Skiing in August

Last Thursday and Friday was the inaugural ski trip for the Australian office. We went to Threadbo for two days of skiing, hanging out, and enjoying a bit of a rest from our day to day. It was a good chance to hang out with folks in the office, and see some folks from the NZ office we don't get to see too often. It was also good for me to find my "ski legs" in preparation for our upcoming ski trip to Queenstown.

Goodbye and Good Luck

Our good friends Peter and Chantal are traveling for a bit and they had a party to celebrate Chantal's birthday and their send off. We'll miss them, but are looking forward to seeing them soon. Best of luck on your trip -- we're very jealous! There were lots of cute kids at the party and Carl managed to capture a few funny moments -- check out the photos!

Balmain to Birchgrove

Tracy and I got a great book that has Sydney's best harbour walks, and last weekend we tried a walk around one of the neighborhoods just west of the city we haven't explored. It was fun to see a part of Sydney we hadn't seen before, get some excercise, and take some great pictures of the harbour. Its a great book and we hope to be doing some more from it and posting pictures here in the future.

Pizza and Birthday Cake - A Fantastic Combo

Another year, another birthday. This time it was the big 3-5 for me! Carl threw a birthday party for me at our favorite new pizza place (three doors down from our house, very convenient) called Love Supreme. Fifteen of our friends came for drinks and yummy pizza pies to help celebrate the evening me. It was a great night and my husband was so wonderful to organize such a special night for me. I love him so!

P.S. I think next year I am going to start counting backwards and it's going to be my 34th birthday.

US Football is Wussie Compared to Rugby and AFL

The past few weekends we have been getting into Australian sport, well at least trying to understand it. We attended a Rugby League game(The South Sydney Rabbitohs)with our friends Maria and Paul on a Sunday and the following Saturday we went to a an Australian Rules Football game (The Sydney Swans)with our friends Phil and Bron. Both games were so fast past, no commercial breaks, not line judges coming out with measuring rope, no huge linebackers having huffing and puffing back to the line of scrimmage but fast action and NO PADS! These guys hit each other so hard and there is not a bit of protection on them. I think Carl and I liked Australian Rules Football a little better than Rugby, it looks like organized chaos but at the end we figured out it was a like basketball but there are no offsides and they kick to score as they are running.

The Rabbithos Rugby game was out a ways in the Olympic stadium where they held the 2000 Olympic games. It was fun to see the stadium but rather large for the amount of fans that were there. We only have pictures of the Rugby game but we are planning on going to another Swans game so will bring our camera and hopefully get a few pictures next time.