Special Agent Myburgh with his gangster sidekick

This birthday card had me in hysterics...

Thanks Carleen!

Christmas 2007

This Christmas, we drove up to Brisbane to spend a couple of days with our Australian side of the family. We had a great time fully of festive fun and lots of delicious food.

One of the highlight of Xmas for us was having our faces painted! Carleen has turned her creative genius to doing face paintings at parties and after a very short period of time, she has become extremely good at it. Here, as per our requests, is me as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Kerry as a Tiger and Ally as a Polar Bear. Carleen's has a face painiting site where she has lots of examples of her work. Really fantastic.

Another highlight for me was giving Beth and Richard framed pictures of some of my bird photos (male and female fairy wrens). This is the first time I have ever printed one of my photos and it felt very special. Richard and Beth like their birds and touched with the gift. They insisted I sign it!

On Christmas morning we were up early to watch the kids open their presents from Santa. Then we headed to the beach for a breakfast picnic. One of the presents was water pistols for each person (an inspired gift!!) and we spent a good chunk of our morning shooting at each other. Great to be young again! No photos of the action unfortuntely. But plenty of Glen and the kiddies frolicking in the water and sand...
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Another popular present was this large bubble maker. Ally and Kerry won the prixe for the biggest bubbles...
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Here is the family all spruced up to goto Xmas Carols at the local school...



...and more photos of the kids. They are absolutely adorable, I am sure you will agree....

...particularly this little one...




Here is one of the famous landmarks on the way up to Brisbane - the "Big Prawn". There is also a Big Banana, Big Pine Apple and Big Marino in Australia but we have yet to tick these exciting icons of Australian culture off our list. Oh, its great to have purpose in life!
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Bogan Party

Last night, we went to Bruce and Kristy's "Bogan" party. What fun! Two week's ago I didn't even know what a Bogan was. Now, after the party, I feel I understand this important aspect of "downunderism" (a mysterious world of mullets and long-kneck beer bottles in brown paper bags) very well.

Everyone took the topic to heart and outdid themselves in the costume department. Ally even had her hair professionally blow dried into an ultra curly poofery.

Well, if the photos don't explain it, here is some more information on Boganism!

BOGAN is a term used in Australia to describe a particular section of the working class demographic.

Traits of the bogan can be summarised by the following points:

A pronounced lack of dress sense in social situations. Typical bogan attire consists of a flannelette shirt, King Gee stubbie shorts (either blue/khaki), torn or soiled jeans from the 1980's or earlier, and double-plug standard issue white thong sandals with black rubber. A female bogan will usually wear a matching ensemble usually consisting of second-hand fashions or products purchased from the discount retail chains Best and Less or Big W.

Distinct hair. A bogan will often allow his/her hair to grow into an attractive style named the "mullet" as popularised in the 1980's. Similar styles apply for females, however the female bogan frequently colours her hair auburn.

Distinct vocabulary. A common bogan trait includes shortening words. Locations such as the Wyong Leagues Club become the "leaguesy", the Crown Casino becomes the "leaguesy" and females/males such as Sharon/Barry become "Shaz" and "Baz".

A particular choice in motor vehicle. The bogan usually drives one of two makes of vehicle. Typically this is either a Holden or a Ford . Common bogan variants manufactured by each of these companies include the Holden Commodore and the Ford Falcon.

Employment status. The common bogan is either a) not employed or b) a tradesman/labourer.

A poorly-maintained house. In most cases the bogan is located some way inland from a coastal fringe or major waterway. In the case of Sydney, this has lead to the term "westie" being coined in order to distinguish the boganistic population of the inland western suburbs from the more affluent residents of the east.

The bogan house usually consists of a number of elements:

• The bedroom (for rootun).
• The balcony (for smokun/shootun).
• The livun room (for watchun telly/smokun/gettun pissed).
• The kitchen (for storun beer).
• The combined bathroom/laundry (for washun shit) .
• The shed (for rootun/smokun/shootun/gettun pissed/storun beer/workun on the commo).