :) So, if you followed all that, we were going over there for a bit of afternoon backyard cricket. Judy and Paul met us there a bit later to join in the game. Eventually us kids all ended up back at our place with some more of Andrew's friends joining the crowded we gathered at Mitch's parent's. As it usually seems to happen beer pong began, music was played, out of sweet new iPod speakers Andrew got for my parents, and lots of chatting until late into the night.

Afterparty:

Boxing Day Andrew and I got up early and drove down to Jindabyne with the pup. I got my first random breathe test along the way, how fun and exciting. We beat Andrew's parents there so we took Coopa for a walk down to the lake and enjoy a bit of the sun, he wasn't too keen on going in yet but he was having a great time running around the shore. We made a trip back down to the lake almost as soon as Paul and Judy arrived with Jess. This time I got into the water a bit with Coopa and he came out to me a bit, he was having a great time jumping through the water to try and get rocks that everyone was throwing for him from the shore.

After another wander around to really wear the pups out we headed back to the townhouse. Judy and I hiked up the hill behind the townhouse to go watch the local rodeo for an hour. We got to sit right at the fence to watch, a great location and I got some amazing shots, they'll be up on the blog real soon. By the time we made it back down the hill we needed a snack after a bit of a rest and snack we were ready for dinner and a movie.

We had a bit of drama with Coopa that night. He spent the whole day sleeping downstairs with Jess, just hanging around. As soon as we all got into bed and turned off the lights he started barking up a storm, which got Jessie going. So we went downstairs, calmed them down and went back to bed. This happened two more times before we finally decided to give up and let Coopa sleep in our room for the night. Two problems with this, the first is that the second floor is only accessable by spiral stairs, which for some reason dogs do not like and will not go up or down. The second problem presented itself at about 5:30am when Coopa really needed to go to the bathroom. We had to carry him back downstairs and outside than back upstairs again. He spent most of the time between 6am and 8am army crawling under my bed and Andrew's bed, sometimes crawling between the two beds, it was pretty entertaining.

Monday evening Rod and Liv arrived in town for a few days. Liv and I hit the sales and the rest of the visit was mostly spent eating, relaxing and playing cards.

For New Years Eve we went camping with Bonnie, Damon and Connor down at Merry Beach. We had a good size site that fit both our tents, Damon's truck, the camp kitchen and a nice space for us to lounge around by the fire. Our site wasn't right on the beach but it was pretty close. The ocean felt amazing since it was so hot, and we spent most of New Years Day tucked under a tree in the shade where we got a nice breeze and a good view of the ocean. The holiday went too quickly and it was soon Sunday, we were home and I only had one more day of holiday left.

So now I've been back at work a week. Andrew was lucky enough to get this past week off so he stayed home to clean out the garage which took three trips to the dump, and redesigned my website. He has to go back this week too, I'm kind of glad he has to be back too so now it won't be so bad getting up on my own early in the morning.

Little moment of zen, Coopa in the lake.