Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Australia Day

We won't be home for the 4th of July this year, instead, we were lucky enough to be down under to celebrate Australia Day with the Aussies.  And WOW - do they take pride in celebrating their country!  From painted faces to swimsuits to crazy hats and shirts and even attached to hundreds of cars - the Aussie flag was everywhere!  We went to our friend's, Noha & Hammam's house to celebrate with an all day extreme bbq, Aussie style....with a diverse group consisting of: 2 Americans, 2 Egyptians, 1 Scottish and 4 English....not a single Aussie among us!  After a full day of bbqing we went to King's Park for a SPECTACULAR fireworks show - and it was here that we finally joined with THOUSANDS of Aussies to celebrate this beautiful country!

How cute are we in our Aussie gear?!  This was all Tyson's doing...he bought us matching shirts!

I made Australia shaped sugar cookies...and Tyson definitely enjoyed them.

Crikey, mate!!  Where's Crocodile Dundee when you need him!?

As you may have figured out from our pictures, Pete is king of the grill.  So Tyson has aptly named him "Grillmaster P"....check out the apron.  Awesome.

Grillmaster P made a pizza on the barbecue!!!  It was ridiculous. And by that, I mean delicious!

Pete & Alison sporting their Aussie pride!

T-man grilling some delicious bacon wrapped shrimp - his new specialty!

Lookout GQ!

Literally, thousands of people were at King's park to see the famous "skyworks" show.

I'm not joking - people were everywhere!!

We somehow managed to find a perfect spot amongst the crowd!

K&T down under!

Adrian, Tyson, Noha & Hammam ready to be "blown away" (get it?) by the fireworks show!

It was a beautiful night!

The city looked SO pretty!

Fireworks came from a barge in the middle of the river, and from on top of the buildings downtown!  It was awesome!

4 comments:

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Rufus said...

I also just recently stumbled upon your blog and couldn't help but notice that you live "Down Under" and were celebrating Aussie Day. Aussie day, for those of you who don't know was started back in 1842 when Australia was a penal colony for the British Empire. A man in Queensbury, Australia raised a new flag and declared that one day he would see Australia free of the imperialist empire's rule. This defiant gesture sparked a movement that would take 31 years to realize. But, sure enough, in 1873 England granted Australia their freedom by removing the Penal colony and helping the new "Australians" transistion to a new government. To keep things in order, the King/Queen of England remained as the de facto figurehead rulers of this island nation, while the real power of the government was given to the Prime Minister. This arrangement still exists today. However, it wasn't until 1904 following the World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, USA that the idea for an "Australia Day" came about. The day had long been commemorated, but at the World's Fair, some visiting Aussies discovered things that were on display at this fair that were eventually brought back to the island. Items such as: Fireworks that exploded into shapes, the ice cream cone, Ferris Wheels, the Funnel Cake, the barker who can guess your age or weight, and the dessert topper, Cool Whip. All of these things eventually traveled back to the island and are part of the Australia Day celebrations we see today.

Thank you for your lovely pictures and for sharing your American viewpoint of this joyous, patriotic day. I hope that this entry is but just another form of celebration of this day, no matter how small...or false.

kimjwarren said...

Karis, I love reading your blogs. You all are so cute and are having so much fun. You make my heart smile. Love ya Kim

Kenneth Ivory said...

Hey, we loved the new pictures. Looks like you guys had a blast in Australia!!!! Definitely miss you guys, but we're so glad yall are havin a blast. We also enjoy pancakes :)