anna had her first steps today. please ignore the steam-cleaning man in the back:)
26 February 2009
20 February 2009
Noah & Anna
I have no idea what Noah is doing to Anna here! He cannot leave her alone for 10 seconds during the day. He loves to "play" with her. She tolerates it well.
Anna surprised us by climbing into the basket underneath the stroller. She was quite happy just sitting there hanging out.
16 February 2009
13 February 2009
noah. typical noah.
Then of course, there's always a bit of artwork around the house. Drawing with crayons has become a favourite pastime for Noah. Particularly on the walls, fence, sofa cushions, floor and kitchen cupboards.
7 days on, some of the fires are STILL burning. NASA has some incredible shots of them from space. Its extremely smoky in the air right now. Im even hesitant to take the kids outside here in the city, its that smoky. Today, due to all the smoke, etc, the sun has been orange. It has almost looked like a partial eclipse all day. It might be hard to tell from the photos, but I feel like Ive been living in a '70s photograph today (remember how they all had that brownish/orangey hue when they were developed). Anyway, our house colour is actually a light grey/cement colour, but it appears almost peach in the crazy sunlight. And the last photo- of my car-- no, mother, I havent neglected to wash it in 3 months:) This is just the result of one rain shower yesterday- there is so much soot, smoke, and ash in the skies that everything gets filthy when it rains.
11 February 2009
Bows!!
At 11 months old, Anna finally has (just) enough hair to put a little clip in. I am very excited (even if the bow is only hanging onto 3 strands of hair)! I can now stop dressing her in pink EVERY day because her hair accessories will signal that yes, she is a girl. Before this, the only thing identifying her as a girl was copious amounts of pink clothes, blankets and socks.
This is an amazing photo taken by one of Michael's colleagues. It is taken from the Eastern area of Melbourne looking outwards. This is not sunset, it is fire, in every direction, as far as the eye can see. And these fires are still more than an hour drive away, so its impossible to imagine how enormous and intense they are at the site.
As Dep Prime Min. Gillard said, this is "A tragedy beyond belief, beyond precedent, and really beyond words". I know its difficult to imagine from the other side of the world just how horrific it is here, but let me assure you, you've likely seen nothing quite like this, ever. There are tragic stories that have come out of this that you really can hardly stand to listen to; firefighters making the heartbreaking decision to flee towns in the last seconds in order to save themselves while they had people banging earnestly on the sides of their fire tankers begging, screaming, yelling for them to go back to houses where they knew people were trapped (& would most certainly die); firefighters seeing children engulfed by roaring flames while running down their streets trying to escape; the list goes on and on...
But at least the outpouring of assistance has been incredible as well. On international, federal, and local levels. Queen Elizabeth is even making a personal monetary donation to the relief efforts, in addition to the official British assistance being offered. We're not quite the British Royalty, but nonetheless, I'm going down today to drop off old clothes, toys, and misc stuff:) Its about time, I needed to clean this clutter out and this is a great cause.
09 February 2009
Some fire photos
A firefighter giving a homeless koala some bottled water. Gorgeous!
This was the headline in today's newspaper:
And here are a few photos I "barrowed" :) from their website
This just shows a little snippet, but this entire town was wiped out & leveled
scorched trees & piles of grey ash on the ground
out of control fires. at one point there were nearly 30 separate major fires burning in different parts of the state.
A number of people died in these cars. They were all desperately trying to evacuate when the flames caught up with them; the fires moved so incredibly fast
And another accident in a different town hit by fire
Here is a link to a photo gallery from our news:
08 February 2009
Black Saturday
I don't really like doing serious posts very much. But this kind of warrants one.
First, I should say, we are safe. As some of you may have heard on world news, there has been an absolute disaster here near Melbourne this weekend. On Saturday, we endured the hottest day ever recorded for our state, at 116 degrees F. That, along with decades of severe drought, contributed to the worst bush fires in the history of Australia. All the fires are occurring in various directions about an hour outside of Melbourne and there is a very eerie silence all over the city at the moment, everyone is stunned. Nearly 90 people (at last count) have been burnt alive trying to escape (echos of Pompeii??). Its a holocaust. I can't even begin to describe the destruction and devastation that has been relayed to us via news and radio. The stories are horrific. No one quite knows what to do or where to begin. I'm kind of grateful that I'm not working at the moment (I worked in the state's biggest burns unit) as my hospital has been absolutely swamped with several severe burn victims. Its insanity up there right now, with doctors and nurses coming in just to volunteer to help out. Anyway, I just wanted to share a couple links to moving articles from our newspaper as well as the New York Times. Please keep everyone in your thoughts and prayers.
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