Sonja's going for a while

My tourist visa has run out here in Australia and I have to leave for a little while. I'm going back to the States for about 5 weeks and then coming back to Melbourne. I'm still waiting on my residency visa (grrr). Cam will stay here and work while I'm away - he's currently looking for a cleaner.

I'm looking forward to spending time with family and friends and enjoying the sunny weather (hopefully) in Seattle.

Here's what I'm looking forward to:

Mt. Rainier, a dormant volcano

Pike Place Market in Seattle

Going shopping with my sister

And being silly with my niece (who's graduating, can't believe it!)

Easter at Mt. Beauty

Over the Easter weekend we were up at the holiday house at Mt. Beauty. We had amazingly beautiful weather during the day and really exciting lightning storms at night. Here are some pictures of our weekend.

The holiday house and our new car

our noisy neighbors, the cockatoos

With all the bushfires lately the fire department is desperate for some new recruits - seen here on their first outing.

Gold Detecting - Eureka we haven't found anything!

We spent a weekend away with Cam's parents in a little town called Lanacoorie looking for gold. Cam's dad bought a gold detector (with our inheritance) and he's set on finding the "big one". Cam got his miner's right license and went to work with John. They detected, dug, sifted, and in the end didn't find anything. I spent a lot of time with Cam's mom sitting and reading.

Getting geared up

cheap labor...

I found lots of quartz

an old camp from the late 1800s

Careful Trish! Don't fall down there...

hopefully these are kangaroo bones

the lake near our cabin - ahh the serenity

Camping on the Buffalo

We went camping on Mount Buffalo, a national park in Victoria Australia, for the long weekend. A group from Cam's parents' town get together each year for a camping trip. We stayed in tents by the lake and did little walks to different look-outs. It was gorgeous!

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An unwanted house guest

A few weeks ago we got some much awaited rain and then some little creatures decided to take cover in our house. A huge huntsman spider, non-poisonous and part of the tarantula family, took refuge in the corner of our kitchen - until we swooshed it outside into the garden.

Because I don't know what's poisonous here and what's harmless I was a little frightened at first. I need an encyclopedia of arachnids around the house to tell me what's what.

We're Moving... Again!

On Feb 10th we'll be boarding yet another plane and heading to Australia. We're really excited for the move and equally as excited just to unpack our bags for a while. We're packing like crazy at the moment. Please keep in contact with us and join us on our adventures in Australia!! We'll miss our friends and family in the U.S., but please don't hesitate to come down under and visit us - we have a guest room for you.

Seattle Daze

On Jan 20 there wasn't only a big party in Washington D.C. but here in Washington as well. Cam and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary. We spent a couple days up in Seattle just milling around and doing very "touristy" things. We went to the Seattle Aquarium and saw lots of fish and some very cute river otters - and we had dinner at a great place called Wild Ginger (to commemorate our honeymoon in Indonesia). The next day we went into Benaroya Hall, where the Seattle Symphony plays and took some cool pictures of Dale Chihuly's glass artwork.





We're going to miss Seattle!