Happy New Year!!! Looking back over 2010...

Hello/Ciao everyone!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Well 2010 was a very exciting and busy one for us. 

We started 2010 with Iain having a split lip from some random guy who punched Iain in the mouth in our front yard, not a very good start to 2010.

My cousin Marie turned 25 in February.

We celebrated Easter at my Aunty Anthi's house, it was a huge family affair (Mum and Dad were in Kazahkstan).

Mum and Dad returned from a 1 year mission trip in Kazahkstan.

My cousin Kat celebrated her 30th at the Versace buffet on the Gold Coast.

Iain, Levi, Phoenix and I set off on our 3 month adventure from the Gold Coast Airport. 

A few days after we arrived in Florence, Josh and Holly welcomed baby Eli to the family. 

While my family were in Paris we heard that my sister had her 2nd  child a little girl.  Pepper is my parents first granddaughter.

We spent a week at the Cinque Terre in the sun, then came back to cool weather in Florence and a bit of rain.

I got to go to a dinner with some expat women in Florence and met Kimberly.  It was great meeting someone I had chatted to on the internet.  We were invited to Kimberly house for dinner and enjoyed wonderful crostini and pizza with her husband and 2 sons.

In our last week in Italy we spent 5 days with Paola (the owner of the flat we stayed in at Florence) and Sergio in Albugnano near Asti.  We visited the Alps and saw snow on the top of the mountains.  It was very cold in the Northern part of Italy in October.

When we left Florence it was very hard and we miss it everyday. 

London welcomed us with 24C and sunshine, the next day it was 12C and windy with a little rain.  We enjoyed London so much we would love to go back and spend a bit more time there and discover other areas of the UK.

After almost missing our connecting flight from London to Kuala Lumpur we arrived back in Australia to cool weather.  It has been raining ever since and only now in late December do we have warm weather.

We celebrated my cousin Andreas 30th birthday in November at the Fox.

For Christmas we headed to Rockhampton in the floods and rain to celebrate with Iain's family.

Now many towns in Queensland are flooded and many people have been evacuated from their houses.

We enjoyed a BBQ and games on the Wii with family for New Years Eve.

Our family at the Duomo in Florence-October 2010

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all and I hope the new year brings joy and happiness.  Please keep safe and healthy.



North Italy-the Alps....so cold.

We are very lucky to have a very generous friend in Italy. Paola is actually the lady who owns the apartment we live in, in Florence. She and her partner Sergio have invited us to stay with them in Albugnano for 2 nights then Paola has taken us to their mountain apartment in Torgnon (Valle d'Aosta). This is a great experience for us because our sons have never seen snow in Australia. Torgnon is very beautiful and it is about 10 degrees celcius during the day and very cold at night. The clouds have stayed very low for our visit and we cannot see much of the view from the apartment. But I can see the ski lift very close by for winter and the cows up on the hill. We have the fire place going now and it feels a bit more cosy.

Yesterday we drove to Mont Blanc and saw the snow on the peaks. The views are gorgeous there and the autumn colours are so beautiful. The mountains are so high and magnificent. We call our hills mountains in Australia, but they just don't compare. We are so privileged to have this experience.

Today we went to Cervinia to see Cervino Mountain, it has a pointy peak. When we first arrived there it was covered in clouds and we could not see any of it. After a hot chocolate and caffe we went out and the clouds had lifted and what a magnificent sight we saw. Unfortunately the cable car stopped on the weekend and will not be open until the start of winter.