Stranded...in a tent

blip, blop, plip, plop....squawk! Cooo cooo chaa chaa chaa chaa!!! Welcome to the wake up calls of our current holiday abode, Suffolk Park Holiday Park, located 7 km south of Byron Bay, NSW. We've been residents for 3 days and quarantined for the last 12 hours due to torrential downfalls. Note past the ellipses and you'll hear the beautiful calls of the resident NSW bird population soothing you to a morning wakeup, well, except they do that at sunup which happens to begin at 4:30am. The squawk is from the local bush turkeys and the "Cooo cooo chaa chaa chaa chaa!!!" comes from the big-billed kookaburras that tend to annoy even the heartiest Australians - even the deaf ones.

Five days into Christmas vacay and we've done quite a bit already. Nina, the word traveler, who's been back to the States most recently, got us a sweet setup of snorkeling gear and Clif bars to set us up for departure from Newcastle. Unfortunately, sickness had its own vote to cast in when we were going to leave for our roadtrip, disabling both of us last Tuesday with the flu. Lame. We nevertheless (at about 75 percent capability) hoisted north along the best freeway in Australia (all 2 lanes of it) in a Holden Astra filled to the brim with swimming gear, snorkelling gear, and tents galore.

We stopped for the nigth four hours up the road in Nambucca Heads. Americans who're reading this, try and pronounce that name, and I'll tell you that you're wrong. Don't worry, we did the same thing. NambBUCKA heads has mosquitos bigger than your face and a decent view onto the Pacific, but for us it was a resting and recovering point. The small tent was laid out, and we appreciated our normal bed the next morning as we awoke to the pains of s;eeping on the roll-out camp matresses (fail). We (expeditiously) got in the Astra and rolled up to Byron Bay.

The drive was quick and purposeful as Nina and I both had the weather radar playing out on the computer as we drove toward our night's campsite. Blue, purple, and red dotted the screen, and we attempted to figure out when the downpour was going to occur over the future-night's sight as we noted the swell towns that dotted the map on our journey northward. Arriving around 1pm we quickly donned the tent and tarp emclosure just to beat the light rain that followed the rest fo the afternoon.

We rolled into Byron Bay, got some lunch and laid out on the beach in the now sunny weather. Byron Bay is a HUGE tourist hotspot, attracting mega-large pops of backpackers from worldwide and an enormous Australian contingent as it's only a 90-minute drive from Brisbane and even less from the Gold Coast. Nervertheless, imagine great beaches and equivalent shopping and you've got Byron Bay.

Night in tent insert here - next day was snorkelling on an island 3km off the beach - sharks, manta rays, and turtkes galore. Great conditions, and I'm getting sick of writing this blog. I'll update later - have a great Christmas and happy New Years and we'll be with you soon...ish.

spring has sprung!

FINALLY the weather has warmed up!! It's been a coooold winter here in Australia... well, at least by Australia standards. I am SO glad it's warming up though! It's tough listening to everyone talk about how warm and gorgeous the weather is back home... while it's rainy and dreary here.

We are heading off on our first camping trip of the season this weekend and our second one next week! This weekend we are going to Myall Lakes National Park. It's a smaller national park with beautiful lakes and beaches. Here's hoping our luck with fishing will turn around this year!!

In other news, I have started my "Fall" semester classes... only two more semesters to go! I am currently taking Raster and Vector Graphics (a fancy way of saying Photoshop and Illustrator) and Digital Page and Web Graphics... so if anyone needs a website or company publications let me know (... well ok, in three months).

Happy Fall : )

Love,

Nina

Oops!

We kind of forgot about this thing didn't we?!? I think with constant updates on facebook we forget to update our blog! Sorry to those who still read this : (

It's been a pretty big month or two here. Charlie and I took an amazing road trip with our friends Duncan (a pilot in Charlie's squadron) and Emily (his girlfriend) around the Northern Territory. We visited three national parks and got a feel for the REAL outback. We got to see tons of birds and crocs (thankfully from a distance). We got to see amazing Aboriginal art and purchased some for our house. We also got to swim in some of the most beautiful pools below waterfalls. It was definitely something we will remember for a looong time!

It is a really exciting time for us because we are moving in less than a year and Charlie has made the decision to leave the Navy. He's decided he wants to get his MBA, so after returning from the trip Charlie had to buckle down and start studying for the GMATs. He will be sending out applications in October and hopefully by January or February we will know where we will be living for the next couple of years.

