Our second day in Sydney was a pretty full one. After crossing off #31 from my life list (climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge), we were hungry and wanted to get breakfast.
A view of the Bridge with a few BridgeClimb groups
Close-up of the climbers
I suggested that we go to Pancakes on the Rocks , a famous establishment. The restaurant first opened in Sydney in 1975, and it was the first pancakes restaurant in the city. I’d been to Pancakes in Paradise on the Gold Coast, so I thought I’d be cool to check this place out too.
We found the restaurant after walking around (and turning on Josh’s GPS on the phone and looking up the address on foursquare since we knew we were close). It wasn’t too crowded, so that was nice. The first thing we noticed was that the menu was HUGE. So many things to choose from. We wanted breakfast, so we went with pancake (of course).
I ordered regular pancakes and eggs (boring I know), and Josh got the Strawberry Patch.
Strawberry Patch Pancakes
My plain pancakes and eggs
Just like the menus, the meals were HUGE. And look at the ice cream scoop sized butter on the pancakes!
Needless to say, we were pretty full after breakfast!
Next up on our agenda was a tour of the Sydney Opera House. When I visited Sydney back in 2003, we didn’t do a tour – just saw an opera – so I was really excited to learn more about the SOH.
There are variations on two basic tours, the Backstage Tour (2 hours) and the Essential Tour (1 hour) [which is given in multiple languages]. We chose to do the Essential Tour, and since we booked online early (imagine that) we got a small discount off of our purchase (any little bit helps!).
We arrived, checked in, and went to stand in the meeting area until our tour guide came to get us. He introduced himself, passed out our audio pieces so we could hear him talking on the tour, and we were off!
They Sydney Opera House was designed by Jørn Utzon, a Danish architect. The city of Sydney created an international design competition where entrants all over the world submitted their designs for the opera house, Utzon’s design was selected in 1957. Construction began in 1959, and due to various factors ran over budget and took much longer than expected. In 1965, a change to the government party in charge took place, and after a few disagreements, Utzon resigned from the project.
The Sydney Opera House officially opened in 1973, and Utzon was not present for the festivities. In fact, he never actually returned to the SOH after leaving the country in 1966. How sad!
The inside of the SOH is a magnificent building, one of my favorites. The curves, the lines, just beautiful.
Inside the Sydney Opera House
Love the lines!
On the tour we watched video clips, had the chance to see the Orchestra Hall, and see one of the stages being set up for an opera. While we were in the Orchestra Hall, there were no other groups viewing the room, and no one was on stage, so our guide let us take photos!
Inside the Orchestra Hall
I had heard you couldn’t take photos inside, so it was quite the surprise. I took a lot in the short span of time he let us take photos. When anyone came out on the stage, we had to stop, but luckily they weren’t there long and we could continue taking photos.
After our hour tour was up, we walked outside to take a few shots of the exterior. I couldn’t help but hear two gentlemen talking about the NFL. One was obviously an American, the other was an Aussie. He was a security guard standing outside of the SOH. They were discussing the Steelers and Eagles, and I chimed in about the Falcons. We discussed football for a minute before the other American went on his way. We ended up spending 45 minutes talking to the guard though! He was a huge New York Giants fan, which was really surprising to us. He told us that he and some of his mates would always head to a local Hooters to watch the Super Bowl every year.
We discussed the differences between Australia and the United States. He was planning a trip to the US in 2012 to see Hawaii, Los Angeles, Vegas, Miami and New York. His primary goal in New York was to go to a Giants game. I couldn’t help but think of him while we were watching the Super Bowl this year! The cost of living difference between Sydney and Atlanta was pretty high, but I still interjected that I wouldn’t mind living in Sydney. He stated that he thought it’d be pretty cool to live in the States. I guess the grass is always greener…
We looked at our clock and realized we needed to head back to our room to change clothes. We said good-bye and made our way back to the hotel. Original plans included a nap before coming back to the SOH to see the orchestra – but that clearly wasn’t happening now.
