It's Been A While

Yes, we're still alive, and very busy getting ready for the holidays. We have a lot of work to do to get this blog back on track too, so we'll see what we can do in the very near future. Check back with us soon.

Ryan

Fun in Fiji

Hey, everyone! Sorry it's been such a long time since our last post but it's been the busiest couple of weeks of our life. If you don't know - we are home in Canada! We're excited to be back but we sure do miss the Australian sun and our pals back there "down under". On our travels back to Canada, me and Ryan decided to spend a few days in Fiji to celebrate our one year anniversary (a little early). It was so gorgeous and we had a wonderful time!

This picture was taken on a sail ship that took us from Nadi, Fiji to another island. We had morning tea and live entertainment as 6 Fijian men serenaded us to "Oh, My Darling" for an hour!

This is the island that the boat dropped us off at. We did some snorkeling in the morning in that crystal clear water and sun-tanned a little, too!

The sign says it all! The island isn't very large, though - me and Ryan walked around the entire thing in less than 15 minutes!

Those sun huts you see here were first come, first serve - so ours is on the furthest right. We had to run to get one because people were going nuts!

On Mystery Island, there was one spot that you were not supposed to go because it was the home of turtles! Pretty neat!

Here's us after actually being in the sun for a while - it's a tan for us!

I met a little friend in the lobby of our resort.

The sunsets in Fiji are indescribable - they are absolutely breathtaking. Pictures can't do them justice really.

Here's my handsome husband taking a little nap. Isn't he so cute?

It was great for us to have our first wedding anniversary celebrated there. It was unforgettable and we hope to visit it again some day. The weather was perfect (although the locals were wearing snow pants and tuques and it was 30 degrees celsius!)

Hope you all have a wonderful week! We love you all and to all our Aussie friends (and family) - we miss you a whole big bunch! G'day, mates!

love,
amy t.

Need Sleep

Hey. We're still alive after the first four days of Hillsong Conference. One more day to go. T.D. Jakes was amazing tonight. Need sleep. Will post more later. Bye.

Ryan

Four Years Old

Happy Birthday Gabe!!! We wish we could be there.

Love, Ryan & Amy

PS - Photo used WITHOUT permission. ©2007 Kady Carter. All Rights Reserved. Thanks Kady.

Australian Footy

Hey everyone! It's been a while since we've posted. It's been so busy here, and what has been keeping us busy isn't really worthy of a post on the blog I guess.

Anyway, I had an awesome night last night! Larry and I headed to Telstra Stadium to watch some real Australian footy, or football. It was the Sydney Swans against the Collingwood Magpies. We had awesome seats for a couple of reasons. One, because we were right down in the second row. There were times when there would be a big tackle right in front of us and you could hear the guys smacking together. It was sweet. The second reason is because were were stuck between some hardcore Swans supporters and some hardcore Magpies supporters. We had a few laughs throughout the night at their passionate dislike for one another.

This is the outside of Telstra Stadium.

Here is the inside of the stadium. It seats around 81,000 people. Apparently there were about 65,000 at the game.

Here's Larry blowing up his thunder sticks which were free courtesy of Australian Post.

These guys are the Sydney Swans. Every person in the stadium except Larry and I could name every one of them.

This is the opening bounce. It's pretty much like a face-off in hockey, or like the tip in basketball. The umpire bounces the ball as hard as he can off of the ground and the players start jumping to grab it. You can see the ball in the picture if you look closely. It's about 35 feet in the air.

Here is a bit of the action.

It was a lot of fun, and a very Australian experience. The Swans sucked crap and were absolutely destroyed by Collingwood. The final score was 76-57. That kept the crowd pretty quiet. I guess if we wanted noise we should've headed next door for the Guns N' Roses concert.

Later.

Some New Locks!

Hello, everyone! We hope you're having a wonderful last few days of May! Can you believe that winter is fast approaching??? (Here in Aussie land, of course!). I am starting to get cold - so hard to say what it will be like when we actually experience good ole' Canadian frigidness. Well, this past Monday (1 week from today) I got my hair cut from my Norwegian hairdresser, Tone. She is really good. She gave me a really different look - it's still growing on me. What do you all think???
Ha! Just kidding. This is after some serious 80's teasing (some of us actually did that back then - crazy, eh?)

This is the new cut when I just leave it curly. It takes like seriously 4 minutes!

And here's when it's kind of straight and punky - it's the rocker look! I just need a dog collar to complete it!

Well, have a most lovely day! We miss you all and we love you all so much! Talk to you, soon!

love you,
amy t.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

Happy weekend, everyone. How are you all?

We got a call last night from Murray and Lori letting us know they've arrived home. It's pretty hard to believe. It seems like just yesterday we were picking them up from the airport. It was heaps of fun having them here.

We took them back to the airport on Wednesday morning, so we spent Tuesday, their last day here, doing what any good Australian would do on a beautiful sunny day - we hit the beach...







We had a great time. The waves were massive. A couple of us are still feeling the effects of them.

