Our New House!

For those of you who want to see pictures of the house we just signed up to buy in Houston . . .

I Can't Wait!

For those of you who haven't heard yet . . . Our overseas adventures are coming to a close, and we are heading back to Houston in a few months. As you might have guessed, this comes with a bit of mixed feelings. We have really enjoyed these past 5 years, had so many fabulous adventures, and met so many fantastic people. But of course, we are excited to go back home and see friends and family that have probably forgotten about us by now! ;) The thing I didn't expect, though. . . now that the realization is setting in that we are going home. . . I have started thinking of all of these things that I am SO looking forward to. Things I haven't been too bothered about before now, but now, they are things I just can't wait for! I thought you may be entertained by what been going through my brain. Stuff you probably take for granted and would probably be frightened at how much I am going to enjoy them. :)

So my top 10 list in no particular order . . .

1) Tex-Mex (of course!)

2) Beer that doesn't cost $60 a case (and that is just for Budweiser!)

3) Low fat potato chips that don't taste like cardboard

4) Central air conditioning

5) Garbage disposals (and what's even more annoying is that the few people I know who actually have them here, don't even know what to do with them!!)

6) Tv shows less than 6 months old

7) People driving on the CORRECT side of the road (actually I have gotten used to driving on the left side, so it actually terrifies me a bit to go back. But I thought this is something I should be excited about. :) )

8) Right turns on a red light

9) The temperature being less than 80 degrees F at Christmas time

10) Sitting in my own seats at a Texans football game (yes, win or lose! and unfortunately mostly lose. . .)

I'm sure there are more, but I think this will do for now . . .

Miscellaneous Australia

Well, we are getting near the end of our time in Australia, so the adventures we go on are getting fewer and farther between. Not to mention that I think we have been here long enough that it all seems so normal, so there isn't much to say about it all. Therefore, I decided to just create a blog with some random pictures from our last two trips, to entertain those who are bored enough to look. The first trip was out to Western Australia, a few hours away from Perth. We went to a wedding and used it as an opportunity to see some of the sights. Minus the vineyards of the region, I think the pictures tell you that there weren't really any sights to see. Jason climbed up a really tall tree and we saw some beaches. Yep, that was it. The second trip was out to a town called Girraween, which is about a 3 hour drive southwest of Brisbane. Really it was just an excuse to get out of town (or we are really getting desperate for places to go). In any event, we went to go see a whole bunch of boulders. Yes, boulders. And I'm sure there is a good reason for the existence of these boulders that our geologist friends could tell us all about, but alas, they were just boulders to us. Really, though, the more exciting part of the trip was when we came across the notorious Rabbit Proof Fence. Since we have been here, we have heard all about this fence that was built in all parts of Australia, but we had never actually seen it. Well, now that boxed has been ticked. See . . . back in the days of the settlers, they thought it would be a good idea to amuse themselves by importing rabbits over to hunt. Well, it turns out they didn't have the saying "to breed like rabbits" back then because they apparently didn't realize the little suckers could multiple faster than they could shoot them. And since Australia had no natural predators of the rabbits, the rabbits ended up eating up a good chunk of the country, which is one of the reasons why the middle part is so barren. After their efforts, to import other animals and disease to kill off the rabbits, didn't work, they ended up building a fence through the country to at least keep them from eating up the rest of the country. And that is how the Europeans managed to destroy Australia (and make the Australian customs force so anal retentive about bringing things into the country!)

