North Adelaide Sightseeing and Carols by Candlelight

This is a huge Bay Fig tree Justin and I came across on our way home from exploring North Adelaide. It might be one of the biggest we have seen!

This is a memorial for the soldiers of World War I and it is set up nicely because you can see the cathedral in the background.

This is St. Peter's Cathedral. It one of the most famous churches in Adelaide. It was built in something like 1869. It is gorgeous and the masonry is amazing.

This is another church we found on our travels. Justin thinks it is a Uniting Church or something. It was pretty cool too!

This is a typical house you would see in Australia. The veranda and the red iron roof are very common. I love these houses! I must add you probably would have to be rich to live here.

Here is another example of a house. Oh, and the light poles are called Stubbie Poles here and you can see one in front of the house. They don't use wood, but concrete between a steel frame.

This is a primary school. This is what a typical one looks like. Justin sees heaps of these as he does lots of jobs on schools!

I just really loved this house! It was beautiful!

This is what a corner hotel looks like, but don't be fooled, you can't stay here! Pubs are called hotels and it dates back to when if you served alcohol you had to have a place to sleep. Now, all the pubs are still called hotels. You will see these everywhere in Adelaide.

Just a giant house we saw.

Another giant house.

This is the Adelaide Convention Center. It is a major landmark for Adelaide. We ate our anniversary dinner here back in May.

This is the River Torrens. Justin and I run along this river every week!

Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas! Father Christmas on the outside of David Jones department store. He is massive!

Christmas decorations. Notice the blue sky and lush green leaves on the trees. Crazy!

This is me just outside of our apartment. We walk down this walkway pretty much everyday, so we thought we would take a picture.

Carols by Candlelight! About 30,000 people showed up for Christmas carols. We went with Bob and Anne' kids, Sarah and Andrew and their families. It was around 90 degrees and hot! It was crazy because I had just talked to people back home and it is like -2 F and here we are sweating like crazy! At the end, they had a fireworks display set to Christmas music. It threw me for a loop. It felt just like 4th of July with it being hot and fireworks, but we were celebrating Christmas! We sang an Aussie version of Jingle Bells and I thought it was great so I typed it up below. Just a bit of translation for you: A Holden Ute would be the equivalent of a Ford Truck. An esky is a cooler and the boot is the trunk. A kelpie is a type of dog. Singlet is a tank top. I think that is all. Enjoy!

Dashing through the Bush

In a rusty Holden Ute

Kicking up the dust

Esky in the boot

Kelpie by my side

Singing Christmas songs

It's summer time and I am in

My singlet, shorts, and thongs

Oh, jingle bells, jingle bells

Jingle all the way

Christmas in Australia

On a scorching summer's day

Christmas time is beaut

Oh what fun it is to ride

In a rusty Holden Ute

Engine's getting hot

Dodge the kangaroos

Swaggy climbs aboard

He is welcome too

All the family is there

Sitting by the pool

Christmas day, the Aussie way

By the barbecue!

That is about it from here. I have to work on Christmas Eve, but we don't have any plans. On Christmas day we will go to church and then to Bob and Anne's for lunch and then to our friend's house for tea (dinner). We wanted to hire a car, but they were all sold out in Adelaide, so we will be driving around in a 1 tonne Ute! Ha! I will take a picture. On December 26th we head to Melbourne for a bit of Cricket (Australia vs. South Africa), then Jenny and Ben (Justin's sister and her husband) arrive!! Then off to Tassie for a week of wilderness! We can't wait. So no posts for awhile because we wont' be back in town until January 5th. Expect lots of pictures! Merry Christmas everyone!! We miss you!!

Mince Pies Part 2

So, this weekend was part 2 in the mince pie making process. This is Anne and Bob demonstrating the process of cutting the pastry and filling it with the mince. This was what Justin and I did all day Saturday. We got really good at the end. I think we were able to fill about 3 dozen in 12 minutes.

Here is what the pies look like after they are cooked. Cooking time is precisely 14 minutes! By the way this is the first 3 dozen out of 60 dozen total!

Justin by some of the pies in the cooling process. Notice Justin's apron. Bob and Anne got us Australia aprons to wear for the occasion!

I am holding Andrew's baby, Mitchell. Andrew is Bob's son. Andrew is in the blue and he and his wife, Sue, stopped by to check out the mince pie party and get a little taste.

Ha! Would you look at this! Justin hold a little baby! He was pretty nervous, but I shouldn't laugh too much, I was scared to hold him too! He is only 2 and half weeks old!

