A Taste of Spring

Justin and I had our first taste of spring this weekend. We celebrated Justin's birthday this past weekend, since this weekend we will be on our trip. On Friday we went out to dinner at a pizza place we have been wanting to try for a long time. It was delicious! The best pizza I have had so far in Australia. We even got a table outside to enjoy the nice weather!

On Saturday, we spent all day planning our Tasmania trip in December/January with Jenny and Ben (Justin's sister and husband). Tasmania is pretty much empty all year long except the exact dates we will be there! Every single hotel is booked in Hobart the nights we want to be there because the Sydney to Hobart yacht race is on and a big festival of some sort is on as well. We did find a nice hostel to stay at so it wasn't too bad. And we got the very last camp site at one of the national parks we are going too! Overall, it took almost 4 hours to get everything book and finalized, but we did it!

After our brains were fried from planning, we headed out to the beach. We took the train to a place called Brighton Beach and walked along the beach to another beach area called Glenelg. It was about an hour long walk and it was beautiful because it was at sunset! Seeing the sunset over the ocean on a beautiful day is something I could get used to! It was a nice and relaxing evening at home!

So this weekend was pretty laid back, since on Thursday we will be heading off to Alice Springs for our big trip to the Outback! We are really excited since this will be our first taste of interstate travel and seeing a real Australian icon...Uluru (Ayers Rock). So be looking our for pictures next week! We miss you all!!

The Royal Adelaide Show

Welcome to the Show!

Show Bags! Bags of junk to buy!

Justin and Bob. Justin is eating a Dagwood Dog which is essentially a corn dog! They are way better than the Corny Dogs at the State Fair of Texas.

This was the grand parade with all of the animals going around the oval.

Wood chopping competition! At the end of the day there was going to be an Australia vs. New Zealand competition. There was even a competitor from the States!

Alpacas. We thought they looked like they were posing for the pictures!

In one of the arenas they had all of the prize winning food. I thought it was kinda interesting that they had it all on display. It all looked really yummy!

This is Justin enjoying a tofee apple. The toffee apple had a candy coating around it and it was kinda crystallized. Very yummy!

This is the old Ferris wheel that has been at the Show forever. It is the only ride that doesn't get taken away when the Show is over.

Can you guess what Fairy Floss is?? Cotton Candy! I think Fairy Floss is such a funny name!

This past weekend we headed off to the Royal Adelaide Show with Bob and Anne (Justin's boss and his wife). It is pretty much the equivalent to the state fairs in the U.S. with lots of fattening food, rides, and animals. It was fun! It was the most beautiful day we could have asked for too. It was about 70 degrees which was the warmest day in 3 months! We got there nice and early even before the gates were open. Bob and Anne had a plan for us so we just followed along! The most interesting thing we saw which I hadn't seen before was wood chopping. There were a bunch of guys who were in competition to cut wood. It was pretty intense. These guys meant business and they were really good too! Another highlight of the day were the show bags. These are bags that are put together with candy, toys, and other "junk" and sold at a cheap price. Justin and I each got a show bag, both Cadbury ones. Cadbury chocolate here is a million times better than Hershey's back in the states. I got a Carmello Koala show bag and Justin got just a basic Cadbury show bag. We ended up leaving the show around 3:30 or so and we had a full day! It was a lot of fun!

Other than the show, we went to watch our church's basketball finals with some friends and then on Sunday we went over to Bob and Anne's for Father's Day (it was on Sunday here) and had a bar-b-que. So it was a fun and eventful weekend! In about two weeks we head off to Uluru! We miss you all!!

Road Trip.....Naracoorte Caves and Coorong National Park!

This is along the rim of a lake in Coorong National Park. It was all white and milky looking. We thought it was because it was salt from the ocean leaking through the earth. The ocean is just on the other side of the tree line.

This is on the way back from what was supposed to be a pelican observatory, but since we were there in the winter it was pelican-less. It was super windy and rainy on the way to the lookout!

This is a side stop in a small town called Robe. We were told there would be tons to do, but since it is winter the town was dead. We pretty much took this picture and left. Yet again, super windy, rainy, and cold!

Ah, the Big Lobster. One of the many "big" items Australia has to offer. We now have seen the big lobster, the big rocking horse, and the big orange.

Amazing sunset over the ocean in a town called Cape Jaffa. We believe the only resident is a golden retriever. We saw no signs of life there.

Kangaroo and Wombat crossing! Watch out! We saw two dead roos and two dead wombats on our drive.

Justin by "Granite Rocks". They are those brown rocks in the ocean. This place was yet again, cold, rainy, and super windy!

Nararcoort Caves. It is a World Heritage Site. There are a total of around 800 World Heritage sites around the world including cultural, natural, and a mixture of both. There are about 18 just in Australia. A World Heritage site is a palce that is unique and can be found no where else in the world. Other ones in Australia include, the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru, the Daintree Rainforest, the Sydney Opera House, and the Tasmanian Wilderness just to name a few. These are the ones Justin and I are going to!

