I Miss Home But Then Agin.........

This Blog (or the High Tech Post as my friend Richard calls it) was intended to be a way of friends and family catching up with our adventures and pictures of the kids etc but, it has become a little more. For David and I it has become a kind of online travel journal and it's great to look back on it and read over what we've done and how we've gone and all the stuff that goes along with this strange and amazing adventure.

Australia Day was celebrated here with the baking of Lamingtons. It's strange what you miss! I almost never ate Lamingtons at home when they were everywhere but there you go. If you haven't had a Lamington in a while I urge you to go out this morning and buy one. They are so good! Anyhoo, I took some Lamingtons into Sabine's class and her gorgeous teacher, Mrs Kruger, asked me to give a little talk about Australia Day and what it means. Only too happy to oblige, (i love giving little talks as most of you know!) I enthralled the First Grade with stories of Captain Arthur Phillip and the unfurling of the Union Jack and tales of scurvy and leaving your family forever for stealing a loaf of bread etc. The Lamingtons were a huge hit even if the coconut wasn't right (no dessicated coconut here, only sweetened).

Australia Day of course brought up the thoughts of home that I usually try to keep buried and squeezed up into a little ball. (Taking your advice there Penny) There is a constant buzz in the background for me of missing family and friends and also, that Australianess that I can't quite articulate. But then again.......there are so many moments here when we look around ourselves and marvel at where we are and that also has been a big feature of this week. We have had so much snow that school has been cancelled for four days out of six and looking outside the windows is magical.

This is a picture looking down our street. The local town, where Sabine goes to school and the shops are is about 15 minutes away and is at a lower elevation but it was also covered in snow and the mountains around are glistening white. The top temperature this week has been minus 2 degrees Celsius. What a contrast to our usual Australia Day!

After making Lamingtons with sweetened angel flake coconut I logged on to buy some dessicated coconut and some of the Australian classics that we've all been missing, Tim Tams and Milo, Golden Syrup and Cherry Ripes. (Blue tac too if you can believe that) and it got me to thinkin' that when I leave here there will be lots of things I will miss about America. (We've settled in here so much that we don't even hear the American accent anymore. Sabine apparently has a strong American accent now but I can't hear it.) Anyhoo, here is a list of things I love (and will surely miss) about America.......

Project Runway (ok, I know you can get that in Aus on Fox but I'm so cable TV'd out I just don't think I'd go there again)
Reece's Peanut Butter Cups

Regis
Left hand turns against the lights after stopping at every intersection. It's a road rule.

J Crew

Crazy bumper stickers about Jesus being one's homeboy

The Daily Show with John Stewart (Presidential Race based Comedy)

Zero Cherry Coke

Drive through everything

snow

hats, gloves, scarves

Driving the Mustang. It is so choice.

Insinkerators

My beautiful friend Elaina

So anyway, hope everyone is well. It's so beautiful here that I've included another picture of some deer that was taken in our little village.

The Happiest Place on Earth etc

The happiest place on Earth certainly is very crowded. I guess everyone wants to be happy. We had to wait in a lot of long lines. The longest wait was the new 'finding Nemo' submarine ride which is set in the Barrier Reef and so the voice over was an Australian accent which was noice. The wait to experience that marvel was about one hour. (Incidentally the ride consisted of looking out of the submarine windows at model coral that was obviously meant to recreate the Barrier Reef but people were taking pictures of it out the tiny windows. What's up with that? It's not the real reef people! It's cement!)

Anyhoo, around here when you go to Disney the first question you get after is 'was it busy?' to which I replied 'yes'. The second question is 'how long did you wait for Nemo?' Well, as it turns out, apparently one hour is not busy at all and people routinely wait for three hours for every ride and so only get to do like three or four rides a day. Happiest place on earth my arse! But the Mitchell's had a fabulously happy day. It was grand! George's favourite was Space Mountain. Here is a picture that they took when we were on the roller coaster and then charged outrageously for it. Check George out! Space Mountain is a roller coaster that is completely in the dark, and I mean completely. You can't see anything at all and it goes WAY too fast in my opinion. I was holding on to Sabine for dear life. She's so tiny and i felt like she would just be ripped away and fall out and I'd never see her again. We did not like it at all thank you very much and the whole time were saying to each other 'god, is it nearly over' and 'i don't think we should go on this again Mummy' and 'certainly not. Is it nearly finished do you think?' etc etc. In the photo I'm smiling but it's only to suppress the gag reflex.

Much to the surprise of both Davy and I we ended up staying quite late. (We both thought we'd be over it by lunchtime but it really was fun.) Everything was decorated for Christmas and it was really very cool. Here is Cinderella's castle

So of course we've also had our strange, cold Christmas. We didn't have a white Christmas but we did have a white boxing day which led Davy to sing 'I'm dreaming of a white Boxing Day' although technically they don't have boxing day here. Christmas Eve is a holiday and it's back to work on Boxing Day. Craaaazzzy! We had a very nice day, all be it different from usual. It was kind of nice not to have to go anywhere but it really didn't feel like Christmas. I mean it was cold for one thing. What's up with that? We did have a fabulous fresh Christmas tree (they are so nice here) and lots of pressies. The guitar was a hit, as were all the construction things. Guess what? Here's a picture......No, not really, I can't find a good one. Instead here's a very short movie of the old girl in the snow..........It's very short because Blogger takes a long time to upload videos and i just can't be arsed waiting.

We have more snow forecast for tomorrow and we're hoping there'll be enough to use our new snow tube and slide down the hill in the backyard. (note to self, is 911 here, not 000). We're planning on hitting the slopes (how cool am I?) in about a fortnight. Davy, as most of you know is a top fabo skier. The kid's and I will be learning........oh dear. Have high hopes for gorgeous type ski instructor though.....ha ha wish me luck! ( on the ski instructor, not the skiing, no amount of luck will help me there, we all know about my lack of graceful balance in shoes on the street, God help me on skis and worse, chair lifts, aaahhhhhh). Will post from hospital bed while in traction.......xxxooo