I made bagels!

I'm doing my best not to spend money until Ryan gets back, so I spend a lot of time at home since the weather has been terrible. Today I decided to try my hand at bagel making, and it worked! I'm very proud of how they turned out. The misshapen circles give it that "je ne sais quoi" I was looking for. On top of that, they taste surprisingly good! (not as good as authentic Montreal bagels Karen, but that bar is way too high.) I also made homemade pesto today. Tomorrow Justin and Kelsey are coming for dinner, so hopefully I can pull off some more fun food. Just another reason you should come visit!

Birds of Adelaide

As most of you know, I'm really not an avid bird watcher. In Canada I was bored to tears when anyone tried to tell me about any of the "interesting" birds they had seen, and there is no way I could tell you what any of them sound like...except maybe the seagull.

Well, I'm happy to say I've turned over a new leaf. Nothing like leaving home to get you interested in seemingly uninteresting things. That's not to say I'm going to become one of those crazy bird people (hopefully), but some of the birds here are really funny so I thought I'd share them with you. Little secret...I even bought a bird book!

I'll start with the cool ones, so those of you who only skim this blog can look at the pictures and ignore the rest.

Rainbow Lorikeet
These guys are everywhere! They especially seem to love the palm trees (I know - I still can't believe I live somewhere with palm trees and parrots!) They're really loud and you can't go far in Adelaide without seeing one - or a huge flock.

Galah
Another parrot, but I've only seen this one once.

Now to consult my bird book since I don't know the names of the rest…

Australian Pelican
I always see these on the jetties (piers) and they're massive! Pretty much the same as at home I think.

Crested Pigeon
I always laugh at their spiky head, but they're also everywhere in the suburb. Only slightly more exotic than the North American pigeon.

Noisy Miner
These guys are usually the ones to wake me up in the morning I think. They love the trees around my house. I think it's cool how yellow their beak and eyes are.

Australian Magpie
I put this one last because I hate it. Not because it's annoying, but because I think I've seen about 5 dead ones now. Not sure why they keep dying, but it's disgusting and freaks me out when I see them. They're also huge and everywhere.

So there you have it. These are the birds that I see every day. Kinda fun when it's all new, but not sure I would care if someone posted pictures of robins and blackbirds if roles were reversed.

Glenelg

Glenelg is a suburb nearby that is the place to go on the beach. Mostly it's touristy with lots of restaurants and beach condos, but not a fantastic beach. Pretty place, but glad we didn't decide to live there. Our beach is way better and much quieter. We went on holiday Monday but everything was still open and it was pretty busy. There's not too much to say about it, but I thought I would just post a few pictures below.

Ryan goes back to work on Thursday so we're just going to take it easy Tuesday and Wednesday. If anything exciting happens I'll let you know!

McLaren Vale Wineries

This past Sunday Kelsey, Justin, Ryan, and I took a drive to McLaren Vale to do some wine tasting. I know this sounds snobbish and not something I would usually do, but while the boys go for the wine I really just like the scenery. Also, that's what this region is famous for so I've got to start getting into it so when you all come visit I can pretend I know what I'm talking about!

Turns out that last weekend was the Sea and Vine Festival (where lots of people tour wineries on buses and get really drunk) so some of the places we had wanted to go to were booked and you needed tickets to get in. Consequently we did the "anti-festival" * tour of the places that were not involved in the festival. Despite that minor setback it was hilarious to watch all of the drunk people wandering around with empty or full wine glasses through the streets!

Our first stop was Lloyd Brothers Wine, where we basically just tasted olives. Since I don't like olives, I mostly focused on the olive oil. Next was Woodstock Wine Estates. They had a beautiful property with a restaurant and a petting zoo. Our goal was to have lunch there, but because of the festival that was pretty difficult. After a bit of a wait they gave us a great table. Food was delicious and there was a live jazz band which made it even better. Wine there wasn't too impressive though. The best part though was that I saw my first (captive) kangaroo in Australia and a WILD koala!!! Seeing a koala is pretty rare, so for us to see on in the first month is pretty awesome.

Third we went to Pertaringa Wines which was not very memorable, then we went to Fox Creek Wines. Fox Creek was a smaller place with two hilarious women running the tastings. That's where we met the "anti-festival" couple, met another couple moving to Ottawa shortly, and listened to Michael Buble. Good times were had by all! Also on the way there we saw these pretty vines. The leaves were off of most of the vines, but this one still had some nice ones.

Finally we spontaneously went to Leconfield Wines which turned out to be the best one. I actually found some wine there that I liked! Also it was nearing the end of the day, so I got these beautiful pictures.

Sorry for the long post, but it was a fun day! Also, we get internet on Thursday so I'll actually be able to post again!

*term coined by a couple we met from Sydney who were on the Sea and Vines Festival tour but didn't like it so decided to start their own "anti-festival" tour

The Unveil and a Ryan Update

Ryan just got back last night, so now I can post pictures of our furnished house! More about Ryan after the pictures. Enjoy!

I love this house! It's fun to have lots of new things, and the hardwood floors are awesome.

