Homeward (and Asia) Bound

We wrapped up 2010 with a trip back to the US to see our amazing family and friends! I can't think of anything more wonderful... except for a stopover in Thailand on the way back to Australia to ring in the new year! Yeah, that happened as well. Case in point, we had a wonderful Christmas vacation!

We left the summer heat (and rain- flooding post to follow) in Brisbane to return home and celebrate Christmas in the winter, like its intended. Santa, Christmas trees, egg nog and (fake) snow do not unify quite as well with the holiday season when its 105 degrees outside. Australia is smart to promote the surfing Santa. As soon as we stepped off the plane in Los Angeles, I made a b-line to starbucks and ordered an egg nog latte. Yummy. Don't judge, I only get it once a year (sometimes twice).

We spent our first days back in Texas hanging out with many of our amazing friends. Huge thanks to our wonderful friends who opened your homes to us, shared your cars with us, and allowed me to dance in your living room. Yes, this happened. And I love you gals even more because of it.

Doing what I do best. No, not singing. Close. Dancing.

Being an awesome dancer is hard work.

Outside of my amazing dancing spotshots, I did a terrible job with the camera throughout our Christmas time in the US. Lesson learned. Trust me, I'm more sad about it than anyone. Looks like I'll have to vividly detail out the remainder of our trip so you can create mental pictures of the fun times we had. Our fun (dancing) times in Dallas had to come to an end. Our families were calling. And some of our family members were calling us from London. A very snowy, snowed-in London. Jeff's mom and step dad were struck by terribly bad (or perhaps terribly awesome) luck and had to spend Christmas and the days surrounding in London. I pulled this picture from Mom S's facebook. Looks miserable. Only kidding Mom S. We missed you more than you'll ever know!

We were able to spend some wonderful, quality time with Jeff's grandparents. Sure do love and miss you both! We also shared several fantastic days and nights with Jeffs father, step mother, and siblings. We enjoyed every minute with all of you. Thank you for everything!

We departed one Texas town and journeyed to another. We arrived in New Braunfels on Christmas Eve, just in time to celebrate with my family. Again, we had such a wonderful time, and I miss and love you all more than you'll ever know. Fortunate for me, I was able score a couple photos of Jeff and our adorable niece, Caroline. Can you say Best Friends Forever and Ever. Uncle Jeffy & Caroline. It warmed my heart. Quite possibly the cutest combination of two individuals ever created. Personal opinion of course.

Merry Christmas. Now we're off to Thailand...

2010 catch-up: Our perfect weekend in Melbourne

We've arrived! And right in time for the annual Melbourne Cup Horse Races (think fancier Kentucky Derby). This was our first trip to Melbourne and it was perfect. This city is known for its "four seasons in one day" and that's exactly what we experienced. We arrived on Friday night and enjoyed the evening out with some friends. We then woke up Saturday and got appropriately dressed for our day at the races. We attended Derby Day, which is the day of racing for the younger horses, and more importantly ladies, black and white day. Please check out the amazingly perfect shoes I found for Jeff at a second hand store! If only I could have found a similar pair of heels for myself the weekend really would have been perfect. Regardless, I'm very proud of this purchase. Thankfully I did find an extremely large hat, perfect for the races.

Got to love perfect finds at second hand stores

We began the day with clear skies and a light breeze. Perfect outdoor, race day weather. Also a perfect day to dress in all black and white and wear an extremely large hat.

Jeff and I at the train station headed to the races.

As we arrived to the race track, the weather was getting a bit hotter, however dark grey clouds were looming (aka day ruining clouds) in the distance. Quite quickly, 'distance' became straight overhead, and then 'straight overhead' quickly became permanent cloud cover and rain for the remainder of the weekend. Perfect day for non-stop rain. Absolutely perfect.

We powered through the rain, thankfully finding shelter under various, random tents throughout the race grounds. I also found my boss and co-worker under one of the tents. I was amazed to actually run into someone I know... as that's very rare for us, especially in a different city. This provided for a good time, and I got to spend some quality (drinking) time with my boss. Perfect.

