Adelaidelisa

Hello from the United States!

2007-06-22T08:40:00.001-07:00

Here a family photo of us all in front of the Getty Villa in Malibu, California. This is a magical place and is an educational centre and museum dedicated to the study of the arts and cultures of ancient Greece, Roma and Etruria. The Villa is modeled after the Villa dei Papiri, a Roman country house in Herculaneum which was a city buried by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in A.D. 79.

Here is another picture of my son Elliott (8) at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles! Go Baseball! We saw the Dodgers play the New York Mets and they won 9 to 1. We also went to another major league baseball game, the Milwaukee Brewers against the San Francisco Giants and the Brewers won 7 to 5. It is summer here now and very hot -- baseball season!

Today we are going to the beach on Lake Michigan, which is the third largest of the five great lakes in the United States. You must look on a map to see where I am!

More photos soon!

What a great class!

2007-05-29T02:16:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful party to celebrate the end of 5 weeks of GEAP 3. The food was fantastic and absolutely delicious.

It was a pleasure and an honour to be your teacher. You were a fantastic class. I wish you all the best for your futures and keep up the English -- movies, music and lots of talking, talking, talking......

(and please stay in touch with your blogs!)

Lisa's Luscious Brownies

2007-05-23T20:01:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

Here is the recipe for my brownies --- yum yum......

1/2 cup butter or margarine
2 ounces (60 grams) unsweetened chocolate
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)

Grease an 8x8x2-inch (about 24 cm x 24 cm x 4cm) baking pan and set aside. In a medium saucepan melt butter and chocolate over low heat. Remove from heat. Stir in eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Using a wooden spoon, beat lightly just till combined. Stir in flour and nuts.
Spread batter in prepared baking pan. Bake in a 180 degree celcius oven for 30 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Cut into bars. Makes 24 Brownies.

Tip: I'll always double this recipe because they are soooooooo delicious that they seem to disappear right away! Also, you can use a bit less sugar if you find them too sweet.

Happy baking (and eating!)

My Perfect Day

2007-05-16T19:54:00.000-07:00

Last year when I was on vacation at a beautiful resort in Fiji with my husband, I had the perfect day. When I woke up in the morning, I looked out the window at the turquoise ocean and listened to the birds outside my beach bungalow. Then I had a yoga session with my personal trainer while my personal chef prepared a fabulous breakfast. It was fresh local fruit and fresh baked muffins as well as delicious coffee. After a leisurely breakfast, I spent time on the balcony reading my favourite book. By the time I met my husband for lunch at the beach cafe, I was starving because of all the yoga I had done and all of the fresh air! After that, I spent the afternoon taking a long nap under the beach umbrella. While I was sleeping, the waiter came to take my order, but since I was asleep, my husband ordered me a cocktail. When I woke up I drank the cocktail and fell right back asleep! I awoke just as the sun was setting and we stayed on the beach until we could see the stars in the sky. Then we had dinner delivered to our bungalow and ate fresh fish under the moonlight and counted the stars in the sky.

Unfortunately, this story is not true, but we can always dream, right?

Mount Lofty Botanic Garden

2007-05-13T04:10:00.000-07:00

I had a lovely Mother's Day today with my family. Elliott and Miles gave me some beautiful cards that they had made at school as well as some gifts. My husband also gave me two new CDs that I had wished for: the new Arctic Monkeys and Missy Higgins.
We spent the afternoon at Mount Lofty Botanic Garden. It was our first time there and we were very impressed. The weather was perfect and we saw plants and trees from all around the world. I highly recommend a visit to this magical place, especially now as the Autumn foliage is simply stunning.

Access Finally!

2007-05-10T05:35:00.000-07:00

After what seems like a million attempts, I have finally accessed my blog again. I am experiencing password problems. Now I hope to link you all in to my site.

I am very impressed with all of your blogs and am looking forward to more blogging with you.

cheers

Hello Again!

