Pics for Christmas Pageant, AI3DE 11/2009

not exactly a white christmas...

christmas cricket - with wombat, koala, platypus, goanna and bunny rabbit.

the jolly swagman... who'll come a waltzin' matilda with me?

three wisemen - on real camels!  never seen that before in a parade... (what am i saying? i haven't seen any of this in a parade before!)

the water jump on the cross country course.

this and the following are all show jumps... big show jumps.  

this horse (same as the one above) won the entire three day event.

this gal, same as the one below, is adelaide's darling - silver medalist in the beijing olympics.

PAs in Aus!

ahhh, summer.  this november we blasted through records that hadn't been broken since the late 1800s.  back then, they had a run of five straight days of 35 deg C weather.  but this year, we had seven days of 35 - 43(!) (that's 95 - 109.5 F!!!) and its still spring here! wow.  i think i can hear arizona laughing, though.  

but the real incredible news is that i am actually working as a physician assistant over here!  i mean, what are the odds?! PAs originated in the US, there's at least one school in the UK, a brand new PA program in queensland, aus, and i don't know about any other foreign programs - but they may be out there.  so, we moved to a country half way around the world that happens to be the second foreign country JUST beginning to educate PAs and we happen to land in the one town - adelaide - that is actually running a trial on PAs and trying to start a PA program of their own.  AND they were hiring!  so now, i work for the upper GI (gastrointestinal) team (ed - you taught me that internal organs are only for keeping the bones healthy, i can't understand all this liver and bowel stuff).  i'm also helping write the curriculum for University of Adelaide's PA program - i've been pleasantly surprised to find out how much i enjoy that part of my job... maybe it's because all my patients look at me like i'm crazy when they say their belly hurts and i start examining their shoulder.  i can't understand it.  actually, not only have i made a field change here (from ortho to GI), but the medications all have different names (eg.  tylenol = panadol here)  and i'm having to get good at interpreting australian, british, irish, and indian accents. very interesting! it's good to be working again though.  nova now goes to "school" three days a week and loves it.  she actually naps better at school than home, so we rely on those three days for her to catch up on sleep after the weekend!

what else has been going on in the past few weeks?  the adelaide international 3- day event was held here, right in the parklands surrounding the city just a couple kms from our house.  i volunteered to fix jumps for both the cross country and show jumping.  both days were long and hot, but it was a real treat to see olympic caliber horses up close - the obstacles they hurdle! wow!  payton and nova enjoyed a father-daughter weekend and went to the christmas pageant (a parade held on november 14th, of all things.  and i thought the US was a little early in promoting the christmas thing...).  payton was pleased to announce he's never been to a christmas parade where the cheerleaders were "wearing so little!" and upon review of the pictures, we realized it was the first parade either of us had ever seen the three wise men on actual camels.  

payton and i are hoping to learn to surf this summer, so we each took a lesson down in middleton, sa (near port elliot and victor harbour, for those of you familiar with the area).  it seems like a pretty family-friendly sport (for beginners), since the beaches we visit have friendly surf and one of us can go play in the water while the other plays with nova on the beach.  nova loves it too and spends all her time sprinting up and down the beach or into and out of the water.  ...we cuddled our skis and boots before putting them away for a few years, and now we're looking for wetsuits and surf boards...

we celebrated an early american thanksgiving and late canadian thanksgiving with our friends brian and jessica - burgers and veggies on the barby after watcing the classic adelaide (car rally - lots of racing porsches and ferraris) come in from their final race.  lots to be thankful for!  hope everyone has a great thanksgiving on the actual day.  

we're off to perth for a week.  three days of vacation and three days of conference for payton (= six days of vacation for me and nova).  should be fun.  

cheers,

lindsey

Coffin Bay National Park, Eyre Peninsula, SA 10/2009

our first day at coffin bay, payton, nova and i went on a bushwalk (hike) to black rocks lookout.  our camp was on the bay side of the peninsula, but this area looked out over open southern ocean.  

camp kitchen with a view of coffin bay.

nova wearing daddy's hat - a bit big but provided a lot of shade...

our neighbors handed down this kid's camp chair to nova, she loves it.  this was a few days in, so she was starting to get tired...

nova and zara harrington at point sir isaac.  we 4x4'd out here with the other folks we were camping with.  fishing was poor and the water was COLD (ambient temp not warm enough to counteract the ocean temp), but the girls LOVED the beach and kept setting up their "ice cream shop" (which was a little painful for the adults as it only emphasized the ice cream we did NOT have!)

nova catching one of her many naps on the 4x4 track - i can't believe what she slept through! this is on the way home from point sir isaac. 

ah, gunyah beach.  this beach was on the open ocean side of the peninsula, so it was huge and sandy with lots of big rolling waves.  

our faithful ponies, gunyah beach.

surf casting at gunyah beach.  

nova's first tinny ride.  ty took us out in his tinny on the last day.  nova didn't want to get out of the boat when we got back to shore...

halloween isn't celebrated here to the extent it is in the states and we missed the one party we were invited to since nova had a nasty cold, but this is what she WOULD have worn..

nova talking to her alter ego.

GAB sampling and Lindsey and Nova home alone pics 10/2009

the GAB patrol - cutting edge science in a truck.  that glossy dome belongs to glenn - hope you're wearing sunscreen, mate! 

payton's swag.  that sleeping bag you see there is my 15 yo down, -20 deg bag... payton took it because its not as warm as his huge synthetic down sleeping bag.  oddly enough, we thought it practical to ship sleeping bags sufficient for winter camping in the weminuche to the hottest, driest continent in the country.  huh.  

some interesting sponbill-type bird.  some ranchers have water rights that allow them to make little wetlands like this.  makes for a nice camp site.

where does all that space junk land that falls out of the sky?  australia!  every now and then, one might see a wagon from the 1800s next to a bit of nasa flotsam on some fellow's station...

where are we?!

the australian outback.  wow.

glenn opens an artesian well for sampling... 

i think even cutting edge science can be a little boring.  glenn lying on the ground waiting out a long sample session.

same sample session as before - but this is brian doing a little yoga.  payton staved off boredom by photographing his weird colleagues.  these are our friends, folks!

meanwhile, back in adelaide....  this is one of the cutest pictures - look how happy those girls are... and they don't even speak the same language!  blanka, the 2 yo on the left, is polish and, obviously, only speaks polish.  but it didn't stop these two from smiling, laughing, holding hands, imitating each other and babbling in their own languages to one another.  its one of those fascinating hurdles that small children so easily over come but that can prove so difficult for adults.  it was precious to watch nova and blanka.  this was at monarto zoo - a big, open-land zoo that had lots of great animals, but nothing so photogenic as nova and blanka!  nova and i went here with two of payton's csiro colleagues - a german fellow and a polish fellow (and his wife, sister, brother-in-law and niece, blanka).

on a hike in a little preserve in adelaide called morialto... we had a great time hanging out with jessica, brian's partner, while the boys did head stands in the outback.

the saturday after GAB sampling trip, we went to the port adelaide festival - a food and arts festival in the transitional bogan 'hood of port adelaide - where nova commandeered her daddy's ice cream cone.