The Mines of Moonta

On Saturday Sarah and I decided to take a road trip up the base of the Yorke Peninsula, which is about 150 kilometers north of Adelaide. It was a pretty pleasant drive up through mostly farm country. We stopped in Port Wakefield for lunch and petrol. We had pasties and pies at a fabulous little place called Kiplings Bakery. We had to defend our food against a large flock of very territorial seagulls. After lunch we made our way over to a town called Moonta, which claims to be Australia's "Little Cornwall." It used to be a huge copper mining center with a large population of cornish miners, who ate many cornish pasties. Here are a few things we saw while there:

Some nice flowers. There are a lot of flowers that bloom throughout the year, but winter is drawing to a close, so there are even more than ever.

This is some of the mining equipment left over from the heyday.

Old railroad ties near a station for the mine's trams.

They had a little train tour of the above ground mine workings. It was pretty good. The guide had a barely comprehendable accent which would have had me rolling on the ground had I not been on a train.

We also went down to Moonta's jetty, which was fairly packed with local fishermen and women hauling in their exotic trophies. One young gentleman had caught himself a squid,

And a crab.

The Moonta jetty.

Home Group Outting

The Kelsey Cottage cafe in Balhannah.

My rack o' lamb!

The Mt. Lofty Botanic Gardens, with Sarah, Nandor, Annie and Mary.

Update

Well yesterday after I posted I continued to throw-up anything I ate. Poor Brian even watched me puke in the middle of dinner. So today I went to the doctor and they gave me an injection that should help the nausea in the next 6-8hrs so that hopefully I can begin to rehydrate. Obviously all the vomiting causes me to dehydrate and then that makes me even more likely to throw-up so it's a bad cycle. I hope that I don't have to go back into the doctors to get any more injections.

Also, for my family members. You do not have to create your own blog in order to leave a comment, you can just choose anonymous and then in your comment put your name at the end of your name. I do appreciate your comments and encouragements. :) Love you,

Sarah

In Anticipation

So the first trimester is almost over! I can't wait for the next two weeks to pass and see if my body starts to like itself again. :) This morning (well really afternoon) I was smiling at my success of not throwing up for the second day in a row! I thought I have overcome it, I will not throw up every morning after I brush my teeth! Oh but I was wrong, as I moved slowly into the kitchen across from the bathroom to check on my sweet potato (my new fav food) it happened...all over the kitchen rug and again and then in the laundry sink.
Sorry for those of you who were eating or just get grossed out by those sorts of things. Tomorrow is a new day and I shall see if I can overcome this force once again. So far my sweet potato is tasting pretty good. It's better than eating a bread roll or some other bread item, which has been my main diet for the last 1 1/2 mths. I am not complaining. I am rejoicing that an end to 1st trimester may bring happy feelings and an appetite!!
Well my new VISA finally came through last week and now I can work :) So I start looking for a job here in a few weeks. Hmmm...I miss you all very very much and I can't wait to come home for Christmas.
Sarah

CMS (Church Missionary Society) Winter Dinner

The New Slips

A couple angles of my sassy new footwear for those of you who appreciate such things.

Lately

Well the weather continues to get warmer, and although wet, we would no doubt whine about a drought.

I'm keen on the trampoline, it has a certain sheen when I lean close. When I bounce I get trounced of every ounce of pounce I have.

The little lady may be going crazy because she's going to have our baby.

The silent sound of our unborn offspring subtly infiltrates life's suprises.

Barbequeing Sausages for Trinity at the Bay

On Sunday afternoon our small group from church went down south of Glenelg to cook dinner for a church plant of Trinity's called Trinity at the Bay. They do an evening service, and they all eat together afterwards. We barbequed sausages for them, and I must admit that I ate three of them myself, since there were plenty of left overs.

Tim and Naomi.

The ladies handing out the goods.

A Trampoline Makes Itself at Home

I looked out our back window on Sunday morning and this is what I saw.

A trampoline! Sarah and I had been considering purchasing one for a while, and we found one on sale (20% off at Playworld in Harris Scarfe on Rundle) on Saturday. It's a good form of backyard exercise, a great place to lay in the sun and read, and a wonderful way to make yourself and your friends look foolish. It also has the rather suprising effect of making the grass underneath it grow fast and green.

Joe and Megan came over to share in the happiness brought about by bouncing.

Sarah chose to look on, keeping the baby (and her stomach) on solid ground. I'm hoping the kid will be able to jump before it can walk (but Sarah's not too keen).

More F4 Pictures

A beautiful woman in a beautiful day.

Beside the driveway. It's looking more and more like spring.

F4 Film Pictures Developed Today

The footy oval near our house.

A bush near the oval.

A tree next to the oval. Sorry, these are kind of obvious.

This is in a riverbed down Gorge Road a ways.

Headstones and headmonuments in a Roman Catholic graveyard near our place. Almost all Italians.

Henley beach. Good for flying kites on this day. Not good for sunbathing.

Friday Night

On Friday night we spent the evening with my coworkers at The Royal Hotel in Kentown. They have some pretty delicious burgers. No pineapple, beetroot or eggs.

Here are Joe and Johnny contemplating what time they will have to wake up tomorrow morning to get a tour of the ANZAC Class frigate that's in town.

I have to admit; we're a couple of good lookin' fellas.

From near to far on the left, then far to near on the right: Neil (Mechanical IPT Lead), Joe (Ship Design Manager), Megan(Administrative Assistant), Mark(Requirements), Sarah (My Lovely Wife), John (the new Technical Director), Sam (the old Technical Director), Danny (Designer), Johnny (Controls IPT Lead), Mrs. Paxton (the wife of Jack, the Electrical IPT Lead). Sorry it's a little blurry. I didn't want to use the flash on 'em all.

