Merry Christmas 2006
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| From Merry Christmas! |
For those of you who didn’t receie a personal email from us (we had several bounce back at us), here is our Christmas and New Years email to family and friends. I realize I am a little behind on the blogs right now but stay tuned and as soon as I get a highspeed connection, there will be several coming down the pipe:
Merry Christmas 2006
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| From Merry Christmas! |
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| From Merry Christmas! |
It’s that special time of year again when family and friends gather to exchange gifts and good cheer and toast the season and, unfortunately, we couldn’t be further away. It’s strange to be celebrating Christmas in the midst of summer without a snowflake in sight (although there was a wicked hailstorm not far from us today). Except for some spring weather in New Zealand, we’ve pretty much enjoyed an endless summer since our trip began and we certainly can’t complain. It’s only as Christmas approaches that we’ve begun to miss the traditional snow, caroling and hot chocolate and
eggnog that we’re used to. But most of all, we really miss all of you who are back at home and would like to send you Season’s Greetings and wish you all a Happy New Year.
What we don’t miss is the stress and craziness that mounts this time of the year – especially in retail. It’s been wonderful to finally be able to relax and enjoy each other’s company and focus on each other instead of stressing about deadlines and targets. Since we don’t have room to carry
much, we’ve had to limit ourselves to one or two small presents each which also reduces the need to spend hours shopping and saves us a ton of money. We will have to get creative where a tree is concerned, but the kids are busy making paper snowflakes and a popcorn garland for decorations and are as excited about Christmas as if we were at home. Simon appears to have an internal advent calendar and, for weeks now, has been announcing how many days till Christmas the moment he wakes up each morning.
We’ve been gone just over four months now and, so far, our trip is going very well with no major catastrophes (if you don’t count getting lost in the jungle, two broken cameras and a dented rental truck). Most of all, we’ve enjoyed spending time getting reacquainted with each other and our kids
(although at times we could cheerfully strangle each other). We’ve been in Australia for just over five weeks and have thoroughly enjoyed the warm tropical climate and beautiful beaches of the sunny east coast. By far, the highlight of our trip has been chartering a yacht for six days and sailing
the Whitsunday Islands, although the three day 4WD sand safari on Fraser Island and a visit to a crocodile farm were pretty cool too. For the past few weeks we’ve just been taking it easy and relaxing on the beautiful beaches of Noosa, Surfer’s Paradise and Byron Bay while working on our
surfing skills. We will spend Christmas and New Years just outside Sydney and plan to take in Sydney’s famous New Year’s Eve celebrations before heading west to Adelaide and then up through the outback to Alice Springs and finally Darwin. Then it’s on to Bali and South East Asia.
We hope all of you are healthy and happy this holiday season and wish you all the best. Please lift a glass to us at Christmas dinner as we will to you and try to keep everything in perspective. The most important things in life are not money and possessions, but our relationships with family and
friends. We certainly miss ours right now!
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!
Tamara, Claude, Alexa & Simon
P.S. Here is the links to all the photos we’ve uploaded so far:
http://picasaweb.google.com/tambour99
Tags: Happy New Year, Merry Christmas, Travel
tambour
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