Melbourne!

A few weeks ago Farmer Phil and I took a trip to Melbourne to catch up with Emma for a couple of days and see The Rocky Horror Show.  Wow - what a great production and the cast were fantastic!  Craig McLachlan was so good as Frank n Furter!  Farmer Phil had no idea what the storyline was, so we had to explain it to him!

We also did a tour of the MCG which is really interesting - an iconic Melbourne spot.  Farmer Phil and I had done the tour years ago before they pulled down the original members stand and did the latest redevelopment.  It's well worth a look if you're in Melbourne.

Entry into the National Sports Museum is included in the MCG tour and it has some fantastic exhibits of all sorts of sports.  They had a special exhibition on medals this time which was fascinating.

So much to do and see and eat and drink in Melbourne!!

Grease!

While in Melbourne we saw Grease the Musical.  Grease is my favourite movie of all time - I remember seeing it at the Wagga Drive-In with dad and my sister Lisa in our mum's car - a mini!!  I was only about 7 or 8 and I think most of it must've went over my head but we just loved Olivia Newton-John!!

Rob Mills as Danny and Gretel Scarlett as Sandy. 

Greased Lightning!

Summer Nights!

We had fantastic seats!  Todd McKenney was the Teen Angel, Bert Newton was Vince Fontaine and Anthony Callea played Johnny Casino.  It was a fantastic production - go and see it if it's in a theatre near you!

New Zealand

We've had a very busy first two months of 2014!

We didn't fit our annual waterskiing holiday to Renmark in this year because Ryan was selected to ski for Australia in the Under 21 team.  It was for the annual Aussie/Kiwi Challenge and this year it was held near Ashburton in New Zealand's South Island.

The whole Aussie team ready to board the plane at Sydney Airport - U 14's, U 17's and U 21's.

Team photo with the Kiwi's.

On the final morning we woke to snow on the mountains!  It is supposed to be Summer!  We left home when it was over 40 degrees to snow!!

Scenic drive up to Mt Hutt, a popular snow skiing field.

A few of the Aussie kids had never seen or touched snow before so this trip was very special.

Of course a snow fight happened as soon as the mini buses stopped!

Everyone was in the fight!

Official team photo's taken in the snow in Summer for a waterski tournament!!

It was so bright they couldn't see.

Ryan's Under 21 team - Olivia, Cam, Jayme, Ryan, Anthea, Trent, Jacinta and Team Manager Griff

Still having fun in the snow.

Lots of great photo opportunities with the magnificent scenery!

We were quite high up and you could see for miles over the patchwork Canterbury Plains.

An Aussie/Kiwi challenge tradition - the Under 21's boat race!  Australia won!!

Ryan sculling his beer!

The Under 21 Kiwi's and Aussie's with their medals at the presentation night.  Australia won the team gold in the Under 14's, the Under 17's and the Under 21's - a clean sweep!

Back to Christchurch for a quick look around the CBD and the earthquake one.  It was very sad to see it a long way off being back to what it was before the earthquake.  Lots of rubble, containers everywhere, lots of machinery and workers, but still looking like a ghost town.

Broken buildings!

Vacant blocks of land where the fallen buildings have been cleared away.

An ingenious idea - the container shopping mall!

An outdoor church!

Ryan flew home from Christchurch with the rest of the Aussie team while Farmer Phil and I flew to Auckland and spent 3 nights visiting my old school friends.   Photo taken from the Skytower in Auckland CBD of the Harbour Bridge.

Andrea and Farmer Phil at One Tree Hill where the only tree fell down a few years ago and now there is an argument about what sort of tree to plant to replace it!                                      .

Andrea and I at One Tree Hill with the Skytower between our heads.  We met at the start of intermediate school in 1980 and still keep in touch!

Andrea and her gorgeous twins Alexander and Max!  They are very precious boys after many years of trying to have a family!

Joanne, Adrienne and I out for dinner.  We met at the start of high school in 1982 - can't believe that was 32 years ago!!

Emma's High School Graduation!

September 19th was Emma's Graduation from High School.  It's hard to believe that we have finished with high school - it only seems like yesterday when we sent Emma off as a tiny 4 year old to Kindergarten!!

Emma had no preconceived idea of what her formal dress was to look like.  She just said that she wanted something completely different to what the other girls in her year would wear.  So we decided to buy a dress for her on our trip to the USA and Canada in July/August.

The first shop we walked into we were both drawn to a particular dress.  Emma tried it on and we immediately knew that it was "the one"!!!  The shoes came from the same shop in Calgary, Canada also.

It was definitely different from any of the other girl's dresses - for starters it was patterned and fitted.  Her hair was sleek and stylish.  She looked stunning!!

This is Emma's music teacher Miss Elyse North - you could not find a better music teacher in the whole of Australia!

Emma's best friends - Ness, Steph, Emma and Courtney!

The graduating class of Yanco Agricultural High school 2013!

Our First Overseas Adventure!!

We've been home almost 3 weeks so I thought I'd better get some photos posted about our amazing trip to Canada and USA!!  Here is a tiny selection of the 850 I took!!

We had 2 weeks with the Emma's school travelling around Canada and some of the USA, and we then had 5 nights in Orlando, Florida to see Ryan while he's there for 13 weeks water ski training.

Beautiful Vancouver Harbour

Golden Gate Bridge - San Francisco

Lombard Street - the crookedest street in the world - San Francisco

The most famous streetscape - you might recognise it as the "Full House" house - San Francisco

Alcatraz Island - excellent tour - San Francisco

Emma looking a bit bewildered about the size of her breakfast!

Every second vehicle is a "pickup truck"!!

Custer's Last Stand - Montana

The water towers in every town.

Oil rigs or "grasshoppers" as they're called are on almost every farm throughout Montana

Our fabulous host family in Sidney, Montana - Krista, Kathy, Kirk, Hailey and Jared

The prairies heading towards Canada - all wheat and canola

We visited a Huterite community near Sasskatoon, Saskatchewan.  They farmed 12,000ac, had a large commercial dairy, beef feedlot and poultry farm to support the 105 people living there.

All the females wore neck to ankle outfits with headscarves, and they all wore their hair this way

Our teenagers were fascinated with the Huterite teenagers, just as they were fascinated by ours!

It was 30 degrees when we drove through a huge hailstorm

Very odd!

American red barns were everywhere

Calgary Tower

Emma and one of the Calgary Stampede mascots

Visiting the Calgary Stampede

The chuck wagon races - so much action and super fast horses!

An Indian village at the Stampede

Canadian Mounties

Calf roping at the Stampede Rodeo

The bullrider who wins on the final day takes home $100,000 prizemoney!!

Heading for the Canadian Rockies

The Fairmont Hotel at Banff

Castle Rock 

Farmer Phil and I at Lake Louise - this was the highlight for me!

Beautiful Lake Louise

Friendly critters!

Moraine Lake - so blue it was ridiculous!

Farmer Phil and Emma heading up the valley to the Colombia Icefields

Athabasca Glacier

Some of the Yanco kids posing with the Canadian flag on top of the glacier

Gorgeous lake and Rockies

The luckiest kids in the world!

Hogwarts Castle at Universal Studios, Orlando Florida

Emma was super excited to have a "butter beer"

The Weasley car

Sea World, Orlando Florida

Ryan jumping at Lake Grew, Orlando

Ryan, Jason, Hilary, Jeff, Nic, Casey and Michael - more of the luckiest kids in the world!