Duty

My last "duty" of the year. Say that over and over again duty, duty duty...

A little gift from the slurpee duty teacher with a Christmas themed drink to cool off at 35+. 

Experience shared with special friends

Something amazing happened after our orientation way back at the beginning of our exchange experience. A wonderful teacher from Canada decided to form a Sydney Teachers Dinner group on Facebook and invited teachers from Canada to come together to share our stories and have a great time.  Over the next 10 months we have all gotten together to share the experience of a lifetime we all have been on. We were able to laugh and vent about everything that was going on. From the frustrations of different expectations, to the struggles with the language of photocopying on different paper and different paper sizes. We compared the students and schools to those that we left back home. Each of us has had struggles that we have been able to support each other through. Some have had the dream exchange and other not so much. But, we have all come from all over Canada, the west right through to the east and we all shared the love for teaching and courage to take a leap and say yes to a teacher exchange. 

Our first dinner get together

Dinner and hike number 2

Two more join the group after arriving from Alberta in July.

This amazing group of friends grew as the year went on. From trips to the zoo, hikes and dinners hosted by each other, we are now linked forever by this exchange.

Matt and I are lucky in that one of the other exhangees also comes from Beaumont, Alberta. We will be lucky to now know one more person when we return home.

Matt and I were happy to host one last Sydney dinner group get together this Friday. We enjoyed sharing our stories. We all have agreed we have done so much while in Australia, but still have only seen so little of this wonderful country. Most are leaving with so many stories to take home and the lessons we have learned from our teaching experiences down under.  I am confident to say that we all will be bringing something back to our school in Canada.


Some pictures of our "Canadian" feast.
Smoked meat on rye bread and of course a few celebratory drinks! We were supposed to have a swim in the pool, but the weather once again didn't cooperate.

Burnside School Family Fun Night

Friday night, Maëlle's school held its Family Fun Night. Lots of fun was had by all. Rides, blowup castles, firestrucks, face painting and treats all on her school grounds. Was a nice night out with the family.  She is really going to miss her school. It has been a very amazing experience for her this year. She has really enjoyed every day at Burnside School.

Some photos from the grocery store

Just some items in the grocery stores.

Tick Tock

Out on a regular outing with m I realized that there are only 9 weeks of school and 13 weeks of our Aussie adventure left and I 'caught' myself thinking how fast time has gone and how much faster our time is going to go.

I am so glad that I 'caught' myself.  No one on a holiday says oh no only 13 weeks left.  Kids don't start counting down the days of school with 45 days still left to go with any kind of urgency so why should I?  I shouldn't.  Yes there are great things to look forward to but if you get caught looking forward you might miss something perfect happening right in front of you.  You never truly know what the future will bring but you can control what you are doing now.

As many of you know I've lived the simple life here, no phone, no watch and no car which has truly allowed me to live in the present.  This has been great, liberating even and I challenge all of you to see if you can live in the present as much as possible but even living this simple life I still have to catch myself every know and then and bring myself back to the present.

I understand that what you choose to do in the present will affect what you can do in the future and I am not saying you shouldn't consider that; on the contrary you should know exactly how your current actions will shape your future and then enjoy the feeling of knowing that when you are in full control of your present that the future will bring good things.

Where am I? Here! What time is it? Now! So what should I do? ..... (go get Maëlle from school so no time to proofread) but then anything :)

Thanks for reading :)

Forward thinking

It is two more sleeps before the last Term of teaching here in Australia.

I have been thinking a lot about how lucky we have been to get a match (thanks Maxine, Ian and Todd) for this exchange. The last 9 months have been full of many ups and downs, but so many life changing adventures for all four of us. We have just returned from the Great Barrier Reef and a chance to see the GBR before climate change changes it all forever. We have had some good talks about what we see life like once we are back in Canada. Funny enough, both Matt and I have no idea. Beaumont is home but the new view we have of the opportunities that are open to us as a family leave the future as open as can be. It could be up to 9 more months before we are back in Beaumont (11 before I am back teaching) and I know the time is going to fly by just like the last 9 months has.

The next 10 weeks of teaching are going to be great! I am excited to get back to teaching about Canada and having the best time with my class. I am looking forward to teaching swim lessons.  We will be sad to leave Australia and have been so lucky to meet all the people we have met and to have family that has supported and visited us.

We are then starting the 6 months of unknown in Cambodia and then the world is open to us.  We have so many decisions to make but a lot of time to figure it out (We are open to help in this area). This part of the world is unknown to both of us but at this point the girls are excited to try more good food and see more beaches they say.


Late spring, early summer (Canada seasons) will see us return to Canada. Our hearts will be full of travel and fun. We will be so happy to see all the friends and family that we have missed already more than we ever knew possible.

Really a big thank you to everyone who has made this possible.

In the paper again!

Book Week Parade: Escape to Everywhere!

The book character parade was fantastic! For my Canadian friends, it is like Halloween without the candy! I was so happy to see all the child dressed up in costumes that ranged from superheroes, princess, movie characters to some of the most amazing home made costumes of their favourite book characters. I personally choose to be as Canadian as I could with the Paper Bag Princess. The weather held off and the whole school (over 1000) students got to parade around in front of all the other students showing off their costumes. 

