Visit to Australia 2010-11

We are currently visiting Australia and catching up on over two years of growth in the nieces and nephews, and catching up on friends and family.

The trip started in the usual way, a frenzied packing and cleaning day and then three hours sleep before catching a fllight to LA. We had decided to break the trip up by stopping in LA overnight and getting some Christmas shopping done on our way to Aus. Anita was brave enough to volunteer to drive in LA, the GPS was an absolute god-send!

After the shopping spree we headed to LAX to catch our long-awaited flight to Australia. The 15.5 hour journey was not as painful as we may have thought, Will had the least painful flight as we put his 6 foot 2 inch frame into an exit row (nice parents eh!).

Almost time for Will's trip to Edinburgh

After a summer of rehearsals and fun, the final week of performances is on.  Last night we were privileged to attend the third night (of five).

The play is set in Victoria on Vancouver Island , Canada. St Aggies is a girls school and has just accepted boys. It is almost 1984 and the Head prefect is certain that in 1984 the world will end.  The story is mainly about the tension between tradition and individuality, being a child and being an adolescent, and of course... teen love :)
The play and the score were written by Chris Wynter an English born, Canadian-raised playwright and musician. The story resonates with the kids as it is their life, now, and it resonates for the parents as many were teens or young adults in the 1980s.


Will departs for the UK with the troupe on August 15 and return on August 27.  First stop London, second stop Edinburgh and the Fringe.

Santiago Chile for the World Federation Congress

Santiago Chile May 2-12 2010

The World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) 15th international congress was held in Santiago Chile in May 2010.  After the devastating earthquake struck we wondered if the congress would go ahead, then when our pre-congress workshop was cancelled due to low numbers enrolling we started to wonder if all our work was a waste of time and in fact OT was still not ready to embrace online technology.

Fortunately the WFOT organizing committee were determined to go ahead with the congress and after some carefully worded emails I managed to convince the congress organizers to include us in the main program in a cancelled workshop spot on the Friday morning (the final day of the congress).  We were given a 2-hour timeslot but no access to online computers.  Suddenly our "hands on" workshop had to be changed to "show and tell" and we had to create mini-clips for all the Web 2.0 tools we wanted to demonstrate.  All the resources were also put into a wiki and the participants were given the link to that as a future resource.  Here is the link to the wiki

Day 1:  May 2, Arrival

I arrived at Santiago airport at 6am.  The bus organized by our tour operators was nowhere to be found and I foolishly decided to take a cab to my apartment.  Unfortunately by the time I headed outside I realized I was being directed to a private taxi.  These are private vehicles with a driver and a person who "lures" people from the airport.

I didn't say "oh I will take a registered taxi" as the man had my bag and I was concerned that he might take it.  By this stage I was tired and disoriented and a little bit worried.  I didn't think to ask about the price, so when they finally found my apartment (which I had forgotten to bring the address of, as I was going to be on an organized bus), they tried to charge me the equivalent of US$80.  I had fortunately had the presence of mind to ask the receptionist at the hotel what the usual price would be and he had said about US$40.  So I gave them that and would not be hassled into more (although they tried).  I had my bag, I had my apartment, I felt a little safer to stand firm.

After a while settling in to my not-so-luxurious apartment I took myself to bed for a nap before my "roomy" Merrolee Penman arrived.  I went to bed and was woken by an earthquake!  It was 5.9, which is small by Chilean standards, and it was interesting to see that my experience of living with earthquakes in Japan in 1983 and 1987 meant I did not panic.

Merrolee arrived around 2pm and after she settled in we went and had a late lunch/early tea.  We went to a gorgeous little restaurant and when they realised that we didn't speak Spanish they brought out one of the staff from the kitchen to translate for us :-).  We had a great meal and then went and did our first shop at a supermarket close by.

Day 2: Tour to Laguna del Inca at Portillo and then vineyards at Viña Errázuriz

On the way to the Andes we were treated to authentic Chilean empinadas, baked in an adobe oven.  We were also treated to Chilean wine at 10:30am!  From there we drove to Portillo, a ski field in the Andes and we went up this road with 27 turns! 

Adobe oven

The switchback road to Portillo and Argentina

Anita and Merrolee at Laguna del Inca

After the wonderful trip up the road, we turned around and headed back down the road as the only other way out was via Argentina!