Change of clothes made, we walked back down to the SOH and made our way to our seats for the Philharmonic Phireworks: Not New Years Eve matinee performance. We were right next to the orchestra. When the singers were performing, I was easily entertained. When it was just music, it was lulling me to sleep! I had to fight it off, it didn’t help that I’d been up since 2:45 am!
Once the show was over, we took the long way back to the hotel (a.k.a. I suggested we go a route we didn’t need to go). Josh was hungry, so this didn’t go over well. I really just wanted to walk around the city and find a place to eat. Time was not on my side, the man needed to eat. We got back on track to head back to the hotel, when we decided to eat at one of the Japanese restaurant next to our hotel, Goshu Ramen Tei.
My dinner!
The food was delicious, and definitely needed since we hadn’t eaten anything since our massive breakfast. After dinner we were exhausted from the busy day and all of the walking. We went back to our room and were asleep by 9 pm!
There was more of Sydney to see the next day, so we needed to rest up!
[#28 of #52]
After my last post about our dining room dilemmas, I wanted to post a quick update on how things were looking!
We still haven’t finished up the trim areas, and touched up certain spots with paint, but that’s coming (so excuse the blue tape still on the windows and along the ceiling). We do however, have all of our dining room furniture put together and in the dining room!
On Friday, the last piece of our dining room set arrived – I was so happy for it to get here. The delivery guys weren’t too excited about carrying the 216 pound table up our front steps, but they did it anyway. 🙂
When Josh got home on Friday, he started putting it together only to find that one of the base pieces was cracked in an area that needed to be solid for support. We called up our local Cost Plus World Market and luckily they had three base pieces in stock and they told us we could bring it in to swap it out. Josh took care of getting the new pieces and putting the table together while I was in Macon celebrating 75 years of sisterhood with my fellow sorority sisters.
One of the first things we did when I got home was flip the table over and get everything situated.
Our new dining room set
View from the kitchen
We celebrated by having leftover BBQ chicken at our new table, which was great after a laboring afternoon working on landscaping in the front yard.
A great end to a great weekend!
[#27 of #52]
This weekend I tried two new recipes, one of which I found on Pinterest (more on that later), the other that I found on the Crockin’ Girls website.
Since I worked from home on Friday to be available for the delivery of our new dining room table, I figured it would be a good day to finally make the recipe I’d been eying for a week or two (and kept putting off making). Since the prep work was a little more involved than I like on a work day, it was the perfect choice.
The recipe of the day was Bacon-Wrapped Apple BBQ Chicken (source)
I’ve included the recipe below, but note, I modified a few things due to laziness or comments made from other people on the Crockin’ Girls site that made it before. I’ll note where I modified things – just in case you’re curious. 🙂
Here we go:
3-4 chicken breasts [I used 3, and we still had plenty left over!]
1/2 cup BBQ sauce [I used a full cup of Original BBQ sauce]
1-2 apples, peeled and grated [I used two Red Delicious apples, that I put in the food processor – who has time to grate and peel??]
1 lemon, juiced [I used lemon juice, and really no clue how much I put in. Just added it as I felt like it]
6-8 slices bacon [I used 6]
2 cups apple juice [This was not in the original recipe. Based on reader comments that the chicken was dry, there were people who added apple juice to the slow cooker. I think this was definitely a good idea – the chicken was far from dry!]
Directions:
1. In small bowl, combine BBQ sauce with grated apple, lemon juice, and 1 cup of apple juice.
2. Wrap 2 pieces of bacon around each chicken breast. [I moved this to #2, as they had it as #3, which doesn’t make logical sense. I also didn’t wrap them, just threw uncooked bacon on top. Suggestions made on the site were to cook the bacon first. Ha! Again, too much work. It turned out fine without cooking it slightly before including it into the mix.]
3. Place chicken breasts in base of slow cooker, pour BBQ/apple mixture over the chicken. Add additional apple juice if necessary to cover the chicken. [I free poured the apple juice, I know it was more than 1 cup, but 2 cups is a guestimate!]