So I'll try to sum up what Ryan's been up to. He's working 2 weeks on then gets 1 week off, and he'll be doing that until the end of August we think. At that time he might be able to take a few weeks off, then start a new job. He is basically the supervisor for the camp, so he's getting great experience. He has two "fieldies" (field assistants) working for him and he's getting along really well with them. Last week one of the machines fell on one of them, so Ryan had lots of paperwork to fill out for a few days. Everyone was really happy with how he dealt with the situation, so seems like he'll have some good references for the future. His days are usually about 10 hours at the work site, then he has dinner, then does another hour or two of data entry and reports in the evening.

That's all for now. We don't have any concrete plans for the week, but we will probably try to do a few day trips when Justin gets back from Canada on Friday. It's a long weekend here coming up (Queen's Birthday...our May 24 holiday) so Monday is a holiday.

Spiders and Semaphore

You guessed it! I saw my first deadly spider! The (not so) illusive, Redback Spider. Ryan saw one last week, but he didn't get any pictures. That's right everyone, I risked Kelsey's life to get this picture for you:

Kelsey was checking the chairs before we sat outside...and it's a good thing she did! She also killed it. So brave!

But this is a picture for scale...it was actually just a baby. They can get quite large though, with torsos the size of a quarter I think.



Anyways, this weekend was pretty fun. It was supposed to rain, but we had beautiful weather (about 17-22 Celsius, but cold wind). Friday was Kelsey's birthday, so we ordered take out Thai food, rented terrible chick flicks, and ate chocolate cake.

Saturday was our trip to Bunnings (like Home Depot, but BETTER!) Our mission was to get a barbeque and plants for an herb garden. Both were very successful. I resisted buying a citrus tree because they would take at least 3 years to produce edible fruit. Damn! Best part - they had free slushies and popcorn! Also the staff all had their faces painted, which was weird.

I think it's about time I show you what Justin and Kelsey's car looks like so you can get the full effect of loading a huge barbeque into it:

                       


This is just a picture from the internet, but theirs is red and looks exactly like this.

Anyways, somehow between the two of us we had a trunk full of plants so we spent the afternoon planting an herb and lettuce garden at my house. We also assembled the barbeque and cooked skewers for dinner. Delish!

Sunday we met some other women and dogs at Semaphore Beach (just north of our suburb) for a dog walk. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but it was low tide. The beach was so flat that at high tide there is only a few metres of sand.












We stopped at a great café for lunch while it got cloudy, then when we were done the sun came back out again! The afternoon was so nice we weeded Kelsey's gardens and planted her plants from Bunnings.

After ALL of that, it was still only 3pm, so we decided to go to the mall which has the good grocery stores. Got lots of delicious food and stopped at K-Mart to see if they have bikes. They do! I got one for $60! So again, picture a bike box (I have to assemble the bike) in the back of Kelsey's car!

Finally, the day ended with me practicing driving that car. The gear changing wasn't a problem, but we had a few close calls with me almost hitting things on the passenger side. It's soooooo weird to be on the other side of the car! I also panic and forget what I'm doing, even at 30 km/h. Practice makes perfect, right?

IKEA and Me

As I mentioned before, last weekend was dedicated to furnishing our new house. Saturday was basically a reconnaissance mission, with Sunday being the day of major purchases. I tried my best not to buy everything at IKEA, I swear! But their fancy colours and unbeatable prices won over everything else. Plus, I didn't want to pay multiple delivery charges from different stores, so really it was the best option for the big items. 

Here's the abbreviated list of what I bought from IKEA:
-couch
-2 bed frames
-dining room table and chairs
-coffee table
-3 side tables
-4 lamps
-many pillows and blankets
-4 outdoor chairs
-various other small things

In addition to a trunk full of stuff, my delivery consisted of 23 items….gulp!

And this is what that looks like:



In all fairness, this is after I started assembling the couch.

So Monday was my IKEA delivery, and Tuesday my 2 mattresses got delivered (yes, I have a guest bed!). I spent both days assembling furniture. I know everyone is sick of hearing about IKEA, but man that stuff is awesome!! I was able to assemble everything all by myself with only two blisters! I still have the second bed frame left to go, but I'm saving that for tomorrow.

Today I didn't have any deliveries coming, but I hung out at the house anyways (I've been staying with Kelsey all week, and I'll stay there until Ryan gets back on Tuesday/Wednesday). It was finally a beautiful day so I basically just sat outside and read, then raked the lawn. Oh, then had a nap in the sun. Life is hard.

Tomorrow is our last delivery - the fridge and washing machine. Then the house will be almost complete. I'm hopefully going to get a barbecue this weekend! We still have to get our internet hooked up, a guy is coming to fix the front door, and an electrician has to come and fix the light that exploded during the house inspection (funny story...the sparks hit the inspector! Everyone is fine though.) Yesterday someone came to mow the lawn, which I wasn't expecting, so seems like the real estate agency is really on top of things. Should be a great year!

I know everyone is excited for more pictures, but I can't post the finished product yet - I want Ryan to be surprised. You'll just have to wait until next week, but believe me, you won't be disappointed!