Inside the cave! This was my very first cave to ever go it so it was really exciting. The stalactites are on the top and the stalagmites are on the bottom (I think).

More cave.

More cave.

This is why the caves are a World Heritage Site. The fossils! They have found really, really old fossils here that date back like forever ago. They were really well preserved because of the sediment and mud.

This is Justin by a giant wombat type creature. They found its fossils in the caves and it really was that big! I think it is kinda cute!

This is me going into to Wet Cave, it was a self-guided tour and not nearly as cool as the other ones, but still cool.

This is inside wet cave.

Me by the entrance to the Cave.

Justin having some fun with the fossils.


So as you can see from our pictures it was a road trip weekend! We headed down to the Limestone Coast which was about 3 and a half hours from Adelaide. We hired a car and set off on Friday night. The car was a manual! It is really hard making your brain use your left hand to shift. Justin got really good at it, I still made some revving noises and almost killed it a few times. We stayed the night in Naracoorte on Friday and on Saturday we spent most of the day exploring the caves. Then we were heading to Kingston for Saturday night. We went through the Coonawara wine region and Justin did a little wine tasting. We stopped by two small towns we were told were pretty nice, but I swear small towns in the winter no one goes outside. It was like we were in ghost towns. No one out. The shops closed. On a Saturday afternoon. We finally made it to Kingston. Semi-ghost town, but not as bad as the other ones. We searched for a place for dinner and there were only two places to choose from. We chose a fish and chips shop. There was nothing to do that night so we sat in our motel room and watched TV. Yay for us!

We woke up the next day to drive through Coorong National Park. It was pretty nice except it was really windy, cold, and rainy. We did enjoy seeing all of the scenery though. On the way home Justin wanted to stop through Hahdorf the German town we visited a few months ago because he was craving German sausage. So he got some sausage and Bavarian mustard and we were on our way.

Overall it was a pretty nice weekend and it was nice getting out of Adelaide since we hadn't been anywhere in a long time! We need to go back during the summer when it sounds like things are a bit more hopping. This weekend we are going to The Show. It is essentially the state fair. We are pretty excited! We miss you all! Oh, and we hope you all enjoyed Labor Day. Australia's Labor Day is in September and that is when we are going to Cairns!

Olympic Withrdrawal

No crazy adventures this weekend as Justin had to work all day on Saturday and we needed Sunday to get our errands completed. On Sunday, we did go for a nice long run because the weather is slowly starting to warm up. Also, we headed out to an outlet mall. It was really tiny compared to the outlet malls I am used to. We mostly just browsed and were enjoying the nice weather. But one thing I realized when I was out shopping is that I don't like to shop! I am going against all my female instincts, but I just don't like it. I used to love it, but now I just can't get myself to justify buying clothes. I wear a uniform everyday, at night I don't do anything, and on the weekends I am fine wearing my old clothes. I would rather spend $30 on a movie, dinner, some sort of hair products, etc. I thinking I am becoming an old woman. I even have money now to buy nice clothes, but I just can't do it. Okay, no transition here, but I am going through major Olympic withdrawal.

Last night we watched a two hour special on all the Australian athletes and it had several montages and I got goose bumps and almost cried in all of them. I LOVE THE OLYMPICS. That is all I watched for 16 days. Now, it is all over. I have to wait 2 years for the Winter Games. Now, there is nothing on TV again. Our three channels are pretty boring. Oh, Olympics I miss you. Okay, that is enough.

Hopefully next weekend Justin and I will get out in and about again because his work is supposed to start slowing down. In about 3 weeks we leave for Uluru! Yay! And then a week after that Cairns!! We miss you all!

A Five Course Meal, Lasting Five Hours!

Our view from the restaurant. It was very beautiful!

Sunset with some sheep in the field.

More of the scenery.

This is Chook Cat. Chook means chicken here in Australia. He lives with the chooks in their coop. He tends to stay in the tree alot. He was very friendly.

Some of the gang hanging out with the chooks.

Us by an old wagon. We were at an intermission from eating, so we had to amuse ourselves.

Our table. There was a total of 12 of us.

Sumali is on the left and it was her birthday we were celebrating!

Random shot of the chicken coop.

This is the backwards of how the meals were served because of how I uploaded the photos but you will get the picture. This was the cake! Delicious! Chocolate and hazelnut! Yum!

Course 5: Neck of lamb. Amazing! It melted in your mouth!

Course 4: We ate most of it before I remembered to take a picture. It was chicken rolled with collard greens and carrots. Yummy! ( I am the pickiest eater of all time and I enjoyed it!)

Course 3: Goat cheese on rye walnut bread

Course 2: Scallops in some sort of mayonnaise sauce and you ate it on bread. Course 1 was potato soup, but we didn't get a picture.

So as you can probably tell we ate out this weekend! We went to McLaren Vale for our friend Sumali's birthday party. McLaren Vale is a wine region here in South Australia. Sumali works at a winery so we got a pretty nice five course meal as you can see. We even had a wine pairing with each course. I tried all the wines, but of course I didn't like any of them, but Justin had a grand time tasting each of them. The whole lunch took like 5 hours! As you can see we stayed until the sun was setting! It is winter here though, so the sunsets around 5:45 or so. It was very delicious and for me being a picky eater I loved all of it! Yummy! That was our main excitement of the weekend!