I'll leave you with a few pics from our trip....

Winter in Newcastle

Good afternoon, all. I made a bold statement a few months ago, alleging that I would post on the blog once a week, a promise that was broken exactly one week after my last post. I apologize for that, and I hereby announce I'll make no such claim again in the near future. Done and done.

As the rain again falls here in Newcastle, the Queen city of New South Wales, I'm reminded again that winter began five days ago on the first of June. We've had exactly two sunny days in the last three weeks and when you live in a city that revolves around the beach you're hard-pressed to come up with original plans for the weekend days. Venturing a guess, I would say that the top five google searches on our computers have been...

1. Fiji cheap awesome deal

2. Hawaii military special cheap awesome deal

3. Vanuatu

4. Cook Islands cheap

5. cheap fares from Newcastle (to anywhere)

Now we have to slap ourselves every once in awhile, remembering that we're in gosh darn Australia, living the dream of every young couple in the USA. We love it, couldn't be happier (the rain is responding to my typing by beginning to torrentially downpour - how is the lawn still yellow?!?), and we really are lucky that we're in a stable place, I'm not deploying for months on end, and we have the ability to explore one of the most amazing places on earth. Speaking of that, Nina's folks (Brad and Leigh, we can't wait for you to get here!) arrive in less than two weeks and we jet off to sunny (I may have just jinxed the trip) Port Douglas, Queensland with them in three weeks to explore the Great Barrier Reef, Daintree Rain Forest, and hopefully spot a few crocs to boot. Should be loads of fun and be a chance for me to get some color in my paling complexion. We're looking to play the rest of the trip by ear, but it will be a great chance to catch up and get some time off of work.

Work has been good, and I've been here and there since my last post, spending the majority of time local with a trip to Adelaide for a week, flying in support of some special forces teams. I'll be packing my bags after Nina's folk's leave and heading to the Northern Territory for a bi-yearly exercise called "Pitch Black" to fly for about a month. Following that I'm taking a week off and Nina's flying up to Darwin so we can cruise the outback, looking to explore Kakadu National Park and some other outback locales. Hopefully we won't get eaten by any stray crocs. Seriously, you can't go in any water up there that has any connection to the ocean, lest you desire to make yourself a dinner special for those things. We're looking forward to it!

All right, back to some taxes (we get a 2 month reprieve from the April 15th deadline being out of country and I'm using all 60 days). I'll post soon-ish, and I hope everyone back in the US of A has a great summer!!!

stella is in love....

...but I don't think it's mutual.

For the past day and a half we have been dog-sitting for our friends the Allens, while they have been at the hospital giving birth to their first child (it's a boy!). Bosco, their dog, is a super sweet and loving 80 lb. Chocolate Lab-German Short Haired Pointer cross. Stella has been constantly harassing him since he's been here. It's very entertaining. All she wants to do is to play with him and he wants nothing to do with it.

The Allens are the first of three of our friends who are due this week. It should be a fun week!! Lots of new babies to visit!!

tea party

I hosted a fun little baby shower last weekend for my friend Lauren who is due in May. It was great to have a reason to put my event planning/graphic design skills to use. It really turned out to be a fantastic afternoon - we had high tea at a local restaurant.

annnnnd i'm back

So, it's been waaaay too long since I've posted on here. I just lost all motivation to post. Partially because Charlie was out of town and I was busy with school. Sorry to you readers out there... I think I might only have one left. Thank you Jen G. for being a faithful follower, even when I wasn't a faithful blogger!

A lot has happened here - too much to write about so I'll just write about what's gone on the last couple of weeks. That seems doable : )

Charlie and I have been camping for the past two weekends in a row! We have enjoyed amazing weather, beautiful scenery and great company (the first weekend we went with friends and the second with Stella)! Charlie bought a new tent while he visited the US in March and it has turned out to be a great addition to our growing camping gear collection. Last weekend Charlie was lucky enough to spot a wild Platypus... of course I was off taking tending to the fire and missed seeing it : ( I guess it's pays to be a fisherman - even when you aren't catching fish.

This weekend I am hosting a baby shower for a friend of mine who is due in May. It has been fun to go back to my event planning roots and I have even been able to use my newly acquired graphics skills as well.

Here are some pictures from Easter weekend: