Less than perfect weekend weather

Hey guys - sorry for the blog-hiatus, but since it's a rainy Sunday afternoon and since I'm avoiding 50 pages of mind-numbing reading for work I thought I'd chime in to newsreel. We're smack dab in the middle of our fourth month in OZ and settling into the house and the culture nicely. I've refined my impression of Australia to be much more like the U.S. than Britain but still way more into left field than Canada. Hopefully that should tell you exactly what to expect when you make your way down here.

Yesterday was Valentines Day and Nina and I both vowed to stave off the Hallmarkism of the holiday and instead of Chocolates decided to focus our hedonism on wine instead. We braved the low front that has been plaguing the area with low clouds and steady rain and drove our way out to the Hunter Valley in search of some new wineries and places to take all of you when you decide to visit (are you getting my drift, peoples?). We started off at a place called Brokenwood and tried a few whites and reds (I'm quite the sommelier) and our first tastes of the famous Hunter Semillion which is similar to our rieslings although a bit drier. It was great although we didn't get a great vibe from the staff. We bought a few bottles nonetheless. Next stop was Tamburlaine and an old man who tried to get us to join their wine club. Blah blah blah - just give us the wine, buddy. It was good and we dropped some coin for 2 bottles of Merlot. I know, I know - I vowed not to drink the stuff after I watched "Sideways", but this stuff was actually pretty good, and it's the only wine in Hunter that's purely organic so I felt like I was doing the Earth a service.

The last stop was Audrey Wilkinson winery where the staff was extremely friendly, and had it been a nicer day, I'm sure there would have been an amazing view of the valley and surrounding mountains. We got another white and bubbly from here, had some grub and peaced out back to the homestead. In the tradition of the Schwarzes we spent some more cash in an off-the-cuff entertainment center purchase and trucked a sizeable piece of wood home in the back of the car. A good day, minus the weather.

What, may you say, have I been doing since my last post? Flying and dealing with the dog for the most part. Stella is getting much larger as you can probably see from the Facebook photos and the ones on here, and is a bear to deal with. Let's just say we enjoy her sleep as much as she does. Being a Boxer/Kelpie mix she has a TON of energy which I can normally get rid of with a game of "try and kill the broom" or "fetch the stick and run with it past me". However, with the cruddy weather over the last few days we've been housebound aside from bathroom breaks and her energy has been boliing over. We had pupy pre-school today and she was the kid in class that you just knew was going to be held back. Her puppy ADHD was uncontrollable and it was almost embarrassing tohave her around other dogs. Of course, right after we got home she fell asleep for 4 hours. Go figure.

Work has been good, and we just finished up two weeks of air-to-air gunnery which means we loaded the jets up with 250 bullets (20mm cartridges in our cannon) and went out to shoot at a banner (30 feet x 6 feet) being towed 1200 feet behind a learjet. We flew out with either 2 or 4 jets and took turns coming from outside and behind the banner to empty our cannons. We'd shoot from about 1500 feet away from the banner, and after allwas said and done the learjet would drop the banner off back in Williamtown (our airbase) and all the pilots would gather around and count the bullet holes like old men playing bocce. Fortunately for us our ordinance personnel spent countless hours actually dipping the bullets in paint so we could tell who was good and who needed improvement. I was happy to somewhere near the peak of the bell curve for the most part.

The squadron is great and everyone has been really friendly and accepting of my American accent during briefs, debriefs and over the radio, although I've had to have Air Traffic and other pilots repeat themselves quite often due to miscommunication. It's all part of the job though and I'm completely happy with our decision to come down here to Australia.

Well, that's the job and the dog in a nutshell - we've been enjoying the beach, the weather (aside from the last few days) and the people down here and are ready for anyone and everyone to get their butts down here to pay us a visit. The flights are cheap and the beer is cold, so make your reservation and we'll get some shrimp for the grill.

Visit Down Under!

So I just wanted to let everyone know that there are some AMAZING flight and also hotel deals (you have a place to stay though!) going on down here right now. We would LOVE to have some visiters! Anyway, for all of you in VA Beach, MD, Central VA (Richmond) tickets are only $1000 including taxes (and yes, I did say ONLY because they usually are twice that from the east coast). The great fares are through to September... so who wants to visit?!? : ) Just thought you all should know!

Alien Pup

So, over the past week Stella's ears have changed and I am not at all happy about it =( It all started one night when she was lying on her bed and I pointed out to Charlie that her right ear looked funny. It only took a couple of days until her other ear followed suit. I have been worried that they would stay like that OR they were turning into Kelpie ears - pointed and straight up (see below). Anyway, after doing a bunch of reading I stumbled on some posts about puppies like labs and other breeds with floppy ears that had the same problem at the same age. I guess when they are teething all of the calcium goes to their teeth not their cartilage....

Soooo, I am hoping that it is a result of TEETHING not Kelpiness. Ha. We'll see though. Either way she is still cute... I just miss her floppy ears... she kind of looks like an alien with them sticking out to the side. We have her final vaccination on Friday, so hopefully the doc will confirm it's lack of calcium... if it is she's getting calcium pills... haha... just kidding = )


Kelpie Pup - big ears


Before the ear folding - cute little pup


After the ear folding - cute alien pup

day trip

Sometimes I still cannot believe that we actually LIVE in Australia! Today I drove down to Sydney to go do some furniture shopping and it was NBD (No Big Deal, Jen that's for you and James). It's amazing to live so close to one of the world's most famous cities. Anyway, I didn't even go downtown, although I did drive right by Olympic Park, which was neat.

I am hoping to finish up decorating the house in the next few weeks... at least get all of the big stuff done, so we can finally feel like it's ours (well, ours for a couple of yours that is).

Back to decorating... and of course assembling since I bought a bunch of stuff from IKEA : )

Love you all, pics to come!