Digitized Down Under

Here's some pictures for you to enjoy ....

Sorry the pictures will have to come later, Alli and I are having trouble downloading the pics.  Check back tomorrow.  :(

Happy New Year!

Well, here we are at our last stop! Let's just say we're all exhausted and a bit on edge ... too much togetherness. :) It's really not that bad, just kind of feels like a horse that's getting close to home. We just can't get there fast enough.

We're in tropical Cairns, and I do mean tropical. What do you get when you plunk yourself down in the middle of a rainforest? Sweat, droopy hair, and warmth. Ahhh ... the warmth! (we heard it's a mild 23 at home) It's in the 90's here. I think ... you know they go by celsius, and my brain has become too tired to figure out the exact Farenheit.


Our trip here from Brisbane was filled with more airport excitement. Let's just say Qantas owes us big time! :) When we got to Brisbane Airport, we once again were not booked on the flight that we were supposed to be on, but Derald's were. So they went on without us, while Dave made his way to ticketing to "work things out". We ended up on a flight 4 hours later, but .... they put us in Business Class, and we enjoyed the Business class lounge at the airport for those long 4 hours. So yesterday was a very long travel day once again!


This morning (December 31) we woke up nice and early - our clock was set one hour early, and we didn't figure it out until we were ready for breakfast and we tried to wake the girls next door and they growled at us! So finally at the right time, we headed north one hour to Port Douglas to take Quick Silver out to the Great Barrier Reef. Dave, Mitch, and Kevin all went on a 1 hour scuba dive, and the rest of us enjoyed snorkeling. It was awesome! Abbi absolutely loved it!


Tonight our family enjoyed a meal together eating normal American cuisine, hamburgers. YUM! We are very tired of Italian and Asian food! Kevin was refusing to go eat with us, but I told him that he owed it to his Mom to make sure all the family is together for our New Years' Eve Dinner, and sure enough when we were all seated Dad had to do the "six count". For those of you unaware of this spectacle ... whenever we're all seated at a table together, Dave has to count to six, and all the kids groan! It is just such a rare occurence!


After dinner we went out to the "esplanade" (do you like all my new words), and enjoyed a 9:00 mini firework show. And I enjoyed my favorite carnival treat of "fairy floss"! I guess at Midnight is the big one! duh.... But Alli and I think we would just as soon be in our rooms and watch the show that is happening in Sydney Harbor, since we were just there, and actually saw some of the preparations for the fireworks.

It is now 10:00pm here and only 7:00am Tuesday morning in good old Middlebury, so I guess we will welcome the New Year in for all of our friends and family, so that you don't have to stay up to do it. Go to bed early tonight and dream of good things to come in 2008!

And you'll never believe this but Dave and Abbi are already sleeping! :) I'm going next door now to use Alli's computer to make another post of all pictures. She has them downloaded on her computer. So for you picture lovers, check out the post titled Digitized Down Under!

Trekking on ...

Well, here I am again at a loss for time. We just keep moving from thing to thing, but I wanted to let everyone know a few of the things we've been up to. There won't be pics again because I am alone up here on the 15th floor, and I can't find any camera cords. Good excuse right? :)

Our days in Sydney were wonderful. It is a great city! Our highlights were a harbor cruise on our own boat (the kids preferred to call it a yacht) and Ashley getting stuck in an elevator for 10 minutes with about 6 strangers. On Christmas Day Abbi and I took a cab to the cinema to see Alvin & and the Chipmunks, while the others "walked the bridge". This is no simple walk, but training and a clean breathalyzer test gave them a chance to walk across the top girders! www.bridgeclimb.com Quite amazing, they told me. I wanted to go but the age limit is 10, so I said I would hang out with Abbi - wouldn't want to leave her unattended in the city, however if we gave her a credit card she would've probably been OK. We don't have any pics of this event, because cameras or any other loose items (necklaces, sunglasses, coins) weren't allowed. For Christmas Dinner we enjoyed a wonderful private room with lots of laughs and memories, complete with a visit from Santa, who had candy for all the kids! We heard some stories from the kids from when they were much younger, of things that us parents didn't know about.

