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...

Valentine's Weekend on the Gold Coast

Dan and I celebrated our 6 month married anniversary as well as Valentine's Day the weekend of the 15th with a night away on the Gold Coast.

Originally when we were looking to move out here, we wanted to move on the Gold Coast, but since we both got jobs about 45 mins north of there, it just didn't make much sense, but it's a beautiful place to visit on the weekends.

Dan arranged a nice night out on the town with dinner and dancing and we stayed at a hotel in Mermaid waters.

We went to this Thai restaurant where you walk onto this platform and the climb down into your table, so it seems like you're sitting on the floor but you're actually tucked down into your own little cave. The food was really good and the presentation was really cool. Dan got a curry and it came in a dish with it's own candle keeping it warm. It was BYO (which a lot of restaurants here are), so we were able to bring in our own bottle of wine for dinner.

 Here you can see the platform you walk on and the table tucked below.

 

Here's another look at the platform you step onto and the climb into your table cave. Wearing a dress that night was not the easiest choice. 

 There was a table across from us that wanted a photo of them, so we offered to take it. They didn't ask us initially to take the photo because they didn't want to interrupt us as they felt we were gazing into each other's eyes (I probably had something in my eye..) Then they insisted on taking a photo of us, but instead of taking a normal photo they forced us to do the "gazing look" again.. so that's this...

 This was the presentation of Dan's curry dish.

As you can see, he was  fan.

After dinner, we walked over to Jupiter's Casino to play some slot machines and go to a bar where there is live music. I ended up winning $30 on a slot machine, so I bought the next round of drinks.

There was this awesome bar in the casino that only served specialty drinks in mason jars, so I got one with grapefruit vodka, chilli flakes, pineapple and lime I think. It was so good and I love the mason jar. Oh and it also had crunchy ice which is the best!

In case you were interested to see it...

After we got our drinks, we headed to the bar with live music and did a little dancing. 

 This was the small live music bar. There was no one in there when we first walked in but then it filled up fast!

The night ended in a funny way when I asked Dan "did you want to go?" only to see if he was happy to stay, and with that we were out the door because he thought I said "I want to go". So we take a cab back to the hotel and when we get inside we were talking about how much fun we were both having and then realize that he thought I said I wanted to go, so we left but in reality neither of us actually wanted to go. 

We contemplated going back, but decided it was too much effort, and it's better to end the night on a high note. 

So if you're ever on the Gold Coast, I recommend the mason jar bar and the other bar with live music. It was a lot of fun. Oh and Dan arranged all of it as a surprise. nice work huh!

The next day we went and had a nice breakfast in Burleigh Heads (beautiful area of the Gold Coast) before heading to Ryan and Katie's for Sienna's 2nd birthday party. 

We found this great little cafe called the Red Frog cafe. We got amazing tea and coffee and a nice breakfast.

Chai Tea Latte and Vanilla Latte. So good!

After breakfast we went to Ryan and Katie's. Originally the party was supposed to be at the beach, but I've failed to mention that it was POURING all weekend so heading the beach in the rain and wet grounds was probably not the best idea, so Ryan and Katie moved the party to their house, but kept the beach theme.

They and their friends and family had made the cutest snacks and desserts including little cookie people laying on towels with umbrellas and a massive cupcake stand where all the cupcakes looked like pales filled with sand. Friends with kids- you should do this!

 These were little candy bars with Smartie (like M&Ms) wheels and teddy gram drivers

 These little guys were laying on fruit roll ups with licorice to rest their heads on and to put the umbrella in.

 This is the amazing sand castle cupcake stand. so clever right!?!?

The party was great and we were able to catch up with a lot of friends and celebrate Sienna turning two and also to see Katie close to welcoming number 2!

I have also failed to mention that we left Jackson to stay overnight at home all by himself (such a big boy). So after the party we were anxious to get back home and see what damage he might have made for us. 

To our surprise (why should we be surprised...), Jackson was a perfect angel and VERY happy to see us. 

We spent the afternoon playing with him and relaxing getting ready for a busy work week.

