December 25

Ahh Christmas what can you say it's mostly all about the pictures and the day right.  It's all about the presents and you always have a good day  anyway

Tucker Scranton or is that Santa Clause ( Notice Cowboys and Eagles on Telly in background )

Cooper, Aaron, Tucker, Helena, Lylah Claus

Oops we'd forgotten Evie!

Tucker Claus getting dressed for duty

Photo session...?  Yeah alright I can do a photo session before I hand out the prezzies

This stockings a bit big but I'm digging all the stuff inside

Tucker and granny Nalder

Rob, Cooper, Aaron, Helena

Cooper Scranton and Granny Angela Nalder

Santa and helpers

Ivan Nalder Granpa, Rob Scranton, Cooper Scranton, Elray Brewerton

Tucker and his remote control train

Christmas dinner.  Rob says where's the Turkey and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie

After presents time to hit the pool

December 24th

We spent most of the morning packing for Rainbow Beach. Elray will work his last day before Christmas at the shop and fetch his son, Aaron and finish the packing and head  up later in the day.  We got headed out, I was put in charge of driving the Toyota RAV.  On the way up there we stopped in Gympie to have lunch with Robyn's Uncle Les and Aunt Fern and cousins Roger and Bronwyn.  We ate under their house.  Interesting.  It's on stilts so they use that as a sort of porch or 3 season room.  I had some Billy Tea which Les made.  It's basically tea that is made by putting loose leaf tea in a metal teapot that is boiled over an open wood fire.  I don't know what it is exactly but it tastes very good compared to regular tea.  Maybe it's the smoky flavor, don't know.

Uncle Les brewing up his Billy tea.

 Loose leaf tea- you get some escapees.

 The family eating lunch underneath the house.

 Angela and her sister, Fern having coffees

Cooper making his first attempt at an old fashioned game.  Stilts made of  tin cans.

Must have a bleating goat in your backyard in Australia. Video wouldn't upload.

We got to the Holiday house and started to get moved in.  What a shocker.  Only about half the light sockets had bulbs in them, several other key ones such as above the sink just plain didn't work.  The dishwasher was broken ( a big deal when there is 15 staying in one house ).  So easy to say not impressed when we moved in.  Not easy to get any one to to do anything about it with it being Christmas eve.  So we got to work making it our home for the week.  Children got busy swimming in the pool.  We got the Christmas tree up.  Went and took an evening walk along the beach.  The surf is very churned up and brown color because they just had a Cyclone go through up north. 

 Cooper and Tucker pretending to sleep.

 Decorating the tree.

 Prezzies under the tree.

 First trip down to the beach Christmas eve  evening.

 Cooper on the beach ( man about town ).

All children came back wet and sandy despite being fully dressed and told not to get wet. Note to self: dress children in swim suits regardless of where we go in case of beach diversion. 

December 23

Last minute shopping for Christmas and our trip up to Rainbow Beach.  Went down to the Kingaroy shopping center.  I searched out a Wendy's mango smoothie, excellent my favorite treat in OZ with  close second being cinnamon and sugar donuts from the donut King at the mall which I also treated myself to.  Found a nice looking rashie to buy for Robyn for Christmas and one for myself since I forgot mine in Moline.  Went to the bottle shop and got Robyn some gin to keep her happy through the new year.  Crickey is alcohol expensive over here.  $40 for 1 bottle of Gordon's Gin.  Then again fuel is twice as expensive as well at almost $6 per gallon.  I kept checking back with the girls to see how their shopping was going and ducking out to look around the town.  I think I saw most of what there is to see in Kingaroy while they were in shopping.  That evening we went out for an evening walk to of Christmas lights viewing.  That was fun.  The weather is a perfect temperature to me though they all think it's a bit cool.

(This is Robyn- In my defense, he Gin was shared and there is still half a bottle as of New Years!)  :)

December 22

Got some more good sleep.  It was a good day.  We caught up with Robyn's dad. We hadn't seen him since Robyn and I went to Shenyang, China on a mission trip in I think it was 2003.  His wife Marissa and he were living in GuongJuao and took a 30 hour train trip up to see us and work with us in the mission.  They had just moved back to Australia a little over a year ago.  So we also got to meet Marissa' son Mark who they were able to bring over to OZ about one year ago from the Phillipines.  So the boys had a great time playing together pretending to shoot baskets and jumping on the trampoline.  I think this is the same trampoline that Robyn played on as a child.  Te mat has been replaced but that's pretty good long term performance for a piece of play equipment.  They also got involved in helping make and decorate the christmas cookies.  Dad Nalder and I got in a deep discussion ( we thought, observers felt it more an argument ) over the merits of China socialist nanny-statism vs. free enterprise / capitalism.  Not sure I got across the idea that I am for free enterprise and no interference from the Gov't not that I am necessarily a capitalist as this is an encouragement to the government to set up special rules for large corp's which fosters monopolies.  Not the friend of free enterprise.

 Decorating cookies for Chrissy!

 Ivan shows website to Rob about the demise of the USA.  Stokes patriotism in Rob and ensuing discussion over merits of Socialism vs. self determination to the dismay of all in the household.  They say you should never discuss religion or politics when you're visiting people.  OOPPS!
The girls set a timer to end the discussion. So we went outside to play with the kids.

  Hey Cooper and Mark are eating the Christmas cookies and it's not even Chritmas yet!

The boys enjoying a bit of a bounce in Ruth and Elray's backyard

December 21

First real day in Australia having all our faculties about us at least.  Nice weather.  We went down in the morning to Nanango to visit Robyn’s mom and see her new place.  She has a brand new flat she is the first one to ever live in it.  Nice garden.  While we were there the discussion came up about the boys desperately needing haircuts.  I put in my plea to have a go at cutting Cooper’s hair if I promised not to give him a buzz cut ( my preference ) Robyn’s mom had some shears at her house so I got to work and got busy.  What do you think for a first ever effort not bad eh?

 Trimming and blending in the sides

 A little off the back...

Final product - haircut accomplished!


Went into Nanango town to see Elray's families Jewelry shop. Got lunch at the 

December 18th

We finally are all packed.  I take the boys to shoot some more baskets, get the Element squished in mom and dad’s garage, turn everything back off, and lock the house down.  The lady shows up to take us to the airport.  Yeah!  We are off on our next journey.  The boys are extremely well behaved on both our trip to LAX and in the airport as well as the flights to FIJI and Brisbane.  They were in such good spirits and cooperative and listening.  They even had really good sleeps on the flight to FIJI.  We could tell there must have been a lot of people praying for us and them.  It is the only explanation.  The Next two days were basically travel.  When you fly this direction this far an entire day of your life just disappears.  We take off on the 18th and when we land 10 hours later it is the 20th.  Landed got our luggage.  Tucker was finally coming a little unglued a airport employee took pity on us and fasttracked us through all the security and  customs.  Arrived at Ruth’s house and did our best to chat and be social but all I could think about was a good sleep.  Good night.

Our welcome committee upon arrival in FIJI  then a couple hour wait and off to Brisee

December 17th

This day was spent unwinding from almost 4 weeks travelling in our Motorhome and preparing for our 6 week trip to Australia the next day.  Washed the Element, washed the motorhome cleaned the motorhome, attempted to winterize motorhome not good success.  We found a home for Harvey the RV at a secure location storage facility.  Sure hope Harvey has a nice sleep while we’re gone.  I took the boys to shoot some baskets and go swimming to give Robyn some time to herself to think and pack for the journey ahead to Australia.  We got the digital TV to pull in the local stations so we could entertain the boys a little while we repacked, that helped.  Made it an early night.