4. Set to low and cook for 8 hours. [I did 6 hours on high, because I was home, and because I forgot to put things in the slow cooker until around 11:30 am. Oops.]
When we were ready for dinner, I went in and shredded the chicken before making the sides (baked beans). It gave the chicken a little time to sit in the BBQ sauce before we took it out. [I forgot to get a new box of liners for the slow cooker at the store. Josh was okay with this slip-up just this one time, haha!]
Once the beans were done, we scooped out the BBQ and put it on buns for a delicious, sweet dinner!
Our ratings on the recipe:
Josh gave it a 4.5 out of 5 stars. I will probably go with a 4 out of 5. It was good, but I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Josh went back for seconds on Friday night, and then we had left overs on Sunday night. When we want to eat leftovers, it usually means we enjoyed it the first time.
Have you ever tried this recipe? Or do you have a great slow cooker BBQ recipe to recommend? I’d love to try it!
[#26 of #52]
This weekend, I went down to Mercer for the first time in a few months to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Beta Sigma chapter of Alpha Delta Pi. On November 13, 1937, the Beta Sigma chapter was the first national sorority chartered at Mercer University. Since Alpha Delta Pi was founded in Macon, Georgia, it’s always been pretty special to have experienced the sorority and its history in the same town.
The welcoming banner
I was initiated into ADPi in the Beta Sigma chapter in the fall of 2001. I also served as an advisor for two years, and when I stepped down last year before we went to Australia, as we were planning to buy a house, etc., I was a little bummed to not be a part of the advisory board. I miss my ADPi girls (and the other advisors). It was really nice being back for this event.
Some of my favorite ladies – I miss advising with them! (Kristen & Kim too!)
There were tours of Rose Hill Cemetery where Eugenia Tucker Fitzgerald is buried, tours of the fountain at Wesleyan College, as well as tours of the Cannonball House, where there’s a replica of the parlor room of the Adelphean Society (ADPi’s first name).
Since it hadn’t been too long since I’d seen the three locations above, I opted to put together an unofficial lunch for some of the women that were in the Chapter while I was in school.
We had a good turnout, though small – it was great seeing everyone again. Lunch was at El Sombrero on Mercer University Drive, which brought back some fuzzy memories of socials and nights out with friends. 🙂 After lunch, we still had some time to kill so we went to Margarita’s next to campus to have a drink before the Open House. The weather could not have been more perfect this weekend! We sat outside, continued our conversations, recalled stories of socials and pranks pulled, lots of laughs!
Group shot in front of Margarita’s
After we finished, we walked up to the ADPi house, signed in, and spent time admiring the new décor of the house, the new flooring, and the new painting for the chapter room, given by an alumnae. For any ADPi members that recall a special fund for a tapestry, this is what came of that. 🙂
Painting with important ADPi symbols
Seeing the current collegians again was wonderful – they’re such a spectacular group of women, I know when they graduate they’ll be successful in whatever endeavors they choose. I am lucky to be a part of a great organization, and a great chapter. I’m already looking forward to celebrating the 100th Anniversary in 2037. 😉
[#25 of #52]
As I’ve mentioned previously, when I went to Sydney back in 2003, I really wanted to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The iconic “coathanger” is one of my favorite things in the city. Unfortunately, I was only there for the weekend, and no one from the group I was with wanted to go, since it would take a few hours and we only had the weekend to see Sydney. I vowed on our departure that I would return one day, and I would not pass on the opportunity to climb the bridge during my next visit, and it was added to my life list.
It’s the “Coathanger”!
So when Josh and I started talking about going to Australia, doing the BridgeClimb was number two on my list of things we *had* to do (number one was spending New Years in the Harbour). I was *so* excited. I contacted the BridgeClimb in September 2010 (yes, way ahead of our trip) only to find out tickets wouldn’t be on sale until the middle of 2011.
