A Real Aussie Barbie

Justin with a friendly fly he was able to grab a hold of! He was pretty excited!

We thought this was a pretty funny sign, however we never did see that aggressive male swan

The Bush Chapel in the Caravan Park

The very first caravan (RV) in South Australia (maybe all of Australia!). It was really cute because the guy made it to look like a little house!

The barbie! All that meat for just four people! Lamb chops, sausage, chicken, meat patties, pineapple, and bacon! Yum! A true Aussie barbie!

Getting set-up to eat

Bob, the cook, flipping the potatoes and pineapple! He wore his San Francisco apron in honor of the Americans. (You can't see it but it is there!)

Some Galahs

Bruce, the Cockateel (spelling??) He was just on the side of the road in one of the small towns and you can feed him and he talks. He says things like, "Cockey Scratch" "Scracth Cockey" Cockey is short for Cockateel. Bob and Justin had a grand old time making him talk and scratching his head. Justin did get a bit too close and got snapped at, but he survived and still has all five fingers.

Bob and his good friend Bruce!


This weekend Bob and Anne (Justin's boss and his wife) took us to the Barossa Wine Region for a nice Sunday afternoon out. We mostly just cruised around some of the small towns that make up the region, but the highlight of the day was the Aussie barbie! As you can see from all of the above pictures, it was very delicious and very unhealthy. We couldn't believe our eyes when Bob kept putting more and more meat on the barb-b-que. There was enough food for an army, but there were only four of us! After our lunch, we were able to take a nice walk to work off all of our sinful eating. Then for desert we headed to the grocery store to find a "Giant Twin". I had no idea what this was, but Anne was on the hunt for them. Once we found them, Anne handed me one out of the box. It essentially a Klondike bar on steroids. It was like a foot long and yummy! Justin couldn't even finish all of his, but I had no issues!

We eventually made it home around 4 or so and we took a nice nap to recuperate. We had a great time with Bob and Anne. They really showed us a good time! Oh, I almost forgot. We had a South Australian snack time on the way out there. We had Vegemite and butter on crackers (not actually half bad, if you go easy on the Vegemite), fritz (it tasted like bologna), and Menz Fruit Chocs (chocolate covered apricots and peaches). All very yummy!

We will just have to wait and see what we have in store for next weekend! We miss you all!!

Belair National Park and Locksmiths

Justin took this picture out of our bedroom window and it turned out pretty cool, so I thought I would post it!

Hiking on the muddy trail in the cold and rain!

Justin by a lovely yellow tree.

Snack break out of the rain!


This weekend, we decided to go back to Belair National Park to see some more koalas. Belair is where we saw the 11 koalas and 4 emus about two months ago. So, we arose early Sunday morning to head out into nature. The forecast was calling for rain, but we thought the rain might miss the hills and we would be okay. Wrong. As soon as we stepped off the train it was cold AND raining! What a great combination for a Sunday hike! We thought we were pretty tough so we headed out on our hike. We actually did pretty well, we hiked for about 2 hours and saw 2 koalas. On our way back we started to get really cold and I couldn't feel any of my extremities, so we thought we would pick up the pace to catch the train since they only come every hour. We looked at our watch and we had 10 minutes to go about a mile to catch the train. So, we ran. In the cold. In the rain. I was extremely tired and running on a trail with rocks and things didn't help! As we made it up the final hill we saw the train at the stop. We sprinted and made on the train with just a few minutes to spare. I was exhausted, cold, and wet! The train ride home was pretty miserable, but that is okay because we stopped off at McCafe and got some hot drinks and donuts to warm us up on the way home! I think we will wait to go back to Belair when it isn't raining.

