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!