Justin and I in our fancy Australia aprons!

Anne began packing up all the pies. I had never seen so much Tupperwear in my life! Now all of the pies are delivered to friends and family!

So we finished up our mince pies this weekend. It was a long day, but very successful! I can now say I have have around 600 mince pies! Other than mince pie Saturday, it was a pretty relaxing weekend. On Friday, I had my work Christmas party. It was nice so Justin could meet all of my co-workers. On Sunday, we had a church BBQ and Christmas carols in the evening. Our bible study was in charge of all of the sausages. It was a lot of fun and it got me in the Christmas spirit (it was even a bit cold, like 65 degrees!). Next weekend is really laid back. No formal plans! Yay! We have been so busy lately! Just over a week until we head off to Melbourne to meet Jenny and Ben (Justin's sister and husband), then we are off to Tasmania! I can't wait! That is about it from here! We miss you all! Oh, I almost forgot. We have our official date we are coming home (I am very confused about my feeling about this). We will be arriving in KC on May 9th at 9:36 pm. I think leaving Australia will be one of the hardest things I will ever have to do! I just can't hop on a plane and come visit regularly. I must say Australia is one of the best places in the world! Everyone should come and visit this amazing country!

Mince Pie Time with Bob and Anne

This is Bob and Anne's house (Justin's boss and his wife). On the outside it looks like any normal suburban Australian home, but on the inside a massive Christmas mince pie production is happening. This is a yearly event and Justin and I were lucky enough to get asked to help out. The recipe is secret and Anne won't give it out to anybody, so we were lucky be there to help make the magic happen.

This is Justin with some of the main ingredient: sultanas, raisins, currants, all spice, and nutmeg

Justin was in charge of the lemon station. His job was to grate lemons.

I was in charge of peeling apples. I am holding up the final product. As you can see we were all wearing aprons. When we wear aprons that means we are real cooks because we get messy!

Bob is starting the mincing of the fruit. He pretty much just shoves everything through the mincer!

Justin's other job was to squish all of the mince with his hands to make sure it is all mixed up.

Here is the mince! So, last night was making the mince. It has to sit for a week to get really yummy and then on Saturday we are going back to make the pastry crusts and fill the pies. Now, just to let you know when all said and done we will make around 600 pies!! Bob and Anne hand them out to work people, friends, and family. Justin and I will get some too! Also we will save some for all of our guests who will be visiting in the next few months. So look forward to next week with the rest of the pictures of the pie making process.

Also, this weekend was Justin's Christmas party with his work. This is us all dressed up for the party. I didn't bring any nice clothes so I had to go shopping to buy a skirt! Isn't it funny I am in a tank top for a Christmas party! Crazy!

So this weekend was pretty relaxed and not much was going on. On Sunday we saw the movie Australia. I loved it! It was really good and I highly recommend it. The only bad thing is that it is really long! I think I like it even more because I have lived in Australia for awhile now and I understand the culture a bit. Other than the movie and Justin's Christmas party it was a mellow weekend. Monday night was the mince pie making party. There is a lot of work going into making these pies! It was a pretty relaxed weekend overall. This coming weekend, we have the conclusion of making the pies and we have a Christmas BBQ for church. We are just counting down the days until our Tassie trip! We can't wait! We miss you all!

Turkey, Basketball, and 8 hours of Cricket

Happy Thanksgiving! This is our all of our home group that we had over for dinner.

This is another picture our home group minus Justin who is taking the picture. You can see some of the food.

And here is all of the food. We had turkey, green bean casserole, cranberries, cornbread, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and for dessert pumpkin pie and lemon pie. Alot of people had never had pumpkin pie before! We had quite a few left overs. We had never cooked for 15 before!

Ah, yes. This is Justin with his "mo" for Movember. It is now officially gone since it is December 1st in Australia. That is Skippy the kangaroo in the picture with him.

On Saturday night we headed out to the Adelaide 36'ers basketball game. Justin got free tickets from work. This is an overall shot of the court. We were half court about three rows up. Great seats. The 36'ers are part of the NBL (National Basketball League). They weren't near as good as the NBA players, but it was still a great game to watch and it was close! The 36'ers pulled out a win in the in end.

Adelaide Oval. This is were the Cricket 5 day test was held between Australia and New Zealand. A five day test means that the game can go on for 5 days, with each team batting twice. Adelaide Oval is supposed to be the most picturesque oval in all of Australia and possibly the world. This is the score board. It is all done manually. It is heritage listed, so it can't be knocked down.

