The sun finally came out!

We could hardly believe it when it happened. By now the weather should be pretty consistently warm and sunny. This year, not so much. So when the sun came out and the temperature went up into the high 20's we got outside quick smart. 

It's warm, it's sunny, I'm wearing shorts...it must be time for Christmas!

One of the things we look forward to here are the Myer Christmas windows. Each year they are decorated to tell a different Christmas story. This year the story is One Christmas Eve, the story of a grandfather and his granddaughter who spend Christmas Eve together at Luna Park. 

The windows are massive works of moving art depicting the story through the windows.

We also found the city was starting to have a Christmas feel to it. With nutcrackers and giant Christmas trees.

 We love this city on a good day, with Christmas decorations and sunshine, it's even better.

Long Weekend in Paynesville

We were lucky enough to have a 4 day long weekend in early November so we packed our bags and headed out on one last short adventure up to the Gippslands Lakes area.  

We treated ourselves and stayed in a little resort named Captains Cove in Paynesville. It was a beautiful little area with the resort located along the the bay. 

The view from our deck was spectacular.

Did you know that Ottawa's black swans are descended from a pair of Australian Black swans that were received from a trade with the Montreal Zoo in 1974? Me either! We had quite a few that hung around the bay by our resort. We even found a next with 2 giant swan eggs in it under one of the docks. 

Even though the weather was warm and sunny, the water was still a bit chilly. That didn't stop the kids from chasing the waves at Lakes Entrance.

When the sun's out you can see why it's just a popular tourist location. It's beautiful with heaps of beaches.

We took a walk out onto the silt jetties in Eagle Point. The jetties are naturally formed narrow banks of silt that run for 7 kilometres.

Raymond's Island is just on the other side of the straight in Paynesville. Just a 2 minute ferry ride in fact. After some breakfast one morning we took the ferry over to walk around the island and do some koala spotting. We found 27 of the fuzzy critters in just over an hour.

These guys never get old. I'm also still constantly amazed at how grouchy they are. They look adorable, fuzzy and cuddly, but really they're angry little critters.

All too soon the weekend was over, how does 4 days fly by like that?!

The end of the basketball season

Tyler's sport of choice here in Australia is basketball. It's played with the same intensity and commitment as hockey is at home. And here his dad coached his team for the season. 

They had an amazing season, making it all the way to the finals. It wasn't exactly a nail bitter of a game, and the boys played hard, but it just wasn't enough that day.

Even after losing, these boys were still all smiles!

Presentation day was this past weekend where trophies were handed out...one for Falcons #20 and one for the amazing coach.

Thanks Ferntree Gully Falcons, my boys had an amazing season!

The Windy City

Holy cow I'm really behind again! I feel like I'm always apologising, but I think a better way of seeing it is we're just all too busy with all our exciting activities to keep the blog updated!

Back in September and early October we had some wild weather. First South Australia got hit with the biggest storm they've seen in 50 years - winds were up to 140 km/h and were so severe that the entire state was in a black out for a number of days.

Next Victoria was hit. It was the strangest weather I've ever seen, the sort of thing we don't see in Canada regularly. Overall it had been a nice week, the wind picked up over the week which much to the kids dismay even with temps over 20 degrees they were often kept in at school. Wind here can be dangerous as branches break off of the crazy old gum trees and get tossed around in the wind.

By Sunday it was 24 degrees out, sunny, and stupid windy. By noon our power was out, and stayed out until the next day. We were lucky, plenty of people within walking distance of our place were without power for the better part of the week, there was also 1 death when a tree fell through a house and several others injured.  It wasn't hard to see why, trees were down everywhere. These are just a few pictures from our neighbourhood.

 Tyler found the silver lining...if no cars can get up the road then it must be safe to skateboard down!