Anyway, have a fantastic weekend. Talk to you later.

An Aussie Adventure!

Hey, all you lovely people! So sorry that it's taken us so long to post, but we've been busy tearing up some serious Australian territory! Mom, Dad and me and Ryan ventured up north to the Blue Mountains for a few days. We even saw wild kangaroos and a real, wild wombat (that caused a big scream out of Mom because she thought it was chasing her as she was taking pics of the kangaroos outside the car in the middle of the road.) We've sure had some great laughs - I've missed hanging out with my mom and dad. It's so great to have them in hugging distance! Here are just a few pics to help capture the fun we've had the last week or so:

Here is Mom and Dad in front of the Three Sisters. The view is really quite breathtaking! On the very first of the "sisters" there is a path that you are able to take (with really steep stairs) and you can actually stand on it. So, we did that, too.

We also made some friends along the way. Here was a friendly guy that took a liking to Ryan and Dad.

And this guy was just too irresistible to hug!

Here was the place where we stayed - it's called the Megalong Valley. It was beautiful! One early morning, me and Ry actually spotted a wild kangaroo from our bedroom window!

One day we traveled to the Jenolan Caves. We climbed 1,236 stairs and went up and down ladders through the "River Cave" - but it was worth it! It was so incredible - and this is just one of 320 caves in that mountain alone!

On Friday, we went into the city of Sydney. And you can't go to Sydney without taking a few tourist-y shots! Here is Mom and Dad with the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

And here is one with the Opera House. (They must be having a good time - they let us take all kinds of pictures of them!)

We also visited the IMAX Theatre in Darling Harbour. It is the world's largest screen - 8 storeys high! We saw the film Deep Sea 3-D (hence the cool glasses!)

It was quite good - but there was this one part where this ugly, big fish comes out of the screen and looks like he's going to eat you...I screamed a little.

This was our train ride home after a long day. Ryan took this photo - Like Father, like daughter.
Well, we are having a blast and we can't believe it's almost over! It went by way too quick - but it's been so much fun! Talk to you, later - have a fabulous week, everyone!

love,
amy xo

The MacDonald's Have Arrived

Hey everyone. Just a quick post here to show you a few pictures of Murray and Lori we've taken during the first few days of their visit...




We're off first thing tomorrow morning to the Blue Mountains, so we'll have heaps more pictures, and a reason for another new post.

Later.

Dustin Peterson: LIVE & UNPLUGGED

Fall (Or Spring?) Cleaning

Hey all. How are you going?

Only one more week and we'll be done with all of this terms assignments, then we get a break for a couple weeks. I can't wait. We all took the day off from the books yesterday though, and got some yard work and house work done.

Between the whole house we only had one pair of gloves, so Amy took one and Stephen had the other. Looking at this picture it seems Stephen could've had them both - Amy is using her bare hand.

In this picture, Larry is kind of looking like one of those angry atheletes that attack the camera man. It looks like he is about to break the broom over my head or something. He didn't though. Probably wanted to, but didn't.

We discovered some more creepy crawlies in our yard as well. There were a bunch of these spider webs hanging in the trees. All of them had a single leaf in the middle and we wondered why until we looked into one of the leaves. You can see part of this spider hanging out of the leaf. There were also several lizards hanging around. They were a bit too quick to get a picture of though.

Well, I guess that was our weekend. Hope yours was equally exciting. Talk to you all later.

Ryan

Crazy Times

Hey mates! It's been a day or two since our last post - sorry. We're here now though, to bring you up to speed on what we're up to.

Assignments, that's exactly what we're up to. It's pretty crazy - I never really did assignments in high school, and now I've more than my fair share to do. I guess this is me paying my dues. Amy seems to find all this school work much easier than me. This is her doing her assignments...
And this is me doing assignments...
Actually it's not that bad. We're learning some pretty amazing stuff here, so I guess if we have to work hard to learn what we're learning, it's worth it.

We had a good Easter weekend. Amy baked me this awesome bunny-looking cookie with lemon frosting...
It was pretty tasty... Then, this weekend, one of Amy's friends from work had her 21st birthday party. I guess that's a big thing here. They spend as much money here on a 21st birthday as they do a wedding. That's crazy. It was a costume party with a classic Hollywood theme. This is her with all of her work mates...
Anyway, I need to go do more assignments. Doctrine 1, here I come.

Ryan

PS - I MISS HOCKEY!!!

A New Profession!

It has been 5 months since Ryan's last haircut! Our regular hairdresser, Tuna from Norway, is on high demand right now. She only charges $10 and with a whole host of penny-pinching college students, she has a very large clientelle. So, tonight - during a little break from studying...I attempted to take my handsome, but long-haired husband from this:
...and after a lot of this...
...to this! A stunning babe!
Now, it's not perfect, but I think I did good for the first time. (You were my inspiration, Ali.)

This is Ryan's idea: Cast your vote if you think Ryan still needs to seek the help of a real barber or if his new style is OK the way it is.

We love and miss you all! Have a wonderful Easter weekend!

love,
amy t. xo