This is the team warming up. The guy in the blue is Andrew Symonds and he is one of the most popular players on the National team. He was only up for 3 bowls (that is like a pitch in baseball) and he was out. I was pretty bummed since he was the only guy I had heard of before. Another guy, Hadden was up to bat pretty much all day and scored 168 runs. The game lasted from 10:30 in the morning until 5:45 at night. We stayed the whole time!

Another view of the oval

More of the oval

See the red blanket and the people on it. That is where we stayed all day long. All in all we were at the Cricket for 8 hours! We arrive at 9:30 and left at 5:45. It was quite an experience!

This is people getting the pitch ready. The pitch has stumps at each end. The stumps have bails on top. There is a batsman protecting the stumps at one end and on the other end is the bowler and another batsman. The batsman is supposed to protect the stumps and not let the bail get knocked off. And in the process they hit the ball to get points. So one batsman hits the ball and then he must run back and forth on the pitch with the other batsman to get points. Each day a minimum of 90 overs is played and an over consists of 6 bowls (or pitches). Australia was up to bat for 79 overs and then New Zealand finished the last 11. Cricket is pretty hard to explain. So this is very simple explanation of Cricket. Surprisingly enough, Justin has a pretty good idea of the game and I am not too shabby.

Here we are the oval!

Some of the action on the pitch.

This is Tyson and Talitha (they are my friends from work) who helped us to understand the Cricket.


We have been pretty busy the last week or so with Thanksgiving, basketball, and Cricket. It has been fun and we were able to give our Australian friends a bit of American culture with Thanksgiving and we got some Australian culture at the Cricket. I couldn't believe we were at the Cricket for 8 whole hours and that is normal for a Test match. Crazy!! We were lucky that it wasn't too hot because there was no shade. I couldn't imagine being there in the 100 degree heat with no shade! We are planning on going to the Cricket again on Boxing Day (December 26th) with our friends Rowan and Nyoli. It is another Test but we won't stay for the whole time! That is about it from here! We need to go rest after being at the Cricket all day! Next weekend we are going to see Australia the movie and relax a bit. We miss you all!!

Schoolies Weekend!

This is a view of the ocean at Port Elliot. We stopped by here on the way back to Adelaide. The water was beautiful!

This is me at Port Elliot by a crazy looking plant. It looked kinda like an aloe vera plant on steroids or something. They were everywhere!

This is Justin at Port Elliot on a rock.

This is one of the beaches at Victor Harbour where Schoolies was held.

Justin by the caravan we stayed in. We stayed with our friends Rowan and Nyoli's grandparents. They didn't have an extra room for us, so we got the caravan!

Yet another Yaris car hire! This has been our 5th one in Australia!

At Schoolies! This is Sarah, Saturday night was pirate night so she was being like a pirate. I wasn't! We were at the water tent handing out water to all the drunk kids!

This is Justin manning the line to get into the "Big Tent" which was essentially just a giant dance party. It was crazy and kids were trying to jump the fence to get in and everything. I manned the line for a bit, but I wasn't too good and telling people to get back over the fence and go to the end of the line.

This is us at Deep Creek Conservation Park. We stopped here on Saturday before we had to volunteer. It was cold and windy! Oh, and you can see Justin's mustache he is growing for Movember. Mo is a mustache. Movember raises awareness for prostate cancer.


Deep Creek Conservation Park


So this weekend was Schoolies! We had no idea what to expect. Just to review, Schoolies is held at Victor Harbour (about 2 hours south on the coast) and all year 12 students come to party, have fun, and celebrate the end of school. Kinda like spring break. We had about 10,000 kids come down. We worked with an organization called Encounter Youth through our church to help volunteer. We had like 400 volunteers from churches around Adelaide plus police, ambulances, security, and more. Our job as volunteers was to hand out water and manage the line up of kids getting into the "Big Tent". I had a great time! It was fun getting to talk with the kids and just watch the chaos that was going on around me. I would suspect about 90% of the kids were completely drunk. Everyone was there to have a good time. The volunteers helped the kids stay entertained and somewhat orderly. The kids really appreciated us and would always say thanks for helping out. I would totally do it again next year, if I were here. The hours were long, from about 8:00 pm-2:00 pm (and we had the early shift!), but so worth it!

On Tuesday we are going to have our Thanksgiving dinner with our bible study group. I will post some pictures for everyone. This weekend is pretty relaxed with not much going on. I think we might go to the Cricket on Sunday. There is a test between Australia and New Zealand and they are playing in Adelaide. Happy Thanksgiving! We miss you all!!