Our Crissy Holidays! A bug on every plate...

We had a lovely Christmas down in Australia. It was about 90 degrees, humid, and it rained off and on.

On Christmas Eve day we actually had a tour through the rainforest--it rained about half of the time, which is usual this time of year. Anyway, after a dinner of leftover lasagna on Christmas Eve (cooked in an actual OVEN two days before) we got ready for Santa. We didn't have any Christmas cookies, so they put out M&M's.

The boys woke up at 6:30. We told them they could get us up (officially, that is) at 7:30. Here is Hugo studying Darrin's ipod, counting the minutes. Alek got some good math practice. ("7:06! That's only 24 more minutes!!!") One of the acquired skills of parenting is falling back asleep, 2 minutes at a time, in between such little outbursts....

Santa had found his way to us:

The boys sorted out the presents first.

Approximately 5 seconds later, everything was open!

Here, Max shows particular enthusiasm for his new jammies.

...and his new legos...as you may know, we are really short on legos in our household.

Santa gave Hugo a big turtle too.

For lunch, we had meat pies, an Australian specialty. Darrin showed particular enthusiasm for these. Meat pie, internal view. As I was eating, I kept having songs from Sweeney Todd run through my head....

Then we settled in for a couple of hours of Lego building in pure, sweet silence....

Raise your hand if your Christmas Day looked like this:

After Lego Time, we went here (70 meters away):

Raise your hand if you went swimming on Christmas, too? That white tube is part of the stinger net that keeps the excruciatingly painful jellyfish out of the swimming area. (As Darrin's colleague says, "Australia is a place where the wildlife can kill you.")

Then we came back home and made our Christmas dinner. We had a kind of fish called sweetlip, and "bugs," which look like amputated lobsters. They tasted pretty good.

Here's a closeup of a bug.

And here is our tropical fruit plate. The red stuff is dragon fruit. We had not had this before. It looks like a beet, but tasted like air. With little seeds inside. As Darrin said, "this is the fruit that aspires... to have flavor."

And then, still in the spirit of indigenous Australian cuisine, for dessert I had purchased one of these. I had absolutely no idea what it would be, but doesn't it look great?

It was kind of like a big round meringue. Turns out that Darrin hates meringue (how did I not know this before? We've been married 11 years!) so...not the best choice.

However, I was mainly interested in the Pavlova's role as as a substrate for delivering this other indigenous food, which I had been eyeing in the grocery store all week:
If you are taking notes at home, please be sure to write down that custard is not the usual thing to serve with a Pavlova--you're supposed to put whipped cream on it with fruit. But the ladies in the dairy department assured me that I could put custard with it if I wanted to, and so I did. I cleaned my plate.

We definitely missed the tenderloin at Tracy's house ("it's DONE! Just take it OUT!") and the cousins missed their cousins....but overall, our Aussie holiday was relaxing and delicious! I hope you all had a great holiday, too....

GBR snorkeling

Yesterday we went on a snorkeling tour at the Great Barrier Reef!

It took about 1 hour to get out to the Opal reefs, where this company goes. Alek and Hugo both threw up on the way. Maybe we didn't give them a big enough dose of anti-puke medicine? Anyway, here are Hugo and Darrin catching some fresh air (the next best medicine). (All photos here are courtesy of the ship photographer.)

Here we are about to get out of the boat. We are wearing nylon suits to keep away sunburn and jellyfish stings. The boys looked like superheroes!

Max, Hugo, and Darrin:

Me and Alek:

I was so proud of the boys. We were worried that at least one of them would freak out at the last minute and not get in the water. But they snorkeled the entire time. It helped a lot that it is summer here--the water was very calm and very warm. They also practiced this summer in the pool and in the NC Sound.

We went to three snorkeling sites and found Nemo at all three of them! We also saw amazing coral and fish. You'll have to go there yourself some day...but do try to go in the next 30 years, because by then, the reef will probably be dead (at current pace of ocean heating)

A sea cucumber. We got to touch one during the guided tour with the marine biologist.

We saw a lot of these giant clams. They were about 3-5 feet across.

Here we are in the water, in different combinations.

Hugo:

Max, Darrin, Alek:

Me and Hugo:

Max:

Me and Alek (I think? Might be Hugo?):

Then during lunch, parked over a reef, Hugo's first tooth (finally) fell out!! How many kids do you know who can say that they lost their first tooth at the great barrier reef?

Holiday travels...

If you have followed us for the past few months, then you know that our life in Japan is just not quite exciting enough.

Pause. Yes, I am kidding.

And yet, this time of year, the boys' school has a three week (!) holiday break. Since we didn't think we wanted to stay in Japan the whole time, and since we're in the right hemisphere anyway, we thought we'd take a trip here for Christmas:

Isn't it beautiful? Can you guess where we are? Here's a hint. The wildlife can be dangerous:

And the natives eat this:

and they have these!

And also these!

And other cuties like these:

Not that the trip here was easy. We're in the same time zone (more or less) but it was an 8-hour red-eye that arrived at 5am. Nobody got much sleep, and by lunch time, we were all feeling it.

Even Darrin:

Oops. That's not him. That's an old, tired version of one of these cool birds that we saw at a rainforest-zoo today.

Are they owls? We thought so, too.

Anyway, we haven't had much time to blog, because we have been sitting on the beach and hanging out in the pool. Those activities can be very time-consuming.

Today when we visited the wildlife center, I fulfilled a life-long dream:

I have been in love with koalas most of my life. This one left some poop on my shirt (and on Max's shirt, too--he held the same one).

I think I will never wash my pink shirt again.

In fact, four out of five of us got pooped on today. Alek got nailed by some bird:

And so did Hugo. Only Darrin escaped!

We ate breakfast amongst the the birds at this zoo. (see, I'm already fluent in the language down here! I say "amongst" and "booking" and "bah-sil")

And then we went on a bird-feeding tour. This is one of the things the birds eat. Only, imagine them moving.

(Okay! No more gross pictures--I promise.)

This is a female version of some kind of parrot:

And here is the male version. See? Very Christmas-y.

And of course we fed these wallabies:

And saw fruit bats:

And owls (this one's for Papa):

And kangaroos too, of course.

Later, by our hotel pool, we even saw a baby koala and a platypus:

And in case you are wondering, we are feeling extremely lucky and a little spoiled, too, being on this trip.

Tropical Australia....wish you were here!