Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everybody! It's pretty crazy, but I'm just about to go to bed on Christmas day, while most of you are just getting started. Some of you, depending on where you are in the world, are still in bed.

Amy and I had a great day. We got up around 6:30 this morning and made breakfast. We opened presents and went to church for 10:30. It was really great. Mom and Dad called while we were in church so I answered and just held the phone there. Darlene Zschech was singing Christmas carols, but when I talked to Mom a few hours later she said she really couldn't make out what was being sung, or who was singing.

Our 3:00 lunch never happened until about 5:00, but it was awesome! Stephen from Ontario and Nolan from Hawaii were here celebrating with us. The food was amazing, and we had real turkey. It was beautiful. There's lots of left-overs, too. I reckon we'll be eating Christmas dinner until March.

Anyway, I need sleep. We'll put up a picture from our day in the next day or two, and we hope to hear from all of you. Maybe just publish a comment about your Christmas... what you ate or what Santa brought you.

We love and miss you all! Merry Christmas!

Ryan

PS - I'm the proud new owner of an iPod Video. It's sick!

A Christmas Carol

Three more days! It's insane. I can't believe it. The malls are crazy here. You can hardly move in any store at any time. I'm really glad that my shopping is done.

This past weekend we had our Christmas Spectacular here at the church. What a great show. They did a modified version of Charles Dickens' timeless tale, "A Christmas Carol"...

What a great set design. It was complete with snowflakes falling from above and real smoke coming out of the chimneys.

It's pretty weird, but they sing many of the same Christmas carols here as we would back home. There's just something a little different to me about singing "I'm Dreaming Of A White Christmas" in Australia, but they do. Here's a bunch of the cast singing "Frosty The Snowman".

It was a packed house. They put this performance on nine or ten times. The overall attendance was over twenty-thousand. In just the four performances on Saturday and Sunday in the Hills, there were over four-hundred people saved.

Here is Santa Clause landing his sleigh on the stage. They really did a great job with this play. The included recognizable Christmas icons such as Santa Clause and Scrooge and Frosty The Snowman, but everything pointed directly to the fact that Christmas is about Jesus. That's what Scrooge figured out in the ending of this story.

Here's the Three Wisemen. They were pretty crazy and really didn't seem that wise, but they did make everyone laugh.

This is Phil Dooley wrapping things up by explaining the real meaning of Christmas, just making sure everyone really understood what the show was all about. They had real goats and sheep and rabbits up on the stage with Mary and Joseph there. When the lights went down I could see a couple of the crew frantically scrubbing one spot in particular on the stage. I'm guessing one of the goats got a bit excited and made a little mess.

Thanks to Paula we'll be watching the real movie "A Christmas Carol" on Christmas Eve. Hope you all have an excellent Christmas. I'm looking forward to the turkey and stuffing and pie and cookies, and I'm pretty sure most of you are too.

Ryan

The Twelve Days Of Christmas

Hi everyone. We're getting closer and closer to the big day. It's starting to feel a bit more like Christmas now. I'm not sure, but I think it's the Relient K Christmas album, "Deck The Halls, Bruise Your Hand," that's really getting me in the Christmas spirit. There's just something about punk rock Christmas carols that gets me excited.

Anyway, I just thought I would share this with you... The Twelve Days Of Christmas... Australian style...

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me,
Twelve possums playing,
Eleven lizards leaping,
Ten wombats washing,
Nine crocs a-snoozing?
Eight dingos dancing,
Seven emus laying,
Six sharks a-surfing,
Five kangaroos,
Four lyrebirds,
Three wet galahs,
Two snakes on skis,
And a kookaburra in a gum tree.

This is what they really sing here. Weird, hey.

Ryan

Our Stockings Are Hung

Merry Christmas, everyone.

We put up our Christmas tree! Amy and I, along with Stephen and our Swedish housemates, Simon and Elisabeth, got a beautiful tree on Monday and decorated that same night. Amy and I also bought a miniature tree for our bedroom. It's one of those fiber optic jobbies. It looks pretty ok...

You can kind of see our little one here. We bought it at Dick Smith's Electronics for seven dollars.

Here's the big one. It's artificial. We bought it at a store called "The Reject Shop" for twelve dollars. All the decorations were only seven or eight bucks. That's a pretty good deal. It actually looks descent.

We didn't bring our stockings from home, but we found a couple pretty cool ones here. They'll look much better once they're stuffed with chocolate!

Only twelve more days. That's absolutely insane! I hope you're all ready.

Ryan

Hand Sanitizer, Anyone?

