Sweden!

So, I'm back in Sweden and it's cold... Minus 12 today, but such a beautiful and sunny day! I was lucky enough to see my little nephew William straight away since he was here visiting mormor and morfar.  He's so much fun to be around and talks and talks and talks!  We ventured out in the cold for a little while to go to the playground.

It's so good to be back and I can't wait to see the rest of the family and all my friends soon.  It's only my dad and I at home tonight so we're going to get some take away and have a nice relaxed evening.

Australia Day

The weather held up and we had a lovely Australia Day! We started off in Nelson Bay fore shore where they had a market, a band playing, and the usual stuff you'll get at a festival.  We then continued on to Newcastle where we met up with our friends for a BBQ.  Loads of good food, drinks and some cricket! We're now back home and ready for bed:) Goodnight.

 Alpacas at the festival, this one is for you Dale:)

 Nelson Bay Festivities

BBQ in Newcastle

Our own little BBQ

We're trying not to buy too much stuff for the house since we're not staying here forever, but we couldn't resist this cute little BBQ:)  It's not as fancy as the gas ones but it gives a beautiful smoked flavour to the food and it's a pretty green colour!

 Our friends came back for a visit!

 

Tomorrow is Australia Day and we're heading in to Newcastle to meet up with our usual gang for a picnic.  I've spent the last few hours cooking pierogi (not sure that's the right translation, piroger in Swedish. It's like the Spanish empanada), for our picnic.  I haven't had this since I was a child and mamma used to make them for whenever we went on a school trip or a picnic.  I made two different kinds, one with chicken, bacon and mushroom and one with minced meat.  We've already tasted a couple and they are good! The weather however isn't as good and the forecast for tomorrow is pretty bleak.  It has been raining constantly for the whole day today and we're keeping our fingers crossed for some sun tomorrow...

Sunny or not, I'm sure we'll find a way to celebrate Australia's National Day. Happy Australia Day!!

Backyard Zoo

It has only been about 2 weeks and we are absolutely loving the new place and all of the new features it brings with it. Without hesitation I can say this is one of the coolest places I have lived. So far we have had several visitors including Rainbow Laurakeets that we have hand fed, a Cookabara that seems to visit us every other day just to sit on the railing and stare at us, we tried to feed him but he seems un interested. Other things such as spiders to miniture snail just seem to walk into our life. The other day we were also cleaning up the jungle backyard and in the midst of preparing an area for a garden i uncovered several eggs. As you can see from the pictures they are the size of peas. Reading on the internet they are probably Garden Skink eggs which we have moved into some soil on our back balcony for hatching...happy trails. Oh by the way, Mom and Dad of both the Koping-Lindh and Lintott variety, the Nobby's Head lighthouse walk was closed the  other day while they caught a meter long Eastern King Brown Snake...happy days indeed!

 The lovely lady and the pretty bird...

Skink eggs...

The Cookabara visit...

The Cookabara

The POOPing incident

The Snail...

Our new friends.......

The past week..

So, we've been at the house for a little over a week and we love it! I guess we haven't been away from Newcastle long enough to miss the buzz of the big city, but so far so good.  It's great to finally have some space, especially outside with a patio, a balcony and a yard.  The yard is pretty wild though and has probably been rejected for a while.  We attempted to do some gardening yesterday (whilst being terrified with the prospect of a snake encounter) and got it cleaned up a bit, but there are still loads of dead branches and leaves everywhere... I guess we'll have to do a little bit at a time.  Our weekends will now be busy with things like cleaning the garage door, sweeping the patio and collecting dead branches:)

It hasn't been all work and no fun this past week.  We went down to the Marina the other day here in Nelson Bay and had a nice dinner, and on Friday night we drove down to Newcastle to meet up with our friends for dinner and then stayed the night at Quintin and Sal's place.  It's only a 45 min drive to Newcastle if we feel the need for some city life.  Nelson Bay is pretty nice though, with small shops and boutiques and some nice restaurants by the Marina.

Our new place!

Sorry for not being very active on the blog lately, but we've been busy busy busy!

NYE in Sydney was quite an experience.  We were looking for a good spot to view the fireworks together with another million people in and around Sydney...  We ended up very close to the Harbour Bridge and saw the count down on the bridge and most of the fireworks.  The rest of our 4 day stay was spent touring around the city looking at all the landmarks.  We even had time for a trip to Bondi Beach, which was very nice considering the Sydney weather was sunny and hot.

So, what's kept us busy this last week is our move! We've moved from Newcastle to Nelson Bay 50 km north.  Wyatt nowadays has a 5 min drive to work rather than 45 and we have loads of space in our two storey house with 3 bedrooms, two balconies, a patio and a garden with loads of exotic plants! The house is really nice and after cleaning our old place for a couple of days and unpacking and tidying up here, we are finally sitting down with a glass of wine tonight enjoying our first house together!

Marg and Dale went back to Canada early this morning after almost 3 weeks over here.  Time has flown, they've been great company so the place feels a bit empty.  They were here in the middle of the move helping us with the cleaning, packing, carrying boxes etc.. thank you so much for your help! It was greatly appreciated.

Well, we were up at 5 this morning so it's bedtime for us now.  I leave you with some pictures from the last week.

Waiting for the first set of fireworks at 9pm

Onboard the sightseeing bus

 Picnic in Hyde Park

Bondi Beach

Dale in the middle of cleaning

Our new place;

 View from the balcony, our backyard is like a jungle!

 The Patio 

 Living room/Kitchen 

Wildlife

The wildlife over here is something else.  Wyatt and I have been here for just over a year and it hasn't seized to amaze us.  Marg and Dale have been here for a little more than a week and we have already bumped into Kangaroos, Koalas in the wild, Monitor Lizards, Cockatoos, a Blue Tongue Lizard, a type of small shark (possibly a Leopard Shark) and an Octopus. 

The weather has improved lately and whilst snorkelling yesterday Wyatt found an Octopus under a shell. It was pretty small, so we kept it in the goggles in a bit of water to get a closer look.  Whenever you touched it, it would turn into a beautiful fluorescent blue pattern.  After a day on the beach, we came back home and googled it.  It turned out our pretty little Octopus is one of the most poisonous of the marine life... it turns blue when threatened.  Luckily for us it's pretty docile.  I will never ever touch or poke anything from the wild again. Ever.

Apart from being amazed- and scared by animals, we've also been sampling some wine from a couple of the hundred vineyards in the Hunter Valley.

 The Lace Monitor came a little bit too close during our picnic

 Monitor traces in the sand

 Waiting for the low tide (that never got low enough) at the Spit to cross over to a neighbouring island.

Well, it's just another half an hour here until New Years Eve, so Happy New Year to all of you! We're heading to Sydney tomorrow, and are looking forward some spectacular fireworks!