adventures in socializing

our pony! gloria gardner, gg for short.


payton met a fellow at work (he and his wife are both hydrogeologists and they have two little girls), and he and his family own a bunch of land down south in the coorong - a wetlands area. supposedly beautiful and full of good bush walking, four-wheeling, and surf casting, glen was thrilled to find out that we have a 'trol (they abbreviete everything here and end most things in "y" or "ie"). omg - first friends?

actually, we went to a bbq at payton's boss's house this sunday. i got to meet a lot of the people payton works with - a really diverse and great group of people. it was REALLY nice to meet everyone (i managed to keep most of my non-sequitors to myself). there were a bunch of kids there and nova is a total party animal.

on saturday, payton and some folks from work went to a pro footy game - port adelaide power vs. brisbane. the power won (hooray!) and payton said it was quite a site. he guesses the footy oval is about as wide as a regular nfl field is long!!! but there's 18 a side, so 36 people on the field fills up the space a bit. they love them some footy here and the games are family affairs. i guess there's some sort of lineage clause here. the players don't move around like our grid iron (aussie term for american nfl) players do, and if you play on a pro team and your son is good enough to go pro, your team gets first dibs on your son.


this is just a better - but still not very good - picture of the front of our house.


everyone needs a cracker after their bath sometimes.


this a gum tree (eucalyptus) - there are so many eucalypt species here, they are not even all catalogued yet. this photo does this tree any sort of justice (yet another reason why one must physically come to visit), but they are HUGE and beautiful. this was taken in the botanic garden - free to the public and just a 10 minute walk from our house.


robey one kinobe.


this picture and the one below is for mom and dad and lauren. lauren wore this dress when she was a little girl and mom saved it (and many other special dresses from our childhood).



we've started nova's physical training early... i know videos of kids are only really funny for their handlers, but still, give it a shot.


again, you probably don't need to watch the full three minutes of this video, but music does the wildest things to kids. i remember watching a young ty snow (our nephew) get possessed by the music mike and krista's wedding, and i am pleased to see that nova has the same inclination to dance. this video was actually taken at adam's law school graduation party in santa fe. what you don't see in the video is the slew of adults all watching nova and cheering her on.