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!!

Busy Weekend Around Adelaide

Some pictures of Adelaide on our way to pick up the car hire. The tall building in the background is the Westpac building which is the tallest building in Adelaide. Westpac is our bank.

This is the tram. This is the tram we take when we go to Glenelg beach.

This is the railway station/casino. The rails way station in in the basement and the rest of it is casino.

This is Parliament House. It is like the state capital building. Adelaide is the capital of South Australia. I love this building because it has so much character and detail.

Me on the way to pick up the car hire. Justin wanted to get a shot with the Australian flag in it.

We headed to Hahndorf (the oldest German town in Australia) on Saturday afternoon with our car hire to hang out with one of my friends from work. After lunch we took a nice walk around the area and here are some pictures.

A nice paddock with the hills in the background.

Me, Rachel (my friend from work), and Chris (her boyfriend)

Another nice scenery shot

On the way back from our walk. More beautiful scenery.

This weekend we were super busy with little things all around Adelaide. So busy in fact that we had to hire a car this weekend! On Saturday morning we picked up the car hire and headed off to Hahndorf to meet up with my friend Rachel from work. It was a nice afternoon hanging out for some lunch and going on a nice walk. Justin and I decided to have to have some dinner before we headed back to Adelaide (about 25 minutes away). Now Hahndorf is Australia's oldest German now and had alot of German heritage so we thought we would eat some German food. And boy did we eat some German food. We ordered the Tast of Germany platter at the restaurant we went to. It said it would feed two. It could have fed like five! There were like 5 different types of sausages, pretzels, potatoes, sauerkraut, ham hock (I don't know how to spell that!), and a pork chop. It was massive!!! Justin and I managed to eat about half. We had the other half for dinner last night. It was really good too! I will most definitely be taking my dad to this place! He just needs to remember to take his cholesterol medicine!

Saturday night we had a nice night in baking 6 cakes! We were baking cakes for a fundraiser at church. So on Sunday morning we headed off to church to sell some cakes! We sold all of our cakes and make $111.50! We were fundraising for an event called Schoolies. Justin and I are volunteering next weekend for the event. It is essentially a 5 day long party that seniors who have just graduated go to down at the beach. Churches have gotten together and formed volunteer teams to help run things and let things go smoothly as possible. Schoolies isn't a Christian event, but most of the volunteers are. It should be quite an experience. Justin and I will be helping out for just 2 nights. Our hours to help are like 6 pm-2 am! Crazy!

After our cake selling, we headed off to Belair National Park for our friends' engagement party. It was so nice! It seemed like the whole church was there! We had a barbecue and just hung out with everyone. It was a relaxing Sunday afternoon. We did go on a short hike and saw 2 koalas!

So that is our weekend. Next weekend, like I said, we will be off to Schoolies. I am a bit nervous because I don't know what to expect! We miss you all!

Christmas Pageant and Surprise Weekend

One of the first floats of the Christmas Pageant! The Nativity Scene. I was thinking this is going be a nice parade with lots of Christmas related floats! I was wrong!

A nice candy themed float. Not too related to Christmas.

A giant clown. Not very Christmas like.

Okay, whoever thought ghosts and goblins should be in a Christmas parade are a little silly!

This is the Jolly Swagman in the song Waltzing Matilda.

At least we can be assured there is Christmas cricket!

This is Nellie, she is the oldest float in the parade and sometimes she breaks down and can't make it the whole length of the parade.

And finally, Santa! Bob (Justin's Boss) and his grandson Nathanial are in the foreground.

We were representing the West Side with our sideways Christmas hats!

On one of our hikes on our surprise weekend

This is where we stayed during surprise weekend. It is an old cottage built in the 1800's. It is now rented out by the Youth Hostel Association. We had the place to ourselves!

A grape field on the hike back to the bus stop!

This weekend was the famous Adelaide Christmas Pageant! As you can see from our pictures there were lots of floats (even though most of them had nothing to do with Christmas). The pageant is supposed to be one of the biggest in the world. There were about 350,000 people there! That is alot when Adelaide is only around 1 million. The weather was a bit cold and rainy, but we didn't mind because it made us feel like it was Christmas time. We have heard sometimes it can get really hot and it is miserable standing watching the parade. Anyway, we had a great time and now are getting in the Christmas spirit!

We also had a surprise weekend that Justin has planned for us! We ended up going into the Adelaide Hills and stayed in a little cabin. It was really nice! We were able to hike alot which is always a bonus! We had our own kitchen too, so we were able to cook our own dinner on Saturday night. It was quick weekend, since we only stayed one night, but it was great to get away from the city and just spend time with Justin! Next weekend is a bit more laid back. We are just hanging around Adelaide. We miss you all!!

Flinders Ranges National Park: Wilpena Pound

Welcome to Flinders Ranges National Park! Home of Wilpena Pound. Just five hours north of Adelaide!

Beautiful sunset with the mountains in the background. It was amazing!

Morning of our first hike! Justin is ready and gearing to go!


That peak to the left is St. Mary's Peak. That is the tallest peak in the pound. The pound is essentially a circle of mountains surrounding a plateau.

View from Tandera Saddle. You can see the walls of the pound and the mountains behind them.

Climbing to the top of the ridge. We had to use our rock climbing skills to get up there!

At the top of the ridge!

Behind us is St. Mary's Peak. We didn't climb it because it would have added another 2 hours or so to our already 6 hour hike!

View of one of the walls of the pound from the top of the ridge.

We are now on the pounds floor. It was very beautiful! I thought this looked a bit like Rocky Mountain National Park.

Our good friend Mr. Kangaroo. There were heaps of these guys everywhere! You couldn't go 5 feet without seeing another one! We saw way more roos than people!

Flies. They were every where and on every thing. As you can see they were all over Justin's backpack. The really annoying ones would hang out right by the edge of your lip. I won't miss these guys back home!

Another view of the pound. It was massive!

On Sunday morning we hiked Mt. Ohlssen Bagge. It was about a two hour hike. It was beautiful!


The start of the hike up the mountain!

Justin on the top of Mt. Ohlssen Bagge

View from the summit.

This was our nice little hire car. The Toyota Yaris. It served us well. We attempted to see these gorges that were on an unsealed road and we were told they were graded for 2 wheel drives. They weren't. They were the worst unsealed roads ever! We couldn't go faster than like 25 K an hour. We even came upon a little river that we were supposedly able to pass in a 2WD. No way! We had to turn around! Anyway, this little guy, we called the Blue Bullet, made it through the 4WD tracks and got us safely back to sealed roads!

On they way back home we stopped in a place called Burra which was an old mining town. Justin got out and took this picture of the old open mine. At one time it was the biggest in Australia. I really like this picture because of the sky. We were in the middle of a massive thunder storm!

So this weekend we headed off to Wilpena Pound in the Flinder's Ranges. It was beautiful! We left after work on Friday night and came back home on Sunday. It was a full trip, but way worth it! The weather couldn't have been more perfect either. We hope you enjoy all of the pictures. They don't do the pound justice. It was amazing!

This weekend is the famous Adelaide Christmas Pageant (we think). So Bob and Anne are going to take us to experience this famous event! It is usually really hot for the pageant so hopefully this weekend will be cool for us. And Justin has a surprise weekend planned for us and I am excited! I will report back next week to let you know what he did for me! We miss you all!!