View at lunch at Vina Errazuriz

After our big adventure to Portillo we drove for several hours more hours and finally arrived for lunch at about 2:30pm at Vina Errazuriz.  Our guide for this part of the tour was Pedro, he had the most wonderful Australian accent!  It turned out that he had lived in Melbourne from about age 5 to age 15.  Although he enjoyed growing up in Australia, he is very happy to be back in Chile with his extended family.  Pedro works for Vina Errazuriz and took us to their new hilltop restaurant and then to the vineyard and cellar door.  During the lunch I kept having to remind myself to stop talking to my wonderful travel buddies and sit back and enjoy the view. 

After a wonderful lunch (view from table is what you see above), we drove back to Santiago for dinner. Most of us were dead on our feet at this stage, but a quick drink of Pisco sour (after a day of winery tours) meant that we had enough energy to watch others dance!  The group we did the tour with were students from McMaster University in Ontario Canada, so they had energy to burn.  We enjoyed the dancing from Rapa Nui most.

Day 3: WFOT congress begins.

Karen, Merrolee, Anita, Angela, Sarah

Today the OT4OT group finally met face to face for the first time :-D.  Sarah Bodell and Angela Hook from Salfor University, Manchester, Karen Jacobs from Boston, Merrolee Penman from Otago Polytechnic and me, from Uof A, were there in person.  Our other members Will, Claire, Susan, Rashid were all back at their respective workplaces, beaming in through Twitter. 

Day 4: Conference.  Other than attending papers, viewing posters and catching up with LOTS and LOTS of OT colleagues from around the world the day had a particular focus on getting ready for Friday's workshop and also a focus on making sure we had an idea of "where to next" after this event.  As a result, the OT4OT group spent most of the afternoon huddled around a table wheeling and dealing with WFOT around what type of assistance we could offer them and what sorts of things we wanted to do from here.

The key resolutions from this event was that we would run World OT day (similar to International Day of the midwife) and this would happen on October 27, 2010.  The wikiflash previously run by The UK crew would become international and be blended into the OT month activities.  These two events would be enough to get us going.  One other item we discussed and need to act on is the idea that we should document our "story so far".  The Facebook group that we started before the congress commenced started to attract members during the WFOT congress and we got very excited when over 50 people had joined.  Now as I write this entry the membership of this group is 597 members!

Day 5: Another day of conference, networking and farewells as our UK colleagues Sarah and Angela head back to Manchester. After conference, we had dinner with Lynne Adamson and Evelyne deLeeuw friends from Deakin University

Anita Hamilton, Lynne Adamson, Evelyne de Leeuw, Merrolee Penman

Day 6: Friday... the day of our workshop presentation.  Up early and ready to shine our nerves were jangling as we prepared to face the music... will anybody attend our workshop after the congress dinner was held the night before?  Will anyone bother to attend the final day of congress... at 9:30am?  We were so relieved to see that more than enough people were ready and willing to front up for another day of networking and learning.  Over 100 people came to our room and participated in our activities, answered our questions and made some really great contributions to the workshop.  We were so pleased and relieved that our hard work paid off.

Workshop participants line up for the "warm-up"

Karen Jacobs, Merrolee Penman, Anita Hamilton

After the conference Merrolee headed back to NZ, Karen back to Boston and I stayed a few days waiting for my flight home.  I did a tour to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar, a tour of Santiago (one by car and another walking tour) and spent a little bit of time simply being alone after the big week.

Dogs with wings

We have officially become Dogs with Wings puppy trainers.  Our puppy, Jazz, arrived last week and she is a beautiful black Lab with an amazing personality!  We are just coming to the end of the first week with Jazz and a routine is already emerging. 

Sam is the primary caretaker of Jazz, with Alec as the number 1 back up. Sam does the last toilet stop at about 1am and then Alec is up at 7am to do the first toilet stop, breakfast, play, toilet, play, toilet, play and then back to bed... Sam sleeps through this!  Anita is back up and good at "clean-up". Jazz also like to get lost in Anita's flowing summer skirts!  Will enjoys Jazz's company when he's home and she certainly likes him.

Dogs with Wings is a service dog training organization who provide service dogs for people with impairments, limitations and special needs.  It's not yet known where Jazz will go when she grows up, they will watch her closely for special skills and abilities, temperament and so on.  The wonderful thing is she is part of training her as a service dog includes taking her to work, on buses, to restaurants, the theatre, movies and so on.  She needs to be exposed to as many circumstances as possible.

Alec will take her to work more often than Anita, but while she is little we will take care of her mostly from home.  Puppy training will be with other puppies and we will be in the community learning how to climb escalators, enter elevators and catch public transport etc.  It is going to be busy and fun!

Summer in Alberta ...

