Kathy from Valrico, Florida, USA

Hello again Kathy!
Just answering a couple of your questions - We were going around the Scottish coast - landed in Glasgow, spent the first night with relatives of friends in Stirling, so visited Stirling Castle & town on our way north. We stopped at Arbroath because of the ruined Abbey!

Re the fish in the doorway: Painted on a large piece of pottery made to fit the old door space! It looked like pottery, but it maybe it was just timber carved & painted with very glossy paint!
Thanks Kathy!

Looks like I've started a new page for you!!

Thank you for your good luck message, Kathy. I did my research on Trip Advisor. I was looking at Milford Sound, when I saw a review from someone who couldn't do the Milford tour because it was booked out. They recommended Doubtful Sound as an even better experience. We are collected from our hotel, float across a lake, another bus drive into the wilderness, float around Doubtful Sound and then return the same way. It sounded magical! I've been watching the NZ weather and it seems like it's going to be cool and wet - just like home. Enough rambling, thanks again. Sacky.

Hi Kathy,
Seems I have hardly any time to ''speak'' to anyone! Looking forward to seeing you next year... I bookmarked your blog site way back in the beginning & was about to add something when I got a phone call.....

He is such a beautiful child!! I think he's going to be very tall - big hands & tall grandparents etc!!!

Hi, Kathy. Just recently got back to serving the Sudoku monkey on my back and started visiting old acquaintances personal pages and just got a wee bit nostalgic for the fun that was had.

Thanks for the warm welcome back.

(Well, almost!)
Hope you have a great 2 day celebration, Kathy!

Kathy, have a wonderful 2 day celebration. Love the photo of Chase.

Glad to hear that you arrived home safely. I'm sure having Chase around will make your birthday extra special. Happy birthday, and have a wonderful day!

Kathy, have a wonderful birthday. Looking forward to meeting you next year.

Thank you for posting the video. Yes, tears were involved for me, too.

Kathy,
Have a wonderful day.

With very best wishes for a very I hope you have a wongerful day spent with your family and friends.

See you next year!!

Hi, Kathy - and happy birthday to you also. Thank you for your greetings and message. I hope you enjoy celebrating your birthday as much as I have, with people serenading me for four days now. That's what comes of reaching the next big '0' birthday, I guess. My visits to the Sudoku site are regular, but brief. I usually just tackle the 16x16 sudoku and don't check the posts very often, so I was unaware of your plans to visit Oz. It would be lovely to meet you if it's at all workable.

Let's get the party started! Hope you have a wonderful day.

Kathy - at least I've got you before the day - although, it's probably your morning by now??
Hope you have a great day!

Such a beautiful little fellow, Kathy I'm very jealous! My daughter is 39 soon & son is early 30s - not a single grandchild on the horizon!!

Kathy, I hope you have a wonderful, special day.

, Girlfriend! I remember welcoming you seven years ago into the 'Sexy Sixties' ... and being one of those to call you! May you have a glorious day ... and many more healthy and joyous days and years to come! Love you!

Kathy! And good to have you back!
May all your birthday wishes come true!
Starting with ... Hope you have a wonderful day!

Thanks for your comment regarding my Sudoku page.

You are the third American to tell us that we have probably seen more of the USA than the average American does. It must be true.

Hi Kathy, Thanks for the invitation to join you at your meeting in Melbourne next March. I am not sure what we will be doing that far out so it is difficult to give a firm commitment. Perhaps you can ask me again nearer the date. It would certainly be a lot easier for me to get to Melbourne than for you. It's just an 8 hour drive from here.

I should warn you however that I am pretty quiet in person so if you are expecting an extroverted life of the party, I will sadly disappoint.

I hope you will be seeing other places up and down the Aussie eastern seaboard during your visit. There are some really nice places to visit. I'm afraid however that in my opinion, Adelaide is a great place to raise a family but is nothing special as a tourist destination. Melbourne is much nicer.

We never travelled overseas until our family had grown. We went to New Zealand in 2000, to Japan in 2007, to the UK in 2008 and to the USA in 2012. We have now booked a coach tour of Europe for August 2014.

As far as driving in the USA was concerned, I had to give it a try. We only drove in Florida. In all the other places we went by tour van, taxi or bus. As we rode along in those other vehicles I imagined myself controlling the vehicle and thus had plenty of practice deciding where to point the vehicle before actually getting behind the wheel. Gee, old habits are hard to break. This caper of being able to turn right through a red light at an intersection felt so wrong. I would get into all sorts of strife if I did that back home.

I sincerely hope that you thoroughly enjoy your visit down under and hope that we do manage to meet.

I just had a look at your blog detailing your travel plans to Oz. Gee, you certainly have done your homework. The suggestions that other people have made are also excellent. My definition of a good holiday destination is anywhere where you can see interesting things and do interesting things that you can’t do back home. You have ticked a lot of boxes of what I would recommend.

