Welcome Home!

Wow! After 3 months away from home, we've made it back for one week before having to leave again for another few months.

The first month out was spent on getting a doctor's check-up for Lil' Bit and taking some vacation time. As we were in the process of getting back to our country, we heard about some trouble going on in our town which resulted in the leaving of all the western foreigners from there. We then sat in the capital for the next 2 months, at one point losing all hope of me getting to come home at all before leaving the country for Lil' Bit's birth.

After some promising rumors and news, and our teammates making the flight home, we decided to give the road trip a try. Not only have we been blessed with some new wheels to use, but the road seems to be increasingly getting better and better. Admittedly, our song may change come winter when the natural elements have their way, but for this drive, we were astonished with how smoothly and quickly it went. In our minds, 16 hours is a good trip. This time, the total driving time was 13 1/2 hours. Not too shabby!

We stopped to stay with some national friends on the way up, which was great to see them again, although Matt got told that he got fat on vacation and I was asked if I forgot the language. Oh well!

But getting home was soooo much better than what I could have imagined. Part of me was mentally prepared for the worst, having no idea what kinds of things we would see as a result of what kept us out for 2 months. Plus, our teammates came back to some difficult housing deals in some sense because of the shape that they found their house in.

We, however, came back to the royal treatment! Even though our landlord's family had been living in our house while we were gone, the only way we could tell that now is that things are in better shape than when we left in June. The furniture in the family room has been rearranged, but it looks and feels much more homier now with their arrangement. Plus, it's perfectly set up to move the desk out of our bedroom and into the family room, making room for Lil' Bit's bed in the warm bedroom (since we'll be coming back in winter).

They were in the process of finishing up cleaning the house. Do I clean the house? Um...moving right along now...

Things that were out in the kitchen had been put into cabinets, and one cabinet had even been rubber-banded shut (by them, not me!) so as to signal not to get into that stuff.

They had prepared some goat, and rewarmed it for us. We then sat outside on a gorgeous day and started catching up on life that we had missed. A lot happened while we were out, and the main reason it was such a big deal for me to get back up here was to not miss out on hearing people's hearts as they talked about life, hopefully being able to respond accordingly and with words of hope and encouragement.

Plus, they brought over a jar of freshly pasteurized milk from their own cow. Perfect!

And, to top all this off as a great welcome home, our teammates were super helpful and had planned lunch for us as well so that coming off the road trip would be that much easier. What great people we are surrounded by!

Language Comprehension

Being stuck in our capital due to unrest at our home has made for yet another loooooong stay here. But with it have come a few perks. One is that there are actual, legitimate restaurants here. Yes, please, I'll enjoy that while it's available.

Another is that, for the most part, Matt and I have been pleasantly surprised by our language abilities, even after not studying it for 2 months (one month for vacation and baby check-ups, and the second month due to being unsettled and stressed). But within the last week alone, about 3 different people have commented on how good my language is. Do I think they're mostly just being kind? Most definitely. But for someone who likes words of encouragement, I'll take any that come along!

The fun part of learning another language, and being in an area where it's spoken widely, is being able to pick up on what people are saying when they aren't even talking to you. The other day we went to get a vehicle from the office to go around town, and the gate was blocked by a car parked just outside of it. There probably was enough room to fit our vehicle through, but Matt wasn't positive, so the guard went to find someone who could move the car.

He returned with several men. A few of them got into one car that was parked in front of the gate and drove away, but it wasn't the one that was making the driving space tight. I stayed out by the gate (yep, call me nosy) trying to see who was going to drive the blocking car away, when I could have sworn that one man kept saying the verb "to throw." But since this didn't make sense in the context, I figured that my understanding was just off.

After realizing (probably a little late) that I was the only gal around there and that my husband wasn't there, I went over to Matt to get in our vehicle, quickly making a glance over my shoulder.

"Matt! Turn around! You've just GOT to see this!"

Sure enough, about 5 men were bouncing the car that was in the way so that they could lift it and move it over a few inches! Oh, the times to have had a video camera on hand...

And guess what...I heard correctly. They were planning on "throwing" the car...hooray for comprehension!

A Trip Down Under

We had some vacation time to use, and since Lil' Bit will be making his/her appearance in a few months, thought that taking one big fling before that would be fun. And we were right! We had a blast!