I remember that I was on the phone with my mom last June when the email appeared stating that tickets for December 2011 were available. I immediately got off the phone, opened my Skype app, and tried calling their office, but the phone kept disconnecting. I wanted to order the Gift Certificate package, so we could get a special booklet about the Bridge, but I was convinced I just needed to order our climb, so I did it online.
My mom and dad offered to buy our tickets as Christmas presents, which was a very generous offer, and we were very thankful. We decided to do the Dawn Climb, so we could see the sun come up over the city AND so the climb didn’t cut into the middle of our day exploring the city.
Tickets were purchased and the anticipation continued to grow.
So when the 28th of December rolled around, I was excited. Josh was too, though waking up at 2:45 am was not something he was excited about.
We woke up early, got ready, and grabbed a cab to the BridgeClimb location. We had to be there by 3:45 am, but since we took a cab instead of walking, we got there at 3:30 am. The cab driver thought we were a bit crazy for getting there at 3:30 am, but there were already people there before us.
As we walked in, we made our way to the counter to check in. The little café was open, so I purchased some water and raisin bread toast. I needed to eat something before making the climb!
Once our meeting time was near, we walked upstairs to the meeting area. We were greeted by a BridgeClimb employee, she brought us into a holding room where we filled out consent forms, took a breathalyzer test, and got further instruction on how the morning would go.
Next, we entered the room where they kept the BridgeClimb jumpsuits. It was there that we introduced ourselves. There were 4 people from Australia (2 from Brisbane, 2 from Perth), 4 from London, and then Josh and myself. After that was taken care of, the suits were passed out. They weren’t cute, but at least everyone was wearing them. They took us into an area with changing rooms so we could put our suits on, and then gave us access to lockers to put our personal items that we could not take on the Bridge. Because of the height, and the fact that people are driving below, they limit the items you can wear and take up with you.
After we were suited up, we met our Climb guide and he started with showing us how to put our gear belt on. He may or may not have teased Josh in the process (it was funny). We got our headlights, our hats, handkerchiefs, etc. (see the full gear set here) Then, it was time to practice the climb. Inside the holding area, there was a set of steps and ladders that we had to climb and test out how to use the harness cable that we’d be using on the bridge.
Then, it was time to climb!
We got in line, attached our harness cable to the Bridge and we were off!
As we started the climb, our guide began telling us history behind the bridge and how the BridgeClimb came to be. The first climb was put together for an international business convention, and from there, the idea was born to open the Bridge up to the public. The first public BridgeClimb took place on October 1, 1998, after multiple safety concerns were addressed. The Bridge is on loan to BridgeClimb for 20 years, and at that time the contract will either end or be extended.
The view from the Bridge was spectacular! It was dark when we started our trek up the Bridge, so it was neat to see the city wake up as the sun came out.
Josh is not a huge fan of heights, but he did so well with the climb. They suggest that you be in somewhat good shape while climbing, but I didn’t feel it was overly tough. There were a lot of steps though! To get to the actual part of the Bridge, there were sets of ladder-like steps (like the ones we had to practice on before we went out for the climb). While climbing them, traffic on the Bridge was whizzing by to the left of us, which added a little bit of atmosphere! Once up on the bridge, the steel was solid, so you felt pretty sturdy while going up the side of the Bridge.
At three different points on the Bridge, the guide would take pictures of you or your group with the city in the background. We purchased two (they were a bit pricey, but I wanted proof of our climb! Instead of getting prints (we got one of our whole group) we purchased digital copies so we could use them as we wanted.
About to head up the arch!
You can find out more about the various climbs here. They do climbs every day with the exception of December 30th and 31st (while they’re setting up for New Years Eve). Surprisingly enough, after New Years Eve, you’re able to do the BridgeClimb the next morning because the clean-up is done so quickly.
Seeing the city lights turn off and the sun come up was amazing. It was totally worth getting up early and the money spent. If anyone reading this has plans to go to Sydney anytime in the near future, this is one of things you MUST do. MUST.
