Trip Home!

Being half-way around the world for 6 weeks really makes you appreciate and cherish all of the joys of your family, friends and home! Words can hardly even describe my time at home, but hopefully, some of the wonderful pictures I captured can help explain!

I got to take a whole week off work and my sister and I decided that this was almost more special than if I would have been home when Grace was born because I never would have been able to take that much time off at once. I got to spend my whole first weekend with just my sister, Luke and baby Grace and I enjoyed every single minute of holding and hugging my precious niece and nephew and I loved the way that my sister and I could slip back into our easy, finish each other's thoughts type of conversations that we always have.

Here is the first picture I took of baby Grace, as she and I shared a few minutes of quiet time on the floor! Look, she is even looking at me and trying to figure out who I am and where I have been!

On Sunday, my mom came in town for a few days...mostly to bring MY big baby home to me, Evie! I know that she is having the best time with my parents and Izzy and they are taking such good care of her...but she looks pretty happy to be back home (and back on her red chair), doesn't she?!

That whole first week, I spent every waking moment that I could with family and friends. One day, I even got to take Luke to the zoo for some special Aunt Becca and Luke time! We had so much fun and it was a beautiful day. We especially loved seeing the elephants and giraffes, riding the train and seeing all of the fun Halloween decorations at the zoo!

I mean, seriously...look at this face?! Luke has always been a very sweet little boy, but he just keeps getting sweeter and cuter and smarter and funnier by the day. From reading him books at bedtime...to his hugs and playing with my hair...and his sweet little voice saying, 'Becca, I miss you when you go to Austwayia'...and his constant creativeness and funny sayings or songs...I am pretty obsessed with him right now and he was definitely the hardest person to say goodbye to...

I got to meet one of my best friend's new baby...also named Grace! We had Katie and her Grace over to Allison's for lunch one day, so that the 2 Graces could meet. They are both so precious and we all know they will be good friends! Their mamas are both so special to me and I am lucky to get to have 2 little Graces in my life! Here I am with the 2 beauties...

I got to spend lots of good time with my girlfriends too! Coffee with Maggie, dinner with all of the Kappa girls, park time with several of the girls and their kiddos, dinner with my Jr League girlfriends (we missed you, Kate), time with Katie and baby Grace and a very special goodbye party for one of my best friends, Nikki. Nikki is moving with her family to Switzerland for 3 years and I am so thankful that I got to be back in the States to help see her off. She has another week to go before their big voyage...Nikki, I am thinking of you all the time and know that things will be so amazing once you are settled in there. Kansas won't be the same without you...

Here are the girls at Nik's goodbye party...

I was so lucky to be able to celebrate Luke man's birthday right before I left also...he had a great day! I don't have any pictures of the birthday boy on his big day...but I did get lots of last minute holding and cuddling time in with Miss Grace!

My time home was amazing and it really made me realize how much my family and friends do mean to me! As I have said before, I am very thankful for this great opportunity to live and work in Australia for 6 months, but I do miss and think about you all every day! Luke and Grace, try not to change and grow too much while I am gone...or at least have your mommy take lots of pictures to send to me!

I am planning on having a pretty relaxing weekend for my first weekend back in Australia, but I promise I will get back to more fun Australia posts and pictures soon!

Melbourne

We were able to take a nice long lunch on Tuesday in Melbourne and got to do some more exploring...and shopping! I remembered to take a few pictures this time.

This first one is just a view of a normal city block...

Then, right in the middle of these big city blocks, there are these little 'lane ways' that cut right through the middle of the blocks and are just lined with shops and cafes! Some are open air, some were enclosed and they all just led to more and more shopping! Here were some of my favorite little 'lane ways'!

Was really fun to see another part of Australia and I am sure I will go back to Melbourne another time or two during my 6 months here. I was happy to get back to my little life and routine here in Sydney though...and now, almost time to come back to the States for my visit!!!!!

Lots of food, little time...

So sorry that I have been a bad blogger lately. Several of you have called me out for not updating in a while! While I am sorry that I haven't blogged in a while...it is at least nice to know that people do actually read this and miss when I don't update it...ha ha!

It isn't that I haven't had things to blog about...it is just that I haven't had much time. As you all know, I have had 2 work colleagues in town for over a week now and our schedules have been jam packed. Unfortunately, since our fun first weekend, I don't have any pictures to show for it, but figured a blog update was still needed.