We flew into Melbourne and spent 4 nights there.  We walked by the Yarra River.

This is the Exhibition Hall. This is where Melbourne signed some important document...look it up if you're curious. :)

I felt like we had found South Carolina again. Check out the tree!

At the Melbourne Museum, we saw the skeleton of a blue whale. Check out the size of this guy!

We visited the old prison where lots of hangings used to be done. One of the things we got to do was help reenact the trial of Ned Kelly, a famous criminal there whose trial is debated to have been unfair. I nudged Matt enough that he finally volunteered to play the prosecutor. Check out that hair! My, doesn't he look distinguished!

Outside the old prison...

And inside.

 We spent one day checking out the Melbourne Zoo. Gotta say that the penguins grabbed our attention the most. The King penguin has yellow, and the Gentoo penguin doesn't.

We also stood in a clear tunnel with water and creatures all around.

Don't we make a cute family?

We visited a museum based on the Holly Woodside, a ship. Matt steering correctly...

and me apparently steering from the back of the ship. Whoops!

Matt found a real replica of Crocodile Dundee's hat and knife.

DR. PEPPER!!!!!!!! 'nuff said

From one of our favorite comedians: "I want frosting all over it, and I want sprinkles, but not all over it."

 At the maritime museum we checked out more ships. Here we are before going below on a submarine (no, it wasn't moving).

Okay, so not a perfect shot. We're up on a lighthouse and it's supposed to look like I'm holding that tall tower like an ice cream cone. We tried!

After Melbourne, we flew to Sydney for about 4 nights. We took a tour of the Blue Mountains, where we got to do what I've been dreaming of doing since a kid: playing with koalas and kangaroos! But first, we saw a crazy scary bird with a bone out of the top of his head!

And some birds taking the opportunity to pose.

Hooray!!! It's a koala. And yes, she's happy...even if it looks like she's eyeing my hair as her new favorite type of leaf.

We bought a few ice cream cones filled with kangaroo food for these wallabies. They weren't as interested in the food as they were in the cone.

Matt messing with an actual kangaroo. This fellow was friend and liked to stand up near him.

So really, Mr. Emu, why do you give me the look of disgust?

Baby wallaby!!!

 Back in Sydney at Darling Harbour. We stayed just across the street from here, so spent several hours in this area just enjoying city life.

We found it amusing that in the mall at Darling Harbour, the USA Outlet was just across from...

Silk Road! It's like two familiar worlds colliding!

Sydney has their own monorail. That's just cool.

Name the iconic building in the background!

And this is me publicly being sad that my sister wasn't with us to visit there.

We took a whale watching tour. We saw one whale. Pour guy must have been left behind by his buddies. And he was shy, because we never got a good shot of him. And by we, I mean Matt, as I was too busy making sure that I wasn't dizzy on the boat.

From Sydney we flew out west. It was a shame on one hand to be in Australia and not visit the Great Barrier Reef, but we're so super glad that we chose to fly out to Perth then drive up to Exmouth instead. The time we spent out west was very relaxing after all the touristy things we had done in Melbourne and Sydney.

On the drive out of Perth, we stopped to see the Pinnacles. They are just bunches and bunches of limestone rock sprouting out of the ground really, really tall.

Yes, we did, in fact, have to watch out for kangaroos crossing the road during the drive.

Hard to tell, but you can kind of see me standing underneath. We stopped here and had fun looking at the Milky Way and remembering how to find the Southern Cross. Great moments under the stars like that remind us both of Africa (insert contented sigh here).

This is the view off one of the beaches in Exmouth where we stayed for 6 nights. It was peak season here, can't you tell? Pretty much all the beaches were like this: gorgeous and basically deserted.

Our conclusion: emus aren't pretty birds, though they try so hard to be by walking dignified.

We hiked in a gorge. Great views, but some seriously steep inclines.

On the drive back down, we caught this sign during the day. Makes a much better picture.

We enjoyed a few down days back in Perth before flying back to Melbourne to catch our flight out of country. One of those days was my 30th birthday. Here's to celebrating another momentous birthday in a country that's not my home!

Australia, thanks for the fun memories you gave us. Glad we got to see you, but gotta say...glad we're going to back to a place we can call home and can have fun retelling stories of our weeks together.