The Eichler Page

The Eichler Page

Welcome to Sue, Andrew, Stefanie & Christopher's web page.

We plan to post information here to keep our family and friends, especially those overseas, up-to-date with some of the happenings at our place...

For those of you who don't know us or where we live, try some of the links!

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Updated: June 14, 1999

What's the latest???

After having made a sensational start to the season, winning the first five matches, the Geelong Cats have lost the next six matches! The recently re-named Shell Stadium is now becoming known as the "shell-shock stadium" in the popular press. The next couple of matches are crucial to the Cats' finals chances and, perhaps, Gary Ayres' future at the club.
In an attempt to boost the club's finances, captain Gary "Buddha" Hocking has agreed to change his name by deed poll to "Whiskas" (a well known cat food brand) for one week. Apparently, the club received around $200,000 from the cat food manufacturer as part of the deal. Media commentators have estimated that the media publicity for Whiskas cat food arising from the deal has been equivalent to $4million of paid advertising time. Not a bad deal if you ask me...

For the latest footy info, check out the AFL web site.

"Thank God for that!", says Sue, "It's bad enough having the kids at home, let alone your husband as well!". These holidays were spent at home in Geelong with the kids enjoying the break from school, TV in the mornings, occasional sleep-overs with cousins or friends and, of course, catching up with our visitors from Holland (see next item). In the end they were looking forward to getting back to school, for social reasons more than anything else we expect. They've both settled back into the routine and are enjoying their time at St John's.

After Easter we enjoyed some time together with the Kauffman and Swenser-Smith families. Both families are now living in The Hague, The Netherlands and were back in Australia for a few weeks. It was great to get together with all of them again for a "traditional" Friday night pizza, plus the odd bottle of good Aussie red! Andrew and JJ even reformed the car-pool for a few days just to reminisce and guess what, JJ is still "not very enthused..." on most days.

This year, Stefanie and Christopher took part in the annual Pakington Street Festa parade with Sue's dad and their cousins Laura and Digby.. The "Pako Festa" is a celebration of ethnic diversity in Geelong (and Australia for that matter...) and the parade consists of the many different ethnic groups dressed in national costums and, sometimes, singing folk songs, etc. as they march.

Yes, Chris started school at St John's this year (time flies when you're having fun) and has settled in very well. After spending two years at St John's Kindergarten, which is on the school complex, becoming a "school boy" was really no big deal for him, especially since quite a number of his Kinder friends were also going to the school. The school is now running a "multi-age" structure and Christopher is in one of the Junior School classes consisting of children at Prep & Grade 1 levels. Stefanie is now in Grade 3 in one of the Middle School classes with students at Grade 3/4 level. Both are doing well at school and the multi-age structure seems to be working well.
- If you would like to know more about St. John's, Geelong, send them an e-mail.
- For those of you in Australia (and the USA), click here to find out about Lutheran Schools in your area.

Early in the new year Andrew took us all for a plane ride around Geelong and down the coast. In keeping with the family tradition (initiated by Sue some years ago), Christopher decided after a while that it was a good place to have a snooze! Stefanie, on the other hand, was captivated the whole time.

This year we travelled to Sydney to spend Christmas with Sue's niece Rachael who kindly kicked out her house-mates so that the relatives (us, Kevin & family (5) plus Rachael's parents Barrie & Erika) could camp for a few days and celebrate Christmas together. We all had a great time and didn't get in each others way much at all, although at times there was a queue for the Sony Playstation! Apart from Christmas Day itself, highlights for us were:
- The harbour cruise on Boxing Day (also Stefanie's birthday!) to watch the start of the Sydney-to-Hobart yacht race - a magnificent day on one of the great harbours of the world surrounded by thousands of other spectator craft; how they manage to avoid collisions is a mystery. On the day we could never have imagined the tragedy awaiting many of the racers as they battled treacherous conditions a couple days later.
- A visit to the Sydney 2000 Olympic Swimming Stadium which has fantastic recreation pools for the whole family - a must if you want to go for a swim in Sydney!

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