Wow….

I can’t believe it has been so long since we have last updated everyone, because so much has happened since Ash’s last post! Where to begin…

New Zealand was an amazing trip. We had such a great time, it is such a beautiful and fun country, we highly recommend everyone doing it if they can. We met some great people on the trip which made the traveling much better. We spent 20 days there and could have easily been there another couple months just to do and see everything. We will get some photos on the blog up soon with some of our stories.

When we got back to Melbourne, we met my cousin Stacy and her friend Kristen the next day and had a great dinner in St. Kilda. They have been traveling around Australia for the past week and a half with their last stop to see us in Melbourne. It was great to see them and some familiar faces and it sounded like they were having a great time!

In other news….we are heading home! The past couple weeks have been soooo busy, we haven’t even had a chance to let our blog readers know. The short story is Ash got a job back home and was required to start April 18th, so after doing a couple late night interviews in NZ, we booked tickets home as soon as she was offered the job. I’ll let Ash fill you more in about the job if you don’t know already in another post!

So, as you can imagine the last couple weeks have been hectic to say the least. We spent 20 days traveling NZ (the last of two in Christchurch airport due to the city still being shut done from the earthquake). We got home late, went to bed, woke up and packed, met Stacy and Kristen, and got up the next morning to leave for back home. That sounds crazy enough huh? It gets better. Due to the late booking, we had to make some sacrifices to get us home. We left early in the morning for Sydney and then on to Honolulu. We spent a very nice day at the beach, then left again that night for Salt Lake City. We just arrived in Phoenix and while Ash is taking a nap, I am using the free wifi to tell our little story. Next we are off to Cinci and then finally Fort Wayne! 6 different flights in three days, it is my turn for a map in a second!

It really has been a bittersweet ending to our trip. We have loved Australia and the traveling we were fortunate to do, but we knew it was going to end sometime. I think in this whirlwind of everything happening, it hasn’t completely hit us that we are not going back to Australia, but I know we are both excited to see our friends and family back home again.

However, I think right now we are most excited for a comfortable bed and a good nights sleep….

Leavin’ on a Jet Plane…

Today is the day! We’re getting ready to head to Melbourne Airport. We get into Auckland tonight about 9:30pm NZ time, which is about 17 hours ahead of Indiana. It’s going to be a crazy 3 weeks…we’re expecting to hit about 15 cities in the 20 days that we’re gone. “Mission: Impossible” became “Mission: Accompished”  last night.

All of this:

Actually fit into this:

Sweet success! We’re going to try and blog along the way, so keep following. Our first stop is Auckland, then we’ll be moving on to Mercury Bay. After visiting Mt. Eden (one of many dormant volcanoes in Auckland) we head towards the Coromandel Peninsula and spend the afternoon at Cathedral Cove; accessible only on foot or by kayak. The coastal spot is great for swimming, sea kayaking, and dolphin sightings if we’re lucky. Provided the tides are right we may also check out Hot Water Beach and dig our own hot pools. Lots of love from NZ!

16 Miler

…AJ’s longest run E-V-E-R! And it was awesome. Sunday we got our 16 miler in before noon…that makes for a good day. It was such a beautiful day. Normally we run along St. Kilda Beach, but Sunday we decided to head the opposite direction and ran down to Brighton Beach. These brightly colored “bathing boxes” are a famous landmark here in Melbourne. One recently sold for about $180,000. Yes. For a SHED. What can I say? Real estate (or anything else for that matter) is definitely not cheap here in Australia!

Of course we use water stops to take advantage of photo ops!

This is a horrible picture about 6 miles in, but a fellow runner stopped dead in his tracks and asked if we wanted our photo together. How nice!

Let’s just hope our training stays on track while in NZ! We’re going to try our best! Now, time to start packing…

We’re Still Alive!

So, I know it’s been forever since we’ve posted! Now, it seems like we’ve been totally busy lately but I can’t even tell you with what, ha! Time continues to fly by, that’s for sure. I can’t believe it’s March already. Can someone please explain to me where February went? The past couple of weekends have been fun ones! Last weekend our friend Jason, who was an exchange student from Perth at Lakeland in ’04, was on holiday in Melbourne. After 7 years (has it really been that long??) we met up with him for dinner, drinks, and a few rounds of Texas Hold ‘Em at Crown Casino here in Melbourne. We had a great time! We pretty much picked right up where we left off. It was so much fun to catch up and get filled in on the latest in his life since he moved back home. If only we could have been a bit luckier at the casino! I was unprepared and forgot my camera at home, so we didn’t get any pictures with him. Bummer!

