Our Home (for now...)

Well I've been slacking on posting photos of where we're living, but today is the day.

We had our house warming party this past weekend, and it was so great to invite everyone into our home and celebrate us being in Australia. We had a nice turn out of about 30 people and Dan and I made a Mexican feast equipped with Enchiladas, Chips and Salsa, Fajitas, Margaritas, Coronas, etc.

Since our house is a little off the beaten path, we had about 10 people stay the night and had a nice breakfast the following morning.

Right now we are living in Redland Bay that is right near the bay water, but a bit of a drive from anything else. With that said, we are really happy with this as our first home in Australia, but aren't too sure if we'll be staying here :)

Coming from Carlsbad where you can walk to restaurants, bars, shops, etc, we feel a little secluded from options, and also secluded from our friends on the Gold Coast and in the city (Brisbane). Our lease is up in June, so we are on the hunt for a house that meets all of our requirements but that's in an area close to the city. It would end up being the same amount of time to work for both Dan and I since it'd be all freeway driving and against traffic, but we'll just wait and see.

Dan and I love our house and the neighborhood, just feel that at this stage in our life we need to live a little closer to life. So as they say, "watch this space" and until then... here's photos of our home now!

 Front of our Home. Our car in the garage :)

 Empty Room right when you walk in the front door to your left that should be a dining room or living room

 Den at the front of the house (or as Dan likes to say, Man's room... and Jackson's favorite room. There's a spare TV in here (not pictured) that showcases sports and only sports apparently. 

Walking into the Living Room/Great Room from the front hall

 The Living Room looking out towards the patio

 A little bookcase in the Living Room with our wedding photo books and some wedding gifts

 Our couch looking onto the kitchen table area

 Our kitchen, massive upgrade from our apartment kitchen!

 Our kitchen table and bar area

the beginning of the hallway from the kitchen that leads to the office, guest room, master bedroom, second bath, and laundry room. These drawings were done by Melissa Gear. Dan gave her photos of the places he's lived and loved in Europe and she turned them into these masterpieces.

 The office

 The hallway decorated with beautiful wedding gifts from Lissa and Kelly/Mauricio (the Estrada's :) )

 The Guest Bedroom. Like it? it's yours! come visit!

 The Master Bedroom. (not pictured is a walk in closet. so good!)

 there's a quick view of the closet. looks simple but what's inside is amazing! so big. this window in the master leads out to the patio

 Master Bathroom. Two sinks so that Dan can brush his teeth with cold water and I can brush mine with hot. #marriagesaver

Looking down the hall back towards the office from the Master Bedroom. This little piece is from Trav. He took photos of a lock he locked on a bridge in Europe. He gave us the two keys to the lock. we threw one in the ocean in Carlsbad, and we're going to throw one here. We're thinking in Bargara.

 Down the hall from the Master is the guest bathroom

 And Guest Toilet

 

 As well as the laundry room! (also an upgrade from the apartment). The door leads to the backyard and Jackson's doggie door is in this door.

 This is our patio (from the door in the Living Room). The wall to the right side is the Master bedroom wall.

 Our Backyard!

So.. just in case that was a little confusing to really see the layout of the house, here's a VERY poor NOT to scale rendering of the layout.

told you it was not the best drawing...

Well there you have it. Our first home in Australia. 

If you like what you see, you're welcome to visit anytime. Really- we'd love to see you.

Thanks to everyone who came to the house warming party. Sorry I'm a slacker and managed to take zero photos of the night. Just means we'll have to do it again sometime. 

As for Dan and I- we're stuck eating black beans and spanish rice for the next 3 weeks, as we may have made a few too many...

I'll leave you all with this...

Jackson is clearly settling in nicely. 

Until next time...

Weekend Away in the Hunter Valley

The past weekend we had the opportunity to go to the Hunter Valley (which is the wine country just north of Sydney, about an hour outside of New Castle) to celebrate Ryan and Amanda's wedding.

The wedding was on Sunday, so we flew into New Castle on Saturday and spent Saturday afternoon and evening with recently married and recently pregnant Dave and Georgia. Georgia works for two wineries in the Hunter Valley, so she was our personal tour guide for the afternoon taking us to all the good spots.

2 fun facts:
1. Have you ever noticed that there are rose bushes planted around the vineyards? If so- that's because roses are very susceptible to plant diseases, so if your rose bushes start to die or look unwell, there's a good chance that row of vines also has some sort of disease. Interesting huh!
2. Wine tasting in the Hunter Valley is mostly free. No need to pay for tastings. Hunter Valley-1 Temecula-0.

