A 'Two Four' of Anniversaries

Michael and I celebrated 24 years of marriage this past week. He brought some lovely flowers home, and we went out for a very nice dinner to mark the actual day. Notice my tricky method of getting Mike into the photo (his school photos were delivered :-)

The weather has certainly turned to 'winter' with rain and clouds along with the cooler temperatures. However, we are getting nothing like the weather on the east coast of Australia. Had we succeeded in our original exchange match, we would likely be living in a shelter at this point. There has been extensive flooding, road washouts and closures, ocean transports beached, and billions of dollars in damage - all right near where we were originally assigned. We definitely lucked out exchanging to W.A. with Theresa in many ways.

When the weekend came about, both boys had their own plans for the start of the weekend. Patrick stayed behind for Friday evening with the Gravity folks. Some of the team went rock climbing then out to a bar on Friday night, and Pat joined them, not returning here till late Saturday. They have quite the international contingent up there - there is mix of levels from Patrick up to Ph.D. candidates, male and female, from all over the world - from India, some Chinese, a French, 3 Americans, Patrick from Canada as well as Aussies. They eat on their own for lunches, but have communal dinners when they tend to cook mostly Indian dishes as they all enjoy their curries.

Kyle had plans to go mini-putt on Saturday, but the weather was not co-operative and they had to switch to bowling - which worked out fine also. So since both boys had their own plans, Mike and I took advantage and did a one night get-away on Friday night to Perth (anniversary was a good excuse).

We got a good last minute deal which included brunch at a nice hotel (views from the hotel photoed here). And the rain held off enough on Saturday morning for us to be able to walk around Perth (some more of the photos) to do some shopping without getting soaked. Mike managed to find a good pair of sunglasses (when the sun shines, you really need them!) thanks to birthday monies from his parents, and we bought some other stuff including A&W Rootbeer. Rootbeer is not available here, and it is one of the things Kyle has been missing. I splurged and bought enough for him to share with some friends, so we'll see what they think of it!

By Saturday evening, we were all back home as a family for a night of cards, and then Sunday was off to the Aquarium of WA (tomorrows posting!).