Nana and Poppy come to visit

We were graced with our first visitors a week ago. Mark drove down to Sydney on a Saturday morning and picked up his parents, Helene and Sydney (no relation to the metropolis) who stayed in Newcastle for 6 days.

Here's the sad part: Three of us were sick and the fourth one of us left town for 3 days while they were here.

Here's the happy part: we all got better throughout the week and Mark returned from his camping trip with the Year Seven class with fabulous stories about his time at the Great Aussie Bush Camp.






It was very unfortunate that we were all sick when Helene and Sydney were here but who can time these things? There were one or two days when I am sure that they were wondering why they flew half-way across the world to hang out in a hotel with no car and no family to take them places. They were troopers though as they chatted up bus drivers and made their own way around Newcastle waiting for us all to stop coughing so much.

Once we were better and Mark came home, we were able to spend some wonderful time with them. Gabe said at one point that having them here made it feel more like home.
We introduced them to our friends the koalas, kangaroos and all of our resident birds and bats down the street at Blackbutt Reserve. Though it bears an unfortunate name, it is a place we'd like to share with any and all of you who make it down here for a visit.
We also got to sample some of Newcastle's dining establishments with Helene and Syd which was quite a treat for us.

Mark had an absolute blast on his trip. He said it was the most fun he'd had since New Zealand. It was one of those team building camps with ropes courses and all kinds of challenging activities. They fed the teachers like royalty, he slept in his own room in a 4-bedroom house with 2 other teachers, his team won most events they entered (shock). He successfully executed several activities that tested his concentration, skills, strength and willingness to face fears. I would be hard pressed to describe them to you but if you all send him an email asking him to blog about that experience, I think you'd enjoy hearing about it. (markgood3@comcast.net)

At the end of that week of sickness, which was pretty much identical to a week of sickness in America so I won't go into details there, Helene and Sydney made their way back to Sydney (no relation to the man) and boarded a ship bound for New Zealand. Simultaneously, we packed up all kinds of clothes and toys and headed up north for the 5-day Easter weekend. I wonder if Syd and Helene will start a blog about their trip...I'll be sure to post one about ours.




Some miscellany:
This is a piece of mail. All of our mail looks like this when we retrieve it from the mailbox. Snails chew on the paper while it sits in there waiting for us to come home. Sometimes we get home and there is no mail in the box, only a few snails and some tiny bits of paper in the corners of the mailbox. We wonder what we've missed. The Ultimate Snail Mail.

















If you look closely, you'll see one of our local cockatoos having avo (afternoon) tea in our backyard tree.


This other bird is a king parrot and we have them living in our backyard as well though this was taken at Blackbutt.