Christmas Day

Merry Christmas.


The rest of the Nixons are over in Austria celebrating a white Christmas in the snow with the German family while we're here sweltering in the muggy Sydney humidity. Gerard and Jasmine have put on a pretty good Christmas spread of lobster, prawns, spatchcock and pork. Mmmmm.

Moira and Michelle. Poor Michelle and her swollen ankles.

Adam, Jasmine and Gerard.

Gerard and the parcel from Germany.

Me and my new Christmas Schnapps Belt. Beat that Batman.

Michelle modelling my Schnapps Belt - ready for hospital.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Merry Christmas from Copernicus.

Queen victoria building christmas tree

Christmas dinner on Boxing day

Traditional Christmas dinner at the Nixons. Actually Boxing Day because no-one could get home in time for christmas. No matter, dinner was still tops and had the added bonus of our Swedish guests/family, Pirko and Jan. Note: the scraping of plates and general feeding frenzy soundtrack was edited out and replaced with another soundtrack in my phone.

Tree time

Dinner and presents.

Just a little bit of cream, custard and brandy sauce on the Christmas sago plum pudding I said.

We got your Paulaner t-shirts Benno. Ta mate.

Jan, Jasmine & Pirko.

Cat cracker.

Bacon soap. Best present ever!

Holiday traffic. Shit!

3 km in 35 minutes at this point. In the end the traffic was banked up for 6 km and took a little over an hour to travel those 6 kay. Usually it takes about 6 minutes.

Christmas day

Bubs first Christmas.

Much like holding the cat really...

Video skyping Perth.

And finally a much needed nightcap at home...

Santa sings sorta

Another Christmas Card From Copernicus

Michelle and Copernicus made this one for me. Best Christmas card eva1!1!!!!111!

Merry Christmas From Copernicus

Ready for Santa

Lucky Santa has a choice of Rubbel Sexy Lager or milk and cookies. The fat man will probably go for the lot. Hopefully he'll leave the carrots for the reindeers, or, does he have Six White Boomers for his Australian run?

We've even put out sacks for Santa to fill.

On this day 6 years ago... Antarctica

Today is also memorable, for me, because it is the sixth anniversary of our arrival in Antarctica. It was very cool to make landfall on my birthday. The previous night had been a shocker. We had heavy seas and I was as sick as a dog. I threw up until my eyes bled. The morning brought the spectacular coastline of Antarctica and a stop to the vomiting.
The slideshow below has a selection of photos taken by Michelle of our trip. From the jewel of the Southern Ocean, Macquarie Island, to the windswept wilderness that is Antarctica. There are penguins, seals, huts and icebergs. The hut is Mawson's Hut at Commonwealth Bay and is where we made landfall on my birthday. The blue iceberg calved and rolled over only a few metres from us, a couple of days later, while we gallivanting around the bergs in rubber naiads (naiads are like zodiacs).

I was reminded of our Antarctic adventure by Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy post about the humongous iceberg heading towards Western Australia today. Link to Phil's blog post here.

Geek Christmas Tree

Office christmas decoration competition. This should be a deadset winner. It is only up against traditional green and tinsel afterall.

Copernicus has had a big day

In bed before we are for a change.

Kite surfer at Greenwell Point

This dude really looked like he was enjoying the blustery conditions (You'll need to embiggen the picture to see the kite surfer).

Fish'n'chips at Greenwell Point

Beautiful day down on the South Coast. 30 degrees so verging on bloody hot. Lots of people queuing for DJ's fish'n'chips though.

Boxing Day at the beach 6

A well earned beer after a hard day at the beach.

Quick note on Boxing Day for the Yanks and the rest of the world that don't belong to the former British Commonwealth. Here is a link to the Wikipedia entry on Boxing Day about our bizarre little public holiday. We love our extra holidays and to think some people spend it shopping.

Boxing Day at the beach 5

Culburra Beach. Keeping the lifesavers happy and swimming between the flags. Good break for body surfing between the flags anyway.