From: White, Jamie D (WHITE)
Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2005 10:31 PM
To: White, Jamie D (WHITE)
Subject: Happy Easter!

Aussie word of the day:  Bilby (a small, long-eared, nocturnal desert marsupial)

Happy Easter, Mates (and a really early Happy Passover)!  We're pleased to report that the Easter Bilby (being promoted by conservationists as a home-grown alternative to the Easter Bunny, in a land where bunnies have not been kind) came on schedule and delivered loads of chocolate.  Chocolate and Easter are synonymous here.  No one hunts for hard-boiled or plastic eggs; they're all foil-wrapped chocolate ones -- and mostly really big ones, too.  It's not unusual to see some as big as footballs.  (Luckily, the Bilby took those to other households.)

Hope you're beginning to see some signs of spring.  Here, it has been very springlike, considering it's autumn.  The roses and native bottlebrushes recently began blooming for the second time since we've been here.  Very confusing.

Footy (Australian Rules Football) season has begun again, too.  Jamie decided to jump into the action and join in his department's "Footy Tip" (equivalent to a US football pool).  He's extremely proud to have picked the winners in all but one of this weekend's games.  He now spends all waking moments analyzing the stats and checking scores.  Sara (May) is getting excited calculating how much he could win if he continues this lucky streak through September.  (He'll be registering his tips on-line after our return.)

The girls' first term of the school year is drawing to a close, and we're eagerly gearing up for grandparent visits and some travel.  Jamie's parents arrive on March 30 and will be with us for a few days before taking off for a tour of Tasmania.  While they're there, the rest of us head to New Zealand (on April 3) to meet up with my parents for a week of exploring the South Island, followed by several days in Queensland (snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef, bushwalking in the rainforest, and generally avoiding close encounters with crocs, sharks, box jellyfish, stonefish, snakes, etc.).  We return home April 13.  My parents will rejoin us April 17, after a leisurely trip down to Melbourne via Sydney and Canberra (where they'll be rendezvousing with Jamie's parents for sightseeing and sharing the rest of the drive to Melbourne).  Jamie's parents will leave the next day to return home, and the girls return to school for the start of their second term.  My parents will be with us through April 25.  Got all that?!

After my parents leave, we'll have less than a month to go here.  (We leave Melbourne at 11:30 a.m. on May 23 and, miraculously, arrive in Los Angeles at 11:20 a.m. on the same day.)  I'm sure that the end will close in quickly. While we're frantically trying to squeeze in as much more sightseeing as is humanly and financially possible, we're also really beginning to feel like it's time to be heading home.  We were shocked and deeply saddened to learn of the death of a dear friend from Huntingdon in early March, and it has felt wrong not to be there as the community has been grieving.  We really appreciate all that friends back home have been doing to help us feel connected.

We miss you all and look forward to catching up with you when we return.  Take care!

Love,

Laura, Jamie, Sara (May) & Joanna