Thanksgiving

Our Pastor, Silas, is from Texas and invited us over for Thanksgiving this year along with a couple other of our American friends from church. Silas’s wife, Amanda, is Australian, but she lived in the States for a while and so she has adopted Thanksgiving too.

It was Amanda’s first time cooking Thanksgiving dinner, and she wanted it to be the full traditional meal. She followed the recipes of Paula Dean who is a cook on the Food Network specializing in  southern-style cooking – perfect for Thanksgiving! All of the food was incredibly delicious.

The table was set beautifully with place cards and a homemade candle centerpiece. Amanda is so creative!

  Amanda, our chef:

Sitting down to our Thanksgiving feast. From left to right: Nancy, Mark (Nancy’s son), Anthony, Me, and Silas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had to get Amanda in the group shot too :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The desserts were amazing, even though we were so full from dinner!! Homemade pecan pie and homemade pumpkin pie (from a real pumpkin, not a can! We were very impressed!)

Here’s a few more pictures from the evening:

Caitie had the most adorable “first” Thanksgiving outfit :)

We had an awesome time celebrating Thanksgiving this year – even if it was 85 degrees outside :) We are very grateful for the friends we have made here – they are friendships that will last a lifetime (and an excuse to keep visiting Australia!) We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well!

Tulip Festival

About a month ago, Anthony and I went to a Tulip Festival about an hour from our house. It was a beautiful day, perfect for the festival. Here’s a few pictures from our day:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our pastor’s wife had her baby the night before, so we went to the hospital to visit and brought them some fresh picked tulips :) They had a beautiful baby girl named Caitie.

And, we brought some home for ourselves too :)

Whitsundays

Last week we returned from a holiday in the Whitsundays. They are a collection of islands (74 of them) off the northeast coast of Australia. They are very near the Great Barrier Reef and have a tropical climate – so they are a popular vacation destination. They were apparently discovered by Captain Cook on Whit Sunday (whatever that is) and that is how they got their name.

 

We arrived on Hamilton Island first. The whole island is apparently owned by one family – which is crazy. They have set up a whole resort community. There are no cars – just golf carts.

 

We went on a dinner cruise our first night and met a couple on their honeymoon from Canberra. He was an air traffic controller, so he and I got along well talking about planes.

The next day we went to Whitehaven beach on Whitsunday Island. The whole thing is a protected park, so there are zero facilities.  The sand is 98% pure silica – and is very very soft. Unfortunately, it rained for about half the time we were on the beach (the only time it rained on the whole holiday). Kind of lame – but it was still fun.

 

On day three we ventured out the Barrier Reef – apparently named because Captain Cook couldn’t figure out how to get over/around it. The company that took us out has a permanent pontoon out in the middle of nowhere on the edge of the reef that includes a hotel, daycare, change rooms, sun deck, water slide, underwater viewing chamber, and more. Its called ReefWorld.

The waters there have “stingers” (jellyfish) this time of year – so we all snorkeled while wearing stinger suits, which were not in any way flattering. We never saw any stingers. A highlight was the “semi-submersible submarine”, which is clever name for a boat with a glass bottom.

On day four, we left Hamilton Island and travelled to our next destination – Hayman Island.

Hayman was amazing. There was no place to go on Hayman; there is just the one resort. And that was the best part. We just relaxed for a few days.

The pool was impressive. They claim its the largest in the southern hemisphere – but the auditor in me wonders how you might validate such a claim. In any case, the pool is apparently 7 times larger than an olympic pool.

One of our favorite parts of the island was the outdoor shower in (or out, I guess) of our room.

One morning there were dozens of rays (sting rays and others) that came up to a cove on the island. We aren’t sure why – perhaps something to do with breeding?

The highlight of Hayman were the 2-person catamarans available for use. The morning we decided to try our hand at sailing happened to be the windiest day of our trip. It was actually quite gusty. The sailing instructor told us in our introduction that it was “the most dangerous day you could possibly do this.” It sounded like an exaggeration to me (though he did mention something about capsizing). But I’m glad we ignored his warnings and took a shot at it. Once I got the hang of it I realized that sailing is something of a puzzle – and I love puzzles. And we both love boats. We had a blast.

This was our favorite holiday yet. We included a few pics here on the blog, but we have compiled the highlights into a web album liked below if you want to see more.

Link to web album with more pics

Catch-Up Blog

Sorry it’s been so long since we’ve posted on the blog! We’ve had a few people ask us for an update, so we decided to do a catch-up  post :) I’ll try to fill you in on what’s been going on with us lately.

GIRLS WEEKEND

Back at the end of August, a bunch of girls from church decided to go away for the weekend. Isabel was getting ready to go back home to Germany, so we wanted to have one last “hurrah” before she left. We rented a big house and left for Friday and Saturday night. We had such a great time talking, laughing, playing games, painting nails, watching movies, eating junk food….all the typical girl stuff. Here’s a few pictures from the weekend.

