anna bananna

G'day Mates. Boy oh boy, so much news and I am not really in the writing mood. But, I am not really in the cooking mood either- soooo, this is where I am.

First off, I am so very happy to announce the birth of the newest addition to the clark family. My sister gave birth to Miss. Anna on Aug. 16. Now, if you know me... you know my childhood fear... ELVIS PRESLEY. It all started in public school when playing at a friend's house and the show "sightings" came on. It was all about how Elvis was still alive. This turned into nightmares with Elvis chasing me. I became obsessed. I wrote a speech on him, my parents took my to Graceland, my cousin paid the Elvis impersonator in Goderich to hug me for a dollar.... he chased me down the hall, my girlfriends spent my 18th birthday in the Elvis booth at JackAstors.. you get the hint. I hate him. At night in the dark, I would imagine him lurking in my bedroom. What the heck does that have to do with Anna you ask? Well my friends, today is the day Elvis died. I am certain this is a sign from the King himself. It's also Madonna's birthday as well as local celebrity Bruce Fisher... so it could also just be the day Anna chose to be born. So my dear niece, your auntie will never ever forget your birthday or what I was doing when you were born... (sleeping.. you woke me up at 4 am). Also, I spoiled the others when I didn't have any money, and now I have my own... you're gonna luck out kid. I haven't told Nic yet, but I cried the whole way home from work... I was feeling a bit emotional I guess. I've never not met one of my nieces or nephews in the first month of their birth and Anna's going to be pretty big when I meet her. I love new baby scent and I try to give my sister's a couple nights rest while I get up with the babies... it's also the absolute best form of birth control around. Either way, congratulations Sue and & Chris, your family is complete and I couldn't be happier for you.

nic made a huge meal and vino, so i need to make this quick. on the weekend, we took a tour to phillip island and it was great. we were on a bus of 24 people, from hong kong, usa, australia, singapore, japan, etc. our tour guide was a woman named di and nic and her became pals right away. he was so excited that morning, she informed him of how to get a tour guiding job- which we all know is nicholas' dream. anyhow.. our first stop was at a winery.. we sampled wine and cheeses and fruits. we ended up buying a reisling and some cheese. yumo! it was so good. After that, we were off to Panny's chocolate factory. This would be any kid's dream. It reminded me of willy wonka's chocolate factory minus the oompa-loompa's and not as cool. i included a picture of the chocolate fountain. There were tons of samples, chocolate shots, make your own chocolate.. which came out of squirt guns... it was good. We then shimmied off to the koala and wallaby conservation. again, the koala's were hugely boring. they sleep 20 hours a day! in the state of victoria, it's illegal to touch them. in the mid 80's a case of chylamidia almost wiped the species out... so touching is a no no. however, in the other states you can, and that is where i will get my hands on one. we didn't need to go to the conservation to see wallaby's- we almost hit them on the road every 20 mins. those things are like a huron county raccoon. next, we were off to the nobbies. no idea what that means. i thought we were going to crash. we were travelling up hills with one lane encountering traffic coming the other way. it was freezing there, but gorgeous. apparently you can see seals and penguins. I only saw penguins and sea gulls.

after this we were off to what philip island is known for... the penguin parade. cutest thing ever. we sat on the beach at dusk and the little penguins (that's there formal name) come out of the water and cross the beach to the vegetation where their spouses, babies and homes are. well, these little guys are TERRIFIED to cross the beach. 600 of them came onto the beach and nic and i were right up close to them. if a seagull flew overhead, they'd all scurry back to the water. here's a fun fact: penguins are afraid of flash, so we couldn't take a picture. even though other people were sneaking them... i was dead against it.. rule breaker i am not. nic says last summer i was 19 and this summer i am 49. after their little parade, you can walk along the boardwalk and watch them "playing" with their spouse, tending to their chicks and so on. They were just like humans.. there were the newlyweds who were all up lovin' eachother, the ones who had been married for 60 years (you know the old couples that go to restaurants and don't speak to each other) and then there were the ones who when they aren't madly in love, they hate each other with a passion. We took off for home after this. It was about a 2 hour drive. I fell asleep while Nic prayed that Di didn't crash the bus (we see it on the news). That Di, she's quite the driver.

In other news, I don't have much of a voice. I'm scared I'll lose it for 2 weeks again if I don't take it easy. Work was easy peasy today- I had a student teacher. I felt useless. I begged they switched me to a class where I can teach tomorrow. Um, the accents are driving Nic a little batty. They don't pronounce the letter R and they add R to a's and o's (some of them, not all).. today he heard Helloer instead of Hello. Poor kid, it's like me when people say seen and saw incorrectly. Actually this would be a great time to address this.. YOU DIDN'T SEEN ANYTHING! I SEEN is not proper. YOU SAW something. If you're saying seen it should be "have you seen the movie" "i've seen him around", it's not I SEEN THAT, I SEEN HIM YESTERDAY. Drives me absolutely nuts.

Okay, now that I got that off my chest. I am going to enjoy a nice glass of wine and think about my family back home and this wonderful addition to our lives. we know she's protected by many angels.