What a spectacular view!
Have you ever done the climb? What were your thoughts? And if you’ve never done it – would you if you had the chance??
[#24 of #52]
I woke up SO excited, because we were on our last day of driving, and would be in Sydney by the afternoon. Oh, how I’ve waited to return!
We got up, got ready, threw out anything we couldn’t keep with us in our hotel room (i.e., ice cream cone that was left in the freezer), returned the amenities key (and got our $20 deposit back) and hit the road. WOO HOO!
While we were on our trip, we left the boys at home. Alone. With a pet sitter only coming once a day. I felt so terrible about it, but I knew it’d be better to leave them in an environment they were familiar with, instead of taking them to my mom’s house with her three cats and a dog (lab). My mom agreed to drive up to check on them once or twice while we were gone, and today was one of those days (well, today back home). They were really happy to see her and she took pictures and emailed them to us – which we were hoping to see when we arrived in Sydney.
The drive from Canberra to Sydney wasn’t too bad, but as we got to the city, it got a little more nerve-wracking. Josh was driving, though I’d offered to take the wheel through the city. After our drive through Melbourne, I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to want to drive the van in the city – but he opted to keep his seat.
That was, until we somehow missed our exit for the Britz rental location. We were lost, and our GPS unit was not helping. Josh was frustrated, he missed the second turn we could have taken, and it seemed like we were going to be driving around in circles. I saw an exit to pull off on, and asked him to do so in order to re-group. The GPS didn’t recognize where we were, which left Josh extremely frustrated.
I made him get up and I took the wheel, with the hopes of driving a little further and allowing the GPS unit to recognize where we were. Within a block or two, the GPS recalculated, and it turned out we were less than 2 kilometers from the rental location. Whew. I think that annoyed Josh a little more than getting lost, haha!
When we returned the vehicle, we’d driven over 2000 kilometers in a week – lots of driving!
We called for a taxi and asked them to take us to our hotel, the Travelodge Wynyard Sydney Hotel. After checking in, we went up to the room, dropped our luggage off, and went out to explore the city – and most importantly – find something to eat for lunch!
The Harbour was calling my name, so we set off on foot down to Circular Quay to give Josh his first glimpse of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House.
Even though we were tired, and hungry, we made our way over to the SOH to pick up our tickets for our tour and orchestra performance the following day. There were so many places to stop and eat, but we opted to stop at this smaller fish and chips shop right near the various ferry quays. We split a fisherman’s basket, with fish, chips, and calamari. We walked over to a grassy area and sat down to eat and do a little people watching.
Once we felt like moving again, we walked over to find the BridgeClimb location, so we knew where we were supposed to go in the morning. Since we were doing the sunrise climb, we had to get there early, and we didn’t want to get lost at 3:30 am! We found the location and then walked back to our hotel.
Because it was easy, we opted to eat dinner at the hotel instead of going back out. The menu looked good, but it really left a lot to be desired.
Since we’d be getting up at 2:45 am to get ready and head over to the BridgeClimb, we called it a night early, but due to my overwhelming excitement, it took me a little while to fall asleep!
[#23 of #52]
Like the past couple of days, we had rain in the early morning, which woke me up. Thankfully, it wasn’t too early, and just before our alarm went off at 8:30 am. Because it was Boxing Day, and Sunnyside Caravan Park was expecting to fill up later that day, we needed to move on and make our way out of the park.
Once breakfast was had, showers taken, we said good-bye to Ron and Sunnyside and departed on our longest drive of the trip, 428km, which was going to take us a little over 5 hours. We also called our moms to wish them a Merry Christmas.
Since we weren’t able to find a place to sleep along the coast, we opted to take the road to Canberra, to see the Australian Capital Territory. It was a boring drive, in which Josh and I alternated taking turns driving every hour. The country roads just weren’t very exciting to drive along, though they were pretty!
