The last couple of days have been nice and relaxing. We had a lazy Monday morning and Bill, dad, and I worked on the Awesome-mobile Monday afternoon. For those who don't know what an Awesome-mobile is:
Awesome-mobile on the service rack
Check out the photo gallery for some pictures and test videos including the video where it all went wrong. Okay, the video didn't capture the mayhem cause I had to take off down the street. Basically, the braking system blew out which in turn locked the throttle wide open. Bill ended up with a gash on his ankle and the battery box on the Awesome-mobile is a little worse for the wear. I think we're going to take another look at it today. Monday night Beth's parents came over and Bill fixed some Chinese dishes - honey ginger pork and sweet & sour chicken. Quite tasty.
Tuesday was Bill's birthday! He got Hot Wheels from Beth and Liam so we spent the morning playing with those. The culmination of the morning's work was this video - just watch and enjoy the engineering. Bill and I attempted to go mountain biking, but after a short bit his crank shaft started to get loose so we had to head back to the car. It finally fell off about a half mile from the car so the last bit was fun. Click here to view our trek on RunKeeper. We saw a couple of kangaroos along the way too (video). We came back to the house and fixed up the bike then headed on a ride around the lake near the house instead. It was a fun ride and I got some nice pictures.
Camera was dying and we weren't sure if it was going to cut our heads off of the picture
After the ride, we headed to the grocery store to pick up some food for Bill's birthday dinner - a barbeque of beef, chicken, pork, and kangaroo. Add in some sweet potato, corn, and a caramel cake and we had a great dinner. It was nice that my parents and I were all around for Bill's birthday.
Lighting the barbeque
Blowing out the candles
For more on the last couple of days, check out the full picture gallery.
We're headed to the coast today and I'll be without internet until we get back on Sunday. I hear my iPhone will work so I may continue micro-blogging on Twitter, but these posts will most likely stop until I get back. If I get a chance to put up pictures along the way I will.
I hope you all make it a great rest of the week and weekend. I know I will!
A beach called "Manly" (http://tr.im/t60R), falling asleep at the pub (http://tr.im/t660), ~5 mile run through some beaches and a cemetery (http://bit.ly/cxOzS), and a 3 hour drive from Sydney to Canberra - that pretty much sums up my first 48 hours in Australia.
I'm going to chronicle my trip in this blog, but honestly it's too much to tell without getting boring. I'll highlight some things here, but you'll get more from checking out my pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/jennandjer.net/Australia.
It's a little after noon on Monday here which means it's Sunday night back home (add 2 hours, then add 12 hours to get from east coast time to Canberra time). I left Atlanta Thursday night and got into Sydney Saturday morning. My flight was pretty much what you would expect - long - but I slept most of the way so it didn't feel so long to me. My brother and our friend Mike picked me up at the airport and we made our way back to his apartment in Sydney to drop of my stuff and get some coffee before heading out for the day. We walked through the city, past Hyde Park and the Opera House to get to the Manly Ferry. There is an area of city named Manly, "So named after the confidence and ‘manly behaviour’ displayed by a group of local Aborigines spied in Manly Cove by Australia’s first Governor, Captain Arthur Phillip in 1788" according to http://www.manlyaustralia.com . Check out my gallery for pictures from the beach, our hike, and around the town - everything has the name 'Manly' which gave me a good laugh.
me and Bill on Manly Beach
on top of a wall during our hike
Saturday night we met up with some guys at a local brew pub for dinner and drinks. You may notice a lack of pictures once we entered the pub. I wish there was a good story about how the pictures were too scandalous to post, but honestly it was all I could do to stay awake as I was dealing with the time difference. I had to take a little nap at the table while the rest of the party drank up. Oh well, I had fun anyway. 
The Pub
Sunday morning we headed to Bondi beach. Again I'll refer you to the picture page, cause the pictures captured it better than my words ever could. I planned on going for a short run down the coast, but it was so nice that I kept going until I ran through a cemetery and ended up about 2.5 miles from where I started. The link above is to the RunKeeper entry of my run, but something went wrong on the way back and it didn't track it correctly. I got some great pictures though.
Cemetery I passed through on my run
After Bondi, Bill and I drove to Bill and Beth's house in Canberra. It's about 3 hours away so the drive was good exposure to some Australian culture (cars, [lack of] billboards, etc). I got to meet my other nephew Liam for the first time since my wedding 2 years ago. He's two and a half and is a funny little guy. His favorite thing seems to be "crash" - whether it's on an xbox game, pinball on the laptop, or dropping Lego's off the table. 
Liam and grandma playing with Lego's
Off to enjoy the day!
