Home Sweet Home

sorry that i seem to have skipped over hawaii entirely and rarely told you that we were even in fiji but i think i just got a little depressed that i couldn't post pictures hehe...SO here are 2 of my 3 favorite videos for you to make up for the lack of pictures!!! he then crossed right behind our car and made a run for the fenceline...and i do mean run! :)

great ocean road here we come!

our adventure begins down the great ocean road today! we have high hopes that the hotel will have FREE wireless internet and i can get some pictures up but who knows :) if not maybe in fiji or hawaii??? hopefully more soon to come! :)

Back In Melbourne!!!

So we drove into melbourne two nights ago...we spent our nights from sydney to melbourne in some definitely interesting places...some were good interesting and some were not so good :) we saw a lot of coastline since we took the scenic way which was full of green grass and ocean and sometimes thunderstorms and rain :) A lightening storm was BEAUTIFUL up in sydney and then a bit trickled down as we drove. We stopped at Phillip Island which is were the "penguin parade" is. We walked over the island's tip which has gulls with chicks this time of year, sealions, gorgeous scenery and a couple little penguins curled up in their holes in the bank! We drove up through melbourne to St. Kilda (a beachy area south of the city) and stayed there to be ready to watch the tennis which started the following morning. We watched is pretty much the entire day yesterday and dad is going back today to watch again! supposed to be 98 degrees so I decided to stay home and enjoy my mild 30 degrees inside ;) Roddick won! i don't know what to say as far as the other americans...not many of them did so well considering a LOT of tourists watch and not so many americans so the game we watched between a german and a states guy was a little one sided! at one time I was the only one that was clapping ha...it feels awkward! let me tell you!!! :) Ginepri lost...querrey lost...dent lost...but that was to another american ;) I'll be relaxing in melbourne for the next couple of days and then we'll be going down the great ocean road on friday until Australia day (the 26th) when we fly to fiji! :) How appropriate, flying in on new years eve and flying out on australia day ha :) No wireless internet on my laptop so no pictures for you but I'll post them lata :) See you soon!

On the road again!!!

on our way down to melbourne over the next couple of days! hopefully we'll stay at a cheapy hotel with free internet hehe :) i'll keep ya posted! :)

Finally in Sydney!

The rest of the drive down to Sydney was exactly what I hoped for…MOBS of roos! It seemed like they were all over! In daylight which wasn’t normal, and in huge huge groups! It was so much fun pulling off and doing some kangaroo stalking :) After finding our hotel miraculously in the dark we arrived in Sydney, and just in time for the festival! After our first night at our gorgeous Courtyard in North Ryde, a suburb a bit north of Sydney, we decided to venture into town. We stopped off to see our downtown Marriott in the city to discover that the aussies like their toll roads and that we were just in time for opening day of the Sydney Festival! :) There were activities and music and food and entertainment all day long and then Grace Jones would be performing at 10 on the main stage. The only reason I knew at all who she was was because one of the “Americas next top models” had to dress up as her for a photo shoot and she kind of scared me but dad seemed to be excited since she was apparently a “Bond Girl” So we hung out down town and ate some food. Nothing much was going on so we waited for Grace Jones. An outside arena…reminded me of the Gorge and made me miss all my friends…erg! I hate that! :) so she finally came on and scared the crap out of me and wasn’t that good of a singer or a performer sooo we left We made our way back home and decided to watch tennis the next day being all citied out for the moment…the first…and pretty much the only tennis we saw were the bryan brothers…of course playing on a nothing court just warming up so we walked right up to the fence…it’s so funny how at the maximum only about 25-30 people were watching them at a given time…but they played amazing tennis as always and we’re goin back tomorrow for more! J Everyone knows how I love them but as usual they had their token blonde girl with them and I think she was aussie?!?!?! I’m so over it except for Mike really really really reminds me of a certain someone that made me miss home too hehe I’m trying to shove those feelings away knowing I’ll see most of you in a couple weeks and be back to reality :) Thinking of Sheely’s the week before good ol’ valentines day helps me relax a bit more here knowing when I get back it’ll be HELL with not much time to adjust :) Good Morning Sheely’s Floral this is Erin…It’s a great day at the Fairfield Inn and Suites by Marriott in Burlington, this is Erin how may I help you???...It’s gonna be a lot of long days with little rest :) I MUST MAKE THE MOST OF MY TIME IN OZ!!! so stop making me miss you guys! :) I do loved the randomness of Sydney though :) This is the largest "Pyrophone Juggernaut" :) They were amazing!!! See yall in a couple of weeks!!! I think I'll be back :)

