Christmas Presents - New Camera and Chair

Today we bought our Christmas gifts - a new camera for Nancy (with Denali, above, a first subject). It is a Canon Powershot SX20IS, which also takes pretty great video (see butcher bird video below).



Tim got a new Tessa chair in black leather as his gift (below) but Zamboni has already claimed it...

Denali Goes Gecko Hunting

Hanging Out with our friend Annette's Rottweiler

Christmas Video

Ho Ho Ho!

Watch our Christmas Video of our highlights from 2009, our "Year of Travel" by clicking HERE (watch full screen optimized for best effect)

Christmas Greetings!

Merry Christmas!

Today we are having a fabulous Christmas. We started with lovely French toast with maple syrup and (for Nancy) blueberry topping. We admired our treee and the manu cool ornaments (including a special bird ornament from Joann). We are off now for Christmas dinner with our friends Rogen and Karen.

Christmas Eve

We had our traditional and very enjoyable Christmas Eve dinner with our friends Justin and Elissa and their kids Isabelle and Alexander. We had great shrimp and lovely chocolate cake...

Furminator

We have purchased a FURMINATOR brush to help the cats get rid of their undercoats for the summer. Gromit says why can't we put it together to form a seventh cat...

Zamboni says he is white like the snows in NJ!

Snake in the Toilet

Today we came home from work to discover our resident carpet python, Sophie, had somehow found her way into the house and had made her way to the guest bathroom. (Luckily we have no guests at the moment!)

Sophie was pretty calm. I managed to get her unwound from around the toilet, slid her into an empty box, and carried her outside. She was pretty calm about the whole thing. When I put the box down she just calmly and slowly made for the nearest bush!

I really like having the snakes and other wildlife around the house - even though some people don't like snakes we don't mind and it certainly keeps the mice and the possums away!

Great flowers from our friends

Today our friends Michele and Gavin and their kids Will and Robin sent us a lovely bouquet of native flowers, in thanks for the quick tour of Brisbane we gave them on their way home to Boston from an extended Australian stay. We hope they all can come back and spend longer in our city!

Many Kookaburras Singing in our Tree!

Birds in the Yard

Plants Blooming

All the rain has really made the flowers bloom around our house!

Rain at our House

Nancy & Tim's Christmas Party

Toady we had about 45 folks over for our annual Christmas party. Some highlights included extremely fancy cupcakes flown up from Sydney, a flashing Christmas necklace (shown below) and lots of laughter and good company...

Cats stalk birds on porch

Today we had LOTS of birds visiting, including a scrub turkey. The cats, as always, are keen birdwatchers....

Here is Raven wanting to get out the binoculars...

Tim Gets Photos Taken for Media

Tim has been doing some amazing things at work recently. He has a blog which has recently won an innovation e-award. He has also been doing great work with the School of Business' MBA program. If you want to hear Tim lecturing, click HERE.

Growing Trees for the Back Yard

We have a lot of tall beautiful trees in our front yard and we want to extend our forest a bit in the back yard. So we have bought about three dozen seedling trees, mostly the pine-like casuarinas that the black cockatoos love, to transplant into the back yard. These have been growing for about 6 weeks. I will plant them in the fall. Our grevilleas (below) are also in full bloom after recent rains...

Water Dragon as Pet?

This is an interesting "pet" for a nursing home - a water dragon! Took this photo on one of my clinical consulting days in a Brisbane nursing home.The residents liked him a lot and fed him biscuits...

Ken Laidlaw Enjoys Brisbane

Ken Laidlaw hung out for a few days after the conference to do some work but also to see some Brisbane highlights such as Lone Pine Koala Park and coffee at UQ...

Joint Psychiatry and Psychology Conference, Gold Coast

Unbelievably, after over a year of planning, the first joint meeting of geriatric psychiatrists and psychologists in Australia was held, and was a success (see webpage HERE)! This was in no small measure due to the excellent invited speakers, including Ken Laidlaw from Scotland, Stephanie Allison from New Zealand and Osvaldo Almeida from Perth, Australia. Deep thanks to conference co-chair Gerard Byrne (above) for his gracious support and his deep appreciation of a good breakfast...

Garden Going Crazy!

We have had a lot of rain and the plants in the garden are really loving it. I have never seen these native orchids in bloom before; they are right in the front garden and are just stunning...

Net-casting Spider on our Verandah

This spider creates a small web that it uses as a net to toss on a passing insect. Even more remarkably, many species have the ability to create pheromones that simulate the mating scent of a moth. This attracts a male moth into its range so it can net it.

Long Hiking Day Along Beautiful Coastline

Today we went on the most excellent hike along the coast at South Mission Beach with Gavin, Michelle, Will and . The scenery was spectacular, and we were lucky enough to see a green tree snake on our walk.