Well, everyone - this is my first posting. I'm kind of new at it, so this may be a bit rough. It has finally sunk in that we're in Australia! The other day we visited Featherdale Wildlife Park in Blacktown (another suburb of Sydney) and we actually saw kangaroos, koala bears, dingoes and a four and a half metre long crocodile (which kind of brought back sad Crocodile Hunter memories...). The cool thing about the park is that you actually get to pet the animals. So for many of you - here are the pictures that you've been waiting for - us with a real kangaroo and a real koala...





We hope you enjoy! (and enjoy so much that you come and visit) We love you and miss you all!

your pal,
amy t.

Red Carpet

G'day mates! How's everything going? Things are going good here. It seems a bit weird right now though because just about everyone that is going home for Christmas has gone. There's lots of empty apartments.

This past week we had a graduation dinner and the graduation ceremony. It was a really good time. For the dinner they rolled out the red carpet and gave all the students and staff and unbelievable meal. Apparently it was over ninety dollars per person. It was so good, but I'm not sure I'd ever pay ninety bucks for any meal.

Everyone looked really great, especially my wife! Here's a picture...

Everyone have an awesome weekend! Make sure you get your Christmas shopping done. I'm off to the mall right now to do mine. Wish me luck.

Ryan

Aidan

Hey everybody. How are you all doing? I can't believe it's December already. It's getting so close to Christmas, but it just doesn't feel like it here. Just the other day the temperature went above 40 degrees celcius. We'll be decorating soon, so I'm pretty sure no matter what the temperature is it will feel like Christmas, we'll make it feel like Christmas.

Anyway, it's December fifth today. That's Aidan's birthday...

Aidan turns two years old today. He's such a great kid. We miss him like crazy and really wish we could be there to eat cake and drink Pepsi and watch him open his presents. If things work out maybe we can be there next year.

Ryan

PS - It was four months ago today that Amy and I got married. Four months! It's been a blast so far, and I'm expecting that to continue. She's a great wife!

After Dark

We finally made it into the city at night time. It's pretty awesome. We went with about 450 other college students on a harbour cruise last night. It was light out when we left, but dark when we got back to land. Here are a few pictures...

This is when we first got on the boat and headed out into the harbour. That crazy guy behind us is Larry. This is a great picture. Someone just off to the side is throwing him overboard. It was a short cruise for Larry. He spent more time swimming to shore than he did on the boat.

This is our buddy Josiah. He was teaching Amy and Stephen some crazy super dude move or something.

Here is the city. The picture is a bit blurry, but you can get an idea of what it's like.

Here's Amy and I on the boat as we passed the Opera House. It's an amazing building. I'm amazed everytime we're there.

This picture is nice, but you really need to be standing right there to appreciate the Opera House. It's really cool.

It was a fun night. It was cloudy, but the temperature was perfect. What a great way to relax.

Have an awesome rest of the week!

Ryan

Buckin' Bull

Hey everybody!

Every Thursday here we have Hillsong Men and Hillsong Women. It's pretty cool and I guess there are a couple thousand women that show up every week for Hillsong Women. I'm not 100% sure because I've never been in one of their services, but I have been in the men's services and there's usually two or three hundred guys that show up. This week was the last one for the year so it was a big "Welcome To Summer Party."

There was heaps of great activities set up like pool tables and pin ball machines. There were also four XBox 360's set up on large HD TV's. The best though, was the mechanical bull. It was pretty crazy, and the guy who could hold on the longest was given an iPod. A lot of guys held on for ten seconds or so, but one held on for thirty-eight seconds. Another guy smashed his face into the top of the bull's head. He was really hurt or anything, he was tough.

It was a great start to the weekend, and all of this marked the end of our school year. We have no more classed until early in February 2007. That's a long break, especially in this heat. I guess we'll just have to spend lots of time at the beach. Oh well, we've gotta do what we've gotta do.

We also had an American Thanksgiving dinner last night. Our friend Paula is American and her mom sent some decorations for her. The food was great! Amy made stuffing again. It was really good! Next up is Christmas dinner - I can't wait!

Anyway, we hope you all have an awesome weekend! We miss you all.

Ryan

Speaking Of Cars...

Hey. I hope you're all doing really good and getting ready for Christmas. It's totally insane... only another month. I can't believe it.

Anyway, we were walking through downtown Sydney, and passed this car dealership. We didn't stand around too long because we didn't want to breathe too hard on the window for fear of it breaking and falling on the car and us in turn having to buy the car, but I did snap a quick picture and thought you'd like to see what people around here actually drive...

Yes, it does say $299990. How crazy is that? I reckon there must be some hidden gadgets in this beast... kind of like in the James Bond movies or something. I think it might have retractable wings and maybe the ability to save little babies in runaway carriages. A good all around investment, that's what I say.