Tasmania - the Adventures

So what does one do in Tasmania, you ask. Well, before we went, it was described to us as the poor man's New Zealand. It turns out that was a pretty good description of it. And that means, you look at beautiful scenery (alas not as nice as New Zealand) and do outdoorsy stuff. For us, this meant a nice little boat trip around some gorgeous beaches. A boat trip because it was way too cold to just go hang out on one of these beaches. A hike to see Wineglass Bay, which didn't look like a wineglass at all. And then some quad biking! Being the weenie I am, this was a little outside of my comfort zone, but once I got the hang of it, I really enjoyed it. I'm sure I didn't go as fast as Jason would have preferred, but at least I went, right? Now, I would like to make it clear that the pictures on this blog are a bit misleading. For some unknown reason, the bearer of the camera that day (not me!) only seemed to be ready to take pictures of me when I was getting stuck in the mud. This is not to say that HE never got stuck in the mud. He was just smart enough to only hand over the camera when he wasn't getting stuck! Argh! But the most notable adventure of the trip was a very unexpected one. We had been driving for a couple hours on some pretty windy roads, and came across a big tree that had fallen down, blocking the road. Our only option was to turn around and drive about 2 hours back to find a different way around. This did not make us happy people! Then, a guy pulled up on the other side of the road. Jason joked and said with a smile, "what are the odds this guy has a chainsaw in the back of his truck." But sure enough the guy walked to the back of his truck and pulled out a little chainsaw! I guess if you are a local and this happens to you once, you never go without a chainsaw again! (As a side note, the guy made Jason take pictures of the whole thing on his camera because apparently his wife never believes the stories of why he comes home so late . . .)

Tasmania - the Wildlife

The latest trip was a trip to Tasmania. Did you know Tasmania actually exists, and it's not just part of an adjective to describe a weird little animal on the Road Runner cartoon? And yes, Tasmanian devils are actually real creatures. Unfortunately, of all the wildlife we saw, we didn't get to see any. :( There aren't many left in the wild these days, and a good chunk of those that do exist have been pretty sick. Oh, well. We did get to see some interesting creatures, though. So this blog is for those of you who have any interest in weird animals. First, the wombat . . . the "it's so ugly it's cute" creature. Fortunately for us, Tasmania must be lacking some serious predators because none of these animals seemed too concerned that we were getting up close and personal. Then, the pademelon . . . the squirrel of the kangaroo family as far as I can tell (the size of a squirrel, but hops like a kangaroo). Next, you have to look really, really close . . . there is a little joey in this one's pouch! You are actually looking at a wallabie, not a kangaroo, but same difference as far as all of us are concerned. (It's just a bit smaller.) And lastly, the wallabie that was really annoyed we didn't have any food. Despite the numerous signs suggesting that you not feed the animals, I'm guessing that this guy had experienced a few exceptions to that rule.

Big Rock in the Middle of Nowhere

Well, we got sick of everyone from back home asking us if we had been to Ayers Rock yet, so we bit the bullet and finally went. We had been postponing it since we got here because we wanted to make sure we got to all of the other “exciting” places Australia has on offer . . .why would I want to fly to the middle of nowhere to see a big rock? (For those of you who have no concept of how big Australia is . . . We flew south to Sydney for an hour. Then, hopped on another plane west for 3 HOURS to Ayers Rock. And we were still nowhere near the western coast of

Australia!) I don’t regret our decision to go to all of these other places before going to Ayers Rock. Honestly, before now, I’m not sure we would have really appreciated it anyway. Ok, I’m not going to lie. It is actually a big rock in the middle of nowhere, but what a fantastic rock! I’m no geologist, and despite my attempt at these blogs, I’m not really one for words, so unfortunately, I can’t describe it to you and do it justice. It’s just one you are going to have to experience for yourself if you ever get over to these parts. What I can say is that after living here and reading some history of Australia, it was pretty cool to literally experience the middle of nowhere (real live wild dingos and all!). And Ayers Rock really did have something about it that was quite amazing. The other

surprising thing that no one seems to tell you is that Ayers Rock isn’t the only big rock in this middle of nowhere place. There is actually another rock formation called the Olgas. (And yes, I am leaving out all of the indigenous terms for all of these rocks. If you know what I am talking about, then you know the names already anyway!) I actually liked the Olgas a bit better. There was just something more to them, I think. Wait a minute . . . seriously, I can’t believe I have rambled on this much about a couple of big rocks! What I should have just said was . . . “Ayers Rock. Tick. Done it.”