The latest as of December 23, 2008
We've been living Down Under for over five years now. It looks like we'll be staying a while.
The property we bought in Hovea with the large stone house and cute stone cottage has become a part of us. It's on a watercourse called Jane Brook, which drains a portion of the Perth Hills into the Swan River which flows through the city and into the Indian Ocean at Fremantle.
Our household menagerie consists of of 2 cockatiels, a sun conure and a large labrador retreiver.
We live at the bottom of a narrow valley which is a flyway for birds such as Australian ringneck parrots, Galahs, several types of cockatoo, honey-eaters, magpies, kookaburras and two species of duck. It is also a wild-life corridor for grey kangaroo, wallabee, bandicoots, quenda, goanna, and bob-tail lizard.
The outdoor critters are two sheep (who mow and fertilize our 1/2 acre of pasture), and 15 chickens, who miraculously turn our garden bugs and kitchen scraps to large brown tasty eggs. We also have a veggie garden and small orchard, guarded by our scarecrow Rufus, left over from our Halloween party.
The "Anacapa"
Last year we upgraded boats and purchased a used 23' Boston Whaler to explore and dive the thousands of miles of coastal waters and reefs. We named her "Anacapa" in honor of our old So Cal island dive-haunt, and for the fact that she's an American boat. Here in W. Australia she's a head-turner. So far we've done a dozen trips to the islands off Perth, cruised the Swan River, and towed it 800 kms north to run on Shark Bay.
On Shark Bay we ran 40 miles out to Cape Inscription on the tip of Dirk Hartog Island, where the first Europeans landed in Australia in 1616. There we swam with a large potato cod, several baldchin grouper, a sea snake and a half-dozen manta rays. This year, besides local runs, we'll tow it south to run the islands off Albany in the Southern Ocean. There we'll dive the shipwrecks and search for leafy sea dragons.
An American Halloween
Aussies aren't big on Halloween, so we showed 'em how. On October 31st we turned our acre into a house of horrors: bodies hanging from the trees, floating in the brook, a crashed car, body parts on the barbie, and a tunnel of horrors. About 100 attended and we'll do it again next year. We still have a few odd bowls, platters & creepy items left behind in the lost & found if you are missing anything!
Molly
Molly finished year 9 in December, She got A's in English, Drama, Society & Environment and Indonesian, and B's in Maths and Science. This year she went to an 80's Ball, got Louise as a mate for her pet cockatiel Tookie (no eggs yet--maybe next year), performed in her Helen O'Grady acting workshop play, and is looking forward to her next trip back to the USA.
For fun Molly likes to make short videos with friends. In her spare time, she directed, shot, starred-in and edited a dozen videos which you can see on
youtube: www.youtube.com/tookiepretzel
Emily
Emily finished year 11 TEE with straight A's: Chemistry, Physics, Intro to Calculus, Geometry and Trigometry, English and Music. She continues to play the violin, and is learning to drive, going for her manual transmission license.
She also took up mountain biking, her dad's favorite sport. Together they've been exploring the back country of John Forrest National Park, which is just down the trail from our house. She and Dad took off for a week of camping in the Southern Forests of Western Australia, riding several dedicated mountain bike tracks through the Old Growth Forests near Northcliffe and in Warren River National Park.
Nanette
Nanette sold a lot of property and kept our family running.
It was an 'interesting' real estate year with a slow first half, followed by a flurry of activity with the First Home Buyer & Stamp Duty relief packages June-November and now, finally, very frustrating because about 30% of the sales are falling over due to 'disappearing' finance! Aaahhh, such is life...
The best parts of the year for Nanette were spent with family. In April, the Shark Bay Trip with Grandma, Chauncey, Fiona & little Shane joining us was a once in a lifetime. Then in July, Nanette and the girls spent a week out at Grandma's farm in 'Parelli Horse Camp' with Grandma leading the program. They had so much fun they did it again in October and, thanks to Rusty as the intrepid night watchman sleeping in the barn, got to see a beautiful foal being born at 2:30 in the morning. What a miracle... (That was when Molly decided Tookie needed a mate!) In the end, it was Emily that stole the show finishing her first year of TEE with grace & aplumb at the top of her class -- sure makes a mother proud!!
Finally, Nanette gave in to Molly & Rusty on the Halloween Party and never looked back. Whew -- did the family rock out! Can hardly wait for next year!
Nanette is so very grateful for all our wonderful family and friends and wishes there was some way to get a few more hours in the day!
Rusty
Rusty shot Steadicam on some commercials and small films, went to Vanuatu on an underwater TV pilot, wrote a historical screenplay he's hustling, marketed his book, got the boat up and running, and rode a lot of kilometres on his mountain bike. He drove the kids around a lot, helped Emily learn to shift a manual transmission, fixed a lot of things around the property and built a few gags for the Halloween party. In his spare time he chairs the
Save Perth Hills organization, seeking legal protection for the Perth Hills before it gets turned into an Aussie version of the San Fernando Valley (see
http://www.saveperthhills.org/ for a belly-full).
We wish you and yours a happy, healthy, prosperous new year. It's a time for new beginnings: be daring and bold and have faith that things will turn out alright. Bless all of you until we see you again.
Love,
Molly, Emily, Nanette, Rusty, Lucky, Tookie, Cosmo, Louise, Lamby, Buffey, the chickens and all the wild life in our little patch.PS, you can leave a note by posting on this blog.