The only other suggestion that I have is for you to visit the Undara Lava Tubes while you are in Cairns. We drove a hire car there and back and made a day trip of it but I can easily understand how people could stay there overnight. I have some beautiful photos from that trip.
http://undara.com.au/
It is probably too late to change your plans now but for whatever it is worth, it is certainly a natural phenomenon that you won’t find in many other places on earth.
Going on the Kuranda Scenic Railroad and back down on the Skyrail is a wonderful day trip. Make sure that you are among the first to get on the train and get a window seat on the righthand side to ensure you get the best views.
As far as the size of Australia is concerned, it is usually the Poms that guess it wrong. They think that you can drive from one side to the other in an afternoon, just like in the UK. From Adelaide it takes 1 day to reach Melbourne, two days to reach Sydney, two and a half days to Brisbane and 3 days to Perth. From east to west, Australia is almost as wide as the USA.
It’s great that you will be catching up with so many Sudokuland people throughout your holiday. I agree with you that you will be totally safe while visiting them. You will have an absolute ball.
I know that most people use Facebook to communicate these days. Most of our relatives use it. Call me old fashioned or whatever but I just send E-Mails to the people that I like to keep in touch with. Wow, 98 Sudoku people bonded together on Facebook. That is quite significant. I guess that if I wanted to be on facebook, I would have uploaded our happy snaps there. Oh well, I’ll let your invitation rattle around in the back of my mind for a while and see what I finally decide.

Good luck with your holiday “down under”. I think you will have enough wonderful memories from that trip to last a lifetime.

If you can stay a while longer in Melbourne with Sudoko friends to unwind after all your touristy activities, why not take a side trip to China seeing that you are in the general neighborhood.

Here's a bargain offer:

http://www.ourdeal.com.au/deal/ten-or-fourteen-day-amazing-china-tour-international-flight s-depart-major-cities?DEAL_ID=15369&tm=3690DC54-93D7-8DB4-56718591135533B8&utm_source=OurDeal&utm_me dium=Email&utm_content=Adelaide&utm_campaign=EscapeDeals

Damn. That link doesn't work unless you join www.ourdeal.com.au It is easy to have a look at the offer though. Just input a bogus E-Mail address and they will let you in. In essence the offer is a 10 day tour of China including air fares from Melbourne for $1,649AU. It includes 4 star accommodation.

You may be totally holidayed out by then but I thought I would pass it on all the same.

I figured that it was unlikely that you would be able to add China onto the end of your holiday but hey, I can't resist a bargain and when I saw it, I thought of you.

Kathy, this is all I could find quick & easy:

Tom is a comedian who's jokes are 'clean', while none the less, funny.

Clean Southern Comedy Teams Up to “Save a Puppy”
This April, The Humane Society in Louisville, KY will be selling Clean Southern Comedy tickets to support their 'no kill' shelters.

His website is:

http://www.cleansoutherncomedy.com/

Here’s that web site that you wanted:

http://www.snakeguardz.com/snakeguardz.htm

Whilst searching for it, I stumbled across another interesting cottage industry:

http://www.snakerepellent.com.au/

Plus this news item. Some snakes travel along creeks and then go exploring into people’s houses in inner suburbs.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/snakes-on-move-across-adelaide/story-fni6uo1m -1226712080595

There's a gap in the last web address that you will have to delete manually in order to get the link to work. It is immediately before -1226712080595

Kathy, I wish a Merry Christmas to you, Rob and all those you care for, and have a peaceful, healthy and prosperous 2014!

Super photo of Snowman Chase!

Wishing you a wonderful day with family and friends

Merry Christmas Kathy and best wishes for the next year to come.

Oban has a place in my cabinet at this very moment. Currently the whisky of the day is Bulleit bourbon. Don't know if you are familiar with it. Tom also has a rye that is to die for. A local (40 mile drive) brew pub puts up a fantastic stout in several whisky barrels from Bulleit to be opened on their annual anniversary party in March. Not enough !'s in wow to explain that.

I think Rob and I could entertain each other quite well over a few sips of good whisky. I turned 68 just last month, in some ways a little depressing, in others, a whole new world of enlightenment.

This evening brings us our #2 son and his young family for an overnight stay. Nana is in her element and son and I are enjoying the contents of a growler of 'Grinch' (a limited run of a special seasonal brew from said brew pub).

Thanks for the birthday wishes Kathy, it's been a nice lazy one so far starting with breakfast at the local café but that's about to change with a run and a gym session!

It'll be great to see you in April when you're out this way - if you let me know the actual dates you're here closer to the time I'm happy to organise others in the area for a get-together.

Thanks for the birthday wishes, Kathy - they're greatly appreciated!
Have some chocolate cake:

That's a beautiful family photo at the top of your page, Kathy!
Yes, I'll be at June's to meet you both! I did try to log onto that site a few times but wasn't able too!!?? I was halfway through the first time, but had to go the door for a delivery. So that may have messed things up!!

for the wishes, Kathy! Wow, I wish I were going on the trip with you and Jane! Have an AWESOME time! Maybe we can catch up when you get back! XO

I have just managed to pick up your flikr photos and am 'floored' by the beauty of the shots of the ice floes and all the ones of the African trip.
The animal and bird shots are MAGIC! What a wonderful experience that must have been!

I think I'll drool over the pavlova, it looks delicious. The old bloke and the lovely lady look alright, too. Lovely photo, Kathy. I'm sure you're having a ball with your wonderful host and hostess.
I've been without the internet for a couple of days so have some catching up to do. My computer bloke came around awhile ago and loaned me a modem and that seems to have fixed the problem.