Ryan

We Are Blessed

God is so good to us! Amy and I have been praying for a car, and yesterday, one of the pastors from the church gave us his old one. How awesome is that? It's incredible! We're so excited! So, here it is...

It's a Mitsubishi Verada, and it's in really good shape. We took it for a test drive last night. It was so weird. Here in Australia we drive on the opposite side of the road, and the steering wheel is on the opposite side of the car. The first few times I went to make a turn, I hit the wipers instead of the signal. They're opposite too. It'll take some getting used to, but I'm excited about it. What a blessing!

We live a ways from the school, and until now had to depend on the school shuttle or the public bus, which wasn't too bad, just a bit inconvenient at times. Having a car makes it much easier to come and go on our schedule. It's great! Now when you come for a visit we'll be able to pick you up at the airport and drive you around. So, come whenever you want.

Have an awesome day!

Ryan

Men's Conference

Hey. What an awesome weekend! We just had the 2006 Hillsong Men's Conference and it was so good. Along with Brian Houston, Casey Treat and Kevin Gerald were here.

They did some pretty crazy stuff. Men who volunteered were brought on stage and made to do a few tasks that would normally be done around the house... ironing and stuff like that... and then, after running around the auditorium, had to choose a part of their body and give themselves a quick wax job. It was so crazy. Three of the four guys ripped their shirts off and went to town. One guy took a great big strip off his chest right over the nipple. I'm surprised he still has a nipple.

There were also some pretty crazy stunts and outside there were some really great stuff set up. They definitely know how to put on a men's conference here. It was great.

Besides all of the fun stuff, there were times of awesome worship (which is also really fun) and the word was great as well. Over 4000 men in one place at one time worshipping together makes for a powerful conference. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Ryan

PS - I'd like to see some deer pictures. Micah emailed me his... what a nice deer.

Four Great Pictures

Hey. I just got some really great pictures emailed from home and thought I would post four of them here so the few of you who haven't seen them already would get to. There were so many good ones, but I just picked these four...

So, may I present to you, in the order of youngest to oldest, my niece and nephews...

This is Alexis in her little Halloween costume. I've got this picture as my desktop background right now. She's a cute little thing.

Here's Aidan. I'm not sure what he's thinking here, but he is definitely thinking something. Amy and I heard a kid about his age crying in the grocery store a couple weeks ago that sounded just like Aidan when he cries. I had a bit of a rough moment right about then.

Benjamin is looking so much older now. It's been only two and a half months since we left for Australia and I can't believe the difference. Here he is smiling a huge smile for the camera.

Last, but certainly not least is Gabe. He was smiling in most of the pictures, but I really like this one. It shows off his massive blue eyes. Gabe looks to be growing fast, and in this picture looks like he's been playing really hard.

Amy and I miss all four of them a lot, so girls, you'd better keep the pictures coming.

Ryan

PS - I've seen the goat!

Three Months And Counting

November 5th is three months past August 5th. Amy and I got married on August 5th. That means we've been married for 3 whole months.

This picture was taken when Dustin finally handed me the ring. It somehow ended up in Jamie's sock. We've had the ring professionally cleaned six times, but we still can't get the toe jam off of it. We've even let it soak in acid overnight, but it just won't come clean.

Anyway, I hope everyone has an awesome rest of the weekend. Talk to you soon.

Ryan

PS - If you're talking to Jamie, please tell him to wash his feet before this happens to someone else. Thanks.

Moose Steak Is Good

How's everybody doing? From what I hear and see online, the weather is getting pretty chilly back home. Well, I don't miss it at all. Amy and I miss you all, just not the weather. It's cloudy and breezy here right now, though, so maybe it's not much better today.

Well, I promised a good friend of mine that I would publicize one of his many great achievements so everyone on the planet could see just how mighty of a hunter he really is. Feel free to post a comment and congratulate Mr. John Nason on a successful moose hunt this 2006 season. I forgot to ask... John, did you shave the beard after the hunt, or is it sticking with you through deer season as well?

***ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS BEWARE - PICTURE OF DEAD MOOSE BELOW***

Congratulations John! I think that your next big hunt should be here in Australia. Ninety-Nine dollars can get you in on a big kangaroo hunt here. All the guns and ammo are supplied. They even supply the spotlight for those after dark adventures. It's perfectly legal here. How crazy is that?

Enjoy your moose steak. I'd tell you to send me some in the mail, but I'm not so sure it would arrive in an appetizing manor.