Other than meeting up with Jason last weekend was pretty laid back. AJ and I slept in and walked down to the beach and had breakfast at one of the cafes on the water. We enjoyed a fabulous and ridiculously high caloric breakfast while people watching along the beach. It was a perfect morning! Please excuse the lack of hair and make up. Let’s just say my lifestyle here is a bit looooow maintenance…but it was a Saturday morning. That’s my excuse.

He wasn’t ready…

Too bad we don’t have this view from Twin Six in W’ville when we go for breakfast…

We also had a 10 miler the next day, which was rainy, gray, and chilly. You don’t want to see pictures of us after that. Yikes. Training for the marathon is going pretty well. AJ is just loving–ok, ok, tolerating it. I will admit it’s been kind of harder to stay focused here than at home, but we’re doing our best. I could get used to the scenery during our runs…running along the sand with the ocean on one side and multi million dollar homes on the other is a bit more appealing than running on back roads full of cow piles with cornfields on one side and white Amish houses on the other. I’d like to chat with the person who came up with the term ‘Home Sweet Home’.

This past Friday AJ and I both worked a music festival here in Melbourne called Soundwave. We spent 10 hours selling drinks to crazy Australians. It was a looooooong day, but the pay was good and it was fun to experience a music festival here. Some bands were pretty decent like Sum 41, Third Eye Blind, 30 Seconds to Mars, stuff like that. Then there was Rob Zombie, Iron Maiden, and Slash. Not exactly our style. AJ and I looked like we were going to Sunday School compared to um, EVERYONE else there. Good times. We spent the rest of the weekend relaxing at the beach aside from a sweet 12 miler on Sunday morning.

Excuse me, sir? Do you have a license for that bod??

We leave in two weeks for New Zealand! Yippee! We’re beyond excited. I’m trying not to think too much about the trip yet, because I know if I do time will just drag on. I’m ready to go now! Until then Mission: Impossible (a.k.a. strategically stuffing both of our belongings for 20 days into one bag) continues to be top priority around here. Lots of love from Oz!

New Zealand

Today we finalized the last of the details of our trip to New Zealand! After getting everything in order this morning we were pretty much giddy the rest of the day. We’ve been kind of antsy and ready to check out another country since we settled here in Melbourne a few months ago. Way back at the beginning of our year here in Australia (8 months ago to be exact!) we decided if we traveled to any other country this year it just had to be New Zealand. Luckily we were able to fit in our two week stint in Thailand too, but we definitely put NZ at the top of our priority list.

We decided early on if we go to NZ we’re going to do it the right way–so we will be touring both the North and South islands. Word on the street is the South island is the better half, but we’ll be the judges of that! We will fly into Auckland on March 22. We’ll then travel our way down the North Island. We then take a boat or organize a short flight to the South Island and make our way to the bottom and back up a bit to Christchurch, which is where we will catch our flight back to Melbourne on April 10. Here are the major cities we’ll be stopping in along the way. We’ll probably be detouring a bit to explore some of the hidden treasures the country has to offer, but you can get the gist of our itinerary here:

Auckland –> Mercury Bay –> Rotorua –> Waitomo –> Taupo –> River Valley –>Wellington –> Nelson –> Westport –> Lake Mahinapua –> Franz Josef –>Wanaka –>  Milford Sound (pictured above) & Te Anau –> Queenstown –> Christchurch.

Looks something like this:

It’s going to be a busy 20 days to say the least! We’re getting excited already! During our trip we have a lot of fun things planned. We’ll be doing tons of hiking through national parks, swimming at hot water beaches, sea kayaking, relaxing in hot water springs (the world’s natural version of a hot tub), black water rafting through underground caves full of glow worms,  horseback riding, checking out the snow capped mountains and infamous glaciers you see in the Lord of the Rings movies, and of course sampling New Zealand’s beer in the local pubs. Oh, and we’re going to jump out of a plane at 14,000 feet. Yes, skydiving!  Technically, at this point in time, I’m going skydiving. AJ is still on the fence, but I know he won’t be able to pass up the opportunity once we’re there. Taupo is the skydiving capital of the world and I’m pretty pumped to find out why. Don’t worry Mom and Dad, we’ll only call you to tell you about it once we’re safely on the ground.

That in a nutshell is our trip to NZ! I now have to start figuring how in the world we’re going to fit both of our belongings for 20 days into one bag. Until then, I’m labeling the task Mission: Impossible.