Humps and Heaps of Fun

WOW!!!  What a year we have had for our first year of marriage!  Luke and I met in September of 2003…how can it be that we are into 2011 already and recapping our first year of marriage?  We can’t believe how fast time continues to go by.  Thank you so much for all of the cards, messages, and well wishes!

When we were thinking of what to do for our anniversary plans we weren’t having a lot of luck coming up with any unique ideas.  There was a big Mardi Gras parade and party as well as other events taking place all weekend here in Sydney that we discussed attending.  Neither of us really knew the protocol for celebrating anniversary number one except for everyone telling us “paper” is the traditional gift.  I assumed we would do something pretty low key.

Luke surprised me early in the week by giving me a beautiful and colorful bouquet of flowers.  He said it was for our “anniversary week.”  It was a very nice start to the week!

On Thursday, we finally came up with a tentative plan.  Luke had of course been checking around for ideas of places we could get away to.  One of his coworkers recommended Port Stephens which is about a 2 ½ hour drive up the coast from Sydney.  We decided it sounded like a beautiful little getaway so nevermind "low key." :)  My job before we left was to look up some possible accommodations and things we could do.  I found numerous options so we couldn’t wait to arrive in what they call the “Blue Water Paradise.” Saturday morning we picked up our very tiny rental car and headed North.

Once we were getting closer we started seeing several Koala crossing signs as well as “injured wildlife” signs so we kept our eyes peeled, though we never spotted anything.  When we pulled into the Port Stephens area we stopped in Nelson Bay.  We went into the info center and grabbed all of the brochures we could get our hands on to take with us to look at over lunch.  On our drive in, we noticed there were plenty of options for places to stay…all with “vacancy” signs so we decided to have lunch first and then we’d find a place to stay.  Now, you would think that we would have learned our lesson from the Apollo Bay “dodgy and spider infested” bed and breakfast and plan ahead this time- but why would we do that????  That’s sooooo not us!

At lunch we sat outside and enjoyed the views by the water and of the many boats.  There was a game fishing tournament taking place all weekend so there were many to see.  In our stack of brochures we found one for 20 minute camel rides.  After reading a little more about it, we saw the option of doing an hour sunset ride so we called and made our booking for this.  I mean, who wants to be on a camel for 20 minutes when you can have a whole hour with a beautiful sunset and scenery AND have lots of good blog material all at the same time!  We came up with some other ideas for the rest of the weekend but we were really looking forward to this special event for the evening.

We didn’t have to be down at the beach until 6pm so we had plenty of time to find our place to stay for the night.  We started walking around to some of the hotels we had driven past earlier.  Uh oh!  “NO VACANCY” started showing up outside of all of the places we went to and then the rude “no’s” when we would go inside to the reception desk to check again...just in case.  All of the worried feelings rushed back that we had felt on that other trip!  At least it was still light out and early enough in the afternoon so we continued our search.  We proceeded to get rejected until one hotel actually started calling around for us.  He must have seen the pathetic look in our eyes.  I was about to pull the “it’s our anniversary” card, but I figured that he would just give us a look of, “Oh, really?  Sounds like it would have been a good idea to plan ahead for that.”  so I just waited to see what he could find out instead.  He told us that they honestly had just been slammed within the last 20 minutes and booked right up which is probably what happened all over the area. 

We finally found a decent place called Leilani Haciendas that had a vacancy left.  It was a place with apartment type rooms.  Ours had 2 bedrooms, a full kitchen, living room, and large bathroom.  Much more space than we needed for one night and it wasn't anything fancy, but it was much better than the awful bed and breakfast we stayed in and it was only a few dollars more.  We lucked out this time!  See why we don’t plan ahead?  J

Now with a place to stay and a camel ride on our agenda, we had some extra time to check out one of the little beaches close by.  We took a few pictures and then made our mark in the sand.  I talked Luke into letting me do this since I wanted to on our honeymoon in Tahiti and never ended up doing it.  Luke was a good sport as you can see!  ;) 

It was finally time for our next adventure.  We arrived at Stockton Beach in Anna Bay about a 10 minute drive from our hotel.  Port Stephens is not a city, but an area of bays and beaches.  We had to wait an extra 15 minutes for three more people who were supposed to show up.  When they still hadn’t arrived, our guide said we would go ahead and go without them.  Our guide was fantastic.  She and her husband have owned camels, as well as all kinds of other animals for over 15 years.  She told us all kinds of interesting facts about camels and let us ask as many questions as we wanted, which we of course, did!  My camel’s name was Mishna and Luke’s was Jetta.  Many of you asked if we got spit on.  No, we did not, but that was a question I forgot to ask about!  Send your camel questions our way if you want to know something!!!

