Living in Toowoomba

Hello!
Damien and I are now in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. It is about 90 minutes inland from Brisbane. We are living on Damien's parents' farm about 20 minutes down red dirt roads from Toowoomba. We have been here about a week and everyone is getting ready for Christmas. We went and saw the City's Christmas light display with Damien's sister Danica and her husband Lee and their two boys, Max and Jordan.
I have seen a lot of animals including 4 ft. goanna lizards, bush turkeys, wallabies, green tree frogs, ducks, grebes, parrots or various kinds and other birds. And last night I saw in the sky over Toowoomba my first flying fox or fruit bat. They are huge!! Apparently their poop is very acidic and takes the paint off your car. I haven't seen any snakes yet but plenty of spiders.
The weather is fairly warm but not too bad. Things are kind of crazy with the holidays and all so we may not be able to concentrate full on to looking for jobs until after the new year. We are doing our best right now though.
I hope I can post some pictures soon so look out for those on my photo site!

Goodbye Kani City!

Well, today is both exciting and sad. Today is Damien and my last day in Kani City, Japan. When we first arrived, on our first full day in Kani it was raining and cold and we walked down by the river and marvelled at the huge herons fishing there. Since that day we have made many such walks down by the river.
Comorants and ducks on Spring mornings with cherry blossoms.
Hot Summer nights watching the bats swoop and dive.
The colorful leaves of cool Autumn afternoons.

The various animals and birds we always saw became like friends to us here.
Today, our last full day in Kani, we again walked down by the river. This time is was sunny and beautiful. It was almost like all the animals we have seen were out to say good-bye, cormorants, herons, ducks, grebes, nutria, egrets, pheasants, crows and hawks. It was amazing to think of all the things, good and bad, that have happened between those two river walks.

We gained many wonderful memories during our short time in Kani and really grew to love this area. We met many wonderful people and had some great experiences. It is sad that things couldn't have worked out like we had planned, but now we are embarking upon a new chapter in our lives, in Australia. One that hopefully will involve starting a family.

I will leave Kani with a haiku I made up while sitting outside in a hotspring a couple of weeks ago while looking up at the beautiful blue sky and sitting amongst the autumn leaves, watching a hawk flying above:

circles in the sky
over steam and autumn leaves
a quiet moment