Hot Casino Christmas

Well we are back in Brisbane after spending a couple of very hot days over Christmas down in Casino. It was El's first Christmas in Casino so the heat was a bit of a shock for her.
We spent a few days lounging around, going to family things and eating drinking and being merry quite a lot.
We also got to see Mum and Dads new dog -Storm. She is a replacement for the one that died recently. She is a smithfield Blue and they are born with little stubby tails which look quite interesting. She is only 8 months old but with all her speckled grey fur she looks like a distinguished old lady. We were trying to teach her a few tricks but she barks a lot and gets excited a bit too easily.

We followed the usual Christmas routines and went to my Grandmother's place on Christmas Eve. We caught up with a lot of people from Mum's side of the family. We haven't seen some of them for about 2 years so it was good to find out what has been happening. A lot of my younger cousins are bigger and there are some new additions I haven't met before. One of my cousins has had a little(but rather big for his age) boy that was the centre of attention. His dad said that all the ladies get clucky over him until they try and pick him up. El took a liking to him. He really liked trucks and my grandmother lives across the road from Norco so milk tankers come and go all night. El helped him unwrap his present and he was more interested in the paper than the present. He did a faceplant by jumping off El's lap and proceeded to try to pick up people's empties to get the last dregs. Luckily for him we all like a drink so there was never too much left in the cans for him to get.

On Christmas day we woke up early (Daylight savings) to open presents. We had a nice cold lunch , a few beers and an afternoon game of backyard cricket. It has been a few years since all us boys have been home for XMas so it was a good day. We eventually called it a day when the beer supplies finally ran out.

On Boxing day we visited my grandparent's farm for morning tea. We normally go out for lunch but with it being so hot we opted to go out earlier rather than swelter in the heat. We had a few afternoon drinks in preparation for an engagement party which was in a pub so we could save some money. We went and played pool at one of Craig's friends houses for a few hours before we went to the engagement party. The party was fun, with a good time had by all. Tony and Craig got a bit drunk, with Craig volunteering his services as a waiter. He doesn't remember.

My cousin Lee and Tony stayed at the party pretty late and Lee crashed at our place. The next morning we took him to pick up his car and went out to see Lee and his Dad on their farm out at Doubtful Creek. Lee was a litle seedy but took us on a 4wd tour of the property(1800 acres). 1st stop was his prized pumpkin vine crop and then he took us out the back to the run down shack and then we went bush bashing up some of the hills. The views were quite good. We could see MT Warning and a lot of valleys. El thinks she saw a wallaby(or possibly a yowie- we cant be sure) bounding across the track. Neither Lee or I saw it so it is possible she fabricated the whole thing. We were squished into the cab of a 4wd ute while Lee's cattle dog happily ran the entire time beside the truck, stopping every now and then to dunk in the cow troughs to cool off.

We are back in Brisbane now and are seriously considering buying an airconditioner. We went to check out the Myer Centre and Queen Street Mall with Wayne yesterday. It was good but there were too many people and the "sales" weren't that great.

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and has a safe and proposterous New Year.
Geoff and El

Monkey Nuts

It's quite hard to come up with interesting titles, but I think this one is pretty original. :-) We have these annoying palm trees in the backyard that drop ridiculous amounts of fruit which El has affectionately called "monkey nuts" (a throw back to her primary school years). The bats get in there of a night time and have a dance party throwing the fruit all over the place. The problem is that they clog the drains(the fruit not the bats) and when we get a storm the house turns into a house boat. We don the rain coats and brave the elements to unclog the drains but it would be so much easier to get rid of the palm trees(sorry greenpeace). Pity its a rental. About all we can do is mow the lawn. We are a little envious of everyone we know buying houses but we will get there eventually.

It now a year since we left for Canada. How the time has flown! We are seeing all the reports of snow in Jasper and Whistler and with this heat, we are feeling very jealous.

Only two weeks till Christmas now. Last year we had a white christmas so this year it will be a bit of a shock to experience the aussie style swelter down in Casino.
We have a real beauty of a tree up and have bought all of our presents early for once in our lives. Might try and get a photo of the tree (sorry to copy your idea Chris).

Last night we went to Sally and Andrew's housewarming party. It was good to catch up with them and see their new place. Their dog was quite well-behaved and didn't try and hump my leg or anything. :-) We had a good chat with Kylie and Mekiel (spelt horribly wrong I'm sure) and played giant frisbee with Andrew's little cousin.

The storms lately have been pretty spectacular. The last one on the Thursday just gone was massive. Our yard seems to flood and all the monkey nuts that have dropped from the palm tree clogged the drains. We didn't lose any power but in the last house we lost power nearly every time it rained.

It is still about a month until I find out about Dentistry. Fingers crossed. Either way a lot of beers will disappear (mostly by El's hand I'm sure). I still have contingency plans so I just have to wait and see.