Overall it was a really great weekend and a great celebration of our first 6 months of marriage. (Don't worry, we don't plan on celebrating every 6 months of marriage, but given all of the changes in the past 6, we thought this one was a good one to celebrate).

until next time....

Weekend, a time for crafts!

This isn't going to be the most earthshaking entry, but I wanted to share some completed crafts with you all (mostly you Cori...).

This weekend, Dan and I were treated with a weekend with pretty much no obligations, so we took the time to relax and get some stuff done around the house.

Our dear dog, Jackson, has been a little crazy when we get home from work, so in efforts to have an enjoyable evening Friday night we decided to take him for a walk at this dog beach area I found on the bay in Cleveland.

 The park was really nice and after Jackson ran around with a couple dogs we decided to push him a little more and keep going on the path.

Then Saturday Jackson had a grooming appointment (which went really well), so Dan and I had a nice 4 free hours to go to breakfast and run some errands getting the necessary items for our afternoon crafts.

I had got a Living Social voucher for a place called Coffee Delish in Cleveland. We both got really nice meals and drinks and planned out our day.

Our main craft goal for the weekend was to finish this bar/shelf thing I've been dreaming of. I found a photo on Pintrest months ago, and then Amanda made a wine rack bookcase that looked great, so I really wanted to get ours finished to see if it lived up to my hopes and dreams.

Basically we wanted to turn some shelves into a unit that holds wine bottles, glasses, and liquor. We already bought and built the shelves, but we needed to paint the wine bottle holders we bought as well as finish the backing on the top part of the shelving unit.

So we were on a hunt for wallpaper and backing for the shelves.

Apparently wallpaper is harder to find than I thought, and Dan had the idea that maybe we could use fabric instead of wallpaper. So we went to a fabric store and Dan found the perfect fabric (he's turning out to be pretty useful isn't he...).

We got the fabric, then went and got the backing we needed as well as spray paint for the racks, picked up Jackson and went home to start the project.

To our surprise, our project turned out to go perfectly smooth (which never happens) and we're really happy with the end result.

The above image shows our craft in its finished form :). We spray painted the wine racks and nice grey to match our couch and then put the fabric backing on the top half.

The above is an up-close photo of the fabric backing. I really wanted a nice yellow, and this color is perfect! the print is little pears which I feel is cuter than plain dots :)

I was so impressed with us, that I decided to push my craft limits and start/finish a project I've wanted to do with the flowers from my wedding boquet.

I had wanted to dry out my wedding bouquet and then take all the petals and put them in some sort of form in a shadow box to then hang on the wall and have forever. However, I hung my bouquet upside down when we left for our honeymoon and due to the hot and humid summer we had in San Diego, when we got back from our honeymoon my bouquet was pretty much all rotten. So I salvaged the petals I could and took the fabric and finishings used by the florist and brought them with in hopes to come up with something. And since I somehow managed to get the petals into Australia, which I'm pretty sure is illegal because it's a plant... I thought now I have to do something with it because they've made it this far.

So I decided to buy an "O" (for O'Brien for any of you slower people out there...) and glue the petals and finishings to it.

Overall, I feel pretty happy with it, and sits on the dresser in our room.

We now are looking for more crafty projects since the first two went relatively well. Watch out world- we're taking over!

Stay tuned for more, and I swear in my next post I'll be putting up photos of the whole house. Just need to do some finishing touches :)

Until then...

Australia Day... one to remember

So for those of you who don't know, Australia Day is January 26th. It's the day Australia became a colony and it's celebrated much like 4th of July in the US, just without fireworks.

Another big part of the day is this radio station here called Triple J plays their "Hottest 100" countdown playing the top 100 songs of the year that were voted by listeners. It's a lot of good new music and it's a pretty indie/alternative station. It's a really massive deal here and everyone can vote on the songs online and then they have the countdown on Australia day. The Bundy crew always has a big Australia Day party and then people all vote at the party for the top 10 songs.

It's the middle of summer here, so we all thought it'd be a great idea to rent Dan's Grandad's beach house down at Bargara for Australia Day and get a large group of people up there for a big party. So that's been the plan for a long time and all the Bundy crew plus around 10 of us from Brisbane/Gold Coast were driving up for it.

