Maybe in Oz

After Phil wore himself and us out doing the Cairns triathlon , we set off on a week long adventure exploring Far North Queensland with his parents.  The first stop was Kuranda, just near Cairns.  We took the sky rail up into Barron Gorge National Park and got to see the rainforrest from above.  It was hard to tell just how tall the trees were until we stopped and took a walk around the rainforrest floor.  Some of these trees were nearly 500 years old! Cairns in the distance from the Sky Rail 500 year old rain forrest tree We also stopped for a walk to view Barron Falls, a pretty waterfall moving down a mass of impressive rock. Barron Falls The sky rail was a great way to see the area above and allow Phil a rest after all his hard work the previous day. Barron Gorge The sky rail took us to Kuranda, which is a cute little town nestled in the rain forrest.  There are a few tourist attractions there, and we decided to check out the Koala Garde...

Our citizenship ceremony just happened to be a few days before Phil's 40th birthday so it seemed like a good excuse to have a party.  We even had a very distinguished guest in attendance - the Queen! Her Majesty Besides Her Majesty, lots of friends and adopted family joined us in the celebration.  We announced our footy teams - I picked the Geelong Cats because, well, cats and Phil picked the St Kilda Saints because we went to a lot of their matches for work when we first moved here.  We toasted, had cake, a few drinks, and lots of laughs. Toasting our friends Footy scarves Don't drop the cake! When you move to the other side of the world, you're forced to start from scratch meeting new people.  We were lucky, when we moved over we knew 3 people.  Looking around that day, it was neat to see how far we've come in just a few years.  One friend we met at an American Expat meet up group dinner that no one else showed up to.  She invited u...

We had our Australian citizenship ceremony a month ago now and I'm just getting around to looking at the pictures.  It was a fun evening that we were honored to share with some friends and family who played a huge role in us wanting to stay. Just before the ceremony I was thinking about why we chose to get citizenship.  There are a few financial reasons it made sense, but really, I think the main reason we wanted to get citizenship was because we could.  Most people only get citizenship once in their lives and they're hardly going to remember it.  It's not common that people get the opportunity to become citizens of another country, especially one as great as this.  So of course we had to. The word "ceremony" made me think of something grand and formal, but it was not quite the case.  It was held at the Narre Warren Community Centre, a basic room with 110 chairs for the new citizens and maybe 40 chairs for those in the audience.  To begin, a bag...

From the Ironman- One day I will train properly for these silly races… This race was put on the schedule as it was the last full Ironman distance in Australia that I had not completed.  I did the 70.3 a few years ago and really enjoyed it, and also we were due for a holiday. I signed up for this race long before all of the drama of the cancellation of IM Melbourne and everyone being reallocated to this race or Port Mac a few weeks ago. Additionally, my parents wanted to come out and see me race again and to see the Great Barrier Reef (while it still exists).  We left the house early on Friday morning for a 9am flight.  It was a damn good thing we did as there was a semi truck fire on the freeway that closed it down during the morning rush hour.  As we sat in the lounge watching the chaos on TV and also watching all the bikes headed over to oversize baggage, the race brain began to kick in. The flight was full of triathletes and there is always a nervous buzz of...