Ryan

Bondi

Hey. I just wanted you all to see a few pictures from our afternoon at Bondi Beach last week. Sorry it's taken a few days to get them up.

It was a beautiful morning, but about the time we arrived at the beach the clouds started rolling in. It was still really fun and the rain held off for a while.

Here are the girls testing the water temperature. It was a bit chilly, but not too bad. That's Paula on the left. She's been on here before. Coral is in the middle. She's from South Africa. That's Amy on the right. She's from Canada.

Now, here are the men. You've seen these guys before - Larry on the left and Stephen on the right. They're a great bunch to hang around.

There are hundreds of beaches around here. Hopefully by the time two years are up we'll have tested them all. Feel free to come and join us anytime. We miss you all.

Ryan

Blue Mountains

How’s it going everyone? I really hope you’ve all had an awesome week. Amy and I did for the most part – I was a bit sick all day Tuesday, but it wasn’t too bad at all. We’ve had the whole week off and have tried to take advantage of it. A few guys called on Tuesday night and asked if we wanted to go to the Blue Mountains on Wednesday, so that’s what we did and I thought I’d give you all a bit of a look at the scenery we took in. It was absolutely amazing!

This trip was a lot like the one we took last summer with Jamie, John and Jon to Mount Carleton except these mountains are about a billion times bigger and the trail is a lot more challenging and the scenery is a lot more beautiful… so Jamie, John and Jon, come for a visit and we’ll head to the Blue Mountains for a day and you can compare for yourselves.

These are the Three Sisters. Apparently there used to be seven of them, but they seem to have disappeared or something. Aboriginal legend has it that these are actually real sisters imprisoned by their father to protect them from a bunyip (what’s a bunyip?).

Here’s Amy and I in front of the Three Sisters. The little balcony we’re standing on is way out over the edge of the cliff. It’s a long way down. We had to be pretty careful because it was so windy (as you can tell by our hair – man I need a hair cut).

Here is the whole crew that went to the mountains. Next to me is Dany from Paris, France. Next to him is Joni from Switzerland, and next to him is Ryo from Japan. They’re really great guys.

This cliff is part of the Three Sisters.

Here’s Amy at the bottom... finally at the bottom. It was such a long way down and we had to walk down a really, really steep stair case carved into the rock. By the time we reached the bottom our legs were like jelly. That really sucked because we still had to climb all the way back up.

Dany knew of a little side road that led us to here. It was absolutely incredible! I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was up here.

That was our last stop of the trip (except McDonald’s on the way home) and we had a really neat experience there. I’m not sure if anyone else really even noticed, but after we discussed the view for a few seconds everyone went silent and it stayed that way for about ten minutes. I’m pretty sure that everyone was thinking the same thing – God is big!

Marty Sampson wrote a new song last week for Encounterfest called Devotion. The chorus says this…

When You stand, the tall trees and mountains bow
When You speak, the fiercest of oceans is still
And I see the sinner seek devotion
The lost become chosen
And I fall to my knees

It was really neat to have heard that song all weekend long, and then to have seen these amazing cliffs and mountains and trees, and to think that my God created them and that at any moment He could simply speak a word and they would bow to Him... Wow.

Ryan

Encounterfest

Hey. How is everyone doing?

This past weekend we had Encounterfest here at the church. It was incredible! Jeannie Mayo was here speaking. I had never heard of her until Encounterfest, but she is so good. She's been in youth ministry for over 30 years, so she really seems to know what she's talking about. There was also some Martin guy here from Africa. He was really interesting to listen to. I guess he's worked with Nelson Mandela and works a lot now with the current president of Zambia. The Hillsong youth pastors were also here of course. Phil Dooley and Paul Andrews and a bunch of others. It was great.

There were a ton of great new songs from United (as seems to be the case every year). They keep going deeper and deeper and writing bold songs that will be sung around the world. It was really cool to be here and see it all first hand.

Have an awesome rest of the week! Amy and I will. We are enjoying a week off from classes. Yesterday we went with a few friends to the Blue Mountains and tomorrow we're heading to the beach. I can't wait!

Ryan

PS - We'll post some pictures of the Blue Mountains in the next couple of days. They're amazing! Much like Mount Carleton times a billion.

Thanksgiving In Australia

Hey. Hope everyone is having an awesome Thanksgiving weekend. There is no such thing as Thanksgiving here in Australia, so Amy and I had a few fellow Canadians (an one American) over for a Thanksgiving feast on Saturday night. We had an awesome time and some amazing food.

This is our lovely table. We got it at Target for $99. It was regular $179, but we did a little sweet talkin' and got the price down a bit. We only have 4 big plates, so one of the guys brought a couple extra from his apartment.