Summer started on June 23rd and we were reminded that we live in Alberta... we had a sudden snow shower!  Anita had to make a movie to commemorate the event!  It's very corny... or is that "flaky"!

July 1 is when Summer really begins here.  It's Canada Day, school holidays have started and life suddenly feels relaxed and easy.  We went to the silly parade with Susan Burwash and her family.  It was a fun event with different community groups getting out and celebrating Canada Day and their contribution to society!

We spent Canada Day evening with our friends Lois and David and went to two parties.  We finished the evening at Aaron's apartment where we had one of the best views available for the fireworks!

After the fireworks were finished we sat watching the sky, chatting... then someone noticed that the Northern Lights were in the sky!  You can see it here in this photo as a green streak in the sky.

  

July 13 Sometimes you've got to wonder if Summer really exists in Alberta!  Well it does exist, it can simply disappear too!  This photo was taken on July 13 at Jasper, AB.  This would be the snow depth we'd typically see in the Australian ski fields on the same date!  But it's Winter in Aus this time of year.

Soon after this Edmonton experienced more rain than we had seen since moving here nearly 3 years ago...  the rain in one week was probably more than the total for the previous 2 years!

The photo to the right was sent to me by Susan Burwash, there was a new range of shoes released to celebrate the Edmonton"monsoon".

Summer for us has been an interesting one.  Alec has spent most of his time making sure that the renovation is being finished.  He is tired but enjoying seeing the "fruits of his labours".  Each room of the house is coming together very nicely.  The grading around the house (to make sure water doesn't go into the basement) and the new gutters (eaves troughs) and down pipes etc are on order.  A new Garage door will make a big difference too when it is installed as the front of the house remains a bit dowdy and 1980's.

Sam's Summer has mainly been staying up late with friends, being online or watching movies and then sleeping in late.  

Will's Summer has been a combination of being up late and out of bed late, rehearsals every other day for Edinburgh, spending time with his friends from drama and of course - time with Hanna.

Anita hasn't had a holiday from work as she is saving it for Christmas.  It will be good to go to the Folk festival, Heritage Festival and maybe a quick trip to the Rockies :-)   The trip to NY at the beginning of September still looms as the event of the holidays.

Orlando Florida April 27-May 2 2010

We recently had a family trip to Orlando Florida in the USA while Anita attended the American OT Association annual conference.  This is one of the largest OT conferences in the world, especially in terms of number of registered delegates, number of commercial exhibitors and number of papers, posters, workshops and so on.  Anita was presenting together with Karen Jacobs from Boston University at the Tech Day expo, which is like a combination of a workshop and a poster.  We presented to a very enthusiastic bunch of OTs the how, what where, when, what and why of using online technology in OT for knowledge transfer.

The trip was a combination of family time and work time, with a particular focus on the fact that Will was turning 16 while we were there.  While in Florida we went to The Kennedy Space Centre and Disney World, Alec took the kids to Wet 'n Wild and Universal studios while I was at the conference and we all had a very memorable evening at a Pirate Show for Will's 16th birthday.  

Kennedy Space Centre

Disney World

Alec, Will and Sam on "Splash Mountain"

Pirate show 

Sam boarding at Jasper

A video of Sam snowboarding at Jasper, excellent camerawork by Anita :-)

Footy's back!

We are now in our third AFL season living in Canada and fortunately the opening game for the Cats is covered by TSN2. Will and I will be getting up at 2:30am to watch the game and hope for a good opening win!

The Cats are playing the Bombers, my Dad's and brother's team, so there's always another reason to win this one! Will and I will cheer quietly in the basement... not wanting to wake up Sam or Alec, the non-believers.

Post script: Geelong won the opener for the season, Anita had a 20 hour day an spent the next week recovering before getting ready for the Geelong Hawks game, which they won too! Unfortunately our good start was spoilt by a loss to Fremantle! Oh dear.

The year is "marching" by!

Silver Skate Festival in Edmonton, February 2010, the winning snow sculpture!
Another phenomenal sculpture at Silverskate festival 2010

So, what is going on in the Hamiltons' life? Well, life is going on! Being Cantralian, Ausadian, and Aus-Can or what ever it is we are becoming is still fun... and well... normal!

