Phase one of my return to health occurred in February in Tasmania.  Brought back a new attitude about what kind of / how much food I ate, and have maintained the 10 lbs of weight loss I achieved there.  But…further weight loss and better health will occur now only with some good exercise.

Welcome to Phase two!  Brand new, today!  It has been so long since I rode a bike regularly so riding one of these new ones is an amazing experience.  Did you know that they now make bikes with DISC BRAKES?  How cool!  I have never been comfortable with those little pad brakes that rub up against the tires to stop you.  And the shifting mechanism is so darn smooth!  Manly is very much a bike/skateboard/surfboard kind of town and I am looking forward to seeing more of what is called the Northern Beaches.  Yes, it now is autumn in Australia but the weather’s still great outside.  Will check back when I’ve lost another 10 lbs!

Well, I’m making a change in my blogging practices and wanted everyone to know what’s up.  This blog remains the same as always, detailing the amazing and most frabjous experiences of the Smiths in Oz.

But I wanted to have a place to post the best pictures I’ve taken with my Nikons over the past few years.  So I’ve made a new blog that is just for my photo portfolio–no family stuff here, that’ll stay in the Smiths in Oz blog.

Take a look at the new site and see if you like it.  You’ll see some photos that I’ve already posted to the Smiths in Oz, but here is where I’ll be posting all my new photographs worthy of display.

Click here —–>  www.warrenphotos.wordpress.com to see my new blog.

If you like, in the right column you’ll see an orange button labelled “Follow” and if you click on that button you’ll get an email when I post to this new photoblog just like when we update our Smiths in Oz blog.

If you see a photo you like and want to tell me so, just click on the title of the post (not the picture) and you’ll see a “Like” button displayed.  If you click the Like button, I’ll get an email saying that you liked that picture!

Back in familiar territory this morning, if only for a visit. Victoria begged MBD to attend, but didn’t show up herself! Anyway, it’s fun to do it at least one more time.

Got pretty close to the recipe. Next time I’ll use the food processor longer and actually puree the ingredients. To me, pumpkin soup ought to be thin with minimal texture.
Of course, MBD wanted nothing to do with this recipe!

The surfers in the water got a real treat this morning! Click on the image to enlarge it.

They’re down here in Manly as well. Up in the trees as evening sets in, you can hear them squeaky-squawking up in the Norfolk Pines.
Not bad to look at, though. Makes a North American robin seem rather plain!

Almost 2 years ago, 15-Feb-2011, MBW and I were in Queensland having our first Great Barrier Reef experience in Port Douglas. 4:30 in the morning, couldn’t sleep. so I grabbed my camera and off I went for a walk. This blazing sunrise was my reward!

Another shot from Australia Day yesterday. It’s easy to get a little sunburnt down here, as MBW can attest to!

Australia Day 2013

Australia Day 2013

Just a beautiful day here in Australia. Continued the seemingly endless process of organising all the stuff we brought over from the other house. But MBW and I took a nice walk down the beach and I found a breakfast buffet that allowed me to make it a true holiday! Had our friends the Kilpatricks over today for a brief period. Now everyone has turned in and it’s just the sound of the surf outside. Peaceful. By the way, evern though the holiday is celebrated on a Saturday, everyone takes this Monday off. So it’s a 3-day weekend! Hooray!

Well, the Smiths have made another major move in our Australian adventure! We spent 13 months at West Street but found out a month ago the owner was keen to sell the unit. We played around with buying the unit and with some serious finagling, it could have been done. It was a different decision everyday it seemed…Yes, this is where we want to stay…No, what else is out there???? It took our Christmas trip to the Whitsunday Islands for us to make the final decision. You know how that works…move away from the problem and the problem solves itself. Stay in it, control it, wallow in it and you will never find the “natural decision.” The deciding factor was a helicopter ride over the Whitsunday Islands. We realised there was SO MUCH to do and see in Australia/New Zealand that we didn’t want to limit our financial capacity to do everything we wanted to do. We returned from vacation and immediately began looking for a new home. We had exactly 20 days to find another place to live and move. Our lease at West Street ends 16 January 2013. While we could have gone to month to month, we saw no reason to prolong the issue. Typical for me…whirlwind for MWH and MBD!

So we looked online, we contemplated leasing a newly built unti NEXT DOOR to our place, we found a possible solution on the rocks of Manly Beach but we hit a major roadblock. Australia completely shuts down from 25 December until 2 January…every year! And I mean SHUTS DOWN! If you aren’t an eatery or a retail store, you are closed and completely unavailable. We were going to have to wait almost 6 of our 20 days until we could even look at another place to live. Even if we found another place to live, there was no guarantee we would be the applicants the landlord selected…fun part of leasing and buying real estate in Australia. I was proactive and filled out applications online for places we thought might work. In what MWH and I like to term a “God Deal (for which we have had many on this adventure!),” one real estate agent (also the building manager) named Craig decided to work on New Year’s day and called concerning one of my online applications. He invited us to come look at the unit. This was a primo unit across the street from Manly Beach and it is unheard of for one to be available much less an active online listing for more than one day. The Australian shut down had worked in our favour! We went to look at it, fell in love with it, Craig fell in love with me, ready to sign on the dotted line….but wait, according to bylaws of the building, no pets (mainly worried about allowing dogs, hoping for Chihuahua size and someone moving in with a Great Dane) allowed. Well shit! Dream location down the drain. We went home and spoke with MBD about it and the prospect of giving away 2 more much loved pets was just too much to bear…at least for two of us it was!

Enter second “God Deal” of the day. Thirty minutes after our conversation with MBD, Craig called us saying he had spoken to a few people in the building and the bylaws had non-definative wording on the pet ownership. Since we have cats, would we be willing to sign a pet clause stating we would shampoo carpets and fix any damage when our lease was finished? Well, HELL YES we would! Craig said he would have to call the owner of the unit to clear it with him but felt it wouldn’t be a problem. The owner’s only stipulation was, No Children. HA! No Problem! Sssshhhhh! Don’t worry, Craig knew we had a 12 year old, more worried about a toddler causing stain damage. The Smiths were screaming and doing three versions of the happy dance! We received good news the next day that our application had been approved and we were good to go! WHOOHOO!!!!

Begin the moving madness…..no one has recovered yet, most of all MWH and the two cats. It was decided that I would stay at the new house last night with the crazed and stressed out cats…they had just been picked up from an over-night at the vet after being bathed, dipped, tummies shaved, claws clipped, yadda, yadda, yadda…but that’s a whole ‘nother story in itself. So I stayed at our new home last night and MBD and MWH went back to West Street. Following is a picture of my first night. It was an overcast evening but still a peaceful place. There will be many more pictures to follow! Most of you will receive a change of address card in the mail very soon. If you received our 2012 Christmas card, you will receive the CoA card. Toodles to all! SS