Pictures of our Street

For those of you who have enjoyed looking up our address on Google Earth, here are some pictures of our street (Darley Road) as well as some pictures of Manly Beach, just a few blocks from our door. Spring has arrived in Australia - it's 88 degrees (31 C if you're a local) and sunny this weekend! Beautiful with the sea breeze!

Netball

I attended the Australia vs. New Zealand Netball game last weekend (http://www.netball.asn.au/extra.asp?id=782&OrgID=1). The sport is very similar to basketball but the nets don't have backboards (how strange to see simply a pole with a net at each end of the court!) Many of the other rules are a bit different as well - for example when the shooter is going for a basket the opposition's feet cannot be within 3 feet of hers. Although the speed of the game seems to be faster than basket ball, due to the 3 foot rule all play stops when a basket is being shot. The entire stadium gets silent for each basket!
The thing that really impressed me about netball is that it's a predominantly female sport - the stadium was filled with moms and young daughters. To see the "tweens" getting so excited about a sporting event was really wonderful.
It was nice to see a different sport but I think I'll stick to football and soccer. ;)
~LAA

Parakeets and Cockatoos

It astounds me that we live in a place where parakeets and cockatoos roam free. They're the kind of animal that I expect to see in a cage in a pet store or someone's home. Here they're everywhere. You can walk down the street, look into the trees and see 3-4 of them. They other day I ran past 10 cockatoos eating crumbs from the ground like pigeons! This country continues to amaze me! ~LAA