Sweet Pieces of the House

New Stuff

Makes a Long Time Man Feel Bad

A couple weeks ago I emailed the movers to see if they had an estimate on when our shipment would arrive. They replied with an estimated date of arrival between May 27 and May 30. Unfortunately I thought that this was an estimate of when the movers would be able to deliver the shipment to our new rental house. But no, when I called yesterday they informed me that their estimate was the date that the ship our things were on would arrive in Sydney. So now the ship is in, but our stuff has to go through customs and be trucked over to Adelaide, and then be delivered to us. All this will probably take at least two more weeks. I had told Sarah that our things would be here on May 30, so it was pretty heartbreaking to tell her that any seating besides the floor and some wooden chairs was still two weeks away instead of one day away.

The Front

The right side.

The Left Side.

WILD Animals

I (Sarah) just wanted to let you all know that we did see wild animals while at KI but they were too fast to take pictures of.

The Fourth Day on Kangaroo Island

I love this picture. I think that Sarah makes a real good queen bee. We were able find and purchase some honey in the comb at this place. Good stuff. I haven't had any of that since Gerald Wunsch gave some to my family a few years back.




These are some dolphins we saw while we were in Penneshaw waiting for the ferry back to the mainland.

The Third Day on Kangaroo Island Continued

The Third Day on Kangaroo Island

We visited the Parndana Wildlife Park. It was pretty sweet. Most of the animals seemed pretty sad or lethargic though, so we asked the owner what the situation was with them. He said most of them had been rescued and brought back to health, but that the state law forbids the release of rescued animals back into the wild. Then I asked him if I could buy some antlers off him that I had seen sitting in a pile, and he said "no, but you can have some."


This thing is a cassowary. It has one razor sharp claw on each foot that it uses to slice the throat of whatever it's attacking. I guess people are killed by them sometimes.

The Second Day on Kangaroo Island Continued Again

I don't see any breeding going on here. Must not be the right season. Crazy seals.


View the high resolution version of this pic. Note the two hundred camoflaged seals lying about the place.

The Second Day on Kangaroo Island Continued

This is a place called Remarkable Rocks in Flinders Chase National Park. As you can see it is indeed quite remarkable. We had some good times climbing around the rocks. I hope, Lisa, that you will remember a picture of the two of us inside the basketball storage box at camp when you look at this first pic here.

The Second Day on Kangaroo Island

Masses of gulls, and some annoyed seals.


The seals at Seal Bay. The one on the leftt kept moving over and squishing the smaller ones. Good times. Reminds me of the game called steam roller my siblings and I used to play in our youth.


My beautiful bride contemplatively overlooking a placid lagoon.

The First Day on Kangaroo Island

This is what a lot of the island looks like. Sheep grazing peacefully amongst the hills on brilliant green grass.


Here's Sarah in the ride, lookin' pretty sweet. The good ol' Falcon did pretty well on all the dirt roads.


Here are some of the sheep, up close. As if you couldn't tell.


This is at a beach called Stoke's Bay. You had to walk through a kind of cave underneath huge boulders to get there. Very pretty.

The New Krix

9 John Street

This is our backyard. The building in the corner is our shed. It has some sweet shelving, some workbenches, a vice and pegboards on the walls for hanging tools.

This is Sarah in the guest bed in the guest bedroom. We're sleeping in here until our bed gets here. Then we will move into our own bedroom, and the guests can start coming.

This is our stylishly outdated but functionally sound kitchen.

Notice the amazing black and white checker style tile floor, and the stained glass window in our bathroom.

Walking Away from Their Past

Some of the Things We Saw

Here's a few pics I thought were rather indicative of the scenery on our Sunday bike ride.

Another Ride

Sarah and I went for a 41 k (26 mi) bike ride with our friends Nandor and Annie on Sunday morning. It was good ride, and we got to eat some tasty meat pies, pasties, donuts and pastries at a scrumtrulescent backery in Willunga at the end. We saw some sweet old school bicycles along the way. Some crazy Aussies just rolling all over the place.

Utes

The following photos are a collection of my sightings of "Utes" yesterday.