On to Melbourne .... our first event was a personal tour of Jayco. We were all very impressed with their new facilities, and the cool product they push out the doors! They employ about 700 people, and 90% of recreational vehicles in Australia is a Jayco. They have certainly captured the attention of consumers! After a short break, we made our way to the 87th story of the tallest "residential" building in the world, which is about 4 blocks from our hotel. Once up there, some of our group bought tickets for "The Edge". Basically you step into a complete glass cube (room), then the room slides out (yes, just like a slide-out on an RV except larger) over the street below. The glass is opaque, until "poof" it becomes clear and you can see straight down. Abbi did this cool event, and it was so funny to see her want to keep her feet on the 2" wide metal strips on the floor, instead of standing on the glass. www.eurekaskydeck.com.au

Today, Thursday, we trekked out into the interesting countryside to Gerry's horse farm. We spotted several dead kangaroo along the road - a lot like deer around our place, running out into the road and that's all she wrote! The farm is absolutely lovely. Kevin told me when he's older he's going to find a wife, come to Australia, and buy the farm from Gerry. Abbi was pleased to ride a horse for about an hour, the boys rammed around on 4-wheelers, and Alli and Tilynn competed in a hot game of tennis!

Tomorrow we fly north to Brisbane to visit the famed Australia Zoo. It feels sad to say good-by so soon to our wonderful hosts here in Melbourne!

Well, I've gotta' go to the pool and rescue Austin from his pesty little cousin. Maybe pics later tonight ...

Cindy

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all our family & friends! We've already celebrated, and had a good night of sleep, and now we're off to the airport to catch our flight to Melbourne.

I have many stories to share and some pics, but they'll have to wait until I have more time.

Love you all!

Visa, what Visa??

E-tickets? .... check! Passports? .... check! Visas? .... what Visas?

I'm sure the ticket agent at O'Hare wasn't too impressed by the drop-jawed, stunned expression we were all giving her. The story is that not one of the 11 of us showed up with a visa, but of course it's not our fault. :) What we have found outis that it is "standard" procedure for Qantas to process visas for their travelers, it just didn't get done for our lucky group. The ticket agent at O'Hare (Paulette) was really so sweet and kind, and painstakingly did all the visa work on-line, and managed to get us on our way. We offered to bring her along to Australia, but I think she was afraid of traveling with our fine family. By the time that was all completed, we already knew that our flight out of Chicago was delayed and we wouldn't make our connection in LA, so Paulette again helped us out and booked us on a later flight out of LA, and Derald's agent did the same for them! When we made our way to the gate in LA, we discovered that each of our families were booked on different flights, which I'm sure wasn't Paulette's fault! But we were scheduled to be leaving about 15 minutes apart, so it all worked out and we met up in line at immigration in the Sydney Airport.

So here we are in Australia. As I'm sitting here writing this post, I am looking out the window of our motel room at this view ....




It is breathtaking ... especially if you're here. Sorry. We ate at a little outdoor cafe' on the far side of the water close to the Sydney Opera House. The breeze was a little chilly, but today it was a beautiful clear day. The "towel boy" at the pool told me that they had had 20 days of rainy weather, and today was the first clear sunny day. I wanted to tell him it was probably us bringing our wonderful Northern Indiana weather with us, but I'm sure he wouldn't have seen the humor in that, so instead I told him I'd love another Diet Coke!

And now we are all settling into our cozy beds for a good night of sleep.

It was a looong journey of 14 hours from LA to Sydney, 7,500 miles and major time changes. We left our house at 12:45pm on Friday, and when we landed in Sydney I looked at my watch and it was 6:30pm on Saturday, I hadn't changed my watch yet. When I got into the airport I changed my watch to Sydney time and turned the hands all the way forward to 10:30am Sunday! So are you confused yet? I am! Just figure 14 hours ahead of you, and you'll know exactly what we're doing. :) Try explaining to a 9 year old that we simply didn't have a Saturday evening. No movies, no ballgames, it just didn't exist in our lives. Right now it is 10:15pm Sunday night here which makes it 6:15am Sunday morning at home. Yes, we've been up for a very long time! Some of us slept on the plane and some of us napped fitfully. Mitch claims he slept for 10 hours, and I don't doubt it. I figure I got about 2-3 hours in. Yawn!


