christmas in july, part 2

"the great outdoors"

traded the christmas mobile for this beauty

another semi-epic road trip under our belts (our poor kitty), kp, bob, and i arrived in brisbane with just a few hours to spare before christmas. long enough for lb to make a chocolate icebox pie (that we later had to give away - delicious but too rich. bleh) and for santa to score his favorite tango dancer a new pair of shoes!

we had a lovely christmas eve dinner with some of kp's colleagues. she's french and he's from san fran... and now they live in australia... under this towering tree (see above). i stared at it from the patio where we ate until the sun finally disappeared. and i could stare at this picture another couple of hours. on the menu was a repas à la provençale: boiled lobster, potato, green beans... and homemade aioli. it would have been perfect were it not followed by the christmas pudding, which is very british (and so still a big part of the aussie christmas) and which i personally find to be an abomination. my apologies to the queen, and to all the pudding fans out there, but i object. fortunately, there was champagne aplenty! 

santa found us, even at the antipodes!

so, a sweaty christmas... this was a new experience for us. even in hanoi it's cold at christmas. i'm sure we've had an unexpected texas heatwave or two in december, but it was 85 degrees at 8am... nothing left to do after the presents were opened but to head to the beach! we went back to byron bay, to see what she was like under the sun, and were NOT disappointed. there was plenty of room despite the fact that we were certainly not the only ones to head for water to celebrate. and the water was perfect, absolutely perfect. 

 

 this year's holiday grog

then, a few days after christmas, we went sailing, finally taking advantage of an unexpected perk of my job - colleagues with boats! they took us swimming and for a boat barbecue of german sausages. too bad the scenery was so awful:

 our swim spot

the afternoon storm rolling in

fortunately for us, it waited to rain until we'd just stepped off the boat.

and the day after that, we went to the lone pine koala sanctuary in brisbane, where we fed the kangas, saw the dreaded australian taipan, which is the most venomous snake in the world, listened as kp did his best tasmanian devil impression, and discovered that koalas are indeed the cutest freaking animals you've ever seen.

 so fierce! (actually he's yawning here)

i realized mid-way through the christmas week that we were actually truly and fully on holiday. lounging around, reading for pleasure (what's that?), and taking in all sorts of loveliness the greater brisbane area has to offer. note to self: take more holidays (of the full-on, don't check email AT ALL, beer in the afternoon, shower only if you feel like it variety!)