Here is our chicken. We actually cooked two of these, but it was still much cheaper than buying a turkey. For just a small little turkey it cost over $50. That's absolutely insane! The chicken was so good though (I think I like chicken a little better than turkey anyway). All of the food was very good. Amy made stuffing that was so good. Everybody bought a bit of food to make the meal.

Here are the girls diggin' in. You all know my beautiful wife Amy there on the left. In the middle is our American guest, Paula. She's so nice and she's from one of the Carolina's... I can't remember which one. On the far right is Michelle. She is from Vancouver. They are both Worship & Creative Arts majors like Amy and I.

Here is Paula and Michelle relaxing at the table after the meal is done with Larry (www.larryinaustralia.blogspot.com). He's a great guy and he's studying Pastoral Leadership here at the college.

This is Stephen. He's from Petrolia, Ontario and has become a really good friend of Amy and I. He's just doing a little clean-up before dessert. He is another Worship & Creative Arts major.

And last, but certainly not least is the APPLE PIE. It was so good. Amy actually made two of these as well, and I'm pretty sure they're the best pies she has ever made. We loaded vanilla ice cream on the pie and stuffed ourselves full. It was a really great evening. We're really thankful for these people. They are a lot of fun to be around.

Anyway, It's my bedtime. You all haven't even started with your thanksgiving dinners yet, and I'm heading to bed. How weird is that? I'm still not used to that... it's dark here right now and back home in Florenceville it's light... that's crazy.

Enjoy your dinners.

Ryan

Two Months Ago

Hey again. Just wanted to tell the world that it's been two whole months since Amy and I tied the knot over ten thousand kilometers away. We're celebrating tonight with "Grilled Chicken Broccoli Alfredo".

Ryan

PS: She's a really awesome wife!

Alexis

Hey. I really don't have much time, but I wanted to put this little picture up for everyone to see. I'm sure you've probably already seen it, but I like it, so here it is.

This is Alexis, Alison and Dustin's first baby. She's also the first neice of our family... I told Dustin that so far he's been the only one man enough to produce a little baby girl... as for Jason and Jeremy... well, we don't need to go bashing anyone here for everyone to see, so we'll just leave it at that... (Just kidding... they've done pretty good too... i'll put some pix of the boys up really soon).

Ryan

PS: Still waiting to see this goat...

An Inside Look

Hey everyone. I really hope everything is going good for you all.

A few days ago, Amy and I spent a day in Sydney with a few friends. We had a great time so I thought I'd show you all a few pictures we took.

We first got on a ferry in a suburb called Paramatta which took us straight into the harbour in Sydney. It landed us right beside the Opera House, so naturally that was our first stop. From there we could see a nice view of the city, the bridge and the Opera House...

Here is Amy and I out front of the Opera House. It's a huge building. We went into the box office to see what shows would be playing and how much tickets cost there. We didn't stay too long. There were some descent shows coming up, but tickets were about $850 each. How crazy is that?

Here is a picture of Amy and I with the bridge in the background. It's a pretty high bridge, and people pay a lot of money to climb to the top of it. It's a huge tourist attraction here.

Here is the view of the city from beside the Opera House. There is a lot more to the city, but this is a really nice view.

From the Opera House we went to the Wildlife Park and the Sydney Aquarium. I accidentaly erased my pictures from the Wildlife Park from my camara, but here is one from the Aquarium with Amy standing in front of a tank with some small sharks and a few other fish.

Here is a picture of one of the bigger sharks they had at the Aquarium. They were pretty nasty looking. They had a few different shark species in this tank with some huge sting rays and one huge turtle.

From there we headed to Sydney Tower. At the bottom of the tower they have the "OzTrek". It's a virtual reality ride that takes you through Australia's history. It was pretty descent. This is Amy and I sporting the top quality (not) headphones during the ride.

This is a view of the tower from the ground. It's 305 meters high. It's not the CN Tower or anything, but I still wouldn't want to fall off of it or anything.

Here is the view from the top. You can really see a long ways away when you're up there, and you can get a nice look at the bridge and Opera House from up there as well. If you want to spend the money you can actually strap on a harness and walk out onto the towers roof. I'm not sure why you'd want to, but you can do it.

It was a really great day. We finished up with supper at the Hard Rock Café. It was awesome! Along with Amy and I was Stephen from Ontario, Larry from Saskatchewan and Manitoba (yes both), Michelle from British Columbia and Jenny from somewhere in the USA. It was a North American getaway I guess. We never planned it that way, that's just how it worked out.

Hope you all have an awesome week! Talk to you soon.

Ryan