A Snow Day In Brisbane?!

Dear family and friends in Seattle--what a winter you're having! It looks like you're being pummeled by snow and ice, with more to come! To the right is a picture taken this week of Bellevue. Half our family wishes we were there experiencing this winter of a lifetime. Can you guess which half? :-) Marc and I, on the other hand, are quite content to savor the unusually cool and comfortable summer in Brisbane. Rather than temperatures and humidity in the upper 90s (i.e. 95 deg and 95% humidity), they have both been in the low 80s which has just been wonderful. Interestingly today (Wednesday 17 Jan) Michelle actually experienced a cancelled class due to ... snow?! The reason was that her US History class is actually via telecon in Seattle. So today's class was cancelled due to the Seattle snow, and Michelle was able to enjoy the benefit while on the other side of the globe!

What a contrast to the weather and sun we have in Queensland! This weekend we are traveling an hour north to the famous Sunshine Coast and Maroochydore Beach for the weekend. It is one of our favorite beaches in Australia, and we will be spending some time with the Hundleby family. Marc works with Murray, who is Boeing Australia's head lawyer in Sydney. Murray, his wife Jan, and 3 kids recently returned to Sydney last year after spending a year living in Seattle on a similar exchange opportunity. They lived on Pine Lake on the Sammamish Plateau, so we are all looking forward to hearing what they thought of Seattle.

We hope you all thaw out soon!

Marce

Goodbye to Grandma Alene

We said our goodbyes to Grandma Alene yesterday as she boarded her plane for the 28 hour trip (including layovers) back home to Spokane, Washington. Our month together was fabulous, and now we have to adjust to life without Grandma once again. Marc also headed back to work after being off for 3 weeks. So its back to reality for the girls and I. The Aussie weather is helping a bit with lots of rain and gray skies matching our gloomy emotions. Actually, the rain is a welcome sight for all of Brisbane since we are in the midst of the worst drought in over 100 years. Our yard was parched and brown when we left for Tasmania, but we came home to green grass and ferns and flowers popping up everywhere. On our way home, we were bracing ourselves for some killer heat that we usually have this time of year, but the temperatures have been perfect with highs around 25 deg C. To be honest, Tasmania was a little too cold for us. How are we going to deal with the Seattle weather once we come home? :-)

We've managed to get several of our Tassie pictures uploaded to Kodak Gallery. Here's the website to view our slideshow:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=rb4s789.1sis3a79&Uy=4oek83&Ux=0

Cheers!

Marce