The Great Ocean Road

Last week 3 Brits, 2 Americans, and one Hyundai sonata entered the rain forests of Australia. Koala Bears were almost run over, Rainbows were seen, and the massive swells deterred any hope of surfing. The road was beautiful and once you get past the town of Apollo Bay you start seeing these crazy rock formations known as the 12 Apostles which are created by the waves crushing and eroding the limestone rock along the coast. Many shipwrecks have occurred there because the waves can get huge which we experienced. It was alot of fun and I even got to play a little Toc.
Next trip is to Tasmania so get ready for those pictures.
See ya,
Jon

Slideshow in honor of my Dad's 80th Birthday

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Some more OZ PICS!!!

So these pictures are a quite diverse selection. A couple of them are me in my room. A couple are when my mates and I went to a footy game at the MCG which is a massive stadium. It can hold 100,000 capacity. Then there are some pictures of when I took a trip to the mountains of Australia. It was quite beautiful. I am going to find some pictures of me surfing and try to post those some time in the near future. Next week I got midterms so I will not be doing anything cool this weekend like surfing, just studying. I did book a plane flight to Tasmania for sometime in October though. Hope all is well.
Cheers from down under,
Jon

What up Everybody! Pics from Australia!

Mom the photos of me talking to you on skype...creepy. Melbourne is absolutely beautiful. It is the dead of winter which is around 50 Fahrenheit which is not cold at all. This town is cool though it has its own culture unique to Melbourne like Aussie Rules Football which is an awesome sport. The funniest thing has to be that the people do not jaywalk here. They all wait for the little green man before crossing the road. Us Americans, English, and Europeans are amazed by the patience of the Aussies to wait to cross the road. School starts next week so I will see if they have a different style of teaching then we do in the USA. The pictures attached are of a scavenger hunt and some of them do not make much sense.
Till next time

Greg's slideshow

Below is a short slideshow of just a small sampling of Greg's pictures from his trip to England. I think he did a terrific job taking pictures to share with us. Thanks Greg!

His teacher took many more and I'll post some of those once he gives us copies.Enjoy!

Morning (for us) coffee with Jonathan

This morning, thanks to modern technology, we had our morning cup of coffee with Jonathan in Melbourne, Australia! We sat out on our deck enjoying a beautiful summer morning in Georgia and Jonathan was in his room in Melbourne. I just LOVE and appreciate modern technology! Skype is awesome!

Jonathan has moved into his apartment

Jonathan made it safely to Melbourne! He has been in a temporary dorm since Monday while he attended the orientation at the university, but moved into his permanent campus apartment today. He says it is in an old renovated hotel and that it has a balcony that over looks the pool. Sounds nice! He also briefly met his new room mate, a young man named Alex from England. All is good and Jonathan is very pleased with his set up there. We are so happy for him to be having this study abroad experience!

We hope you have the time of your life!

Yesterday we took our Jonathan to the airport as he is headed to University of Melbourne for the next 2 semester's. We are so excited for him but will miss him SO MUCH! Here are some pictures we took and Jonathan has said he will add his own pictures to this blog once he gets all settled in. He is due to land in Melbourne around 7:00 pm today (Sunday) our time. That will add up to about 28 hours from when his plane left Atlanta yesterday. We'll keep you all posted.

Greg leaves for England

Wow....it has been a week! Greg left Thursday (7/9/09) for his trip to England. He spent 2 days in London and I only spoke to him once, so I know he was busy. His orders were to take LOTS of pictures and he said he was doing just that. I'll post his pictures here when he gets home for you all to see. Some of the things they did during his 2 days in London (they got no sleep on the plane so the students had all been up over 24 hours) was take a double decker bus tour of London, take a ride on the huge ferris wheel called the "London Eye", watch the latest Harry Potter movie, and attend a Shakespeare play. Today (Sunday) was his first day in Cambridge and I'll update you later on what they did today there but the itinerary had them taking a double decker tour of the city of Cambridge including a visit to the Cambridge American Cemetary. The pictures I have posted are of Jon & Greg hugging goodbye as they won't see each other until maybe December and a quick picture of the 4 of us.

Brevard, North Carolina Cross Country Camp

Yesterday I drove the beautiful and winding 3 1/2 hour drive to the southern tip of the Blue Ridge Mountains to get Greg. He had been in Brevard, North Carolina for 4 days with classmates and his high school coaches for cross country camp. Jonathan used to attend this same camp each year in high school and had always enjoyed it so much. When I arrived I could see why.

Brevard is a quaint, southern, mountain resort town nestled high in the mountains in the corner of western North Carolina, not far from where the quadrangle of Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and, of course North Carolina, join. The students stay in the dorms of Brevard College and it is just lovely!

After driving lost around the school campus a couple of times, I finally located the dorm Greg was staying in. As luck would have it he and a group of friends just happened to be walking across the grassy open space. Of course I had to ask the group for a picture and Greg was just mortified with my request! As you can see from his face in the pictures he was probably thinking "Gosh Mom, how could you?"! But his friends were more then happy to ham it up for the camera! These kids are hard workers and I have a feeling they are going to have a very successful season.

I always ask Greg to rate things on a scale of 1-10. Whenever I bake something I always ask this question. He is very truthful and gives me an honest answer when I do this little game. So when I asked him to rate the cross country camp he gave it "a 9". I think the only reason he didn't give it a 10 was that he had to leave early. He truly enjoys cross country which is such a surprise to Marc and me. We never imagined that this boy who has played the very physical sport of ice hockey since he was 7 years old would take so enthusiastically to an individual sport like cross country. But, he really enjoys it and wants to help his team win the state championship this year. Great goal Greg!

Celebrating Marc's 50th Birthday

Well today was a momentous one for Marc. Today he turned 50 years old. Marc isn't crazy about birthdays. He had told me he didn't want any celebration...no cakes, gifts etc. Well of course I didn't completely follow his instructions. I made a Maine Blueberry Pudding Cake and decorated it with a little Maine Black Bear (mascot for Univ. of Maine, Marc's alma mater). We had dinner together and then cake and ice cream. Jonathan joined us and Greg called in from cross country camp at Brevard, NC. Marc recieved calls from his parents and brother Eric. My parent's called and gave him a home depot gift card and Jonathan gave him an iTunes card. Not a big celebration, but we had a good time and it was very low key as Marc had requested.

HAPPY 50th BIRTHDAY MARC! WE LOVE AND APPRECIATE YOU!

My Sister, Nephew and Niece visit

My sister, nephew and niece came to visit in June for 10 days. We went to the pool, went out for barbecue, and L even went to a major league baseball game with fireworks!

He's 17!

Our precious son just turned 17. Where have the years gone? He has been a joy to raise and we love him very much. Typical Greg, he didn't ask for anything for his birthday. He just requested a "cookie cake", which mom was more then happy to make for him. We got him a new digital camera to take with him to London next week. He was pleased. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Greg!