It's Been a While

Wow it’s been a long time since we’ve blogged! A bunch has happened since our anniversary in Barossa Valley!

• Mom celebrated being 2 years cancer-free (YEAH!!! :) )

• We’ve had few wine club nights (Themes: French, Australia (SA/VIC), Cold Climate Regions – the food, wine and company have been wonderful!)

• I’ve had a couple book club nights (yes, it’s hard to believe but I’m actually reading on a regular basis now!)

• We went back to the US for a great visit and to celebrate Eric and Magali’s wedding! (More on that below)

• We learned our friends Janine and Niels are pregnant with their first – a little boy due in December. We’re SO excited for them!






• The Piggs Peake release night was in late June. Piggs Peake is our favourite vineyard in the Hunter Valley. We went with Janine and Niels and stayed in a great villa. We had spa treatments, did some tastings (of course) and even saw a dozen+ kangaroos on the golf course in the morning!

• We celebrated Christmas in July with our ex-pat friends. We had a traditional Thanksgiving/Christmas feast including fried turkey, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie! It was nice to have all that comfort food in the cold of winter :)

• We almost had to move because our landlord was going to increase our rent substantially. Thankfully my keen negotiation skills allowed us to stay with no increase at all! We’re both relieved we don’t have to move!

• I’ve been to Melbourne a few times for work (noting fun there, just work)

• David and I are officially no longer Penfolds Grange virgins – we had a few of David’s fellow PGI Marketing Team members over for dinner who are (hard to believe) more into wine than we are! We were privileged enough to get to enjoy a bottle of 1996 Tattinger Champagne and a bottle of 2001 Penfolds Grange. Together they retail for close to $850!! Who knew I would ever be able to write such a thing! Both bottles knocked our socks off. Grange can be hit or miss but the 2001 vintage was amazing.

• We had our first ex-pat tax experience in both the US and AU. I can’t begin to tell you how complicated it was in the US, but the Australian experience was SO easy! Within 45 minutes we had both of our tax returns completed here! I miss the days of the 1040EZ… ;)

• I’ve been working on a major picture project to put my/our pictures for the last 8 years into photo albums. I have close to 7000 pictures in iPhoto for that time period so I’m sure you can imagine how time consuming the project has been! It’s so much fun to relive the experiences, though. I’m up to 2008-2009 – which were quite possibly the two most event-filled years of our entire lives so that album it taking quite a bit of time. I’m going to be so satisfied when this project is complete. Then I’ll just have to keep up to date with it all each year. No worries there. I figure if I can manage to keep the past 33 years of my life chronicled in albums, I’m sure to keep up the trend moving forward. Thank goodness for iPhoto!

• I found out what’s going on with my job, finally. I’m now the Head of Account Service Management for Iron Mountain in AU! It’s not exactly the role I was going for initially however I think it’s a really good fit for me. They created the role for me and there’s potential to expand on it next year as well. Exciting times for me at IM!

• Next weekend we leave for New Caledonia for a week vacation – we’re both really looking forward to some down time on a beach. Yes, we live at the beach now, but it’s just not the same as going on vacation. David especially needs some down time to re-charge. He’s been going a million miles per hour lately. We can’t wait!

Our US Trip was wonderful. We saw so many family and friends – it made me miss everyone that much more! We started in Atlanta with a great Aussie BBQ. I think we had about 50 people there! It was so great to see everyone but I barely had time to chat with anyone. I suppose that’s the downfall of hosting an event – you don’t get much time to actually socialize because you’re worried about making the event go smoothly. Ah, the joys and pains of being a hostess :)

While in Atlanta we were able to take a day trip to do some outlet shopping (always have to take advantage of the shopping when in the US!) and we went up to Wolf Mountain to say hello and pick up a few bottles of their next vintage release. We brought Brannan (the wine maker) a bottle of Australian wine and he traded a bottle of WM wine with us for it. I was happy to go back to the spot where we got married only a year ago – what fond memories and a wonderful familiar feeling we have there.

I took a day trip down to Amelia Island (near Jacksonville) to visit with The Devine’s and their friends. They were down there for a family vacation. It was great to see all of them, even if it was for such a short visit! The kids are growing up so fast!

In Denver with the Adams family we had a nice lunch with Gary and Peggy (my aunt and uncle) in Boulder. What a cute little town! It was nice to catch up with them for a bit.

Eric and Magali’s wedding was beautiful. David stood up for Eric as Eric did for David only a year ago. There was a great mix of people there – Magali’s heritage is Mexican and many of her family were able to attend. The ceremony was outside overlooking a stunning cliff backdrop and was spoken in both English and Spanish. We had a blast hanging out with many of David’s college friends and some new friends alike. We’re so glad to have been able to make the trip to celebrate with them!




2 weeks visit is just never going to be long enough. It was great to have some QT with Mom and with Papa John, Mom Sharon and Gigs (Kristie). We miss you guys!

This weekend we’re home getting ready for our trip. David is under the weather so I made him some Nestle Toll House Cookies. I used our last bag of Nestle chocolate chips (you can’t get them in AU!) We’re glad that Kristie is coming to visit in a couple months so we can rebuild our stash. There’s a big calling for Aunt ZZ’s famous toffee so I can’t let anyone down :)

~LAA :)