Jeff's perfect outfit. Sans the rain poncho.

More friends, more rain, more beer

Enduring the rain... cheering on our horse, Americain. Appropriate, I know. Irony, its a French horse.

A picture of our horse, not winning.

All in all we had a wonderful time in Melbourne and a wonderful day at the racetracks... albeit the horse we bet on didn't win. Either way it was a trip, I'd say, that was close to perfect.

2010 catch-up: Anniversary trip to Barossa Valley

My half-hearted blogging efforts have finally caught up with me. There's so much going on right now in Brisbane and our lives, but I still have a lot to catch you up on... like from 2010. Yikes. So, in efforts to bring you to present day, I must quickly take you back to October 2010- and to our AMAZING trip to the Barossa Valley for our anniversary. To remind you, for my birthday, Jeff surprised me and told me he had booked us a trip to Barossa, so I had been anxiously anticipating this trip for 3 months time. Let me assure you, it was well worth the wait. Barossa was absolutely magnificent! We had an incredible time and I discovered a sincere love for Shiraz... and have therefore been drinking it ever since ;-)

We flew to Adelaide, which is the main city about an hour outside of the Barossa Valley. See map below for better understanding. We spent one night in Adelaide, which was lovely... spent the evening exploring the city and dined at a wonderful little restaurant with--- you guessed it--- delicious Shiarz from the Barossa Valley.

Jeff opted for a martini?!?

I ordered wine, duh.

The next morning we woke up and departed for the wine country. Jeff hired a driver for the day, who picked us up at 10am from our hotel (an adorable little bed and breakfast) and took us all over the Barossa Valley. We visited 8 different wineries and 2 cheese shops... not sure if I could describe a more perfect day. We had two more days in Barossa/Adelaide, so naturally we spent the second day visiting more wineries and cheese shops and wrapped up our trip with a drive through a lovely little German town and a final stop at the coast. For any of our visitors, planned or potential, I highly recommend stopping in at one of the Australian wineries and will happily volunteer to join you :-) See some of the highlights below...

Our arrival into Barossa Valley

It continues to get more beautiful...First stop- St Hallets

3rd stop- Two Hands

This is for Jeff's noze-brother friends. Recognize this disguise?

First cheese stop

Why thank you, I'll have one of each

And here it is... Jacob's Creek

Jeff at Jacobs Creek. Sad to say, definitely not our favorite.

Jeff being a great sport, trying a glass of 'Father-in-Law'

At the end of day 1...

Watching the sunset at our bed and breakfast

Fast forward to day 3... stop in the German town for a very large beer

Final stop at the coast.

Saying farewell to a wonderful trip...

New Year, New Commitments, Better Blogging

Happy 2011 to everyone! Jeff and I rang in the new year on the beaches of Thailand (more details to follow in a later post), and I committed to him, and to all of the followers of our blog, that in 2011 I'd be better about updating the blog. We have lots of planned and potential trips this year, along with several confirmed and potential visitors... so this should be a fun year of blogging.

Here's to 2011 and my beach side promises. I've listed my other (million) new years resolutions along with Jeff's (two) at the bottom of the page... one guess who's the over-committer in this relationship...

Amy's New Years Resolutions

1. Stop complaining/self diagnosing (never going to happen, but I did this for Jeff)

2. Update the blog more

3. Join the gym and do exercise outside of just running

4. Learn to cook red meat (again, for Jeff)

5. Remember and acknowledge all loved ones birthday's

6. Be more diligent with writing back my US pen pal (CW)

7. Be more adventurous

8. Stop picking at myself (split ends, biting my nails... oops)

9. Be better with taking pictures/posting them

10. Live in the moment and take time to relax

11. Reach out to a different friend each month that I haven't spoken to in a while

12. Enjoy Australia and maximize each day here

Jeff's New Years Resolution(s)

1. Better work life balance

2. Remember and acknowledge all loved ones birthdays (sound familiar?!? And lets guess who will remind Jeff of birthdays and actually mail the card...)

Cheers to 2011!