A few days before the weekend, we all looked at the weather and saw it was going to rain. We were all bummed but hoped it would still move out of the weather system.

However, on Friday as we all started to drive up, we were getting constant updates from our dear friend Dee who works for Queensland Roads to see if any roads were closed because it was raining that bad. We drove in non-stop pouring down wind and rain until we finally made it to the beach, and we were all just happy to be there.

Come Saturday morning- the rain is still coming down in sheets and there was so much wind and no real sign of it stopping. There was another storm just 2 hours north that was making it's way down to us.

It rained so much that many people (including Judy and Shane) weren't able to make it to the beach for the day because the roads were flooded, and then the tornados started...

I'm pretty sure there has never been one tornado in that area, and that day there were 3. Luckily, where we were wasn't affected but very close by roofs were flying off, cars were turning upside down, etc.

We were all safe at the house, it was very wet, but we all still had a really good time.

Then came Sunday morning... and guess what- it was still raining. Our biggest concern became all of us getting back into Bundaberg (only 15 minute drive away) so that we didn't get stranded on the beach. Some of the group tried several times but each time found water too high to cross in normal cars. (Monday was a public holiday, so we were hoping to get into Bundaberg sometime Sunday so we could then get home on Monday).

A little later in the morning a group of us were able to drive through some of the water and make it back into Bundaberg. We were very releived to be out of the beach and thought the worst was over.

We were wrong.

Turns out the water from the beach quickly moved out and the sun came up, but we all had moved from the house and into Bundaberg, where the river that runs through the town water was rising rapidly.

To cut this short- there was a MASSIVE flood 2 years ago in Dec 2010/Jan 11 that really did damage to the town, and this one was expected to be worse. The waters in the river just kept rising and the river was moving so fast. The river broke its banks and moved into North Bundaberg quickly flooding all the houses and businesses around it. At first it was expected to flood 300 homes, and it turned into 2,000. People were being evacuated by helicopter from standing on their roof because that was the only way out.

Towns to the south were starting to flood as well, and we all knew there was no way we were making it back to work Tuesday (which also happened to be the first day of school/work for Dan and many of the others that had driven up).

Judy and Shane's house was fine and most all the other people we know in Bundy were fine. Gaz and Mel's house was in danger for a few days, but the water got up their driveway but didn't make it into their home. They had never seen water in places the water was.

It was unreal.

Tuesday, since we were unable to drive down, we decided to go down and help out. The boys helped carry stretchers of elderly people coming out of the helicopters that had been evacuated. It was about 100 degrees that day, so my job was to carry an umbrella and shade the people while they were on teh stretchers or in wheel chairs. Helping out and seeing the victims made it very real.

I'll put some photos and a video from the news below, but basically all of North Bundaberg was completely flooded and now in 2 feet of mud. It will take a while for the town to rebuild and let's just hope another flood isn't just 2 years away.

 To the left of this photo is a massive mall that has an underground parking lot that was completely filled with water. Behind me is Judy's office that we helped clear everything out in case the water came in. Luckily it didn't, but the shopping center will take a while to come good again.

 To the right of this photo is the old bridge that connects South Bundaberg to North Bundaberg. The river is normally around 30 feet below the bridge, and as you can see in this photo it's almost to the bridge. In the following days the river completely goes over the bridge, only able to cross by boat.

 This is an aerial view of Bundy looking South to North. The large white buildings on the bottom left is the shopping center I was talking about in the photo before. Judy's work is just left of those orange roof buildings. As you can see the river runs through the town and it's hard to see the line of the river with all the flooding.

Here's another aerial view of mainly North Bundaberg. The old bridge is near the bottom and North Bundy is on the left of the photo. Photo pretty much speaks for itself.

Here's a link of a video from 9 News that shows more of the flood and rescue efforts. (Also, I have a quick cameo at the end in this video carrying an umbrella.)

http://ninem.sn/0wt4XPb

As the water is now receeding, here's a link of a video of the aftermath

http://ninem.sn/M248fdI

Please keep Bundaberg in your prayers as it's been an unreal time for all of them.

Well hopefully the next post will be more uplifting and more often :)