The lake

So, I know, we have become increasingly unrealiable when it comes to blog posting. Olivia, as our most devoted reader, I am sorry. Please accept this post as a most sincere apology. I'm reaching into the wayback machine for this one!

These pictures are from back in December. Before the Queensland floods, before Cyclone Yasi, before the Christchurch earthquakes, before the Queenbeyean flood (good lord there have been way too many natural disasters since we've moved here), Canberra got a ridiculous amount of rainfall over a two week period. It wasn't a disaster or anything, it just completely overwhelmed everything. Roads got shut down from sinkholes developing, a bridge collapsed (no one was hurt, thankfully), and from one particular flash flood, a large amount of trees and debris floated downriver into Lake Burley-Griffen, which Canberra is centered around. When the weekend came it was beautiful outside, so we decided to go down to the lake to take pictures and enjoy the beautiful December sun. I think all you guys were suffering through another epic snow storm at the time. Australian December rocks. This is probably the best picture we got of stuff floating in the lake.

This is just a nice picture of the lake with the bell tower in the background. Note the boat, more on that later.

Once again, all these picture were taken in December, shortly after Movember, thus the proto-beard Greg is sporting in this picture. Also, those stylish Ray-bans came from someome leaving them at our house over Thanksgiving. We only had like 8 people over, yet no one claimed them. Sweet! Free stuff for Greg!  More importantly, Laurel is adorable in her hand-made hat she bought at the Old Bus Depot Market.

Back to the boat. This has to be some kind of booze cruise. There is just no other explanation for it. Everyone on it was dressed as pirates. No clue what was going on, so we took pictures.

Now, this is the single weirdest thing about Australia that we have come across. All the swans are black. There are no white swans. The first time Greg went for a run down by the lake, he saw one swan, and was like, "wow, you don't see that every day," and then turned the corner and say thirty more. Why would the swans here all be black and in the States they are all white? Did the British round up all the Black Swans and send them to Australia as prisoners, too, back in the day?

Cuteness alert! Baby swan! He's so grey and fuzzy!

My favorite thing about this picture, aside from how ruggedly handsome Greg looks, is that the way the two swans are positioned behind Laurel's hat, it looks like one ridiculously long swan. Lochness Swanster?

We were never actually able to get a picture of it, but the geese were constatly biting and holding on with their bills to each other's tails. Which I guess is where the term "goosing" someone came from. Who knew?

This guy was nice enough to pose for us.