We stopped in Cooma to fuel up, but didn’t stop to eat, though we were getting a little hungry. We decided to hold out until we hit Canberra to grill our steaks and finish off what was in our fridge (this may or may not have included ice cream, Tim Tams, biscuits, etc.).
Thankfully the radio was able to pick up stations the whole way, otherwise we might have had a very boring drive.
We saw lots of open spaces on our drive!
We eventually made it to Canberra, and Josh was driving. I wanted to go see the Australian War Memorial* before we went to the motor village, which involved a last minute course change and stressing out over finding a parking spot. Josh’s hungry monster was present, so he did not go into the memorial with me. I guess we were doing pretty good not to bicker up until day 10, having been together 24-7, but it definitely happened on this day. 🙂
Walking into the Memorial, you see a beautiful courtyard and reflection pool in front of you. It’s a quiet and somber place, and with the weather as dreary as it was, it seemed fitting for the visit.
The commemorative courtyard
The Australia War Memorial was created to commemorate those Australians that had given their life in war. The Roll of Honour lists, in bronze panels, the names of Australia’s heroes.
The Roll of Honour
Poppies are placed by visitors next to names of loved ones.
Close-up of the poppies
The memorial was beautiful, and since I was just walking around myself I didn’t spend the time to check out the museum like I would have liked. I took pictures and then made my way back to the van to find Josh napping.
As we pulled up to the Canberra Motor Village it started to rain. Again. We checked in, got our Amenities key, and found our way to our powered parking spot. We might have been in the parking spot for 5 minutes before it started pouring down rain! Being forced to stay inside gave us some time to sort through our laundry, which is good since we needed to wash things before we got to Sydney.
Once the rain died down, I went to the front desk and got coins for the washers and dryers, plus washing powder, which cost $9 for all three! While I was taking care of the clothes, Josh got the grill ready for us to grill steaks. As I walked up, I noticed a few kangaroos hopping along on the outside of the village’s fence. It was pretty cool to see them outside of a zoo or conservation-like setting!
After dinner we finished taking care of the laundry, cleaned out the van, and relaxed for the night. We’d be leaving for Sydney in the morning!
* The Australian War Memorial is open every day, with the exception of Christmas Day, from 10am – 5pm. Admission to the Memorial is free, so if you’re ever in Canberra, you should check it out!
[#22 of #52]
Before we even moved into our house back in January, we walked into our dining room and saw a hole that wasn’t there when we did our walk-through.
This hole definitely stopped us in our tracks.
We were certain some teenage kids shot something through the wall of our house or that it’d been struck by lightning (except the circle was too perfect).
The hole on the left is about the size of a baseball!
The weekend we moved in, my dad helped us out by patching up the wall, which has now been painted over – so you can’t tell it was even there to begin with.
After a few days in the house, we quickly learned that it was neither. We heard the pecking our first weekend in the house, and quickly ran outside to scare them away. It seemed for a few weeks that we were fine, after moving the fake plastic owl around and throwing some moth balls in the yard. Both of our moms have done research into how we can get rid of them and what they’re attracted to (bugs, carpenter bees/ants, or they’re just trying find a mate).
With the weather going back and forth temperature wise, it might have been deterring them from coming out. Last weekend, while Josh was out of town, I heard some pecking, but after beating on the closet wall where it was coming from, it stopped.
Well, on Friday afternoon, Josh left work a little early since he’s been working like crazy and didn’t get a weekend off from being at SXSW. As he pulled up into our driveway, he heard pecking. A small woodpecker was going to town on the front of our house. Grr.
Small hole = small woodpecker
When he walked around to the side of our house, he saw a big woodpecker going to town on the side of our house (outside of our closet).
Big woodpecker = big hole
He tried screaming, making noise, waving his arms, and while it flew away for a few minutes, as soon as he walked back towards the garage, it came back. Josh texted me a picture of the side of the house while I was at work, so I was on guard when I drove home. As I approached our house, there was the small woodpecker on the front wall. I started honking my horn trying to scare it (my horn is much scarier sounding than Josh’s, by the way) but I only managed to scare Josh, since I didn’t know he was in the garage.
