Our house this morning

The river peaked this morning at around 4 am. It peaked at 4.5 meters, which is a meter lower than the highest point during the last big flood in 1974. I took this picture at 6 am. They're estimating the water is receding now at 10 cm/hour (until it starts approaching again with the high tide this afternoon).

Can you make our the top of our carport there on the right? I've added more pictures to the flickr set (http://flickr.com/gp/sunmaid/rB963z).

We're heading up to our friends' parents' house in Redcliffe today. The parents are on holiday and the house is vacant. We'll probably be there until Sunday as we don't really expect to get into the house until then.

Thanks for all your e-mails and well wishes! It means a lot to us and we'll do our best to keep you updated.

Skink Watch 2009: Success!

One day way back in February, I walked outside to check the mail and spotted a reptilian flash out of the corner of my eye. This was different from the usual geckos, lizards and skinks that scatter when I walk around outside.

This thing I saw was different. Specifically, this thing was much bigger. I only saw a flash of its scaly abdomen, but that trunk was about 2-3" in diameter! Enormous!! I ran inside, grabbed The Wildlife of Greater Brisbane and turned to the Lizards chapter. I decided that we had a Blue-tongued skink living in our garden. This was Day 1 of Skink Watch 2009. Every day that I went out to check the mailbox, I kept my eyes peeled for our blue-tongued amigo, but didn't see him again until a couple of weeks ago.

We had some people over for a winter BBQ and for the first time in five months, our skinky little friend showed his slithery head! It's not like this lizard runs around with his blue tongue hanging out. He has to be pestered before he'll flash it. We decided to be good neighbors and just let him be. There's a whole web page dedicated to these animals, so if you want to see the blue tongue, just follow the link. After seeing the photos on that site, I'm kind of glad we didn't pester him.

Can you imagine finding this in your garden? For size comparison:

This picture makes us look like our baby is in imminent danger. Don't worry - the baby wasn't in there and I always shake the pram before I put her in it to wake up any animals sleeping in it. (Oh, and Mr. Blue Tongue eats fruit, flowers, eggs, snails and carrion.)

Skink Watch 2009 is over. I'm glad he paused and let me snap a few pictures. Now he's out in our garden somewhere. I hope he plans to stay!

We also discovered that our funny little possum like to take naps in the laundry room.

You can see her disinctive "jelly bean-shaped poop" in the foreground.

Nana and Noosa

Totally candid picture of Carolyn bird-watching at the Noosa Inlet

My mom, Carolyn, (Roxy's Nana) has been here just over a week now and we've been very busy. She's added 20 new birds to her life list and she's seen a lot of them in and around our neighborhood! The remaining were spotted at the Mt. Coot-tha Botanical Gardens, the City Botanical Gardens in downtown Brissie and on the Sunshine Coast on our first Australian road trip!

Grey butcherbird (top) and Pied Butcherbird (bottom) at Mt. Coot-tha

White-eyed duck at Mt. Coot-tha

Kookaburra spotted at the Noosa Laguna Look-out

The Big Pelican of Noosaville (does not count for bird life list)

Our trip to the Sunshine Coast was great. We hired a car and took to driving on the wrong side of the road with no problem. The weather didn't cooperate fully all weekend, but we managed to jump into the warmish South Pacific and Nate body-surfed like the good ol' sea dog he is.

Look out for the surfer!

Due to a glitch by Travelocity, we got an unbelievable deal on our hotel room at a resort. It had three pools, two spas, a sauna and our room came with a kitchenette and, drumroll, air conditioning!!! Before we left, I picked up a set of long-sleeved, footy pyjamas for the bub because she's only ever slept in just her nappy and she likes to kick(!) off the blankies. We wanted her to keep warm in the cool A/C.

Bubba modeling her new jammies in the cool air

The rest of Nana's visit is to come... to be continued. The sweet sleeping bub pictured above is practicing out her crying-so-hard-I'm-turning-purple skills....

"biggest storm in 20 years" and a new nephew

After suffering through a sweltering morning yesterday (30+ degrees + humidity = hotter than it sounds), a big storm came through late in the afternoon.

We sat under the carport and watched the sky turn dark gray, then watched a fantastic lightning show and listened to the huge thunder claps! Little did we know that as we snuggled under the carport, the suburbs to the west of the city (we're south of the city) were getting totally pummeled!

I heard that 100,000 homes were without power, one man was killed (he was taking pictures of the rain in a storm drain and was caught off-guard (!) by a flash flood), and there were something like 3,000 lightning strikes.

Here's an article about it from the national news. We didn't get any hail and our power didn't go out. As soon as it started raining, the kids next door ran outside and started playing on their big trampoline and their dad started washing his car (he was soaping it up to let Mother Nature rinse it off).

Anyhow, we survived the big storm with our power and our home intact. Unfortunately, Nate's coworker wasn't so lucky - she lives west of the city and has lots of downed trees and her home is still without power.

In other big news... on Thursday, my brother and sister-in-law welcomed their new son into the world. Ethan William.
Nate thinks he looks like my dad:
I guess I can see the resemblance... :)

Some pictures from our first few days in Brisbane.

Taken from the plane. The sun rising over the Pacific as we approach Australia.
After all of the warnings we got about choosing our words carefully (see the bottom of the entry), we saw this street sign while looking for an apartment!
The jacarandas are in full bloom all around the city and are absolutely gorgeous! This is on the University of Queensland campus.

The gash on Nate's scalp from the dive-bombing magpie! We have since learned that these attacks are common during nesting season and have even seen warning signs up around town!

Carrie and Jon's house on the hill and right on the edge of Brisbane Forest Park.

The view of the city (it's way out there) from their porch and a cage of guinea pigs out front.

We got caught in a rainstorm on the way home from the supermarket yesterday. We got home pretty soaked, but the rainbow sure was pretty.

Safe and sound on our balcony. The baby has been making quite a ruckus lately. Lots of big kicks into my ribs. Just about 8 weeks to go until Baby Hardy makes his (or her) debut!