Isi, showing off her newly painted nails, Samya (at the top) just hanging out, & Sarah smiling for the camera

Here’s a few more. You can click on the pictures to see them a bit bigger.

Group Shot:

YOUNG ADULTS RETREAT

A couple of weekends after the girl’s trip, Anthony and I went to the young adults retreat at church. We went to a campground about about an hour out of town. There was a special speaker from The States that talked about “Hope”. It was a really encouraging weekend and a great chance to make some new friends. Here’s a few pictures from the weekend:

 

LEADERSHIP RETREAT

Next, came the leadership meeting for church a couple of weekends later. I went since I’ve been teaching Sunday school. There were about 12 of us that stayed in a hostel (we rented the whole place). It was a good weekend of brainstorming and thinking of things for the upcoming year. And we had fun too, of course! :)

VISIT HOME 

At the end of September, we went home for a visit. We stopped through Sacramento on our way to Portland. It was great to catch up with our friends.

Anthony had to meet with the partner of the Sacramento firm, so Liz and I got pedicures and Starbucks. It was just what I needed! Dinner at Liz and Ricky’s was a lot of fun and Bella was as cute as ever.

Saturday was Miranda’s baby shower. I don’t think I’ve seen so much pink in a while :)

We went out for frozen yogurt with the boys after the party

Sunday, we had breakfast with Zach and Jen and then went to their son’s 2nd birthday party. Elijah had a great time opening all his gifts.

It’s always sad to say goodbye, but we had a great time. We flew into Portland for the rest of our visit. We spent part of that week in the Tri-Cities visiting Anthony’s family. We first visited with Vanessa’s side of the family and we got to see Grandpa’s new “man cave”, which was a very cool wood shop with a flat screen TV, recliner, and mini fridge. What more could you want?!

Tyler and Laura recently moved to Kennewick so it was great to see them too. We found a new sushi place with them that turned out to be really good! We went back to their place and played the game of “Life”. It was a lot of fun.

We got to have dinner at Jay and Linda’s house one night. It was a lot fun to catch up with them since it had been a long time. Courtney had a lot of fun learning all the Aussie slang and using them in funny sentences.

We then spent a day visiting with Mike’s side - starting at Marsha’s house for some appetizers and ending up at Rita’s for a barbeque. It was great food and we had a fun visit with everyone.  Grandpa Harris and Mike and Joyce came from Vancouver for the weekend. Marty and Rhonda were also in town from Texas, which was great timing. And it was a gorgeous day. I think Grandma’s homemade cherry pie was the highlight for Anthony :)

I had my camera, but I mostly forgot to take pictures in the Tri-Cities. We did get one family shot and I took a couple pictures of the gorgeous sunset on our drive back to Vancouver.

Back in Vancouver, my Grandparents celebrated their 50th anniversary. It’s an awesome accomplishment - we are very proud of them! We had a lot of fun celebrating! Vanessa did an amazing job on the food and decorations for their party.

We had to get some family portraits while we were all together:

Mike and Joyce had us and my parents over for dinner one night. We had frogmore stew for the first time with Mike’s infamous apple dumplings for dessert. Everything was delicious!

Amy, MaryAnn, Erin, and I have been friends since elementary school. It was fun to meet up with them for happy hour.

 

We spent a day in Kirkland, just outside Seattle, visiting with Jason. We went out to lunch and then Jason showed his favourite spot in Kirkland – the docks.

 

The Boys:

Brother/Sister shots:

  

Mandy had her baby shower while we were in town. It was a great turn out and she got a lot of cute things for her baby girl, Piper. She was born on October 10th, so the baby shower was just in time.

Vanessa organized a little get-together for some of our friends while we were in town. Anthony D. and Ashley brought their baby twins, Bliss and Felicity, who we got to meet for the first time. They were so adorable!

The girls together again: Ashley, Me, Stacey, Tami, and Tracey

The two Anthony’s:

My parents took me to McMenamin’s on our last full day home. It was a perfect day to sit by the water. Anthony was meeting with the PwC Portland office to talk about moving back to the Portland/Vancouver area.

 

There are not any official plans to move back yet, but it was good for Anthony to meet with the office again. They will be in touch over next several months to organize our transition back to the States, probably in May or June of next year. It’s crazy that our time here is already more than half over – it’s been amazing! We’ve still got a lot to look forward to which is very exciting.

One last Starbucks before getting on the plane.

A picture from the plane before landing in Melbourne.

It was a beautiful day when we landed, so we took a picture of the bay when we got home. We are going to miss this view!

Thanks for being patient with us. This turned out to be a really long blog, but we had about 2 months to make up for :) We hope you enjoyed the pictures. Have a great week!