The camels walked through the smooth sand and up the sand dunes, only stopping every once in awhile for a quick bite of a green bush or sticks as we walked by. This was a magnificent experience!  Luke and I have done some really fun things in our years together but this was something that we definitely couldn’t do in Kansas!  We drove back to change for dinner and went to a nice place called, Zest, that our guide recommended. 

On Sunday morning we booked our next little adventure and then had some brekky.  We signed up for an 1 ½ dolphin cruise followed by sand boarding back at the sand dunes.  Port Stephens is known for their dolphin sightings and also whales in the winter.  They are considered the official dolphin capital of Australia with over 150 bottlenose dolphins populating the water there.  We were told we could see them from the shoreline but the best way would be to do the cruise.  The “cruise” promised we would see dolphins or we would get a voucher for a free cruise again.  We thought that sounded like a pretty serious guarantee so we were looking forward to this.  The cruise also included a “boom net” that they lower into the water so that you can actually swim with the dolphins.  After an hour passed by and we were still cruising along without a sighting, we started seriously wondering if we were going to see any dolphins or not.  They went ahead and lowered the “boom net” and a few kids jumped right on.  (see picture below) We chose not to join in on that part.  The captain finally told us that they would be issuing vouchers for us to return because we didn’t see any dolphins at all.  Everyone looked surprised and probably a little irritated because if they were there on vacation, they probably wouldn’t make it back with the voucher.  We felt bad when we saw the disappointed looks on all the kids’ faces.  I guess you could say we were disappointed too but as I’ve mentioned many times, we love any excuse to be on the water!  Plus, we have our little voucher in a safe place for our next trip up there. 

We had to immediately hop in the car and drive to the sand dunes for our sand boarding experience.  We were sad to miss out on all of the snow and sledding that everyone kept talking about back at home so this was the next best thing for us!  We hopped in a large vehicle and drove off into what seemed like the desert.  When we got there we were given a very, very brief rundown on what to do.  If this was the United States we would have had to sign a detailed waiver, been given a helmet, had an age restriction on participating, and been given a warning about people with health/heart conditions avoiding this.  Not here!  The high schooler working here waxed up our sleds and we were on our way. 

We had quite a hike to make it up the sand dune with our sled in our hands.  We passed by several people who I’m not sure were going to even make it up to the top but they finally did!  Once we got to the top it looked a little more intimidating than we thought it would be, but the view from the top was stunning!  You could see the water in one direction and then kilometers and kilometers of sand and desert-like conditions the rest of the way around.  Once you were at the bottom you could only see sand and the massive dunes surrounding the area.

Posing with our boards!

Posing with our boards!

The path to walk up is what you see on the left by the cones.

Me at the top

Here I go!

Luke at the top

Luke coming down

Tah Dah!!

We observed a few people who went down before us and then I decided to go first so Luke could video.  Please enjoy the video below for a good laugh!  The only directions we were given was to run your fingers into the sand and have your hands to guide you to help control your balance.  After I started going, I thought it wasn’t so bad so I thought I could speed up a little.  I made the mistake of lifting up my hands and I started bolting down the sand!  Then you will see me flip over and slide down the rest of the way in a less than graceful tumble!  ;)  When I got to the bottom I attempted brushing off the sand from my eyes, nose, hair, and every other part of my body.  I was then greeted by a 7 and 10 year old from India who gave me tips on how to be successful the next trip down.  Too funny!  Also notice the girl in the video who I almost take out with me so she sprints out of the way!  HA!!! 

The next two videos are of each of us on our next trip down without any issues.  I didn’t post the one of Luke trying to video himself on his first trip down…he lost his balance, too and ended up running down the last part of the hill so that he didn’t flip over!  

After we went down several times we got the hang of it more and more and we had so much fun.  We ended that adventure with me doing a sand angel.  I was already full of sand so I figured it couldn’t get any worse with a little more!

We realize that celebrating our anniversary each year will probably not be as eventful as our first, but we have some very fun memories that we’ll never forget!  I think that Port Stephens will be a place we will visit a few more times while we are here, too. 

