Jesse

Here's all the pics that Nicole from the kennel sent us...Some of them are a little repetitive but I'm posting them all anyway! Just cause he's so darn cute!

More shop talk...

Well...first week back to work down and so far I have no complaints! I REALLY like it. Yesterday at work, I wasn't feeling well and I mentioned to my bosses that I had a very bad neckache and headache. So, my boss gives me a massage and does acupuncture on me and immediately I felt better! How great is that to happen at work?! Today was the first day in a week and a half that I didn't wake up with pain! I did acupuncture in Montreal and didn't see a difference at all but obviously it was the person who was doing it, because I feel much better today, after my treatment yesterday. I am definitely going to book some appointments for some more treatments. They encourage you to do that because they like it if you have an understanding of what each practitioner does and also it's nice for the receptionists to be able to speak from personal experience when talking with the patients. Plus, they just want you to feel good and be healthy. Anyway, here's where I work...http://www.newhm.com.au/default.htm...check it out...It's a great place! It's so calm and "full of positive chi" there!

House guest...

Steve's boss and her husband are building a house about a 30 minute drive from where we live. They went to the house and found this guy hanging out by their window. He was actually injured on his back, so they called the Australia Zoo. However, by the time the people got there, the snake was gone. I actually feel bad that he was hurt:(

Back to work...

It's actually been a pretty busy week! I had my second training day on Monday at my new job and all went well. Since then I have started working what will be my usual 9 to 3 shift. I was by myself yesterday and today and so far it's going good. I think I'm going to really enjoy working there. The people are super nice and it's a very calm work environment (nothing like the daycare!). It's taking me some time though to get used to just being back to work. It feels like forever since I have had to get up and be at work by a certain time! It's definitely going to take me some time to adjust again, but it's nice to have something to wake up and do each day! Other than that, all is going well. The weather is starting to cool off a bit. The evenings get pretty chilly...well chilly by Australia standards, but the temp definitely drops at night and first thing in the morning. I even wore a sweater to work the other morning! The days are still warm though...it kind of reminds me of the end of summer in Canada, when the days are warm but the evenings cool off. Considering if you look through the floors in our house, you can see outside, it gets pretty chilly inside too! We're already planning to get an extra blanket for the bed. We've become total babies...how will we ever go back to a Canadian winter?! I'm going to buy a thermometer for outside so I know what the temp is and then I'll let you know...Oh! and one more thing...The lady who owns the kennel where Jesse is staying sent us some beautiful pics of Jes the other day, but for some reason I'm having a lot of problems with posting pics right now. I posted just one for now but hopefully, I'll be able to put more up soon. Until then...I'm off to to bed...6:30 comes early when you're used to sleeping until 8...or later!;)

New Jesse pics...

Melissa went to visit Jesse the other day at the kennel in Montreal. She put some pics of him on her blog. He looks good! I'm finding it harder and harder to not have him with us:( Check out the pics at www.missasadventures.blogspot.com. I wanted to post one of the pics of Snugs, but blogger isn't letting me...grrr!

My Celebrity Look-alikes

My cool celebrity look-alike collage from MyHeritage.com. Get one for yourself.

My kind of new job...

So, I got a job...kind of. I had the interview at the Holistic Medicine Centre on Thursday morning and they had me go in yesterday for 5 hours to be trained. I am also going in on Monday for the day for more training. So far, I really enjoy it. It's a small clinic but it's busy! It keeps you on your toes! I think I will learn a lot working there. I already learned how to mix some of the Chinese Herbs (Steve says he pictures me in a witch's hat, stirring a big pot, when I talk about doing this). Anyway, hopefully on Monday, they will let me know if I am actually going to start there fulltime (well not fulltime but 30 hours a week...9 to 3, Monday to Friday...how great is that?!). I think yesterday went really well. There is a lot to learn but it's like any job, with time, it'll all come easy. So, I'm going with the flow and hoping that they are happy with me after Monday and everything just falls into place...Fingers crossed!

Well, it seems to be true that everything usually happens at once. I put my name in with a temp agency at the end of last week and they called me on Friday to tell me that they had put my resume through to a company that needs a temp for a 6 month contract. I am still waiting to hear from them about this job. Since Friday, I have also been contacted for 2 interviews, one from a place I had applied weeks ago and the other one is for a receptionist at my naturopath's office (she called me and asked if I had found anything and if I may be interested). So, I've been doing tutorials to improve my excel and power point skills for the temp agency (I go tomorrow to be tested) and then have an interview tomorrow evening and one Thursday morning, with the other 2 places. Who knows if any of them will actually work out but it's nice that I'm FINALLY getting some feedback!!! It would be nice to find a permanent fulltime job that isn't through the temp place. Cutting out the middle man would make it much easier. So...I'll just wait and see what happens and I'll keep you posted...

10 000 hits!

Hi Readers!