Here are some photos from the teachers at the school and some of the awesome costumes!

Lollipop Lady

Well, way back in Term One, my first PDHPE lesson was on Road Safety. I thought that I had covered the basics of the differences in road safety such as cross walks = zebra crossings, refuge islands and driving on the wrong side of the road. I was ready to go. In the pre unit discussion of what they already knew I was 100% confident they were pulling my leg when they talked about the lollipop lady. What the heck was a lollipop lady? Well Matt and the girls cross with one everyday at Burnside. Can you see where the name comes from?  Here is a little video of one of the great memories we will take back with us to Canada. It really has been great to walk to and from school each day in such nice weather.

Winter Break by Maëlle

Winter Break- Lennox Head, Byron Bay, North Stradbroke Island, Cairns and Daintree Rainforest 

Diary by Maëlle

July 1st and 2nd

We did a lot of driving. I saw some kind kangaroos hopping across the road when the google maps took us on a bit of a detour. We arrived in Lennox Head at night. The house has a trampoline and books for us. We went to the beach at Lennox Head was a lot of fun. We got to play in the sand and the ocean.

July 3rd

We went to Byron Bay Lighthouse. The best was the beach at the bottom. We took off our pants and playing in the waves. There were dolphins swimming by as we were playing. We had to leave the beach to go drive to the ferry.

July 5 and 6, 2017.

We are on North Stradbroke island in Queensland. Yesterday we saw at least 1000 Fox Bats. The sky was black with bats. They make a high pitched squeaking sound. In the morning we went for a hike along the ocean. We saw lots of whales and some cute dolphins and a turtle. Breakfast this morning smells delicious and good. We have been so busy. We got to see koalas in the trees at Amnity Point. I have seen so much wildlife. When I was with mommy and nana, mom had to pull over because kangaroos were on the side of the road. We went to the beach near our house. Malia decided she didn't like the waves or the ocean but we got her swimming in the little ponds that where left from the ocean.

July 7, 2017 North Stradbroke Island, Queensland

It is a rainy today, but we are still going outside! We put on our raincoats and set off in the car. Daddy wore his funny raincoat and hat. Nana called him Captain High liner. On our walk we saw two kangaroos! We think the mama kangaroo had a Joey in her pouch. We continued down the path and I saw some whales and dolphins. They were amazing. The kangaroo went under the house. We think he has some friends under it. 

July 8, 2017. North Stradbroke Island Queensland 

It is sunny today on North Stradbroke Island. We haven't had breakfast yet and I am getting hungry! I would like some blueberry and cranberry cereal with flakes mixed in with it.Today is Daniels birthday. We went to a lake called Brown Lake. It was brown from the tea tree trees. We made sand castles and jumped in the lake. Mommy and Nana liked the smell of the leaves. Hopefully it will get rid of our colds.

July 11, 2017 Daintree Wild B & B and Zoo

We arrived at the Daintree rain forest after a night in Cairns. In Cairns we woke up and got into our bathing suits and went for a swim. The water had some water slides. I was a bit cold at first. I went down the waterslide. It was very fun. I beat dad to the clam shell every time. and I rode a walrus.

 July 12, 2017 Daintree Wild B & B and Zoo 

We are staying at the zoo! We went to the zoo at 7:00 but it started to pour! Nana and I got really soaked! The crocodiles were massive. The man fed them meat. They were a bit funny. We saw a cassowary it was beautiful. We got some bread to feed the joeys. We had so much fun. We were living at a zoo! We went out and had ice cream, my kind of ice cream was coconut. My sister kind of ice cream was mango, passionfruit and something that tasted like strawberries. Then we went to the old shop. It had lots of old machines. I liked old phones the best. They were dial phones. Mom and dad had dial phones. We went on a crocodile cruise. We saw baby crocs and big crocs. We saw a tree snake in the tree. Nana liked the blue kingfisher bird. When we went back to our hotel room we went back to the zoo for our supper. I really liked supper. It was scrumdiliousious. Arnie is a parrot at the front of the zoo. He talked to us. He was really funny he even followed our bobs. It was first time I ever heard a bird talk! 

July 13, 2017 

We took a very small cable ferry across the crocodile watching river called Daintree. The road was really bumpy and really curvy. On our first stop we thought we saw cassowary eggs until one fell out of the tree then we knew they were not cassowary eggs but some kind of fruit! The cassowary eats them. It was really humid . We drove to the end of the road as far as we could go because we didn't have 4x4 driving to get across the river. We went for a walk to a swimming hole that didn't have crocodiles. Dad almost stepped on a python while he was carrying Malia to the rocks on the other side of the river. We played in the river and dad went off a rope swing and dropped into the river. We later went to another beach for lunch but couldn't swim. I jumped and looked for shells on the beach.

July 14, 2017

We went on a drive to get some Lunch and supper. We stopped in a town and played at the park. Today we are at the airport in Cairns. Our flight got delayed twice. We will be going on the plane at 8 o'clock. It is 7:08 so we still have a long wait.

July 15, 2017

We have a long drive to Oatlands. We stopped at a pie place and had a delicious breakfast. We stopped for dinner at a Chinese Restaurant and then made it home around 10 at night.