Happy New Year

I am a bit behind on the blog, but must tell you about recent rather than past days to begin with. We have had 2 great days here in Alstonville. There have been others also, but the past 2 were a welcome change.

Yesterday, Sunday was a drizzly morning and we went out to the markets around the area. The first was called a car boot market and ranges from someone’s garage sale junk to crafts, imported stuff and local foods. There were lots of interesting things to poke along at. We bought some 'maccas', macadamians, and Nathan and I had a nice gluten free lasagna. Made with sliced butternut squash, mmm, it was a treat.

After that we headed out to Byron Bay for their market and the beach. That was a big one. It is fairly hippy, but lots of good stuff to see. Great food there! There was a raw food booth and a great fresh smoothie place. Yummy! I am not really stocking up on ‘stuff’ so the food seems to be the highlight for me. Eating out has proved to be hard to stay within Nathan’s and my diet, but we try to keep it in perspective, but it is nice to have things that are specialty.

The clouds parted while we were there and we headed to the beach. We had a good hour or so there before the blue bottle jelly fish came around. Lots of people were getting stung and there was a steady stream of people at the life savers stand getting ice to lessen the sting. I don’t think it is too serious unless you are stung a lot, but I don’t want to find out. Nathan was interested in the sand more than the water anyway.

Today we changed it up and stayed home. We spent the day playing in the pool and around the house. We have not really used the pool yet. We were busy for the first few days and then the cool and heavy rains over Christmas flooded it and made it dirty. We got the pool cleaned up and checked by the pool people and then it got cool again. So today we took full advantage. I feel revived again, which is good, because there are rains forecast again.

We had rains start about the 23^rd and it was a rain we rarely see so long and hard for so many days even in Squamish. We wanted to travel north into Queensland while we were here, but so much of Queensland is in bad flood conditions for the past week or more. Apparently it is hitting the news at home and it is an area the size of BC that is flooded. We feel extremely lucky to not have had a home exchange up there. It would be so tough to know what to do at someone else’s house. On the 27^th we got cabin fever and packed for a few nights to head south. The weather looked marginally better that way, so we headed out. We really have lost the desire to drive anywhere. It would take us a month to get to Puerto Vallarta this year. We took 2 days to drive 41/2 hrs to Port Macquarie. We stayed in a nice town the first night called Woolgoolga. This place is a great beach, a colony of fruit bats and a busy local tavern that makes good food and is family friendly. It was still raining off and on so we headed further south. We found not only a dry place, but also a beautiful sunny day at the beach in ‘Port Mac’. It was worth it.

Along the drive we saw a wild boar and then 2 emu’s in the wild. I never dreamed I would see wild emu’s.  They were a ways away in a sugarcane field, so the pictures aren’t good, but you know it’s an emu.

We went to the local showgrounds here in Alstonville for NYE. It was a family event, no alcohol and fireworks at 9:30. Lots of kid stuff to do, rides, music, fairy floss(cotton candy) and bouncy castles. There were predicted to be 3000 there, it was crazy to be in shorts and tee shirts on NYE watching fireworks.

I hear that the subscribe thing isn’t as easy as I thought. Just check every week of so if it doesn’t work to follow or subscribe. Thank you for all your emails, we really like getting them!

For those of you not on facebook here is the link to a few pictures, but I am much further behind on those. I am learning new software and can’t seem to make the time to edit all those photos we have taken. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=255092&id=554710811&l=b7cd9e8b6d

Happy 2011 everyone. May your sadness be less, your happiness more and nothing but blessings to come through your door.

Love Lana, Tom and Nathan