I need to crash into my King Size bed because morning will come quickly, but I'll leave you with one more picture of the cousins posing in front of the Sydney Opera House. Mitch must've been tired of walking! :)

From Down Under ... g'day!

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Oh what fun it is to sled ... yesterday after school, I loaded up my two youngest, my oldest, and three college guys and headed to Wilbur & Sarah's for an evening of sledding. We started on a punky little hill that didn't give us much pizazz, then moved on to a OMG hill that sent up careening down a narrow and steep trail in the middle of a woods. Smart, huh? I spent most of the time standing in front of a large tree close to the bottom, to protect all my "kids".

Here's Kevin giving it a try, and letting his long golden locks of hair blow in the wind.

Kevin's giving it his all, and jumping right over Lucho. Lucho is a college student who has found his way into our family's hearts. He stayed with the boys while we were in Cancun, and they all survived, so I guess he's a "keeper".

Lucho is from Paraguay, so this snow activity is a ton of fun for him!

The Triple Threat stacked on top of each other and gave it a try.
Hmmm .... not too successful!

Here's my comatose Abbi taking a break!

We buried her in saucers!

Guess Who???

It's the dazzling duo of Kyle & Alli!

And most importantly, at the end of the day, we're all still smiling

and no one is hurt! Hooray!

In front is Abbi. Back row is Alli, Kyle, Kevin, Lucho, and Darin (a high school friend of Alli & Kyle)

So there you have it ... my first post with pictures! Congratulations to me!!! If someone could tell me why I can't change to font of a few of the captions, that'd be great! I've been trying for the last 1/2 hour, but I give up and so now you have a post with pics AND a variety of fonts ... how lucky can we all be???

See you all from Down Under, on Friday we'll leave this Winter and be on our way to summer ... g'day mate!

Finally!

Well I'm finally glad to be home, and I'm glad everyone is so EXCITED for me to be home : )

So this is Alli if you didn't know. I am hacking onto my mother's blog. Actually, I just finally had the time to post her profile picture and now (since her blogger account is already up) I am going to make a post. The picture really wasn't that hard to upload, but I'm having trouble finding ways to make it any bigger. Any ideas?

So life is good at the Hawkins home. Blah blah blah.

But life here is so much better now that I'm back and living in my newly painted room. It doesn't quite feel like my room yet though. In case you didn't know, I got kicked out my room by my 10 year old sister. I guess that's what you get for going to college. Hm. Life is rough.

I'm glad to be done with finals and moving onto a new semester of classes. I'm getting excited for SST this coming summer. I'll be spending three months in Nicaragua. But before that, I am SO excited to make my way to the land down under with my wonderful family. The vacation of my dreams!! : ) I am also looking foward to a new, promising season of volleyball in 2008. And I am happy that my "good friend, who is a boy" (that's for you mom) is coming home on Saturday. He's on a service trip in Mississippi.

I could stay up for 3 more hours writing on this blog because I'm not tired. College students generally don't get tired until about 3am. And especially after finals week--where I've conditioned myself to stay awake until 3 or 4 to study--I am in no mood to go to bed before 2 am. So what's a college student home for break to do?

I guess I'll have to go work on all those Christmas presents I've got to get done before Saturday. Plus, I have some laundry to fold (gross!) and I could do some more "goodwill" sorting. Too many clothes in this girl's closest.

That's all for now : ) I hope you enjoyed reading this. I think my mom's life is more exciting than mine though. So don't you worry, she'll be back shortly. And in the meantime, maybe we can figure out how to make that darn picture bigger!

I'm gonna post some pictures to help spice up this blog a little bit. Maybe inspire my mom to do the same? Good night everyone!

My parents are so proud of me : )

Here's the boy who is not a colts fan AT ALL

These are my roommates

my awesome volleyball team

The Weather Outside Is Frightful ...

