Are you OK?

I was sitting on my deck out back reading a good book this morning and look what I saw...Are they asking me? Haven't seen skywriting since I was a little kid, I think. I thought when it started that it was going to be a marriage proposal or something, but then it was just a simple question. I wonder who it was meant for?

Anyway, we have had a very nice Saturday. We went to the Orange Grove Farmer's market this morning. Here in Australia most neighborhoods have small markets on the weekend in the school parking lots. We are lucky enough to live 2 blocks from an organice one and we really enjoyed it today. We bought some great natural lotion, lemon pepper goat cheese, some mandarin oranges, flowers picked today, lime hummus, feta/rocket/rosemary chicken sausages (yes, you can get rocket in everything here), and some great looking asian salad mix. We are definitely not ordering produce from Woolie's anymore. There is so much great stuff at this market! This will definitely become a Saturday ritual for us. We walked to the local coffee shop, Divi, and then went to the market. Definitely a good thing to eat before you go there! So many yummy treats. Can't wait to go back next week!

And, other good news, Dan bought a completely overpriced, but said to be amazing, grill today. So, our deck is all set up with umbrella, chairs, and BBQ now. He even got the overpriced accessories to match : ) He'll have fun cooking those sausages for our friend, E and T tonight - our first visitors, by the way. Looking forward to playing some games with them tonight, like Uno and stuff like that. Dan made some amazing margaritas last night, so we may have to repeat that tonight! I just made a salad with our salad mix, goat cheese, some tomatoes, mushrooms, and onions - can't wait to eat it.

Here are the pretty fresh flowers we got. Dan made the vase out of a water bottle that he cut! No, our crate has not yet arrived. Forecasted to be here Oct 4. And, that's our new little dining set it is sitting on.

This is our new outdoor set minus grill, since Dan bought it later.

Here are some of the plants we were lucky enough to get that the owners left for us - fresh herbs, basil, mint, thyme, sage, cilantro.

The dogs are in quarantine now. Dan will go see them on Tuesday. Apparently they are doing well. The dog walker starts looking after them on Monday, so we'll have a link to post of them for you to see. We're definitely settling in. We are OK. Thanks to whoever asked.

New Stuff

This is sort of a short, random list of stuff...Good news - dogs are finally on their way! Then, they'll have 30 days of quarantine, so they should be home with us by about October 9. I had my first domestic business trip in Australia, traveled to Melbourne. Can you imagine leaving your house at 6:15 am for a 7:30 flight and being able to catch an earlier flight?? This is my new travel life and I am loving it. Domestic air travel is a delight here. And, I have no status on Qantas, yet could fit my bag on...And, they gave me breakfast for a 1.5 hour flight...It is quite lavish this Australian travel, so I'm a big fan already.

We are in the new house, have a real phone, no internet or TV yet...long story, but we should have it soon. Even though we are on a Rent a Centre bed and sofa, it is still better than our hotel room. I was invited by several co-workers for lunch, coffee, drinks, etc. I must have passed the secret 4 week test...not sure. So, on all fronts all things going fairly well. Will post some pics of the house when it looks a little nicer. We have 2 guest rooms for you friends and family!  Will post when dogs get here safely. We have someone we've paid to look in on them every day, so that is really nice.

Chinatown and Sydney Fish Market

Last weekend we had a very fun tourist day. We started by lunch in Chinatown where we got to see a wonderful display of the Chinese dragon. The "dragon" basically went from door to door doing a very frenetic dance. We tried to take a picture, but it was hard since there was so much movement.

Next, we went to the Fish Market and bought some ingredients for a yummy dinner. On the way, we saw a pretty large bird in the parking lot. We don't know these people who were walking up to it.

The fish market was amazing. So many good fresh fish. We took it home and had a great dinner. On the way home we saw an opportunity to take a shot of the city.

We'll post some pictures of our rental soon. Miss you all!