Finally, we arrived home and we were ready to get in the shower and get cleaned up when, I heard Justin say, "Ann, we are locked in the apartment". What in the world? How could we be locked in our apartment?? Low and behold as I looked at the front door lock, the lock wasn't moving when we turned the knob. We were hostages of our own apartment! Justin got on top of things straight away. He called a locksmith and he was over in an hour. We didn't care how much it would cost because the builder would have to pay us back because the lock was malfunctioning! So, the locksmith arrived and through the door he said, "let me try these keys out here to see if it will open the door". What keys? We heard a little jiggling and then the lock opened and there was the locksmith with Justin's keys in his hands! Justin had left the keys in the door halfway and when we locked the door from the inside the locked jammed and we were locked inside. The lock wasn't messed up at all! The keys were just left in the door! We felt dumb, but at least nothing was broken. But since was it our fault, we had to take the bill for the locksmith. So much for giving it over to the builder! Oh well! It was quite an experience being locked in the apartment for an hour, but the locksmith came and saved the day.

So that was our exciting Sunday afternoon! Next Sunday, we are going to Victor Harbour with Bob and Anne, so hopefully nothing crazy will happen!

My First Home Visit!

Hello everyone, I just wanted to make a post today about my very first home visit with my job in Australia! As an OT where I work we are in charge of going on home visits to make sure when the patient goes home they are able to get in the door, transfer in and out of the shower, get on and off the toilet, and are to be able to live at home safely.

The home visit assessment wasn't the thing I was nervous about, but the driving to get there! On the other side of the road! But since I am writing this blog, I made a successful journey to my patient's home and back with only two minor mishaps on the journey (it was 30 minutes away too!):

1. When getting in to the car, I at first attempted to get in on the passenger side. This doesn't work as there is no steering wheel.

2. Every time I used my turn signal I put on the windshield wipers.

Thankfully my patient was great navigator so I could focus on driving and not worry so much about directions. I am proud of myself driving in the city all by myself without Justin! Everyone at work was proud that I made it back alive without a crash! Okay, that is all!

Meinhardt Parties!

Justin cutting the blueberry cheesecake for the 4th of July Party!

Justin outside his office building

The office building, it is hard to see at night, but it is an old church converted into an office!

Some of Justin's co-workers. They guy with the beard is Dave and his mom is from Iowa!

The spread, as you can see chicken sandwiches and blueberry cheesecake for the 4th of July.

A view from inside Justin's office. His desk is by where Anne is with the pinkish scarf.

Hanging out at the party!

The official cake cutting! It was like we were getting married again! Side note: I came from work, so that lovely navy blue outfit is my work uniform!

Just waiting for the lasagna to come out of the oven.

Damper roll. An Australian pastry, which is very good!

Justin, Anne (Bob's wife), Malcom, and Linda

Krysta, Kristine, Josh, Dave, and Bob (the boss!)

This post will be dedicated to Meinhardt (Justin's company)! Mostly because they are an awesome company and have amazing people who work there! I have included pictures from the 4th of July party they threw for us last week.

This past Thursday, Justin and I had over about 9 people from his work for a dinner party. Last week, one of his co-workers had us over, so we thought we could have people over this week. We

made lasagna (which took forever to cook!), salad, and damper bread (you can see the picture above). It was a really nice evening having people over and getting to know everyone better outside of the office atmosphere. I hope we can do it again sometime! You can never go wrong with food, friends, and desert!

On a different note, Justin and I will be slowing down on our weekend adventures as Justin will be working the next several weekends. But this is a good thing since we are saving up to go on our two big trips, The Great Barrier Reef (going in October) and Uluru or Ayers Rock as you might have heard it called (going in September). I am very excited about both trips, but more so to the Great Barrier Reef. We will be going to a place called Cape Tribulation where there are two World Heritage sites right by each other (the Reef and the Rainforest). It is going to be an tropical paradise! Anyway, that is about it from Down Under. We hope you all are surviving the heat of the summer! We miss you all!

In Adelaide and the 4th of July

This is Rundle Street and our apartment is right off this street. It is very busy on Friday nights and on the weekends. There are heaps of cafes and shops.

This is our apartment complex. It is called the Palias Apartments. It is completely different than our complex back home in Dallas!

This is the beginning of Rundle Street. As you can see on the left there is a Target. But it isn't like ours at home. It is more of a department store.

This is one of several bronze pig statues in Rundle Mall.

This is a picture of Rundle Mall. It is essentially a shopping district where cars can't drive. This is where we do all of our shopping because it is so close!