So anyways, we first went to a winery called Audrey Wilkinson which is one of the wineries Georgia works at. It's also the label that's on the box of wine Dave and Georgia sent us, so we feel we're pretty good friends with Audrey.

The winery is beautiful and sits on a hill overlooking the valley. The day was amazing, the sun was shining (nice to be out of the Queensland rain), and it was just the right temperature.

Dan and I enjoying the beautiful day

 Georgia our wonderful friend and tour manager for the day

 Audrey Wilkinson Winery

Janice was our wine-tender and took good care of us. However, when I took my camera out to document the action-- they went a little crazy with making sure the winery got some good branding :)

Crazy Janice (on the right holding the sign)

After a Audrey Wilkinson we went down the road to a little winery called Tulloch. We pretty much had the place to ourselves, and the staff felt like Georgia was a celebrity because she worked for the cool wineries. What can we say, we travel with royalty. 

The winery has reissued a very old wine that was done back in the day when the winery first started, Dave was particularly fascinated with the replication of the original label.. it's the little things I guess.

After our winery tour, we went and checked into the accomodation Georgia had organized for us. It was just down the road right in the middle of all the wineries and it was a collection of little cottages each with a living space and bedroom. 

On the property was a couple little shops, a general store, and a really nice restaurant. So after we checked in and cleaned ourselves up, we went over to the restaurant to have dinner.

This is neither here nor there, but entertaining none-the-less... when we were browsing the menu for what we all wanted to order, they had a separate Pizza menu, and just in case you were a real out-of-towner (like FAR out of town), they included the definition of Pizza just in case you were unsure...

Even though we were all properly educated on what Pizza was, we all decided not to get pizza and got a variety of pasta, steak, chicken, and of course some more wine. 

After dinner the boys went to catch up with the other boys in town for the wedding and us girls went to sleep. I don't have photos or details of what happened to the boys that night, but all I can say is- they went to the only pub in town. All the girls in the town were apparently in a large pub fight at some stage in the night. The boys were told NOT to walk home (as it's dark and most drivers are drunk due to being at wineries all day), yet Dan and Dave walked home-- but just to make it safer, they both decided to go home at different times doing a lone walk themselves... boys will be boys.

The next day (Sunday, day of the wedding). We had a nice leisurly morning. We went over to the Hunter Valley Gardens to have some lunch, enjoy some live music and relax before getting ready for the wedding. 

Dave and Dan met up with Ryan for some secret boys talk before the big day (that resulted in no talk at all, but a sort of game of cricket on the tennis courts... again- boys will be boys). Georgia and I and the rest of the girls just stood in the background at the house where everyone was staying and enjoyed the sun and good company. 

Later in the afternoon we went back to our accomodation and got ready for the 4:30 wedding. 

The wedding was at a winery with vineyards all around, a beautiful little chapel and then a large building for the reception. 

Amanda's colors were a light dusty pink and white. Everything looked amazing with the colors of the dark woods of the winery, the light pink, lace everywhere, and white accents. Amanda did a great job! (you too Ryan.. glad you showed up dressed for the day...)

 All cleaned up and ready for the wedding

The boys waiting for the arrival of the girls and inside the chapel that was open to the vineyards and the outside air.

After the ceremony they had some champagne in the courtyard and then we went into the hall for the reception. The reception was a really fun time. Great speeches, good company, nice music. All in all it was a really great night. Amanda and Ryan looked amazing, and we were so happy to be a part of their special day.

 The Bride and Groom looking stunning

 Inside the reception venue they had a fireplace and all these glass drops were hanging from the top with tealight candles in them. It looked so pretty

 Some of the inside decor details. Our names were on little cards in corks. Amanda had put lace around all the little glass vases. There was a massive melted candle display. The room was such a nice level of dark and warm light with wine barrels and candles everywhere.

The cake looked beautiful and tasted AMAZING. Seriously. so good.

Dan and I took the day off on Monday since the wedding was Sunday night. Monday morning we had a nice breakfast and then packed up to head out. 

Our flight left at 2pm, so we had some time to kill and Georgia and Dave weren't too sick of us yet, so we went into New Castle for one last drink and time to relax before getting back to reality.

We went to a little spot on the harbor and enjoyed the sunshine and company one last time.

Dan, Dave, and sunshine

Georgia and I

We had such a nice weekend and look forward to catching up with everyone again soon (especially the newly Mr. and Mrs. Williams).

until next time...