Simon says

A commemorative stamp mosaic at Healsville Wildlife Sanctuary After the long journey from Chile to LA, and our whistle stop tour of Oahu, I felt I wanted a bit of a break from the blog.  The plan at the beginning of Australia was to stay in Williamstown, a suburb just west of Melbourne and home to Crystal's friends from her University of Victoria exchange days.  We didn't have much planned for those three weeks so it seemed like a good time to rest the keyboard.  Now that I am looking back over that period and choosing some pictures for the blog, it seems we did quite a bit!  So to save from running out of ink, this post more of a photo journal, mostly pictures and captions. Apr 3rd/4th - Crossing the International Date Line and the Equator almost perfectly.  I wonder if the flight planner did it this way just for fun?  The 11 hour daytime flight was reasonably painless thanks to the plane not being too full and there being a good choice of movies   Fi...

The unquantifiable joy of waves More ocean immersion than French immersion I wrote previously about our first few days at Three Tables . The longer we spent living on this beach the more I wanted to be close to this beach.  We visited plenty of other beaches but none matched Three Tables for its rugged, rocky edges, the way the huge waves crashed over those tables, the coarse sand of broken shells and stones, the thick vegetation at the top of the beach, and its serenity, especially early in the morning before anyone showed up.   Once I was lava, now I am rock Time to dream Stillness amidst constant motion Sunset We slept with the big patio door open, listening to those endless waves.  The kids spent endless hours bouncing through the surf, with and without body boards, and when the waters calmed a little, we could snorkel and see many, many tropical fish just off the beach.  We were even treated to a swim past by a turtle one time, somehow making their way...