The Home Town

Sarah and I grew up in Grand Rapids, MI, USA. Here's a few things people from our town have been in the news for:

A buddy of mine from the homeschooling days from Grand Rapids put some clues together that led to the rescue of some hostages in Iraq.

A young dude from Grand Rapids saves a couple girls from Lake Michigan in Grand Haven.

Three brothers from western Michigan referee for the NFL.

Some guy at Calvin wins a THX contest.

Exciting stuff, I tell you what.

Henley Beach

On Sunday we went to the beach. It's been sunny and fairly warm (say 60 or maybe 65 degrees fahrenheit), so we decided we'd make the most of it. We've had a few weeks of pretty dreary weather before this.

Willunga

We went to Willunga with Joe and Megan on Saturday (the same place we biked to with Annie and Nandor a couple months ago) to hit up the Farmer's Market. We got some delicious T-Bone steaks which we ate tonight. Sooo good. We also got some other stuff, but we haven't eaten it yet. We'll let you know how the honey yogurt turns out.

We walked around for a while after going through the market, waiting for a cafe to start cooking lunch, and found some really beautiful spots. We also found some fresh lemons on a tree in a park: they smelled real good.

Our New Pet

Here Sarah is petting our new penguin. She is doing this in a very gentle and loving fashion, somewhat akin to the way she will pat our new baby's head when "it" comes.

The Ship

These are the graphics I did with the renderings Angle did from the model I built:

They were released publicly yesterday at the AWD System Centre opening.

The Mother To Be

Since some of you have been lobbying for more pictures of Sarah; here she is, looking lovely:


She's a tough one to catch on film.

Glass Blowing

So on Saturday night we went to a glass blowing demostration in Norwood with some friends from work. The artist had his glass blowing shop all set up with chairs and a stage, with Irish soda bread and cheese to eat. He was Irish, and so was his wife. Crazy as it sounds, their daughter was also Irish, and she played the harp. After she left to go to her friend's birthday party, an Irish guy sang Irish and Australian songs for the rest of the evening.


Megan won this wavy bowl valued at AU$300 or so by raffle.

The furnace.

Kiteboarding

My friend and coworker John Morris recently invested in a kiteboard. It's pretty amazing. The sail is 14 square meters. It's connected to you by a handle and a harness. The board is fairly similar to a wakeboard.

The prescribed method for learning how to kiteboard is:
1) Fly a practice kite (2 m squared vs 14 m squared) on the beach for about 20 hours total.
2) Fly the real kite on the beach for about 20 hours.
3) Fly the real kite in the water without the board for about 20 hours.
4) Strap on the board and go.

A couple weeks ago we flew the practice kite, and decided to do it again this weekend. This weekend we only flew the practice kite for an hour or so before we decided to move on to the real thing. The training kite is large anough to yank you around pretty good, so we were fairly cautious about attempting the launch of the big one.

After arguing about what was what and what went where we finally got the thing all set up. To make a long story short the afternoon involved a torrential downpour before which the wind suddenly kicked up and neary dragged John and the kite into a fence, me getting dragged across the sand until John was able to dive on me, and finally a sad lack of wind.

Here is John flying the practice kite.


Here is a novice with more experience than us. He is not experienced enough, however, to tack back up the coast into the wind, so he has to exit the water and carry his gear back up the beach.


Here's a couple kiteboarders riding the wind and waves.


And here I am flying the practice kite.

Lately

We've been doing all right. As evidenced by the previous post we've been to see the OBGYN and had an ultrasound. The baby is the right size and has a strong heartbeat. Sarah has been sick with an intestinal virus for a couple weeks now. She hasn't been able to eat much, so she is feeling very weak and tired. She's on the mend, but she's sick of being sick. We'd appreciate your prayers! Thankfully she hasn't had much morning sickness on top of the virus.

Work has been busy. We just had the first public unveiling of the two competing designs today. Lots of media attention and VIPs strutting about the place. My my graphics work was all over the place, which is pretty cool. Not that many people knew it was my handiwork, but it still brings a certain satisfaction to see people admire your output.

The Baby

Here is our child. It's about 12 mm long right now, which gives us a due date of March 15 or so. It was sweet, you could see the kids's heartbeat on the monitor.

Uno

So we were out the other Friday night at the pub with a group of folks from church celebrating our friend Em's birthday, and somehow it came up that Sarah and I have been playing some Uno lately. Our pronunciation of the word Uno (oo no) set off a sort of debate between Australians of various geographical origins as to whether we were right or if it was pronounced like "you know." We were compeltely flabbergasted at this. It is utterly and completely obvious to us that the name of the game is derived from the spanish word uno, which in english is simply "one." When you have one card left, you say "uno," and hence the name of the game. I don't understand how such a large number of people could totally miss the connection between one and uno, and then think that the word uno should be pronounced with a long u. I could maybe see a short u, like in "under," "utter," or "up," resulting in "uh no." The only word I can think of offhand that has a long u at the beginning is use and it's derivations, which has an e after the consonant. Who knows. I can't believe we're going to have a child in this land of crazed mispronouncers.

The DDG 51 Class Flight IIA

Here's a picture of the destroyer class my company designed, and is basing the design of the Australian destroyer on.

Speeding Ticket

We were alerted by Sarah's mother today that I recieved a speeding ticket a couple months ago from an automatic speeding ticket generator. Apparently I was caught doing 73 kph in a 60 kph zone on our way down to Kangaroo Island for our one year anniversary get away. The ticket was sent to the address on my drivers license in Virginia, then forwarded to Sarah's parent's house in Michigan. They are now sending the ticket back to us in Australia. It's an efficient system folks. I'm really just mad about getting a ticket. It's never fun. So watch out for this intersection: