Member pics

[JadziaKathryn]

Of course, EK, you do know that when she's about 14 Aureilia is going to be completely appalled to learn of the existence of this dvd.

I just got back from Canberra, the capital of Australia (yes, they do spell it with two As and no O). I took 300 pictures! Interestingly, I didn't see anyone else in the Australian War Memorial taking pictures of the signs as well as the artifacts. But really, how else am I supposed to know the story about what I saw?

Australian War Memorial:

This is part commemorative area, part museum, with several monuments outside to different conflicts and service groups

Roll of Honour:

Over 102,000 names of Australian servicemembers killed are listed on the panels of the Roll of Honour. This picture is the WWII section. It's traditional to put a poppy in the wall - you can buy silk poppies for $1. Since admission is free I suppose this is also a handy way to raise funds.

"Cones" at the National Gallery:

The person in red is me.

[justTripn]

That last is a great picture!

[enterprikayak]

Great pix! I like the poppy one, though it is also creepy sad.

[Linda]

I found the memorial one sad too, but not creepy. It was dignified, a nice place for family members to come to remember loved ones.

[justTripn]

Yes, I agree with Linda. Very sad, but peaceful. It looks alot like the U.S. National Cemetary of the Pacific in Hawaii (Honolulu, Oahu).

[evcake]

Reminds me that poem from WWI:

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

[Linda]

Yes! A very famous poem and one which still evokes strong emotion. Thanks for putting it here, Evcake. By the author's dates, I see he barely survived the war himself.

[enterprikayak]

I guess you guys don't have to recite that every Nov 11th like we do?

Every year at school, you practice it and there's a big assembly. It has weird stops and pauses. Sometimes we chanted it in an eerie melody.

Is that a Canadian thing?

[enterprikayak]

Okay, weird today, we were having one of those damnable open houses {where you're all neat and sterile and there's no toys/laundry all over like usual}, and an older couple came up and marveled at the "changes" in the place and told us they had lived here in 1994. She sent me these photos of what the house was like back then. (Although except for (some of) the hair, these pictures could be from 1976 or something)

But the photos are beyond unrecognizably different from our current house! We didn't do any of the renos except paint the walls, so the credit goes to some mystery people in the late 90's.

Thank you mystery people.

http://www.yellowbrickplanet.com/oldschool

[JadziaKathryn]

I guess you guys don't have to recite that every Nov 11th like we do?

Every year at school, you practice it and there's a big assembly. It has weird stops and pauses. Sometimes we chanted it in an eerie melody.

Is that a Canadian thing?

I don't know about reciting but the Aussies have Remembrance Day Nov. 11 as well. Because America joined WWI so late we suffered little, comparatively (always comparatively). In fact, WWI is always glossed over in American history - I didn't get much about it until college. Basically we got Archduke Ferdinand's assassination and the Treaty of Versailles leaving Germans mad, especially Hitler. But you cannot understand modern world history without WWI.

[panyasan]

I guess you guys don't have to recite that every Nov 11th like we do?

Every year at school, you practice it and there's a big assembly. It has weird stops and pauses. Sometimes we chanted it in an eerie melody.

Is that a Canadian thing?

I don't know about reciting but the Aussies have Remembrance Day Nov. 11 as well. Because America joined WWI so late we suffered little, comparatively (always comparatively). In fact, WWI is always glossed over in American history - I didn't get much about it until college. Basically we got Archduke Ferdinand's assassination and the Treaty of Versailles leaving Germans mad, especially Hitler. But you cannot understand modern world history without WWI.

I don't think Hitler was in the picture back then, but the treaty did leave the Germans humilitated and even worse they had to pay so much money, that their whole economy went backrupt. Poor people with no jobs, wounded pride, the perfect recipie for a hatemonger like Hitler to start. I remember in school when we talked about WOI the textbook had a cartoon about a child crying after signing the treaty, because she could hear the sounds of another world war. That cartonist had some forsight.

[justTripn]

Okay, weird today, we were having one of those damnable open houses {where you're all neat and sterile and there's no toys/laundry all over like usual}, and an older couple came up and marveled at the "changes" in the place and told us they had lived here in 1994. She sent me these photos of what the house was like back then. (Although except for (some of) the hair, these pictures could be from 1976 or something)

But the photos are beyond unrecognizably different from our current house! We didn't do any of the renos except paint the walls, so the credit goes to some mystery people in the late 90's.

Thank you mystery people.

http://www.yellowbrickplanet.com/oldschool

Our house is so old (115 years) that it didn't used to have bathrooms. There was an outhouse outside. I'll explain how we deduced this:

All 3 of our bathrooms were in some horrible stuck-where-they-didn't belong design. The upstairs bathroom was in a room with a huge window. It was frosted, but still. Very uncomfortable for a bathroom. The bathtub had feet. People who used to live in the house told us the downstairs bathroom had been a hallway from the entryway to the kitchen, when they had lived there. No one in their right mind would use the shower in the basement, which was simply a shower headhead attached to a pipe. There wasn't even a stall! The toilet was almost as bad. Then we were visiting the Wright Brothers house in Detroit Michigan (moved there from OHIO) and it had many components of our own house. Including a chimney through each room (we have three chimneys) and the exact same tile on our fireplace. And it had no bathroom, just an outhouse out back. So suddently it all made sense.

I told someone this and they went. Where do your plants grow the best? that's the location of the old outhouse. Then I remembered something else! We used to have this cluster of giant forsythia bushes. The kids would disappear into there and play. It was like a clubhouse. They called it the "Bughouse" (because if you turned over rocks in there you would find bugs). One day they took a shovel in there and dug a giant hole. They were looking for treasure. After digging a three foot hole they came running in shouting that they had found "diamonds." They lifted out this giant colored piece of glass, a fishtank rock, about a foot wide! LOL What are the odds.

[Alelou]

Wow, you're not kidding. Your house looks like it just had a makeover.

I'm not sure when the bathrooms were added to our 1920's two-family in NJ. Apparently it was always a two-family because that was how the original owners could afford to build the place. The upstairs apt. featured a small bathroom with a claw tub, but the toilet and sink were newer and judging from the way the room was designed with a window in an awkward spot, and no place for a mirror over the sink, it may not have always been a bathroom. The only bathroom on the ground floor was built onto a (sloping) back sunporch. So even if the upstairs tenant had a bathroom all along, I don't see where the downstairs owners could have done their ablutions.

This may explain why everything grew so happily in the back garden...

[Linda]

Enterprikayak, I love the wood floors. Ripping up that rug was a great idea...whoever did it. And that wood paneling was too dark. I like the walls light colored like you have it...it looks less like the bear's den it was when that other family had it!

Our house is a 1927 bungalow and the original owner had it until the early 1980's. That meant the original woodwork was left intact. It has oak floors, even in the kitchen. Two additional bedrooms on the second floor were added (to the original one) but done in a tasteful manner. So the five bedroom house is roomy, though each room is not very big.

[enterprikayak]

:) Yeah, we were pretty confused and awestruck by the pics when we saw them. Our bedroom was a PORCH!


Here's Aureilia trying out her baby-sister-to-be's carseat



And hamming up for the camera:



And here's the new bassinette (a.k.a. the cats' new bed...for now )