Acting Irish Down Under

For St. Patrick's Day in Australia, we put on our green shirts and met up with some fellow American expats at an Irish bar in the early afternoon. We enjoyed some drinks, and with the purchase of a Guinness beer, you got these fun hats (Zack gave me his-I hate beer!).

Me, Alena, Emily, Adam, and Todd (Zack took the picture).

After leaving PJ O'Brien's, we went to a nearby restaurant with some Irish food and drink specials and live music. I enjoyed my beef and Guinness pie (it didn't taste like beer) with chips (fries), and we taught the others how to play six-handed euchre. The girls won!

Outside on the sidewalk (for $10) you could try to win $50 by riding this bike from one line to the other. The trick was that the handlebars were backward, so when you turned one way, it went the opposite way. We chipped in to let Adam give it a go, but sadly he only won some stickers. Oh well!

This shot was taken a few days before St. Patrick's Day, but I thought it was appropriate to include at the end of this post. Hopefully you all had a good Irish celebration and found your pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! 

Stay tuned for upcoming posts about more fun in the Grampians and our day at the Grand Prix!

Grampians are Great!

I will fully admit that we are total Colorado snobs. Australia is gorgeous, but in a completely different way than our old home. We used to spend our weekends mountain biking, snowboarding, hiking, whitewater rafting, snowshoeing, and camping among some of the most beautiful 14,000+ foot mountains in the world, and it was amazing. So we sometimes find ourselves snickering at the so-called "hikes" here in Australia. Mountain biking among the kangaroos is a unique experience, but the word "mountain" is a rather inaccurate term. And we won't even go near the overpriced bunny hills they call ski resorts out here. But you know what? We went to the Grampians last weekend, and we were truly impressed!

Zack had this past Monday off from work, because it was Labour Day. We took advantage of the long weekend and drove about three hours outside of Melbourne to camp in Grampians National Park. Emily came along with us (Adam had to work), and we met up with Todd and Alena as well.

On Saturday, all five of us did a beautiful hike called the Mount Stapylton Loop. It was 12.2 km, and it took us about five hours to complete. But we stopped a lot to take pictures, eat lunch, fool around, etc. The hike was awesome: great views, some rock scrambling, cool formations, perfect weather with bright blue (dare I say Colorado-ish?!) skies, and fun friends. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day:

Boy shot-Todd and Zack ride the "camel" rock.

Girl shot-Emily, me, and Alena-sitting pretty near the top of Mt Stapylton.

We attempted several times to get a decent jumping picture with all of us in it.
This was the best one. We had fun trying!

We definitely want to go back to this area of Victoria. Zack and our friends were musing about how the Grampians is what they pictured Australia would be like when they came over here. For me, it just reminded me of Colorado, and that made me happy! I'll have a couple more Grampian posts coming up about camping, the waterfall, and our day spent rock climbing, but for now, I'll leave you with a picture dedicated to our Colorado roots...Zack doing the Tim Tebow pose!

A Bounty of Balloons

Check out all of the hot air balloons that were over Melbourne the other morning! How many do you see?

So Long Summer? Hello Sunsets!

The weather seems to be starting to cool off a little bit. We've been getting some rain, and it actually felt like fall the other day. I don't feel like we've had nearly enough summer yet, but alas, it is March in Australia, and that means the start of another season. 

But the sunsets continue to be beautiful. Here's a random phone shot I took while walking home the other day; I was right by Luna Park and liked how the palm trees were silhouetted as the sun went down:

There is one positive thing about the change in seasons. It means that we get to see sunsets from our balcony again! The other night was the first night in months where I could see the sun as it went down without leaving the comfort of home. I don't think I will ever get sick of this view!

Goodbye Grandpa Schultz

I don't usually post personal stuff on here, besides "here's what we did today" type of things, but I found out that my grandpa died a few hours ago, and he deserves a blog post more than any of the frivolous stuff I usually write about.

Dancing with Grandpa Schultz at our wedding.

