On the road again!

Tomorrow we leave Melbourne and begin our long journey home!

Here's a few pictures of our stay and a list of where we will be headed in the near future:

April 1 - Off to Perth to Visit Kiri and Doug!
April 7 - A trip to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef
April 14 - Sydney!
April 17 - Off to bali for 3 weeks of sun and surf!

More to come, hope you can keep up (moms)!

One.

This is going to sound incredibley cliche, but I cannot believe how fast our first year has gone! Looking back, we can both say with confidence it has been our favourite year of marriage...EVER! haha...
We went out for a lovely dinner at Big Mouth, which is the place I work. We reserved a table in the dining room and were treated so amazingly by all my friends there! (And, not to mention, we got HOOKED UP when the bill came!)
Afterwards, we went down the street to one of the famed cake shops on Acland Street and enjoyed a cappuccino with our decadent desserts.
Thanks to everyone for wishing us a happy anniversary!

Brad: part 2

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This time Brad flew down to Melbourne for a trip down the Great Ocean Road. Two tents, all of our clothes, a stove and cooler, and 2 surf boards all jammed into a tiny Hyudai Getz! You can see in the photos how well surfing went for Mike... that's me being spit out of the ocean onto the sand!

We finally saw some Kangaroos and Koalas! Trust me, koalas aren't that exciting... they simply don't move at all. And the views were incredible all along the coast. Combine all that with Cappachinos, cooking on a portable stove and a little berry picking and you get a great little trip!

Blog 'Bout Buff, Bronzed Brad and Byron Bay

So, in case any of you have been reading the "International News" section of your papers, you may have read about the bush fires that have raveged a lot of Victoria in South Australia. To ease the minds of anyone who may not have heard news from us the past few weeks, we are fine and central Melbourne hasn't experienced any of what the media is calling a "national disaster".
While Victoria is experiencing a major drought, New South Wales (the State Byron Bay is located in) happens to be getting more rainfall than ever before. In fact, some of the northern parts of the state are flooded and are experiencing the complete opposite of Victoria. Hence, while in Byron Bay, it rained and rained and then was sunny for a while and then rained some more.
Having said that, we did have a fantastic time visiting with Brad and his super chill posse at 2D Pacific Vista. Being the bad reporters we are, we have no photos of the actual house Brad lives in. (Sorry to our moms who are the only ones who care about looking pictures like that!) We spent lots of time on the beach, playing in the surf and visited what is officially considered "the eastern most point of mainland Australia"!

The Tennis and the Heat Wave

We are getting pretty settled here in Melbourne now and so the posts have slowed down. I thought I would post a few pics of January though. The Australian Open Tennis took over the town for 2 weeks, and we went to the Tennis twice! For 20 bucks we get front row seats on world-class matches and get to join the party all day! Although... it did take place over the hottoest week Melbourne has seen in a hundred years! I know we won't get much sympathy from home, but 3 straight days over 43 degrees without AC or even a fan is hard to handle! Never thought we'd look forward to a cool change of 36!

Our Mini-Trip to Phillip Island

Before Christmas, Mike and I were talking about feeling a bit of the travel itch. It's been almost two months since we firmly planted ourselves in Melbourne! So, the week before Christmas we booked some cheap accomodations, rented a car and drove the two hours it takes to get to Phillip Island. I have to say, I got a little excited packing my backpack again! The poor thing has been cooped up in the closet for so long.
The main attraction on the island is the PENGUINS! Every single night the penguins swim to shore and get in these packs and they cross the beach together! There are literally hundreds and hundreds of them. The penguins are so scared of crossing the beach that if something freaks them out, the whole group will turn around and make a b-line back to the ocean until they feel brave enough to try again. It is the cutest thing I have ever seen.
Unfortunately, you will only get to imagine what this looks like because the stupid rangers don't let you take photos! The silly penguins are apparently scared of that too. But please, enjoy the other photos we took!

Christmas!!

We hear that we missed out on one of the whitest Christmas' ever back home. All we got was a nice and sunny 30 degree day! We actually got ridiculed because we spent most of it indoors: opening presents, having breakfast and watching It's a Wonderful Life. We made it out to the park around 6 pm to play with our new gifts and have a good old fashioned Christmas Dinner... Mango Chicken, Steak and Prawns with mashed potatoes and asparagus! It was delicious!

We did miss our families but had a great first Christmas together!