Julia’s Journical

Its been a long time since I blogged. I finished up the backpacking and being-back-home stories and just lost the desire to write. Writers block! And its not like we were not doing heaps of fun and exciting things!

A month after arriving back home in Australia, Lindsay and I flew to New Zealand for linux.conf.au. An Australian conference in New Zealand you ask? So did I… but then again we had the opportunity to go to beautiful New Zealand so I stopped asking.

First off we stopped in Auckland to visit my Aunt Jude and cousins, Tessa and Holly. And to meet the gorgeous Ruby, Holly’s little girl.

After a few lovely days there it was time to fly down to Wellington for LCA. Lindsay was attending the conference as a speaker, meanwhile I went on the Partner’s Program for the first time. It was so much fun. Here are a few of my favourite photos from that week.

My new friends and Wellington in the background.

This photo was a complete fluke, and it was not until I zoomed in did I notice I had captured the bird flying out of the tree.

Driftwood

Stormy Beach

Exploring the rock pools

The mist rolling in

The colours, scenery and weather in Wellington was so beautiful and ever changing.

We arrived back home in Australia and Lindsay left 3 days later for Europe, (again) for another conference. Then he flew to Atlanta for 2 weeks to learn the ropes for his new job. All up he was gone 4 1/2 weeks! I meanwhile lived at my parent’s house and was searching for a place for Lindsay and I to live for when he returned home. Fast forward a bit and our new house is lovely and large, full of light (at times too much light! argh). In the afternoon the side of the house we spend most of our time in is filled with warm sunshine from the setting sun. On cold days this is just delicious!

In this one you can see our sunroom just off the lounge room. Dutchies, please note the dutch apron hanging in pride of place on the right hand side of the photo. When I am not wearing it, it hangs there so everyone can admire it.

From our lounge room and sunroom we get a lovely views of the Blue Mountains and stunning sunsets.

Here is our kitchen, on the fridge you can see magnets from every country we have visited, except sadly New Zealand. We forgot to buy one there. Also on the stove you can see our sexy red kettle which is just so pretty and exciting it worries me.

This is the wall paper from our bedroom, if you stare at it long enough it looks like hundreds of gnomes staring at you. No photos of the bedroom (I didn’t manage to make the bed that morning).

Now if you will follow me into the hallway, you will see… its just a regular hallway, you can see our fish tank in the lounge room.

This is Lindsay’s office, next on our shopping list is a nice chair for him to sit on.

In Lindsay’s office we also have the library, we hope to one day have one as nice as Beer’s.

And last, but not least the bathroom. Designed when pink baths and blue (turquoise?) tiles were considered a good idea. I decided to make it ‘better’ and filled it with 20 plastic gerberas, you can just see one poking out above the bath.

We had a house warming party, it was so hot that day we ended up having to try and cool down the warming by turning the air-conditioning on.

Over the Easter weekend Lindsay and I went to the Sydney Royal Easter show as my birthday present. It was a lovely day. We got to see some goat judging and I know now how to look for a prize goat, its all in the slope of the back.

After walking around all day, eating yummy food in the fresh food pavilion and looking at animals we spent the evening sitting on the lawns at the main arena watching the camp draft and rodeo. 2 sports I found surprisingly exciting!

Then that weekend Jacob and Gerrie, Mum, Dad, Lindsay and I had a games night. We stopped for a family photo:

Out of maybe 15 photos, we all managed to pull ourselves together for a nice one. Sorting through the discarded photos I found this special one of Jacob.
Yes he is wearing 3D glasses he ‘borrowed’ from the movie theatre.
After the family photo we skyped with Oma and Opa

Oh this post is such a long and boring one, but good things come to those who wait.

can you guess?