On Friday we went out with some people from my work for drinks then out to dinner at the Central Markets. So it was nice for Justin to meet some of my work friends and it was nice for me to see them outside of work. Sunday, Justin had to go into work for make up for missing two days of work last week (oh, we were sick last week, I missed one day of work and Justin two). After work, we went to the grocery store, ate dinner, and headed off to church.

That is about it for this past weekend. In about three weeks we will be off to Alice Springs to go to Uluru, Kings Canyon, and Kata Tjuta. We are excited! Our first interstate traveling together! We miss you all!

The Olympics, The Dark Night, and being sick

This weekend was rather an eventful one beginning on Friday night with the opening Olympic ceremony. Justin and I went out to dinner with several people from our church to a Chinese restaurant (very fitting for the Olympics) and then headed off to an Olympics party with wine and cheese. By the way, the Chinese restaurant was delicious! I usually don't like Chinese food, but I usually am eating at a Chinese buffet. Real Chinese food is yummy and actually rather healthy depending what you get! The Olympic opening ceremony party was lots of fun because it was live when we were watching it! I ate way too much cheese though! We missed the U.S. walking in because it had gotten really late and we were ready to go to home, but we watched it on You Tube. Australia was third to last walking in, so we definitely missed them!

Anyway, Saturday came and Justin had to work. So, I cleaned the house and watched the Olympics! That night we went to go see The Dark Knight. It was amazing! It was good from the start to the very end. I never once got bored or started thinking "where are they going with this?" Action packed all the way through. I didn't even notice that it was 2 and a half hours! So, if you haven't see it yet, go see it! Even if you don't like Batman movies, it is so good! Heath Ledger did a really good job as Joker too. He sounded so much like Jack Nicholson from when he played the Joker. Okay, that was my shameless plug!

On Sunday, Justin and I were crook (that is Australian for sick!). I had started getting sick Friday, but by Sunday it had really set in. My nose was clogged, my throat itchy, I couldn't breathe and I was generally feeling icky. Justin just had a sore throat, but we were worried it might turn into what I had, so we stayed in all day Sunday and it was fabulous! We watched the Olympics all day long and just relaxed. It was so nice spending time together since Justin has been so busy with work lately. Sunday was a great day to recuperate.

We both went to work today. I was kinda feeling yucky at times, but I pushed through and left only 15 minutes early. Justin is still at work now, so he is doing well! That is all from here! Sorry no pictures this week! Oh, and we changed our stance on our Olympic loyalty. Whenever a US athlete us up against an Aussie one we will cheer for the US (it was too hard not too!), but when it is just the Aussies we will cheer for them! We miss you all!!

A Day at the Adelaide Zoo

This is an echinda. It is kinda like a porcupine. They are native to Australia. We have yet to see one out in the wild.

This big boy is a wombat. Another Australian native. We hear if you hit one of these guys with your car it will take out your car!

Justin and his cassowary. He has fondness for this crazy bird. They live in Queensland and they can kill people (or so we hear) with a razor sharp talon on their foot. When we are just north of Cairns in the Daintree Rainforest he will be on the hunt for these birds because supposed they are easy to find in the wild.

Justin got a great shot of this hippo!

Me by some flowery trees.

We thought this looked funny! Silly flamingo!

I love kangaroos! He is just chilling!

Justin also got this great shot of the meerkat. They are so cute! They used to be my favorite animal, until I met the kangaroos of Australia!

This was a nice lazy weekend at home. It was wonderful! Justin has been working late at work all last week and working the last 3 Saturdays, so it has felt like we hadn't seen each other in forever. So we really needed this weekend to catch up with each other! Our plan was to have a date and go to the zoo! It was a really nice day for the zoo and we had a coupon from the Entertainment Book! We pass by the zoo all the time on our runs, but we hadn't actually gone in, so Sunday was the day. We were pleasantly surprised! It isn't a huge zoo, but it had a lot of animals that we hadn't seen before. I posted some of the good pictures that turned out! In 2009, they will be receiving 2 pandas, so we are going to have to go back!

Since Justin has been so busy at work, not much has been going on with us. This week we have bible study on Tuesday night and on Friday night we are hanging out with people from church to watch the Olympic opening ceremony and have wine and cheese! We have really settled into daily life here in Australia. We go to work, go to church, hang out with friends, go shopping. It is strange sometime thinking I am actually in Australia! Our first big trip is coming up in about a month and a half so I am getting excited! On September 18th we leave to go to Alice Springs ( the middle of the country), then we drive 5 hours to go see Uluru (also known as Ayers Rock, the big red rock in the center), Kata Tjuta (more big rocks), and Kings Canyon. It is going to be a really Aussie experience because we will be in the outback!

That is about it from here! We miss you all! Oh, and we are cheering for Australia in the Olympics!