more food, broome visit

well it seems that most of our time is spent cooking, eating, and taking pictures of it. I need to join a gym asap! anyway we had a fabulous left over curry dinner the other night with a Mediterranean salad to match. I went down to Broome for work for two nights and got put up in this unbelievable hotel.  While work was pretty busy and I got a lot done and got to see some good speechies down there...I also made time to swim in the beautiful pool there, enjoy some touristy spots, have some great dinners and such. Sadly I missed Emmett's bday - happy birthday emmett!!!!! - and Claire is sorely missed.  Drove back from Broome today and saw lots of weird looking cows, huge termite mounds, and beautiful rivers. Got home and jose made a great meal for us which was really appreciated! Pics still added to the end of the Derby album http://picasaweb.google.com/nicole13/Derby?feat=directlink)

curry night!

well we had a ridiculously delicious curry evening. this was preceded by ecuadorian coffee, banana bread and white choc chip & macadamia nut cookies after swimming most of the afternoon. we then began cooking for the curry night and then more friends joined us with even more food and i think i ate enough for a hippo. emmett made the best crepes with chocolate sauce and fruit on top! yum! after dinner we headed off to a local (huge) bash for two people's birthdays and enjoyed the live music and costumes there for a bit before walking home under the nearly full moon. i had to wait another hour before i could lie down without feeling like i was going to hurl from being so full. gross...portion control anyone? sadly claire, our partner in arms, has left us to return home.  she is going to be sorely missed and i am currently plotting ways to ensure her return.

fitzroy visit!

i just got back from a remote trip with claire to fitzroy crossing. we saw lots of kids, assessed them, made up treatment programs, etc. it was a fantastic and productive visit and we also got to fit in lots of swimming, bootcamp, dinner, more swimming, and a visit to geikie gorge (pronounced geeky) where we saw wonderful dark rocks, a beautiful river, and wild kangaroos! the second picture has a kangaroo but you can't see it because my phone's camera is not very good. oh well. someday i'll get a good one and prove they really run wild out here. think we saw a croc's nose in the water too! beautiful sunset, great town, great company, just hard to leave jose behind with his training in derby. maybe next time he can join us.

after party nacho time, making fried rice, and hair cuts

Have had a great time lately, making nachos from left overs after swimming all afternoon, watching the boys cook up a storm in the kitchen while claire and I sat back with a glass of wine and our feet up. lovely. then claire gave emmett a much needed haircut and hilarity ensued. we retired to the veranda outside and had some beer, talked about storms, life, work, etc.  we're all really depressed though since claire is abandoning us to go back home...sniff. i am plotting a way to get her back here asap. also plotting to keep emmett here for another three months so our little pack isn't totally torn asunder. more pics under derby album

salsa, mediterranean tucker and spanish!

all the makings of a fabulous dinner party with great new friends in town.  Everyone brought a dish and the theme was Mediterranean cuisine. Turned out all veggie which was actually lovely, although jose was missing his meat.  we had sangria, fried cheeses, musaka, salad, potatoes with aioli, spicy salsa, pita, guacamole, antipasto plate, hummus, and then cakes, cakes, cakes, and cookies. it was awesome.  we listened to cumbia and salsa music and i attempted to dance while the columbian ladies put everyone else to shame. got to practice my spanish with the columbians and the ecuadorian guy too.  it was a blast.  more photos under the derby album...

boab prison tree and driving lessons

we've been out and about doing lots of fun things in town, mainly with our new friend Claire and when he is around, Emmett too.  Claire took me out to learn to drive stick which went fairly well for a first go-round.  Then we stopped by the boab prison tree, a site of significance here in Derby. Then we also stopped by May river up the Gibb River Road to get a peek at what the famous river track is like. It's beautiful but HOT! No crocs sadly, but really interesting rocks.  Sometime in the dry season we can go camping up the gibb

storms, sunsets, cooking, dinner parties!

So kind of more of the same. It's a bit of a one horse town so we spend a lot of time down by the jetty watching the sunset with a beer or a glass of wine. Lovely really. And we spend a lot of time cooking meals from scratch because food is expensive here, especially to eat out, and there aren't a lot of restaurants to choose from (3 i think).  We recently had another dinner get together with friends from work and had an absolute blast.  We've been swimming and moving furniture around to suit our taste. We also went on a walk for a free breakfast put on by the town shire (rec center), met a lot of nice people, and scoped out where all the ripe mangoes were hiding in town.  We've added more photos to our derby album (link under photos or on the right under albums or here: http://picasaweb.google.com/nicole13/Derby?feat=directlink)