You know we never miss an opportunity to do one of these pictures!  :)

Our Home

I still believe that EVERYONE should have to go through all of your belongings and put each item in one of three categories:

1. I don't need this anymore.  (garage sale, donation, or give away to family and friends who want it)

2. I can't live without this and it would even go with me if I had to move to Australia.

3. I can live without this for a few years as long as it is safe and accessible in storage for when I need it again.

My guess is that when we move back in a few years, we will be going through this process again.  It is amazing how you accumulate "stuff" throughout your life and hold on to it for some ounce of "I might need or use this someday."  I'm telling you now, the majority of those things, I bet you won't!  We learned this very quickly.  I hope that by living over here in our quaint little home, with only our bare necessities and a few extras along the way, that we will be much better at living this way when we return.  We'll see!

So now that we finally received our last piece of major furniture, we decided it was time to share pictures of where we call home these days. 

When you walk in our front door you step right into our living room.  We somehow fit both of these comfy plush couches in here with the ottoman- after moving and relocating a few times.  We are still looking for some unique artwork and other items we can hang and then have to bring home with us someday. Pretty exciting for me since this is something Luke never let me do in our house in Shawnee because of all of the new paint and work we had to have done when we first moved in.  Yeah, Australia!!!  J (the bright side here is that we didn't have any cool or unique artwork or pictures that were on our walls there that "we couldn't live without" or that "had to go to storage") 

We finally were able to pick out a table and chairs.  It’s very nice to sit at the table for dinner now instead of using the coffee table and sitting on the couch.  And the view’s not too bad either!  One of the chairs can even double up as an office chair for Luke until he decides if he really needs one to go with his desk. 

We love having a balcony with doors that can slide open almost all the way across.  We are still looking for 2 chairs and a small table to put out there and hopefully a small grill.  The door is open for the majority of the day so it will be nice to actually sit out there, too.  Guess what?  Two dining room table chairs fit out there just fine for now though!  If we were up a little higher in our building or didn't have those big trees in our view, we would be able to see much more of the harbour...not complaining though- it still beats the view of the crazy orange deck on the house behind us in Shawnee!!  ;) 

Our kitchen is a little tight for both of us to try cooking at the same time.  It is best for us to decide who will be cooking because it can quickly lead to an unnecessary fight if we are both in there!  Sometimes it is a tag team effort and we have to take turns.  This seems to be working smoothly.  Instead of cabinets we have drawers that pull out and house our glasses, plates, bowls, platters, and all other dishes.  We were lucky to have enough space in this kitchen for all of our pots and pans we brought over.  We also have two spacious pantries.  We're pretty happy about the counter space we have considering the set up of the kitchen.  The large window is great but we have to keep the blinds closed because of the heat. 

We have a decent sized bathroom with a lot of counter space, too.  A second sink would be nice but we have adjusted.  Having the washer/dryer in the bathroom has been a nice space saver, too.  There is a drain in the shower but also another drain right outside of the shower in front of the toilet.  In each of the temporary apartments we stayed in we had the same issue...the shower leaks.  Apparently this is on purpose considering the location of the extra drains.  We purchased a small bamboo mat/tile thingy that sits up over the drain. (Luke loves how I explain things in a technical way like this!) 

We have two bedrooms.  The office recently received a new desk and bookshelf.  All of my school and tutoring items are in here, too.  Luke’s “built in” is in this room.  Closets are called “built ins” and many apartments and houses don’t even have them so we felt very fortunate to have two very large ones here with mirrors.  The office still needs a few things but it is finally usable. It is so great to see your faces in frames all over our apartment finally! 

Our bedroom has just enough room for our queen size bed and might have a bedside table one day.  My “built in” is in here.  We were able to fit all but one of our large suitcases up in the top of both built ins.  We would have really liked a place with a little more storage but we’ll manage. We’re pretty impressed with ourselves for using all of the space we have available.    And yes, that's our fan that we have on nonstop everyday!  It moves from the bedroom to living room when necessary.

We enjoy our many windows and the views that go with them.  We are able to see some of the harbour and beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Our apartment building sits up on a hill and is far enough from the road that it always seems quiet and peaceful.  Having the little park and sport club next door is an added bonus. 

All in all it is beginning to feel more and more like our home each day.  And we realize that possessions aren't the only thing that can make it feel like a home-though they do help!  So start that spring cleaning early, ok???