Our Christmas Festivities!

Stuie here again!

Wishing everyone belated Merry Christmas (and a happy New Year!)

Christmas Day in the Price household!

Our Christmas Day was spent with my cousin Caroline and her husband Richard, and their two young daughters Elsie and Emily, whom we had a great day playing with. Christmas is really different with young kids around, but also quite exhausting! Michelle and I have had fantastic time playing with the girls, amongst many phone calls to friends and families back home in Perth.

After we finished our week of house sitting, we spent a relaxing evening catching up with Michelle’s friend Brenda in her new house up in Diamond Creek. The next day saw us hitching up the camper again and heading to Healesville to catch up with some more of Stuart’s relatives. We were welcome with open arms by Rob and Sue (Rob is Stuart’s dad’s cousin) spending the day talking, with a couple of short hikes late in the afternoon to work up an appetite for Sue’s delicious dinner! That evening we were amazed to see all of the work Sue had been putting in doing their family tree! She has traced one branch of the family back to the 1600’s! Michelle and I are now really keen to develop our family tree when we get home!

The next day saw us exploring the Healesville Sanctuary in the morning, before heading through the Marysville to camp for a night. Marysville was one of the towns that were just about wiped out during the Black Saturday fires of early 2009, with many people losing their lives in the town. I had actually travelled through the town back in 2003, and what I saw was nothing like what I remembered. It would appear that the rebuilding has been really slow, with the town’s new post office only just opening a couple of days before we arrived! Most of the very few people we saw around town appeared to be tradies working on the reconstruction work!

Elsie and Emily on the beach at the 'Prom'

The week prior to Christmas was spent holidaying with Caroline and family down on the coast at Inverloch. Unfortunately our plans for a nice sunny week beside the seaside were dashed, as what seems to be normal weather here on the east coast followed us – rain, a sprinkling of hail, a dash of sunshine and ALOT of wind! That being said, we got out and about between the showers and our one full day of sunshine was spent with a day trip to Wilsons Promontory National Park. Absolutely spectacular coastline, which was explored with a bit of a hike to exercise the legs!

We also headed off to Frankston RSL Club for dinner to meet up with some of my aunt's, uncle's and cousins (this time from Mum's side of the family!) It was Aunty Dot who graciously lonaned us the use of her holiday unit in Merimbula, where we dryed out for a couple of days. We also caught up with Aunty Joy and Uncle Arthur. Given the distance between Perth and Melbourne, we rarely get to catch up! We had a long lunch and it has certainly helped me out with picturing the whole family tree!

Our Christmas dinner this year broke with the usual tradition of roast turkey and ham, as Caroline and I had decided on seafood instead! Michelle and I braved the Preston Markets early on Christmas Eve to have a big buy up of fresh seafood, bread, fruit and vege’s for our Christmas lunch. After an hour of wandering around and selecting our produce, we left quite laden with beautiful fresh food! Our lunch menu included – pulpo (Spanish octopus recipe – thanks Andrew!), chilli mussels, baked snapper with a herb crust, garlic prawns, all coupled with crusty bread and a huge garden salad!

We hope that everyone has had a great Christmas and looking forward to the New Year. We’re now starting to get really excited, as on Thursday we will be driving onto the ferry, heading over to Tasmania for two months! We’re just keeping our fingers crossed the weather improves a little, or we are going to break our accommodation budget bigtime!

But we’re still going to go anyway! Til next time....