Internet is a hot commodity!!!

so sorry i haven't posted yet! so where to start...lets see...i got home to pack after work and as soon as i pulled my stuff out the power went out at my house :) i definitely took that as a sign that i needed to sleep :) hehe so i went to sleep and woke up "early" in the morning to pack it all up. We got off to the airport and after a delay in seattle we got to la for the long haul...the trip was long :) expected...14 hours i think from la to sydney and then we had to fly back up to brisbane after that since we had just passed over it on our way to sydney...kind of depressing but whatever :) We checked into the Marriott Courtyard at surfers paradise and Kristy got to come down for a day so YAY! it's been too long since i've heard an australian accent :) she got to finally try dr. pepper that we've brought from the states since there is none to be found here! she actually said it wasn't terrible which was a different response than I had imagined so that was a success!!!we preceded to eat ice cream and go swimming...big mistake! the waves took off our sunscreen and our backs got horribly burnt! mine is just starting to peel today but oh my gosh! yes yes i know betta...yes yes i did this last time...bla bla bla but i really did try hard not to this time! i hate being burnt! so the next couple days were very low key and lovely :) it's the perfect temperature and we even saw our first pademelon up at Lamington National park...fun parrots that sit on your heads...especially when you have food :)

STUPID magpies are still around but at least it's not November which is key attacking season! :) all seems to be well in oz...crazy drivers but what's new? :) so the last day at the gold coast I decided to brave the burn and take a surf lesson...NEVER AGAIN will i do that :) but it was a great experience ha...i stood up quickly to fall off but at least i stood up :) a LOT of effort for those surfers tho...so MANY PROPS to those guys...i was out of breath definitely and it was only a 2 hour lesson! battling the waves just to get out there is no easy task! So we left the gold coast and drove as much as we could south on our way to sydney...forgot about the 1 hour time change from there to new south wales so i am all sorts of confused now :) all cleaned up after the bucket of sand i dumped out of my swimsuit :) (swimmers as they call them here) :) At a trip to mcdonalds (mackas) they asked if we wanted our chicken sandwich "seared" which was heared by us as seeded...but that was just funny as we both looked at the poor guy without a clue to what he had just said :) mcdonalds by the way was the only place at the gold coast that had free internet! :) you didn't even have to buy anything :) at our hotel the internet was 9.95 an hour...and 249.99 if you wanted it for the week...australian of course but it doesn't make it that much betta :) and that's to use your own computer!!! craaaaaaazy! So now we're staying at a little motel in Grafton that has free internet :) leave it up to the little guys to offer all the services and more :) whatever!!! you all know how i feel about that :) i miss my free breakfast (brekky) and complimentary internet!!! ok ok i'm done griping :) MY marriott is really the best one as i learn from the more I stay at in other places :) YOU GUYS ROCK BURLINGTON!!! wahoo! :) the one we just checked out of had never seen a marriott gift card before :) how odd! even the gm or whoever she took it to...it was definitely a process :) SOOO on our way headed south! on to sydney which will be another interesting thing to find internet so maybe this will be it for a while...but hopefully not!!!
And you can't forget the horse poo for sale! some things in life are just priceless don't you think? I'll keep you posted as best I can but on the horse poo note i think it's time for me to go! :) Happy New Year everyone!!! :)

procrastination at it's finest!

so it's December 30th at 10pm and I won't be home until midnight and we leave tomorrow morning around 10...have i packed...no...i'll keep ya posted ;)