The time since my work colleagues have been here has consisted of lots of meetings with some of our outside vendors and partners...and that resulted in probably one of the most amazing weeks of eating I have ever had, ha! I have had everything from awesome fish and chips to the best calamari I have ever had...veal ragu at an amazing and adorable Italian restaurant...scallops with bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes...pineapple and coconut danish and almond croissants...wine, wine, wine and more wine!

We had the fanciest business lunch I have ever had when we went for a lunch meeting with our partners at PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Our meeting and lunch was at their office and this office was unbelieveable. It had coffee shops and a few stores in the bottom level and I even saw a hair salon and spa! The offices were gorgeous and overlooked the beautiful Darling Harbour in Sydney. We had a one hour meeting and then continued our meeting over lunch in a separate room. Started off with a waiter offering us sparkling water and juice drinks and then I knew I was in for a real treat when they served us wine with our business lunch! We had an amazing steak and risotto and a wonderful cheesecake with berries for dessert. Then, they served us fancy coffees (all of the coffees here are pretty fancy) and a little plate of chocolates. And then we had to go back to real work...seriously?!

The other meal that I have to call out specifically was when our external Immigration Attorney took the 3 of us out to dinner. We went to a very fancy restaurant and had the best time! It was one of those places where there is a fixed price for 3 courses and you just pick one from each course. For those of you that watch Top Chef...I felt much more knowledgeable about the menu because I have watched that show...and I have only watched one season! I was so impressed with this menu that I had to take note of exactly what I had. We started off with a shot of asparagus 'vollute'...again, wouldn't have known that this basically meant 'soup' had I not watched Top Chef. My first course was sauted scallops with confit pork cheek schnitzel, sherry vinegar and apple jus...wow! My main course and their most popular dish was slow cooked shoulder of lamb with pea and mint risotto, carmelized garlic and honey puree. And, my dessert was their special of the night and was some sort of chocolate heaven rolled in hazelnuts...with some ice cream...I don't really remember, but it was amazing. Overall, probably the best meal I have ever had!

Friday night in Sydney was very fun...I was finally invited to go out and party with the cool kids in the office! We had a great time...and I paid for it the next day! I do feel like I have hopefully found a crowd that I can hang out with now though, so that feels good.

On Sunday, I headed to Melbourne, Australia for a few days with one of the work colleagues. Melbourne seems like a great city, although I haven't seen tons of it yet. Definitely more of a fashion and arts district and lots of great restaurants here too. The office here in Melbourne is right in the middle of all of the high fashion...literally, there is a Gucci store on one side of our office building and a Louis Vuitton store on the next corner...wow! The architecture is very Victorian and just adorable. I think Meagan and I are going to take a long lunch tomorrow to go do a little more shopping and I will try to take a few pictures, although I know the pictures won't even do it justice!

While I do like Melbourne and it has been wonderful having my work colleagues here for a week and a half...I am somewhat ready to get back to my little routine in Sydney. It has been a great week of indulging, but I am afraid all of my walking around these cities isn't quite paying off for all of the great food and wine this last week and a half! Cheers to one more day of indulging and then only two more days of normal Sydney routine until I head HOME to meet my beautiful neice and see all of my friends and family...can't wait!

Hunter Valley

Wow...in love with Hunter Valley! Hunter Valley is the main wine region in the state of New South Wales and I went on a boutique wine tour with my 2 work friends today...and I must say, not a bad way to spend a Sunday!

This tour company had been recommended to me by several people and they were fabulous! The price was really good for a day-long wine tour and the tour van picks up and drops off where you want them to. It is a 14 person van...we had 10 people on our tour today, all from the US! It was the 3 of us from KC, a travel agent from Louisville, a darling older couple from California, a really nice middle-aged couple from Salt Lake City and newlyweds from Seattle! Our tour guide was Damien and he was very entertaining and knowledgeable!

It was about a 2 hour drive from Sydney to Hunter Valley and was just a beautiful drive. This tour company prides itself on going to some of the smaller, boutique wineries, rather than the large, mass-produced wineries and they do customize each tour and change up which wineries they go to. We hit up our first winery at about 10:45 and it was one of only 8 out of the 120 wineries in the region that grows, produces and bottles all of their wine on their property. It was called Iron Gate...