2007-05-03T04:38:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

It has been several months since I last blogged. I am happy to be back and I especially welcome all of my GEAP 3 students to the world of blogging. It is a fun way to communicate and to practice your English. I hope you are all enjoying it so far.
Now I must make my link list so that I can visit all of your sites.

more soon

Adelaidelisa

2007-01-22T17:14:00.000-08:00

Yorke Peninsula

I have just returned from a mini-holiday in the wonderful little township of Stansbury. It is only a two hour drive to Stansbury from Adelaide. We could see the twinkling lights of Adelaide in the evening and the outline of the Adelaide Hills and Mt. Lofty during the day. There were pelicans waiting to be fed and my children had fun counting how many were there. My husband's parents are visiting from Germany and Elliott and Miles will stay with them there for the rest of the week. They rented a camper van and are staying at the Stansbury Caravan Park. Mark and I stayed in a hotel for one night.
The best part about our stay was crab raking. Stansbury is supposedly the best place for this on the whole Yorke Peninsula. When the tide goes out, you first put on some very sturdy rock shoes (otherwise the razorfish will cut you) and you then walk out to the sea in the very shallow water (about 15o meters) and you rake the sand to find crabs. In less than an hour we caught 7 crabs! Our neighbor at the campground showed us how to prepare them for cooking and we then had a wonderful meal of fresh crab before Mark and I headed back to Adelaide.
I highly recommend Stansbury, especially for crabbing and safe swimming. It also happens to be an oyster farming area but it is spawning season now and we were unable to buy fresh oysters -- next time!

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Adelaidelisa

2007-01-06T05:15:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The month of December was somewhat of a blur for me -- there was so much going on -- birthday parties (Elliott turned 8), sleepovers, sports carnivals, holiday parties, shopping, Christmas cards and teaching too! Well, I can breathe now and open my eyes and, alas, it is January, the start of a new year!
Hope you all had wonderful holidays and are looking forward to a great new year.
It is still strange for us to get used to Christmas in Summer. I grew up with lots of snow and cold. My weekends consisted of ice skating, sledding, making snowmen, snowball fights and hot chocolate. My kids miss the snow but we are still enjoying the novelty of a hot Christmas.
We had a great ending to GEAP A in December 2006. Here some pictures from the party.

Adelaidelisa

2006-11-27T02:23:00.000-08:00

Hello Fellow Bloggers and welcome new students!

I am looking forward to reading your blogs. This is a great way to express your ideas and opinions and, most importantly, to practice your English!

Looking forward to blogging with you all,

Lisa

Adelaidelisa

2006-11-20T02:36:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving

Here a picture of our Turkey which we shared with family and friends to celebrate and give thanks for all of the wonderful things that we have in our lives.

Thanksgiving day, which is this Thursday, November 23, 2006, falls every year on the fourth Thursday in November. The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in New England in 1621, one year after the Pilgrims had arrived and had survived the first winter. The Pilgrims, who had come to America searching for religious freedom, had befriended the Native American Wampanoag Indian tribe. These Native Americans showed the Pilgrims how to farm the land and how to survive the harsh New England winter. They then partook in this celebration of the harvest together and thus, the tradition of Thanksgiving was born.

It is a wonderful celebration of family and friends and a wonderful occasion to give thanks to Mother Nature and any Gods that you may believe in, for the bounty and goodness in our lives.

2006-11-01T01:27:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween

Here the trick or treaters on Halloween. My kids are the ones with the white scary masks on (the two matching ones).

Halloween is a really fun holiday to celebrate, especially for children. For them it's about dressing up and getting lots of sweets but there is quite a rich history of Halloween.

The origin of this festival can be traced back to Celtic times. The Celts believed that the evening of October 31st was their New Years's Eve, based on the life cycles of their crops. They also believed that on this night the veil between our world and the spirit world was at it's weakest, so the spirits of all those who died in the previous year would rise up and roam the earth on this night.

The pagans (as they were known), had a festival on this night of the year called 'Samhain' (pronounced 'sow-in', it is also the name of 'the lord of darkness' or 'lord of the night'). This festival was the feast of the dead, marking the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter. People believed that spirits on this night could inhabit their bodies. So they took to lighting bonfires, and decorating themselves and their houses in a 'spooky' manner to ward off any nasty spirits. This is probably the closest in origin to Halloween as I know it.