The noise didn’t faze the bird at all.
It wasn’t until I ran up to it that it flew away. What a pain. We filled its hole with a stick for now, and vowed we were going to The Home Depot in the morning to take care of business.
Saturday morning we were awaken by the tap-tap-tap-tap-tap outside of our closet. I was so nervous about the crazy bird coming through our closet, since we’ve already had one bust through our living room. After yelling, screaming, beating on the wall, and spraying the bird (and the side of our house) with a water hose, we were off to the big orange box to get supplies.
We ended up with spinning shiny objects, garden décor that moves, and plant hangers to drill into the side of a few trees near the side of the house that keeps getting attacked. We spent the afternoon putting object up around the house, Josh covered the hole the big woodpecker started (we still need to get the small one taken care of), and he sprayed the holes in our deck that the carpenter bees have made. We were exhausted, but we ventured down to IKEA to get a rug for the dining room and to look at options for TV stands for the family room. By this point, I was exhausted and feeling pretty grumpy, add in the fact that I hate IKEA, and I was ready to get home to relax.
This morning, right at 8 am, tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. What. The. Crap.
Josh ran over to the closet, beat on the wall, and put his shoes on to go outside. The woodpecker left and didn’t come back while we were home.
We had Josh’s mom, Granny, and Jerry come down to see the house, and his mom brought several shiny objects that spin in the wind. Once we gave the tour of the house, Josh’s mom went outside and started hanging the rainbow colored items. Josh pulled out the ladder and hung a few on the side of the house too.
We have 5 of these around the house now!
We also strategically placed some holographic pinwheels at the front and back of the house. So now we wait, and pray, that it’ll help. My dad looked up options online and found a bird deterrent that cost around $200, but after reading reviews online, don’t think we want it as it appears to be really loud and might annoy our neighbors. It may come to that though, or vinyl siding. We’ll see.
Have any of you ever dealt with woodpeckers at your house? What’d you do to get rid of them?? We need help!
[#21 of #52]
After a night of storms, and being in and out of sleep, I wasn’t thrilled about waking up to rain. Driving on the other side of the road had gotten easier, but I really didn’t want either of us to have to drive in the rain.
Around 8:30 am I woke up, and thankfully the rain had ceased and the sky was a brilliant blue – such a beautiful sight! I enjoyed some more of my favorite cereal and went to get ready while Josh slept. I washed dishes and swept out the van while Josh was getting ready – so we had everything in place to hit the road. We had a four hour drive, and it was Christmas, so we wanted to get going in the event there was any kind of holiday traffic – plus, checkout was 11 am.
Once Josh returned, we were on our way to Lakes Entrance!
Two hours into the drive, we stopped to get petrol, and while we were in the servo (petrol station), picked up some burgers and Christmas crackers. I’d looked for the good ones at previous stops, but hadn’t found any (well, the ones at Target in Adelaide were 10 to a pack and more than I wanted to pay!).
In Lakes Entrance, we made our way to Sunnyside Caravan Park and checked in with Ron. An interesting fact that he gave us in our conversation that was during the majority of the year, the population is 5,000 people. During the week of Boxing Day, the population hits 35,000! I was glad we made our reservation early! The powered site that we had reserved was a little difficult to navigate through, so I made Josh drive the van! 🙂 We made lunch (ham sandwiches) and programmed the TV to relax.
We opened the Christmas crackers and told each other the cheesy jokes found within. After going through them, I wished I would have purchased the ones in Adelaide – at least they had treats inside too! Oh well, maybe next time. I just wanted to have a go with the crackers, to experience the tradition with Josh.
With our hats from our Chrissy crackers!
A lazy afternoon followed because we were pretty tired from driving. For dinner, we grilled the burgers we’d picked up at the servo, had dinner, washed the dishes and went back to the van. Since it was Christmas Day, there were several holiday programs on, so we watched Eloise at Christmastime and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (which Josh was really excited to see).
