Grizzly

We saw a Grizzley today whooooooooohooooooo

Almost out of internet time

More later

Cheers

Cathy

Last day in USA

Hi everyone,

Its hard to believe that six weeks have past since arriving in the USA, another six weeks would be wonderful but alas, work calls and tragically I have to respond.

The four weeks of GSE were all that we were promised and some; my last two weeks tripping with Irene to New York to Philadelphia to Baltimore to Washington to Las Vegas and then to LA have been a great adventure. We have met up with old work friends in Las Vegas and then LA and this has been a wonderful renewing of ties.

We hope to see all of our friends from Indiana visiting us in D9710 where we will attempt to give back the experience and fellowship you have given us during our time with you.

So for now I'll sign off and look forward to meeting you all again in Australia as soon as you can make it down under.

Steve & Irene Shirvington

PS I will write to everyone individually as soon as we get settled back in at home.

Banff

Hi All

Have safely arrived in Banff where I have jumped off the tour to spend a couple of days having a closer look at the area. Have been seeing some spectacular country and avalanche areas amazing. Have seen a hawk, elk and deer today and now kicking back at the HI Alpine Banff Hostel

Just a quick Hi

Catch you soon

Cheers

Cath

Vancouver Island

Hi All

Back at computer finally. Have been doing the Vancour Island part of my Moose Tour. Was absolutely great. Tofino was lovely and all in National Park. Our guide is great and I got to see many sights that I doubt I would have if I had been taking myself around. It certainly has taken the stress out of doing this trip. I head back into Vancouver this afternoon and then head out tomorrow Tues 20th here to do my National Park section of the tour. Will be out and about for over a week on this leg of the trip.

Was in Victoria today and went out to the Burtchart Gardens. Very spectacular!!!

Anyway quick hi to say am doing well.

Talk soon

Cath

Will this work

Hello
Testing to see if it will publish. Well I don't know why but today I can blog and save my work. Been unable to do that for the last few days.

It has been an amazing week almost since I left Indiana. I have wandered around Toronto, seen Niagara Falls and Niagara by the Lake, flown to Vancouver and have been wandering around here for the last day and a half, looking at Stanley Park by horse drawn wagon, right up my alley and spent hours at the Vancouver aquarium. Yesterday I was able to find a great tour group called Moose Tours who travel the Vancouver Island, Banff, lake Louise, Jasper and Whistler runs so I am off tomorrow with them for the next 13 days. We will be staying at backpackers etc so I will try and drop a line when I can.

Sorry about no pictures but haven't downloaded any from my camera. Anyway hope everyone is doing well and before you or I know it I'll be back into Australia.

Blog again soon if I can get it to work again.

Cath

A summary of the last week or so

here are the kids having fun with their peers!

Hi all,

Just found some time and an internet connection to allow me to update the blog. The Aussie team has now gone their separate ways although Nat & Andrew caught up with Steve & Irene in New York on Sunday for dinner and a wander around Times Square.

My personal opinion, I'll take Indiana any day, great towns, great people and great scenery!!!

Here you can see the Three Musketeers who escorted us to Chicago (Barb, Mary & the Stella Phyllis). We had an incredible day, what with a scenic tour of the city (in the rain), then on to lunch and the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. After all that, the sun came out and we were off to Navy Pier and an architectural boat tour of Chicago, which was awesome.

This movie was taken at Jerry & Jeanie Phelps' lake house the Sunday after District Conference, we had a great afternoon with the Phelps' family and Mary & Barb.

Our last day - vocation

Well it is hard to believe that this is our last day of the GSE. We headed off to our different areas of vocation and Matt and I went together to see Taltree Arboretum. We had a fascinating time looking at real prairie grasses and seeing the diversity of plants there. We also got to have a look at a wetland and my first beaver dam. After that we had a lovely lunch at the Holy Macaroni and then moved on to a cutting horse ranch. We got to ride a couple of their highly trained horses and see how they trained them on bison.