These vehicles have been around in this corner of the world ever since, and maybe even before, the El Camino reared its ugly head and then died a sudden but timely death. The reason they have stuck around over here is a good one though. They are much more fuel efficient than the pickups everyone drives around in the U.S. Since petrol is so expensive over here they've actually sacrificed something to conserve fuel. It's pretty amazing, and I commend them for it, even if I don't agree with the aesthetic outcome.

I Don't Have Anything To Say

Yup Yup.

A little update

So I (Sarah) do not tend to post a whole lot, even though I am doing absolutely nothing. I guess I've never been very good with these online journal thingies. Well so far I have loved living in Adelaide and have met a lot of wonderful people. God has truly blessed with such a wonderful church family, small group and American friends from Gibbs. Today I've been packing up the apartment so we can move into our house! :)

Brian has been great about encouraging me and pushing me to follow through on tasks. I have ups and downs. Probably every week - week & half I end up crying a lot because I miss home. I seem to be handling it better since the last month. WE have now been here for 2 months! Time flies by.
I was good about working out for about one week. This last week I biked a lot while looking at furniture retailers on Mon & Tues, but that didn't seem to continue the rest of the week. It has been exciting to have something to be preocupied with because most of the time I try to find stuff to do without spending money. In fact I was in such need of a goal/objective that I made a goal to complete every normal wordsearch in my gigantic book and I DID IT!!! I finished a week ago, but still have 1/3 of abnormal wordsearches to go...I think I'm gonna take a break. I will put a picture up soon 'cause you wouldn't believe how big this thing is - only $6 at Schulers!

I have learned a bunch of new recipes and have become more confident in my cooking skills. I am finally realising that I need to plan out the menu for the week otherwise I always end up with half of the ingredients to 10 different recipies and become extremely frustrated with making dinner.
New found love, homemade pizza and the pizza dough is so easy to make! Also, they have a market that is open four days a week all year round! It helps save big time on the grocery bill and you get fresh produce, meat and bread! The only danger is when I enter a cooking store ! watch out I love gadgets!!! I have made a rule for myself - I am only allowed to buy what is on my list (meaning what I intended on BEFORE I entered the store).

Oh and one more thing. I know this is long, but it makes up for the all the weeks I have written...right? I talked with a professor from Uni of South Australia last week and am pumped about their Masters of Conflict Management in the School of Social Work and Social Policy! It's so cool and I need to go next week to the international office. The prof wants me to start mid-semester which means I would be starting classes in July! We'll see what God has planned 'cause a lot has to do with my VISA. The major thing with this is that I can aim my Masters toward Immigration studies/International Relations... my dream!!

Love you all and miss you. Always know Laura you are in my prayers. May you wake up soon.

Sarah

The Dive

We had a get together to open up the new Gibbs & Cox Australia Pty Ltd office. The bosses daughter was pretty excited about the chips.

Observant or Not?

Ok, first off I thought I would set the record straight. I (Sarah) finally got smart last night when I realized that if we order our guest bed now, we could sleep on that till our stuff comes! What a brilliant idea, not, and it beats sleeping on an air mattress.

So my beef...I have a hard time loving Aussie pedestrians. Sometimes I just want to yell at them when I am biking around town. They are the most unobservant people I have ever known. If a person walks out of a store and I am 20 feet away, I will still have to stop for them. They walk out and just look around like they forgot where they are and then stop in the middle of the sidewalk, maybe take a few random steps and then look up at my bike like I dropped out of the sky!! It's hard to describe, but it is unbelievable!! They also walk every which way, not in a straight line and most likely will walk into you!!

Ok, well my keyboard has gone crazy so I can't write much right now.

We Got The House!

Our application for the house was accepted today! We go in to sign the paperwork tomorrow afternoon, and we take possession of the place in a couple weeks, on May 16th. Our new address as of that date will be:

Brian and Sarah Cooper
9 John Street
Payneham, SA 5070
Australia

I think we may have to sleep on an air matress for a couple weeks, but it'll be all good. The longer it takes for our furniture to get here, the longer we stay on per diem. Paying off student loans and saving up for Sarah's master's degree. Good stuff.

House Hunting Part Deuce

Well, the house we wanted was nabbed by someone else before we were able to get it. We're continuing the search, however, and looking at another one tonight. You can check it out here. Should be good.