There were more thunderstorms throughout the evening and into the night, but nothing nearly as bad as what we experienced during the night at Kilcunda!
[#20 of #52]
Who’s there?
Orange.
Orange, who?
Orange you proud of us? We’re using a color other than green! I know I am!
In talking about painting areas of the house, we were stuck on what color to paint the dining room. The builder’s beige was pretty boring, and we wanted to warm the room up a little. Since we’ve done a lot of green in the house (with a little more to come), we opted to find another color.
We didn’t want to do blue, because that’s an appetite suppressing color (since it reminds the body of mold – a little psychology for ya!), since it is the dining room. We didn’t want to do a bold red, since it would really clash with the rest of our colors, so we settled on orange.
I know that sounds strange, because orange is a bold color, but we didn’t intend to go with highlighter or Mercer orange, we just had to find the right color. I knew I didn’t want the orange that my landlord painted the kitchen at my first place:
Briiiiiight orange!
So on my lunch break this week, I went to the big orange box (ha, no pun intended) and picked up paint swatches.
A lot of them.
Lots of oranges.
While I was in store, my eye kept going to two particular colors (which aren’t in the pile above). Behr Fresh Peaches and Luminary. I thought these would be perfect – one for the dining room (Fresh Peaches) and one for the kitchen (Luminary). I wanted to hear Josh’s opinion though, so I kept quiet while showing them to him.
He went through and quickly discarded the dark oranges that I picked up for giggles. He narrowed it down to two swatches, and said, “I like Fresh Peaches and this Luminary.” I just love when we’re on the same wavelength. I told him I wanted to get a sample of those two, and Orange Ice, which was a little lighter than Luminary – just in case one didn’t work out.
So two days later (because I was swamped at work) I went back and got three samples of Behr paint in the three colors. After dinner that evening, we decided to paint test areas to see which ones looked best.
(L to R): Fresh Peaches, Luminary, Orange Ice
Holy cow, Fresh Peaches was *not* going to work. We really liked Luminary and Orange Ice though, so we made an executive decision and said Luminary would be our dining room color, and Orange Ice would go in the kitchen. Easy.
Since I picked up painter’s tape while I was at The Home Depot, Josh helped me tape off the room since he was going to be leaving for Austin, TX for SXSW. Very thankful for that, because it saved me time this weekend in prepping the room.
Getting closer to painting…
I picked up the paint yesterday, along with a cart full of other things (yard bags, iris bulbs, and carpenter ant/bee spray – more on that later).
You can never go into The Home Depot for just one thing…
Once I got home, I finished taping off the baseboards. I waited to do that until I knew I was going to paint, since Birdie likes to steal things, I didn’t want him pulling off the tape in the middle of the night. I draped the dining room table in plastic, and then put plastic all around the floor – using the painter’s tape on the baseboards to hold it in place – and prevent any paint from getting on the floor.
The boys loved playing on the plastic until I kicked them out of the dining room. They spent most of the afternoon on the chair watching me paint.
After I was set, I painted the trim areas along the ceiling, baseboards, and windows. I wish I would have done a bit more as far as a wider stroke goes, or even two coats, but it’ll do for now. We’d love to put crown moulding in the room, so it wouldn’t matter if we did that! 😉
Then the painting began. While I was at The Home Depot, I picked up a Shur-Line Twist ‘N’ Reach 19-1/2 in. Roller Frame and I was glad that I did! I didn’t have to use the step stool while painting the room.
The first coat took me about an hour to do and it was obvious the room needed a second coat. I took a quick break, sent a picture to Josh, and started prepping for round two.
First coat – done!
The second round took a little less time and it looked *SO* much better. There’s a slight orange glow to the room, but it does look really pretty. Once we get our new furniture into the room, with some decoration, it’ll look really good. I can’t wait. 🙂 Still a few minor things to touch up, but it’s a definite (and welcome) change from what was there before.
Once we get the room all together, I’ll post more pics!
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