We finished up the evening having a lovely dinner with many of the Rotarian's that we had the honour of meeting and/or staying with over the last month. It was both a happy reunion of those who we had meet at the beginning and then sad final goodbyes as we are now moving on to the next stage. For me it was very sad but not goodbye but see you soon.

I head out tomorrow on my next month's trip and for any that may be interested I will try and keep some information on the blog of my progress when I get near a computer. Until next time!

Cheers

Cath

Abother fantastic day

We have now moved onto our final hub club in the Hammond area. Today we had a great time going around the Fair Oaks Dairy. What an amazing place this is. We went on a bus tour of the facilities with a elementary school group and it was great to hear about biosecurity of the site and see how they undertake the milking 3 times a day of hundreds and hundreds of cows.

Lost the rest of this message but as for today we had a wonderful time with the Gary club and got to be shown around one of the steel mills. It was amazing seeing the equipment and what they do within the mill boundaries. We also got to see the end product of rolled steel although they were having some trouble with their machinery.

Onto our last rotary presentation at the Gary club lunch time meeting. Everything went well with our first minor technical hitch that we soldiered on through. We had a lovely lunch, some great questions and learnt a little more about the rotary family.

We are all quite tired now and after have a look at an old bath house that the rotary group are helping to restore we were taken back to our host families via a native American shop which I bought a couple of items at.

We shared a lovely dinner at Vern's house and got a chance to play with my host families kids.

Hope everyone is well in Australia. The Exchange is very close to finishing now one main day to go.

See all soon

Cath

Sombrero!

For all of you that did not know it was apparently my birthday last week when we were in Ft Wayne. I hadn't realised that it was my birthday but Floyd and Bob reminded me and the entire Mexican restaraunt where we were having lunch. The next thing I knew I was surrounded by people singing Happy Birthday and this sombrero was shoved on my head!
Now some people look good in a sombrero and others just don't. Need I say more?!
I rest my case!
Now this guy has got what it takes!

Regs, Matt

District Conference

We enjoyed a weekend of each others company at the Swan Lake Conference Centre in Plymouth. We arrived Friday and enjoyed an evening of Elvis and were fortunate to have Miss Indiana (The Miss America runner up) sing and entertain.

Saturday was spent delivering our presentation to the district rotarians of D6540. All went well and we ended the conference with an afternoon of golfing. It was a bitterly cold afternoon and we were split into teams to attempt to golf. The lads of the group were in fear of their safety and made wise choices to return to the safety of the clubhouse. The girls on the other hand made a series of poor decisions hole after hole and remined on the course.

All in all it was an enjoyable time at the district conference. We all learned more about the fantastic Rotary programs that are offered.

Fort Wayne

Well what a week we have had! We have been busy visiting clubs around the Fort Wayne area. We had a fantastic time being hosted by the kind people of the Anthony Wayne Rotary Club. I was set to work right away in the garden raking leaves for the week while others in the team relaxed. There were no offers from the team, not even the team leader.



We had a day with the people of Auburn Rotary where we visited the WWII museum and the Auburn Court House. We informed the locals that we actually played a part in the war.



We also had a great day with Huntington Rotary where we visited a quarry and an elementary school. Our team were rather cautious about the youngsters, however, i took complete control of the situation. The Year one kids asked fantastic questions and enjoyed our visit. They sent us on our way with an Oreo appreciation routine.



After out presentation we took part in some bowling at the local bowling alley. Matt took an early lead and just lead from Kay (the Indiana team leader), however, it was later discovered that he fudged scores. Our wise team leader investigated the situation and disqualified Matt from the bowling.

We finally visited a local farm where we enjoyed some beverages while immersing ourselves in the local farming culture of the area. It was a pleasant way to complete the day.

Busy times at Fort Wayne & Auburn

Hi everyone, its been a while since the blog was updated and that's because the Fort Wayne & Auburn clubs have kept us hopping; our feet have hardly touched the ground this week. So here are a few pics of what has been happening over the past few days. It's 5:30 am and now I have to go get ready for another busy day with Huntington club.