We have now been living in Canada for about 2 1/2 years and every day life is very settled. We have just managed to survive our third Winter, and fortunately it was the mildest yet! Of course we had cold weather, like -48 on December 13 2009, but those types of temperatures came and went so fast we didn't have time to get terribly worried (or even die!). We DID manage to ski for 9 weekends, skate for three and do little work on the house :-)

Will goes to Edinburgh in August. He doesn’t want us to come and we probably can’t afford it anyway. They will start rehearsals soon for the play they are performing there. Will absolutely loves his new school, Strathcona High School. It’s a senior high, so it’s just 10, 11, 12. He is into drama, also doing dance and foods on top of the core subjects English, Science, Math and Social. He has made the senior rugby team in grade 10! Next year his rugby team may be going to the UK. He has just finished a season of Canadian Improv Games, where he excelled with his verbal agility and ability to use all kinds of accents! He also performed in a Dance show recently and he played his role and character very well. Oh yes, he has the most delightful girlfriend, Hanna, they have been together since last Summer (July) as they met at Summer school when they were both taking grade 10 PE! They are really competitive with each other, it’s fun to watch, Hanna is no pushover!
Sam is happy, she has wonderful friends. She is still at Victoria School of the Performing Arts. I think she will need to move school in grade 10 if we are staying through to her last two years, funnily I have heard from her friends that some are thinking along the same lines. She just loves maths so much and she is at a performing arts school... Fortunately she also likes drama, art and her friends are academic and into dance! Right now her aspiration is to become an orthodontist. She has enjoyed the process of having braces so much, she researched it along the way and tracked her progress and their treatment aims and so on... She still talks about finishing school at College, I don’t think she realises how constraining she would find that now. I mean, wouldn’t she miss seeing kids with crazy coloured hair at school? :-)

Athabasca Falls in Winter (20 mins from Jasper)Alec found a snowboarding skills development squad in Jasper for Sam to join and we took turns taking her up for 7 weekends in a row. Jasper is in the Rocky mountains and definitely on the list of must see places in Canada. We love the snow, the ice, the sheer enormity of the mountains. Sam has become an amazing snowboarder and wishes she could take it further. Well, next season she can keep going. :-) Here is a link to a YouTube clip we put online the other day: www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhw5 she has managed to "get her switch" which means that she can snowboard with either foot at front/back and change while heading down the slopes. Jasper became like a second home to us and the 4 hour drive became so routine that we really won't know what to do with ourselves next weekend. Oh that's right... Sammy got a sewing machine for Christmas and wants to get sewing, and with all this warm weather I think that we'll be making dresses!

It is finally warming up here, although we had our mildest winter yet, we only had two bitterly cold weeks of –25 to –45 the rest was around –15 or even warmer. Yeah... I know that sounds cold, but –15 is actually quite bearable and really great skating and skiing weather :-) We had some excellent skiing this year. They have less than 3 months of school left for the year and then they will have their 2 months off for Summer break!
So, we are happy here for now and therefore I went ahead and accepted another 2 year contract and Alec was offered a 12 month contract in Ed Psych. We also applied for permanent residence to give us more flexibility and less paperwork! This also to give the kids the choice about what they do in the long run. So we have work until June 30 2012 and we will discuss in another 12 months with Sam what we will do about her finishing school here or in Aus. Yeah, I know, 3 years became 5, and could become 7! No we didn’t plan that! So that's why we have a spare bedroom for Aussie visitors.
We have a bit of travel coming up, in April we are heading to Orlando for 5 days (yes there is also a conference to attend, but not everyday) and the kids really want to go to Universal studios. We oldies want to go to the Kennedy Space Centre and of course we will go to Disneyworld! I don’t know where the conference will fit actually! I am presenting a workshop and then I head off to Chile while the others head home and back to school. I am presenting at the World federation of OT congress in Santiago... Hope there are no more earthquakes! We are going to catch up with Geelong friends (Jane and Craig Goddard) in New York in early September. The kids aren’t coming, just couples! That’s a first for about 14 years!!!

We would like to try and squeeze a trip to Alaska in over the coming July. There is an awesome 2-day Ferry trip from Vancouver through the “Inside Passage” to Alaska. We may even see Polar Bears! I hear that this is a “bucket list” trip to do! It may have to wait until the Summer 2011 as Alec and I need to get a lot done on our respective PhDs.
On a completely different topic I decided to get fit during yet another long winter and so I got a treadmill for Christmas. I run while watching re-runs of the 2007 and 2009 games, finals and GFs, I don’t pay attention to 2008 (that was an aberration... or an abomination, or both!). So, I stay focussed on the positive and live in my little perfect flawless dream of Geelong premierships... Well I waited long enough :-D! Will and I have a whole new season of games ahead now and can watch live on the internet TV through Omnipro sports for $5.99 a game! Bargain!