This is Woolworths. Our second home. If we aren't home on a weeknight it is because we are here! We do all of our grocery shopping and Wal-Mart type shopping here! They have everything we need!

This fine sculpture Justin is standing by is called "Malls Balls" Great name, huh? It is in the middle of Rundle Mall and a lot of people choose it as a meeting place. You can see David Jones in the background and that is an upscale department store like a Nordstroms or Saks.

Justin with Horatio, the most famous bronze pig!

This is Adelaide Arcade which is in Rundle Mall. It is one of the most beautiful and oldest arcades on the Mall. Supposedly it is haunted too!

This is at Victoria Square which is right in the middle of the city. Justin and I were on our way to the Central Market to buy some salami and cheese. The Central Market is a place to buy fresh fruits, veg, cheese, meat, and fish.

This is Queen Victoria guarding her square!

Inside Central Market. As you can see in the background, it is CRAZY busy on the weekends and hard to move around, but very fun and you can get some good stuff!

This is some famous fountain in Victoria Square, but I don't know what it is called! Directly behind with the clock tower is the Post Office. Our old apartment when we first moved here was behind the Post Office.

So there are some pictures of where we live and what our life is like here in Adelaide. I love Adelaide and think everyone should come here because it is such a nice place. It gets overlooked so often because of the big cities like Sydney and Melbourne, but it has a lot of character and the people here are wonderful!

On a different note, let me tell y'all (that is for all of those Texans out there) about our Fourth of July here! Well, of course they don't celebrate it because it is our Independence Day, so we both had to go into work. But, Justin told me that I needed to come to Beer-Thirty this Friday for sure. (Side Note: Every Friday at 4:30 Justin's work stops 30 minutes early and everyone drinks beer, coke, or wine to wind down for the weekend). So after work I walked over to Justin's work to partake in Beer-Thirty. You wouldn't believe but Justin's boss's wife, Anne, had put together a full July 4th food spread to help us celebrate our holiday! They had red, white, and blue table cloths, napkins, and plates. Anne and Bob (Justin's boss) looked up on the internet typical July 4th food (they found we eat chicken and blueberries) and made us little chicken sandwiches and had blueberry cheesecake! It was so thoughtful and sweet. Everyone was wishing us a Happy 4th of July. Justin couldn't work for a better company or boss! Anyway that is how we celebrated the fourth of July! We miss you all!!

Mt. Remarkable National Park

Some wild kangaroos

At an overlook

Going through Hidden Gorge

The hike back home

The whole gang (minus me because I am taking the picture)

Justin (isn't he so cute!)

Me in the gorge (those rocks got really annoying hiking on after an hour or so!)

Scenic overlook

Justin again!

This weekend we went on our first backpacking trip in Australia and it was wonderful! We couldn't have asked for better weather considering we were going in the middle of winter. We went with 6 other people from our church. We head off on Friday night to Mt. Remarkable National Park which is in the Southern Flinders Ranges about 3 hours away.

We stayed in a small cabin on Friday night since we didn't get there until like midnight. On Saturday morning we packed up all of our stuff and headed off to the trail. It was really beautiful on the trail. We hiked through a place called Alligator Gorge and then headed up to what is called the Battery which is essential just a flat ridge on top of a mountain. We hiked for about 6 hours and found our campsite on top of the battery. It was sorta just off on the side of the trail which isn't what Justin and I are used to, but we made it our home for the night. The eight of us pitched in and we had a delicious dinner of spaghetti. After dinner we quite a bit of time to kill before heading to bed, so we lied down on our back and watched the stars. I can't even describe how beautiful the night sky was. I had never seen so many star in my life. You could even see the band of the Milky Way. We saw several shooting starts as well. Who needs TV when you have nature!

We got up the next morning and started the trek back home through Hidden Gorge. It was beautiful as well! Eventually we made it back to car and it was a glorious site. On the way back home we stopped by and had some pies and Farmers Union Iced Coffee and called it a day! It was great getting back into nature and surprisingly enough Justin and I weren't too tired on Monday morning!

This weekend we are resting! We have been go the past four weekends and now it is time to relax! We are going to take some pictures of Adelaide so you all can see where we live and what it is like here! We miss everyone!