... but in Wana Waves it's so delightful! Yup, that's right ... Wana Waves for 6 hours on Sunday! We slipped and slid all the way to Shipshewana to try out the new water park, with our friends Dave & Brenda and their crew. It was a lot of fun for the kids, and us adults played some mean rounds of Euchre - Men 1 and Women 1 - we'll have a rematch soon. By the 6th hour I had reached my limit of noise, humidity (flat hair, need a haircut BAD), and the burning chlorine smell! But it really was a great time. Until .... Monday Morning ... Abbi woke up itching like crazy, and sure enough she had huge hives all over her stomach and back and armpits. Yikes! Thank goodness that school was cancelled. I gave her 2 benadryl and that seemed to kick it, until 5 hours later. Then this morning she woke up, and I checked her tummy and back and thought Phew, gone! Not so lucky. By the time she came downstairs, she was itching her eyes and knees. Yup, nasty hives all over her face, kneck, and knees. Another blessing that we had the 2 hour delay this morning, but I kept her home until lunch, because we needed that much time for the benadryl to do it's thing. Well, tonight before bed she was going crazy, because now it's all over her butt and thighs, hands and feet! More benadryl, and we'll see what she's like in the morning. I have never had to deal with hives before, and it is quite amazing to see the welts come & go in different places. I called Brenda, and some of her kids are reacting the same way ... sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen! :)

Alli is finally home tonight! She was done with finals on Friday, but left to take her roomie home to Ohio. Praise the Lord for roommates who are also best of friends. We love Jocelyn like our own daughter, and we'll miss her during vacation. I was worried about the weather moving in, but Alli made it home just fine ... after all she's 20, and I shouldn't worry so much! I'm looking forward to spending time with my daughter doing some fun stuff, and also just spending time together. Even though she's close by for college, it still seems as though we are always in a hurry when we see each other, so vacation will be a great time to just be together! I love you Alli! Now ... please help me post some pictures, so Kim can relax!

"Think, Think, Think"

Remember the old 8 mm movie reels that we (if you're as old as I am) used to watch on a projector and a big screen, that my big strong Dad could put up soooo easily? Well, "bear" with me here .... did you ever watch Winnie the Pooh movies? I remember one in particular, when Pooh was sitting on a log trying to come up with a solution to one of his friends' problems. And he's sitting there thumping his finger to his temple, repeating "think, think, think". So here's where I come in. I'm feeling a little like Winnie the Pooh, except that I can't thump the side of my head because I need both hands to put my words on this blog. My creative juices seem to be at an all time low, and it couldn't have come at a worse time. Yeah ... just in time for me to create my stupendous, outrageously funny, but meaningful Christmas letter.

So who to blame??? I'm thinking of blaming my inspirations for this blog - you know who you are. I'm wasting all my creative thinking on this blog. But if I'm really honest with myself, it's probably just me, feeling quite boring right now. Nothing really exciting is happening, except for my new car I got today, and MRI on my old & achey elbow (see below), and I spent several days in Florida last week. See how boring my life has become?!?

So about the MRI. Some of you may remember that I had shoulder surgery last January. With my left arm in a sling for a loooong 10 weeks, I continued on with all the work that a Mother typically does, except that I of course, only used my right arm for everything! Yup, sure enough, at about 10 weeks my right elbow started showing signs of "tennis elbow". I wanted to scream at the Doctor and say, "I wish I had been playing tennis, it would've been a lot more fun than laundry and housework with one arm!" So two cortizone shots later, and an evaluation by my Physical Therapist sister-in-law, I moved from my shoulder doctor to an elbow doctor. She's suspicious that it's more than just a little tennis elbow, in light of the fact that I can't fully extend my arm and also have trouble turning my hand palm up (that's supination to you medical people). Results from the MRI tomorrow, and then we'll go from there. I will say though that I had my first PT appt. today, and after some TLC, ultrasound, and Electrical Stim, I am feeling some relief from the intense pain whenever I use my arm for it's intended uses. I'll keep you posted!

"Think, Think, Think"!