Grandpa Schultz was a farmer, hunter, and fisherman. He played a mean game of euchre; I still remember him calling trump on basically nothing ("right-nine all the time"). He and my grandma had seven kids and were married for over fifty years before she passed away ten years ago. My grandpa could build and fix anything, and he worked for General Motors for several years. He was the most helpful guy in the world, and he loved his kids and grandkids like crazy (he always cried when we said goodbye). And he liked to talk and tell stories-sometimes very long ones!

Goofy Grandpa Schultz-I love this picture of him!

Up until a couple of months ago, my grandpa was super healthy. He even had a full head of dark hair at age 90! But about six weeks ago he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos (from all the years working with GM), and he'd been declining ever since. Lots of the family was able to be with him in Michigan over the past week, and he's been under Hospice care in his own home for the past few days, so things went as "good" as they could have considering the circumstances. But I sure will miss my grandpa.

Video of Favorite Memories of Grandpa Schultz

Above is the link to a video my family (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) made last week for his 90th birthday, which was just a few days ago. They played it for him yesterday, and my mom said he was able to hear everyone's voices and feel the love. You're welcome to watch the whole thing if you want to, but I'd at least check out the first few minutes, because my brother made a really awesome intro using his bouncy ball collection!

Goodbye Grandpa Schultz-I love you!

Cricket with Kris and Kevin

Kris was my roommate in Farley Hall during my freshman year at Notre Dame, and in August, she married a guy named Kevin. I couldn't make it to their wedding, but they took a delayed honeymoon to Australia! After visiting the Great Barrier Reef and before heading to Sydney and then New Zealand, they stopped over in Melbourne for a few days. We didn't have the greatest of weather over the weekend, but we made the best of it.

One thing we did was go to a cricket match at the MCG on Friday night. Australia was playing Sri Lanka. The match started at 2:30pm, but we just went for a few hours in the evening. We must have looked like total dorks reading the rules of the game on Wikipedia on our phones while watching the game, but once we understood it a bit, cricket was much more fun to watch! The main thing I didn't know is that there are two batsmen at one time, and they score points by running back and forth between the wickets after hitting the ball. I won't go into all of the other rules; if you really care, check out this link.

Only certain sections of the stadium were full, but there are apparently tons of people from Sri Lanka living in Melbourne, because there were lots of spirited fans cheering for the Sri Lankan team! Australia ended up winning in the end, but only by 15 runs (which is not a lot). Check out the picture above with Gatorade guys on segways!

Kris and Kevin in front of Flinders Street Station on a cloudy Friday night.

On Saturday after a nice breakfast at a cafe, I took Kris and Kevin around the city on the free city circle tram, with a stop at the Queen Victoria Market. They enjoyed the ever-interesting meat hall (tongues, cheeks, livers, etc.), some souvenir shopping, and a few yummy macaroons. Unfortunately, it rained all day! In the evening, we played some euchre at our place before heading to the Fitzroy area and Brunswick Street for drinks and dinner. Good times! It was awesome to finally catch a cricket game and show an old college pal around my new home. Happy honeymoon Kris and Kevin!

Words With Friends

I love the app called Words With Friends. It's basically Scrabble, but you can play with anyone in the world. You just take your turn when you have time, so the games take at least a few days, especially when you're playing against someone who's awake while you're asleep (everyone in the US!). Anyway, I'm addicted. I usually have at least five games going at once, and if I'm on my phone, that's probably what I'm playing. Some people put up a good fight (namely my dad). And some people cheat (there are websites to do this-so unfair!). Apparently most of my cousins refuse to play me because I'm "too good"?! I'm pretty decent, but I definitely don't always win. A lot of it depends on what letters you're given. Anyway, below are screen shots of two moves in recent games. I'm rather proud of these; anything over 100 is pretty rare (at least from my experience). If you want to play against me, my username is AubreeK...if you dare! :)

Highest one word score of my career.

How ya like that Daddy-o?