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Michelle & Clinton Hallam
Clinton and I are currently living in the USA for a couple of years. This is a record of our journeys so we can stay in touch with our friends and family at home and abroad.MichelleandClint
Some people only want to keep up with the basics, others want more info... so to hopefully cater to all, this weblog will make it easier to pick and choose what you want to read about.
Please scroll down to find previous entries. They are listed with the most recent first. If you want to see the pictures more clearly, just click on them. Also, we've tried to include maps, so you can keep track of where we've been. We're trying to tick off all the 50 US states!
Enjoy!
- Michelle
Visited US States Map
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Travel Blog Posts
December 24th 2006
Seasons Greetings to you all! Clinton and I are currently in Canada's capital, Ottawa, visiting our good friend Derrick for Christmas. (For those who do not know him, we met him in Jacksonville when he was posted there too. We drove up here a couple of days ago, stopping at Lake Placid, NY (home of a couple of Winter Olympics, in case you're wondering where you'd heard of that before) to "warm up" for our snowboarding season ahead. Unfortunately the snowfall in this part of the world has been virtually non-existant, which is very unusual for this time of year, so the snow we were boarding on was of the delightful icy man-made type. What was there was spread in strips down the mountain, with the surrounding areas bare. Quite a weird thing to ride the ... read more
December 3rd 2006
Finally an update with pics of our new house. PLEASE CLICK ON "VIEW FULL ENTRY" & THEN CLICK ON THE LINK FOR PICS. MarylandHouse I had a few hiccups with getting panoramic photos to work on this blog, so I've used a different site. Apologies also for the weird intro here, but I could't get this site to let show the link on the home page. Bizarre. I've sent out a direct link to most people I think, but I will continue using this site as a hub for most things. Hopefully there's not too much confusion.... read more
November 7th 2006
One of the things that we really don't experience in Australia, is Autumn colours (or as they call it here in the US- "fall"). There are of course some trees which are deciduous- many I think that are introduced species, but most of our trees are Eucalypts and therefore, are evergreen trees. I had heard so much about the firey colours of "fall" in the US and Canada, and last year, when I started to see the odd leaf change in Florida, I mentioned to Clinton that it might be a good idea for us to drive up into the Carolina's to check out the trees along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Unfortunately, I didn't realise that the few leaves I was seeing change in Florida were the odd confused ones. The trees change gradually across the ... read more
November 1st 2006
Here’s some photos of our first major “shindig” with the international crowd here in Pax. It was kind of a weird way to meet people for the first time. Probably akin to what our German friends, Thomas and Nina went through when they encountered the Jax crowd for the first time at a 70’s costume party! We were greeted for this party in an impressive foyer of an incredibly big 2 story house by the hosts (French Canadians) Jocelyn and Nicole, who were dressed as the devil and a witch. Clinton and I went as demons. The size of their home was in true keeping with the Canadian services and the way they work their overseas allowances etc. So big that it helped ease our guilty feelings about the size of the one we’re going to ... read more
October 24th 2006
Hello to everyone around the world, to friends we have met from many countries who have returned home, friends still in Jacksonville, friends on other overseas postings, and friends and family back in Australia. Hopefully I got you all. Please know that we think of you often, no matter how busy we are. For any who do not know, the basic update is that we are still in the USA, but have now moved North to the state of Maryland. Clinton is on a new posting and is about to start a new job. Check out the map to the left to see where this all is in relation to each other if you are interested. It is FREEZING here! Literally. Down to 37F or 0C overnight last night. Welcome to Maryland. For our move, we ... read more
January 1st 2006
Happy New Year Everybody!!! We celebrated New Year's at the home of our good friends from the Netherlands, Peter & Brenda. They had just returned from visiting family in the Netherlands for Christmas and so were pretty brave to tackle a big party like this, still suffering from jetlag. It was another genuine "expat" function and as usual, was lots of fun. The dress code was formal and everyone looked very spiffy in their attire. James and Leanne (our neighbouring Aussie expats who live down the street) spent Christmas and New Year's in New York, keen to see the famous Times Square celebration. Ever seen the big clock and the big ball etc? Probably USA's equivalent to Sydney Harbour. I remember seeing footage of New Year's from around the world and they always seem to show ... read more
December 25th 2005
Christmas Day for 2005 was a bit more exciting this year and far more comfortable than 2004. Our body clocks were suitably adjusted this time, we were far more aware of what part of the globe we were in and therefore slightly more in the "holiday mood". Amazingly enough this year was much warmer than last. We were able to dress for Christmas dinner without jackets- unlike last year when we would get "misty breath" when we went outside. We hosted 19 other adults, 4 teenagers and 8 little tackers for dinner. Derrick, our friend from Canada came around early to cook our turkey for us, while we made preparations for the veggies. He worked in a kitchen in his life before the Air Force and so with both of us being inexperienced in the cooking-of-oversized-chickens-department, ... read more
December 23rd 2005
Hello to all and Merry Christmas! It's been a long time since our last newsletter, partly because we have been so busy and partly because I have been trying to find one good website program to post my entries on. The aim is to find one central website that shows updated news, photos etc. We decided to host Christmas dinner at our house this year and sent out the message "the more the merrier". It didn't take long for us to realise that maybe we'd bitten off more than we could chew... we now have 21 adults, 4 adolescents and 10 "little tackers". The families coming represent The UK, Germany, The Netherlands, Chile, Canada and of course Australia. We've borrowed 4 enormous trestle tables from the Navy base, which we've made into one long table and ... read more
December 22nd 2005
Here's some photos of some of the "critters"we've come across around Florida:... read more
Crazy Christmas Lights!
Published: December 24th 2005North America » United States » Florida » Jacksonville
December 22nd 2005
Here's a collection of photos of some of the crazier Christmas lights in our neighbourhood:... read more
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