Bon Voyage Emily and Adam!

Their taxi driver took this last picture of the four of us before they left!

In many of our blog entries over the last two years, you've probably heard the names Emily and Adam. Though they moved to Australia from Denver (we were nearly neighbors!), we didn't know each other at all until Emily and I met at a book club here in Melbourne about a year and a half ago. Since then, the four of us have done so much in Australia together. We've completed athletic events such as the Great Ocean Road Half Marathon, the Tough Mudder, the City2Sea Race, and the Bay in a Day bike race. We've celebrated holidays like Australia Day, Thanksgiving (twice), Christmas in July, and birthdays. We've gone surfing, camping, rock climbing, hiking,  mountain biking, snowboarding, running, dancing, and bowling together. We've been to hockey and rugby games, watched the Grand Final of footy, gone to horse races in both the city and the country, and we even went to the circus. And we drank wine together. Oh so much wine!

Needless to say, when Emily and Adam headed back to Denver a few weeks ago, it was kind of sad. We were glad they stayed at our place for their last few weeks in Oz (because their lease was up), so we could make a few more good memories (including watching several episodes of How I Met Your Mother).

Here Emily and I are destroying the everlasting birthday balloon. I had gotten it for Emily way back in September for her birthday, and it lasted fairly well all the way until the end of January for my birthday. But we decided it could be put to rest after that! Also notice the plate of delicious chocolate chip cookies on the table. Emily is famous among our Melbourne friends for those, and warm ones were waiting for Zack and I upon our return from Byron Bay!




Here's Adam all packed and ready to go. He and Emily are currently traveling around Japan and Southeast Asia before heading back to Denver, so they had to fit everything into their backpacks. I'm not quite sure how they did it! You can read about their travels on their blog here. You'll notice there aren't a lot of Australian entries...they always joked that they would tell their family and friends to come and read our blog, since they were probably with us and doing whatever we were doing anyway. So hello to any Adam/Emily visitors...this blog post is full of links you might like!

When we leave Australia, which may be sooner rather than later, so many of our memories will include good times spent with Emily and Adam. They were/are great friends, and we hope to be reunited with them back in Colorado. Adam and Emily, if you're reading this somewhere in the middle of Cambodia, we miss you!!!

"A big yellow taxi took our friends away!"