Two and a half weeks later

The river has receded, we reentered our house two days after it went under water. Almost everything was damaged by the water and covered in sewage-y mud.

I started some of the photos I took of our destroyed things, but it was making me too sad. If you want to see for yourself, they're online: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunmaid/

The big news is that we're heading back to the great US of A! We decided that if we have to make a fresh start somewhere, why not do it back where we want to live anyway. The decision was not an easy one to make; I'm quite sad about leaving all of my friends and the life we've made for ourselves here.

For the time being, we're living with a friend of mine. She and her husband have a two-story, five bedroom house. The four of us are in one bedroom and we have a little lounge area to ourselves. It's a full house, though. It's the four of us, my pregnant mate and her husband, their toddler, two Chinese exchange students, two beagles and a cat. 

We will be here for 6 weeks (2 weeks down) and so far it's been peachy. Roxy and their daughter Layla get on great, it's fun to live with beagles and we have big family dinners. We're not getting too much sleep at night, but at least we've got beds to sleep in.

The kiddies and I are flying out March 2nd. Nate is sticking around to go on one last collecting trip to Far North Queensland and flies home March 23rd or so. My sister is flying out to help me move all of our stuff and help with the kids on the flight. 

We'll be with my parents in Kingsburg until Nate returns and then we're moving to Albuquerque. Our friends Gavin and Kim are moving there this weekend so Gavin can start a postdoc. Nate will be in the same lab working on manuscripts and looking for jobs until, well, until something comes up, I guess.

Let's finish up with something positive. Here's Murdoch doing his best 747 impression:

He rolls over as soon as he gets put down on his back and starts doing this. 

Here's a short video of Roxy's Australian accent. This is pretty much the only thing that comes out of her mouth these days.

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.

low and wet

Pictures from today. We evacuated early this morning and are staying with friends. We took only what we could fit in the trunk of our Ford Laser.

 Our house at 5 am.

Our house at 7 am.

Our house at 9 am.

 Steps leading down to under the house.

The side yard (the wild tomato garden is flooded).

This isn't even the worst of it. The river is supposed to reach its highest tide tomorrow at 4 am (I think). I think they're expecting another meter and a half of water.

A link to the flickr photo site with more pictures from today and yesterday: http://flickr.com/gp/sunmaid/rB963z

low and dry

The floods in Queensland have made international news, prompting some family and friends to ask if we're in harm's way. The answer is no. Not at all.

Queensland is an enormous state. It is about 1.72 million square kilometers (about 715, 000 square miles). That's 25% of Australia's land mass, or 4 times the size of Japan, 6 times the size of the UK and twice as big as Texas.

Brisbane is nestled in the southeast corner of the state. We've gotten a lot of rain this spring and summer, but we are pretty far from any of the flooding of 'biblical' proportions.

Murri Christmas!

Polaroid from our annual trip to visit Murri Claus! (This is our Christmas card, but it won't make it to all of you until the new year...)

Eddie and Lisa's visit

Our good friends Eddie and Lisa stopped in for a looong weekend on their way from Papua New Guinea to the US. They are expecting their first baby this March and are spending the last trimester in the US and will be heading back to PNG sometime after the baby's arrival.

Our weekend was filled with talking, cooking, brunching, yoga-ing, reminiscing, eating and playing/cuddling with babies. Here are some photos from the weekend (I didn't take many).

Eddie is probably Roxy's favorite person in the entire world.

Lisa and Roxy doing child's pose

and cat-cow pose

Fresh oysters, crusty bread and bitter beer. Nate was in heaven.

Eddie sampling the oysters...

Nate sipping on the beer...

Roxy after her first taste of bleu cheese (she really wanted to like it).

correspondence notes

For those of you who received Murdoch's birth announcement...

We went through a printing company in the US and they addressed, stamped and mailed the cards for us, hence the impersonal typed address on the envelope. It was less expensive for us to do it that way and made more sense because most of the recipients are in the US. The only catch was that we had to use an American return address. The Kingsburg address is my parents house.

We're still living large in Australia and an Christmas postcard is on its way with our Australian address.