Just noticed that our "blog counter thingy" (not sure what the technical name is for it!) just hit 10 000! Thanks to all of you for checking out what's happening in our neck of the woods and posting your comments! Keep them coming...it's really nice to hear from you! I'll try to continue to come up with something of interest to write and post about!

Cheers!

The Slightly Blog Obsessed Dickinsons ;)

Noosa...

Yesterday, we rented this car and went to an area called Noosa. It's about a 2 hour drive from Brisbane and it is AMAZING. It's by far my favorite place here, yet! It reminded me of where we stayed in Hawaii, with shops and restaurants right off the beach, but WAY nicer! There were SO many beaches! Steve and I decided that he'll become a freelance artist and we'll move to Noosa and I'll work in some quaint little shop on the beach and we'll be modern day hippies and Steve will grow his hair long and I'll wear lots of long flowy skirts...Anyway, just for fun, we did look at what a place would cost there...Yeah. We're not moving there anytime soon! We spent the day walking around, hanging on the beach, swimming, enjoyed lunch and dinner out, and I even got to have some gelati because it was dairy free! We didn't even get to the area Steve really wanted to see (Noosa National Park). There is so much to see there...we're hoping to go back in a couple of weekends. If anyone comes to visit, we're definitely going to have to spend a weekend here!
Spending the day at the beach yesterday really made me realize how fortunate we are to have this opportunity to live in such an amazing place! It really is fantastic here...That big hill of trees is the National Park.
Hastings Street...where all the shops and restaurants were.
More shops.
There were wild turkeys everywhere!

More Noosa

We were wondering if this was a Box Jelly Fish, you know, the super deadly ones that are apparently in the ocean here between October and May? Anyway, there were tons of people swimming, a lifeguard on duty and surf lesssons in progress, so we figured it must be okay to go in.
Snorklin' Steve.
We finally got a little bit of sun...we don't stand out quite so bad now on the beach! We both got a little burn actually, even with wearing SPF 30 and applying it a few times. So, today I went to buy a stronger sunscreen (like SPF 45) and apparently, SPF 30 is the highest you can get...even for kids! It says 30+, so I'm not sure what that means exactly, but that's what we had yesterday and we still burned! This seems weird to me, especially considering that it's Australia and we live in the Sunshine State AND we're the number one skin cancer capital in the world! Anyway, I bought the suncreen that the Australia cancer prevention people make...so hopefully that works!

Steve was building a bum here. He's so creative...

Surfing, anyone? I'm not really interested in surfing but Steve and I would both like to get body boards.
Steve, washing his toes.

Who knew turkeys could climb trees??


Okay, these flowers were cool! It literally looks like Mother Nature hand painted the color on the leaves, in the shape of a flower!

The drive home to Brisbane

On the drive back to Brisbane, we took a different highway that runs all along the coast. I'm not joking, it was just beach, after beach, after beach. We stopped at one of the beaches. It was just a small, isolated one. I really liked it. This dog was playing there. He was obsessed with his stick and just stood staring at his owners to come throw it for him. It really made us both miss Jesse even more! Jes will LOVE it there!


We drove through the entire town of Noosa without seeing one set of stop lights. Rather that stop signs or lights, they have these round-abouts. They're pretty easy, you just don't enter it, if there is already traffic in it. You wait your turn, it's not a one-on-one thing.

The drive home...Steve did all the driving...he's a pro with the opposite side of the road driving thing now!

The best pic I have EVER taken

Title says it all

Steve (depth of field is my friend) Dickinson

Funny Stuff

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/pdx/279209894.html


Might not be for everyone....but I had a good laugh....I love the part about the dog leaving....When Cari would go home for a week Jesse would start avoiding me.

Steve (turns 30 in 3 months) Dickinson

The Box has arrived!

For anyone who has been losing sleep over the box that I sent to Brisbane still not arriving, you'll be relieved to know that it arrived safely today, surprisingly not even opened or searched! I'm glad about this because what I had failed to mention in my last post regarding this very box was that, I had lost the tracking number...Anyway, it'll sure be fun to go through the box when Steve gets home tonight (it was delivered to his work)...I don't even remember what I put in there! Plus, it'll just be nice to personalize our house with some memories.

Going away party...

Just before we left Montreal, the Purdys had a going away party for us at their house. These pics didn't get to be posted, with all the excitement when we first moved here, but really some of these pics are just too good to not post...
...exhibit "A"...
...and exhibit "B"...Sorry Kristjan...did you hope I forgot?? ;) The theme was summer clothes, in honor of Australia weather and Kristjan really helped to make it memorable!

Karine and Breagha.
Stacey.

Miss Breagha. I'm sure she's grown a lot since this pic :(
Me and my good buddy, Shamus. I'm sure he's growing too...ahhhhh :(
Darryl.
Brian and Paul.

The girls.
Darryl again, this time with guitar in hand.
Our first Australian money!

The gang.
Jolyne and Shamus having a quiet reading moment.
Jolyne, Stace and Karine.
Jeff.