I was almost giddy with excitement during the tasting and I knew right away that it was going to be a good day! The owner even came in and took over for part of the tasting and brought out a special bottle. Here are people from our group making purchases after the tasting!

Next, we headed to Earnest Hill Winery for our second tasting...

I loved our seating area in this winery and the presenter was good, but it was probably my least favorite of the day. Here is the group after the tasting at Earnest Hill...

Next up, lunch! And that was probably a good thing, since we had been to 2 tastings and I hadn't had much breakfast! Our lunch was included in our price and it was wonderful! We went to this area called Hunter Valley Gardens. It has a few restaurants, lots of fun gift shops and normal shops, a few other cellar doors (the storefronts where you can purchase more wine), a chocolate shop, a cheese shop, a 'lolly' shop, aqau golf, etc etc...this place was great and I wish we would have had a little more time there to explore! We ate our lunch pretty quickly, so that we could hit up a few of these spots and then got back on the van for our last winery.

This one was called Molly's Cradle and it was the most gorgeous setting, by far. It was a little bit further, so I think it doesn't get quite as much traffic. The setting and the venue were just beautiful, they had a pretty large olive tree grove and the wine was good too...I could have moved in there!

We were admiring the setting after our wine tasting...can you tell what is in the distance in this picture?

Does this picture help?

Yep, you better believe it! As my parents and I always say in Colorado...WILDLIFE!!! A whole 'mob' of wild kangaroos were hanging out right in our winery! We were able to get somewhat close and then one of my work friends had a great zoom on her camera, so we got some really good pics. Fascinating to watch! Oops, look like they noticed us!

If you look really close at this one, you can see the little joey down low...awesome!!

Unbelieveable day...absolutely beatutiful scenery, good company, amazing wines (I don't think there was one that I didn't like!) and kangaroos! I have a feeling I will be doing this wine tour again, anytime I can find someone to go with me! And I must say I am a bit of a sucker for these things...let's see, I got out of there with only...7 bottles of wine (I will share!)...and a bottle of olive oil...and some chocolate...and some cheese! Ha ha...I had fun! :-)

Visitors!

Yay...my 2 work friends from the Relocation and Immigration team got here today! It really is so much nicer to have people to explore with...we had an awesome day! I just got back to the apartment after about 10 hours of walking, shopping, eating, sightseeing with them and I think we are all exhausted. We have a big day at the wineries tomorrow, so I think I am going to keep this somewhat short and let the pictures do the talking!

I met them this morning at about 10 and we had a great breakfast in my little village before we headed across the bridge. We walked around and shopped in The Rocks Market (where I went my second weekend that I was here) for a few hours and made several fun purchases. We were right by the main ferry terminal, so we decided to take the Manly Ferry out to Manly Beach...probably the second most popular beach area here. Here is a pic of me and Meagan heading to the ferries (see all of the shopping we did?!)...

The ferry ride was about 30 minutes long and just amazingly beautiful!

Here is a pic of me and Martha enjoying the ferry ride...

Waves crashing on the rocks in the distance...

Once we got off, we had to walk through a long city block of little stores and cafes to get to the beach. Lots of pretty touristy places, but some nicer places also. And finally, the beach!

Now, for the funny part of the day. Meagan and I thought it would be fun to take off our shoes, roll up our jeans and go stick our feet in the water...

Getting close to the water...

Notice the smaller wave at the front of this picture...

I think Meagan noticed it a little before I did, as I was still busy taking this picture...

So, yes, if you can't tell, I am basically standing in this rushing wave of water at this point. Meagan was a little better off than I was...I was wet and sandy up to about my mid-thighs. Awesome. Guess who the tourists from land-locked Kansas are?! Ha ha...what could we do except laugh! We went back to where Martha was sitting on steps and tried to dry off a bit. My rolled-up jeans were literally dripping!

After a little more walking around (and drying off), we needed something to drink and a snack, as we hadn't eaten since our breakfast. You can imagine that I was in heaven when we found this:

Yes friends, we found a beach-side restaurant called Mexico in Manly...who told me that they don't have Mexican food in Australia?! I think this is the first actual restaurant I have seen, but at least I know they have one and it was pretty darn good!!

We caught the ferry back at about 5:00 and got great seats on the upper deck on the back of the ferry. See ya Manly...hopefully next time I am here, I will be a little smarter when getting close to the water...ha ha!

Nothing But Happiness!!