In later times, the church tried to stamp out 'pagan' practices and named a new holiday on the same date - 'All Hollows' Eve'. However, the pagan ideas still remained and carried down through the years to become the Halloween that we celebrate today.

In Mexico they celebrate the 'Dia de los Muertos' - The day of the dead. At this time of the year Monarch butterflies return to Mexico after having spent the summer months in the US and Canada. These butterflies are thought to be the spirits of departed loved ones and so are welcomed back to Mexico warmly.

The origin or trick or treating is also quite interesting. On 'Samhain', people believed that not all the dead were friendly, so food and sweet treats were left out to keep the rowdy spirits happy and stop them from causing trouble.

In later years in the UK, the evening was known as 'mischief night' and bonfires were lit to scare off any spooky creatures who might cause trouble. In Ireland on All Hallows' Eve, townspeople would go from neighbour to neighbour asking for food and contributions to the town's feast.

Nowadays, the children go from neighbour to neighbour and ring the doorbell singing (or screaming) 'Trick or treat, trick or treat, give me something good to eat'. There are, of course, other variations which are not so polite......

The Irish used to create lights in their windows to ward off evil spirits on All Hallows' Eve by carving a hole out of turnips and placing small candles inside. They sometimes used potatoes too. When large numbers of Irish immigrants went to the US in the 1800's they took their tradition with them, but switched to larger pumpkins because they were easier to carve. Hence, the tradition of the Jack-o-lanterns. I still could not find out why they are called Jack, however!

As you can see, the Jack-o-lanterns I carved with my children glow beautifully on Halloween night!

Happy Halloween

2006-10-18T03:38:00.000-07:00

Captain Koala

Here he is, our resident Koala. The kids named him Captain Koala. When I told my mother about the koala in our yard, the first thing she asked me is if I tried to feed it. I explained to her that koalas only eat gum leaves (eucalyptus). Koala is an aboriginal word meaning 'no drink' and indeed any moisture they get is from the gum leaves. (And I wonder how much water they contain?!)As you can imagine, they are not the healthiest of creatures. Moreover, they sleep for about 23 hours out of the day and the other hour they spend eating. What a life......
I recently read that on Kangaroo Island there is an overabundance of koalas and they are destroying the gum trees by eating all the leaves. Several years ago they actually killed koalas on the island which led to local and national outrage. Now they are implanting the female koalas with a contraceptive device which will prevent them from becoming pregnant.
As you can see in this photo, koalas have very sharp claws which help them climb gum trees so well. You would definitely not want to get too close to a wild koala because they would certainly defend themselves using these.

Still ill

2006-10-18T03:25:00.000-07:00

Influenza blues

In other words, I am still trying to overcome my bout with the flu (ie. fever with severe aches and pains). Now both of my children have it and are suffering too. We spent most of the day in bed and hopefully we will recover soon.........

Adelaidelisa

2006-10-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

Koala in our tree

Ten days ago we discovered a koala in the gum tree in our yard and he has been there ever since! We know it is a he because only male koalas make that dreadful noise which sounds like a grunting wild pig. I took lots of photographs and sent them to all of my friends and relatives in Germany and in America since it is something really special for them to see. With any luck, I will be able to post a photograph on this site for you to see as well.

Adelaidelisa

2006-10-07T18:40:00.000-07:00

Adelaidelisa

McLaren Vale and Willunga

About an hour south of Adelaide lies the magnificent wine region of McLaren Vale. We visited the Wirra Wirra Vineyards' Cellar Door yesterday and enjoyed the 2004 Church Block (a wonderful blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and Merlot). We purchased a few bottles as well!

After that we had a delightful late lunch at the Willy Hill Cafe in Willunga. It is a charming place and the food and service were excellent. If you are visiting Willunga or the McLaren Vale area, it is definitely worth visiting this unique place.

We then enjoyed the last part of a warm Saturday afternoon on the beach in Aldinga. The water was still quite cold but it was refreshing. The kids had their boogie boards and enjoyed the waves. Beach season has officially begun.

Friday my first blog

2006-10-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

Hi
Testing my first blog!