Well - for a change we actually do have a few things to report... most important news first: we would like to introduce you to MadMax - the Warrior, our new Mazda 1991 van. We bought him of a private owner (not crazy backpackers....) just south of Perth this past Friday. He is a 5-speed with 174'000 km on it, A/C (!!!!) and a MASSIVE kangaroo-bar on the front - which explains his name. We spent almost all day Monday cleaning (it was FILTHY), fixing little things and making changes/improvements. Our neighbourhood is having their yearly junk pick-up and we've managed to supply parts of our necessary travelling equipment by rummaging through the piles along the fancy streets - we truly feel like homeless :-). So far we've got two camping chairs and one table, fuel canister, bungee cords, bucket, water hose, dustpan, 2 bikes... .

On Sunday we went to a beach volley tournament - great fun. We got to watch the women and men finals - all teams that will compete in Beijing this summer. This sure looked like hard work - it was again a HOT day - and from our few jogging experiences along the beach we know how hard moving in sand is. Look at the pics - see how they can jump?!?

Kathrin Koffel (aka "Kofi") arrived on Monday from Switzerland and is staying with us. Some "fresh blood" is nice... Jason and I were running out of things to talk about . Jason and Kofi went to Rottnest Island today - I should have taken one of the three free flu shots offered to me before we left Calgary... darn it!

Family photos with Max will be posted shortly.