Anny’s Birthday

Clancy and I made a white chocolate iced pink lamington for Anny’s Birthday, served with Champagne peach berlinis. The berlinis went to her head and the power went out for two hours so the cake was all she got to eat.

The Walton-France Fashion Spectacular

Dominic and Hannah’s daughters and their friends had a creative day making fashions which culminated in a fashion parade (mc’d by the brothers), giving adults a chance to dress up and drink champagne.

Pangiamoto Island

Welcome to Tonga where everything except one bakery and a couple of restaurants are closed on Sunday. Petrol, food and anything you might need on Sunday needs to be purchased on Saturday. The remaining option is Pangiamoto Island, 2km from town by ferry, jokingly referred to Sinners Island because this is where you go instead of Church on a Sunday. It hosts Big Mama’s Yacht Club, restaurant and bar. On our first weekend we went out there for a swim and play and it was relatively quiet. On on our second trip last it was packed with sinners and non sinners who came after mass.

Hello Tonga

We have now started on a new adventure after Anny was approached by the Tonga Government to assist on a World Bank Transport Sector Project. After three weeks in Australia and our late night arrival into Tonga (3rd June), we woke to our new sleepy, very sleepy, South Pacific Island. While the first weeks were difficult to get settled, living in hotels and finding everything much less developed than where we had been, we have now settled into a routine and are finding our feet. On our second Sunday morning a layer of smoke sits above the ground from the hundreds of Umu’s (in ground cooking) started for Sunday lunch.

Farewell Cambodia

It’s hard to believe that we were only there for 9 months (Anny nearly 11) with all the fun we had and friends we made. Our farewell was a sign of how wonderful they are. Shawn organized farewell t-shirts, with Anny and I printed on the front, for all the guests to wear. We had organized the farewell bash on a river boat and headed out on the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers. We had a great time, with huge thanks to Tiff who took over music and had songs to boogie and karaoke to all night. Having Ben, Tiff and Karen here, along with all our friends from Cambodia made the night feel like a mix of everything good over the past 6 years. There are so many great photos from the night which reflect the fun. I left Jenny with a handful of CD’s so I hope the crew in PP has had the chance to have a look and copy them. Thank you to all the karaoke performers and the passion with which the microphone was attacked and of course thanks to Lachlan for his Cambodian adaptation of Bonn Scott doing a Cirque du Soleil high wire act. La Dolce Vita Lachlan!

Last Days Cambodia

It has been a long time since we wrote in the blog, right back to the last weeks before we left Cambodia. There had been many challenges in Anny’s role, the most significant being the inability of the Cambodian Government to provide contract extensions within the time frame we required to provide security for our family. As such we finished up in Cambodia and left on the 15th of May. We left our home in the last week of our Cambodian stay and checked into The Kabiki where we had also booked Ben, Tiff and Karen. Ben and Tiff, along with daughter Talia joined us for holidays from Vanuatu and Karen flew up from Jakarta. When this was all being planned we had no idea we would be sharing our last weeks in Cambodia with them. Those last days were relaxed and hilarious, tinged with the sadness of leaving new friends. The last week saw lots of shopping, dining, drinking and visits by the pool, including Amanda and her kids, Sofie and Leon (aka Chops and Nugget) who were Clancy’s best friends in Cambodia.

Clancy’s Farewell

We held a farewell bash for Clancy at school. He, like us, had made great friends in Cambodia and Pete and Alice as teachers were the perfect match for him.