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!