The original idea had been to go to Utah to spend it with Martin, Stacie and offspring but a heavy schedule at work means that it really isn’t do-able in the current situation 🙁 We invited them to come spend it with us but Martin is more or less in the same situation. 🙁 Lousy US work-freak culture. News flash: World doesn’t go to hell in a hand basket if you have more than 10 days holiday a year.

Anyway, at least I have a back-up brother nearby — sorry Donovan, you know you are really further up my speed dial than Martin anyway. 🙂 So we’ll do our usual fried ham, pineapple and eggs breakfast with the Christmas story and present openings and then we’ll head down to the beach where Donovan has his hangout. A barbecue and beach on Christmas Day should almost convince us we are back in Australia. And while the weather might not be quite the same, chances are it’ll be closer than Utah. Stay warm Mart and Stacie and we’ll see you in April!

Father’s Day is quite the event in the US and the third date on which we have celebrated it[1]. It’s almost as big as Mother’s Day and very similar in many ways — breakfast in bed, children shower you with presents and adoration and generally have a bit of a bludge. Ariana is usually the one who insists on providing the breakfast in bed and made me a couple of things with an Australian theme, Vegemite on toast and a glass of cold Milo[2]. The presents were a bit light on the further you went up the child tree but Micah, with the help of his mother, complemented the Australian breakfast with Nanny’s favourite stand-by present, a packet of Iced Vo-Vos. And Bryna presented a lovely photo of herself, courtesy of her kindergarten teacher. Ariana and Mara also made a pair of thoughtful cards. Actually, they usually are a pair of cards those two but this time they constructed some as well.

The children gave me a bit of time-off to rest during the afternoon and by evening Gaynor had even managed to coax, not exactly adoration, but certainly a positive comment from Joshua.

[1] Australia: First Sunday in September.
Germany: Ascension Day. Actually, it slipped by, forgotten, one year and wasn’t much of a deal the other years. Here’s why.
USA: Third Sunday in June.

[2] Spoils of Gaynor’s recent journey back to Oz.

Since we went last year to Utah, it seemed only fair this year to invite the chosen frozen down for some slightly warmer Californian weather. Martin, Stacie, their three lovely girls and my youngest brother Donovan have all found time to join us. So for those who could not — because they had a better weather offer south of the Equator, for instance — we wish you all a joyous Christmas and a productive 2009.

Ok… I know Thanksgiving was a while ago, but it was fun so I’m going to write about it.
So as you might or might not know we went to San Jose for Thanksgiving which is not far from San Fransisco (about 50 miles or 1 hr). So there is a reason we went there and the reason is a couple of friends we knew from Germany live there. So the drive up there was long about 6 hours. So we get there at 2 am, some might think that is a bit early but really we are morning people. So after waking up our friends and get inside we settle down for another good 5 hours sleep before Ari wakes us all up we had a nice cooked breakfast and it is now Thanksgiving day. We hanged around for a couple of hours before we got too hungry and set off for her sister (his sister in law). They had a semi manchen on a hill not too far away. As you could think their house was big and there were a lot of people visiting from all around the states. They conveniently had a lot of food. We waited around playing pool and other various games while the food finished being prepared. Eating the food was even better than watching it being prepared. The food was good, there was a traditional turkey and a lot more. We played a bit more and nibbled on some food while we waited for the dessert. Finally the desert came there were various desserts such as pecan pie and ice cream. After that we left before the washing up. The next day we went to San Fransisco with our friends and there we met more friends we knew from Australia. We walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. We walked around and found a nice place for lunch. After eating lunch we went to this famous street called : DUNNO We ended up not going all the way up because there was such a long line. After that we split up Dad and I went to the car show and the others wen t o see the fortune cookie factory. The car show was great lots of great cars. And really I don’t know much about what went on at the factory. The ones that went to the cookie factory didn’t take that long. So went home directly after that. Dad and I stayed at the auto show till about 8pm. We got some take-away on the way home and got home about 8.30. On Saturday we went to big basin Red Wood National Park.
It wasn’t that far away. The trees there were really big and wide. We walked a trail there and went home to finish packing before we leave that evening. We ended up leaving at about 6 pm. And
so we drove and drove and drove, till we got home. And that was the trip to San Jose

Since the weather has been so good to us in southern California, we’ve decided to remind ourselves what a northern hemisphere winter should be and enjoy Christmas in Utah. Coincidentally, I have two brothers living there as well as and so it’s a win-win situation — though, not for them obviously. One minor drawback to this plan is that our household goods, including virtually all our winter clothing, we shipped from Germany in July will not be available through US Customs until after Christmas. It’s a sad story of neglect and delays but the short of it is we’ve managed to borrow enough warm clothes for the week we’ll be in Utah. Hopefully a post on the trip in a week or so.

In the meantime, we wish all our friends and family, near and far, a joyful Christmas.

Though the blog has been a little silent lately we have not. Christmas and New Year’s kept us quite busy and a good time was had by all. If you did not receive an email with our digital Christmas card this year firstly, please accept my sincere apologies (I tried to get everyone!) and secondly, please find it in this post.

We have almost completed a DVD of our past year and if you would like to receive a copy please let me know. You can just leave a comment to this post (including your name) and I’ll get it. Of course there is no cost but you should be the kind of person that would like to browse our family photo album since that’s basically what it will be. Unfortunately, all immediate family members (Gaynor’s and my siblings and our parents) will be receiving an unsolicited copy. We like to pretend you are interested enough not to object … well not too strenuously anyway.

The children have been on holidays for almost two weeks now. They go back to school on Tuesday which will be nice, though it has been nice having holidays and sleeping in. Fenton has taken this week off so we could do some sight-seeing. Here is a brief rundown of what we have been up to with some more blog posts later.

On Good Friday we ate homemade hot cross buns (as is our tradition) and watched our neigbours have all their family visit and go to church. The village is very Catholic. Saturday we went to our church easter activity in Aachen. Sunday was church and chocolate. On Monday we visited the Zitadelle (Citadel) in Jülich and toured the historical museum. Very interesting. Yesterday we went to Brückenkopf Park with a family from church. This is a big park on the edge of Jülich with a small zoo, playgrounds, gardens and some historic buildings. Today we are staying home and then Saturday we plan to go into Aachen to see the cathedral there. It is quite famous as Charlemagne is buried there.

If you are wondering where Jülich is, get a map of Germany (or better still the Rhineland), find Cologne and Aachen and draw a line between them. Jülich is just on the Aachen side of halfway.

Spring has sprung which is lovely with all the trees and bulbs in bud and bloom. However I’m coming to understand why my English grandmother seemed obsessed with brollies and jackets. Its a lot like Melbourne weather, but over here they call it “April wetter”.