Life Lately

I have been focused on blogging about our adventures in New Zealand, so it has been a while since I have written about life in general. I thought a few pictures taken from my phone over the past month or so might help to tell some of those stories.

When sister-in-law Carlie was in town we spent some time hanging out on the Yarra River!

Then mother-in-law Jill arrived and we headed down to the Great Ocean Road for more exploring.

Siblings and the 12 Apostles

After our short road trip, Carlie, Jill, and I headed to Cairns to dive the Great Barrier Reef and explore Far North Queensland. Blog post coming on that trip once the NZ trip is wrapped up!

We watched the Australian Open at a casino in Cairns. Jill, Carlie, and Max went to a day of matches during the previous week, and they even splurged for tickets inside Rod Laver Arena!

Chinese New Year means all kinds of cool fruits come out of the woodwork. In addition, summer in Melbourne means you can try about 10 different varieties of mangoes! This market is within walking distance to our house.

Mangoes galore!

Massive jackfruit!

Vibrant dragon fruit!

With Max in town for a short time, we have been trying to take advantage of his surfing knowledge in order to help us with our skills, or lack thereof.

Max and Erik head into the surf at "secret" spot our friends told us about.

A beautiful Sunday for surfing in Torquay

During the summer we often leave the outside doors to our bedroom open (they do not have screens as bugs are not a big problem here), and I came upstairs to go to bed one night to this sight:

It looks scarier than it is...but I still made Erik put it outside!

At the end of February, we hosted a little "end of summer" party, where we introduced our foreign friends to the fabulous "Orange Crush". Specifically, we made Creamsicle Crushes, thanks to many of our visitors who have imported whipped cream vodka from the States for us (I have been unable to find it here!).

Umbrellas make drinks more "fun", right?!

With summer winding down, we have been trying to visit our "local" beach often to take advantage of the nice weather. Last weekend there were lots of jellyfish, and though they might look intimidating, they were easy to navigate around in the water.

Last week the full moon was still up when I went to work at around 7am and the sky was gorgeous. I wish I had our real camera at the time to get a good shot of the moon, but the phone picture will have to do. This was taken right outside where I park my bike at work.

It would have been cool to have a window seat on that plane in the distance!

The "work" part of my life is new too, as I have been hired at the school/sports academy near our house for 3 days of work. So far (we are in week 6 of the school year), it has been a challenging adjustment but I love being able to have consistent work and I am enjoying each day. I am working as a rehabilitation coordinator, helping kids return to sport after injury by prescribing rehab exercises, essentially the closest thing I could be doing to athletic training in Australia, which makes me happy! I am also teaching at the university again 1 day per week this semester. My professional life is very fulfilling at the moment which is a huge difference compared to this time last year!

As far as additional travel goes, the in-laws, Erik, and I just returned from a long weekend on Fraser Island, where the mode of transport is 4WD along the beach. More about that later, of course! We had a great weekend despite lots of rain in the area (Queensland has been getting hammered with rain over the last month). Erik and I also have a trip to Perth coming up in a few weeks, along with a trip to Australia's capital for me, where I will be touring the Australian Institute of Sport (essentially the equivalent to the US Olympic Training Center) and also taking an Olympic Weight Lifting Course, both as a part of professional development for my new job.

Back in Melbourne, the in-laws have a few more days with us and Max just over a week. Autumn arrived on March 1st but the weather is showing no signs of cooling off with temps in the 30's (mid 80's F), and we are hoping those summer-like temperatures last well through March and perhaps into April. I know I've mentioned this as an excuse before, but due to the gorgeous weather it is taking me forever to get those NZ blog posts up...it is simply too nice to be sitting at a computer! :)