So, the excitement and love emotions definitely won! Sure, of course I wish I was there with my family...but I couldn't be more excited and happy about Grace Katherine's arrival today! I am so thankful that my sister had a good labor and that baby Grace arrived safely and I hope that they are all still doing well! I got to be on speaker phone for a few minutes right after the family went in to meet her, so I got to hear lots of the excitement going on!

I have been almost giddy all day today...even when dealing with a not very fun work issue! I even wore pink today in honor of baby Grace. I left work a little early since I have basically been up and working (kind of!) since about 4:45 am my time. I ran a few errands that I needed to run and even managed to make a baby purchase or two!!!

It was also an incredibly beautiful day in Sydney today and I finally got some good pictures of our amazing view from the office. These are taken from the windows of our 13th floor office. The water is such a beautiful shade of blue on bright, sunny days...the pictures don't even do it justice.

I am really looking forward to these next 2 weeks because 2 awesome girls from our Relocation and Immigration team in HR are coming here for a business trip. Yay, I will have friends to hang out with! I am sure I will have some fun blog posts from our adventures...just as a preview, we are going on a boutique wine tour of Hunter Valley wineries this weekend! So, these next 2 weeks will fly by and then I will be back in the US to meet baby Grace and the last of the September babies to arrive...my dear friend, Katie will be having her first baby on or before next Tuesday!

Hope you all had as good a day as I did...cheers!

Conflicted Heart...

My heart is conflicted right now and there are times when I can't tell which emotions are winning...excitement and love or sadness and guilt.

First let me talk about the side that should (and will) win. I am so excited for my sister and her growing family that I can hardly stand it! I have been excited ever since a random Friday night in January when they stopped by my house so that Luke could tell me what was in mommy's tummy! I was even more excited in April when they found out they were having a baby girl (yes, we finally get to buy baby girl clothes and hopefully have a little ballerina at some point)! Still more excited when I got to help my sister and mom pick out the bedding for the nursery and then when I got to help my sister put the nursery together the night the bedding and curtains came in! And now, for the past week, I have been waking up during the night every time I hear my computer ding to signal a new email and grabbing my phone to check that email and make sure I don't miss an update. I am so excited for Allison and Matt to figure out how it works best for them to be parents to two children. I can only imagine that there may be some bumps in the road in figuring things out, but I continue to be impressed daily with what wonderful parents they are to Luke, so I have the utmost confidence that they will easily get the hang of being parents to 2! I am excited for Luke to have a baby sister and to adjust to his world being changed. He is the sweetest little guy that I know, so I can only imagine how adorable and loving he will be with his baby sister! And finally, I am excited that this little person who I already have so much love for will finally be joining our family! I can't even imagine what it must be like to be a mother because even just being an aunt is a pretty incredible feeling! I am excited to get to know her, see what she looks like, discover her personality as she changes and grows, hear what her noises and eventually her voice will sound like, watch her with her big brother, and mostly just to provide her with constant love and support throughout her life, much like my own aunt Peggy has provided to me!

BUT, I am pretty heart-broken that I don't get to experience all of this love and excitement with my family on the actual day of her arrival. I feel so guilty and sad that I am not there to support my big sister on one of the most important days of her life. I will miss not being in the waiting room with my parents and the Taylor's to cheer and hug and congratulate everyone once we hear that she has arrived safely. I am devastated that I won't get to see Luke's initial reaction to her. I am sad that I won't be one of the first few people in the world to hold her. I am sad that I won't be around the first few weeks (months really) to help my sister however she needs help or to take Luke out to do special things.

However, I do know that I will get to do most of these things eventually. I know that my excitement to meet her won't be any less when I get to meet her in person in October. I know that Luke will still have adorable reactions to her in a few weeks and I bet he will be excited and proud to show me his baby sister. I know that my sister will still be appreciative of help I can provide during the 2 weeks that I am back in October and I know that our time together will be precious. I know that I will still get to do fun and special things with Luke when I am back...I know the zoo will be one outing and I have heard we may even be planning a visit to a pumpkin patch! And most of all, I know that this baby girl will never feel any less love from me by me not being there for her arrival.

I love you, Allison and you are constantly in my thoughts right now...

Please keep my sister and our family in your thoughts and prayers these next few days...and keep me in your thoughts and prayers that I don't make a total fool of myself at work by crying these next few days and that I let the excitement and love emotions win out above all the other emotions!