Thank Heaven for little girls...

February 9, 2011 my little niece, Kayli Marie, came into this world. This is my first niece. I have three adorable nephews and now I can add an adorable niece to the list. My brother said it best when he said that not every little girl is born with three built in body guards. That is so true.

I was able to make it home to see her when she was only 2 days old. Pictures of when she was born just cannot do her justice. It was so hard to really tell how big she was. In the pictures she looked like a big girl, but seeing her in person she is so so tiny! The boys love their little sister. The oldest loves to hold her and the youngest gave her so many kisses while I was there. So precious. I can't wait until she older though and getting on their nerves, there probably won't be many kisses taking place then....more like hits and screams.

I am so excited to finally be able to buy girlie things! It will be a welcome change.


Welcome to the world little Kayli...you are already loved by so many already!

Rain, Cold, and Donuts....Oh My!

The Krispy Kreme Challenge...it happens every January or February here in Raleigh. For so many years I have wanted to do this race, but it seems like there was always something going on that Saturday or I was not in town. This year I was finally going to be able to do it!

For those who don't know what the Krispy Kreme Challenge is, it goes a little something like this. Thousands of people gather at the Bell Tower on the campus of North Carolina State University. They run 2 miles to the Krispy Kreme, eat a dozen donuts, and then run back to the Bell Tower. The "challenge" comes in to play in that they have to do all of this in under an hour and without throwing up the donuts! Now that is a challenge!!! One that I would never even dream of trying to complete.

Luckily for those sane folks like me they have what they call a Casual Runner category. We do the race but we are not required to eat a dozen donuts, we eat as many as we want AND we don't have to do it in under an hour and it's okay if we throw them up.

Now that you have a little background on the challenge let's walk through my experience shall we. I'll start off by saying that as I looked at the weather forecast for the day of the run I kept getting more and more depressed and kept thinking, do I really want to do this? Seeing as how the race is traditionally in the winter it is always a cold race morning. That was strike number one for me.  Although I knew it would be cold when I signed up I guess I just kept hoping for one of those crazy North Carolina weather patterns that might cause it to be a warm race morning. It is not uncommon here to be in the 70s one day and then a day or so later snow be in the forecast. But...no dice. It was cold. Strike number two? It was scheduled to rain that morning and clear up that afternoon. Or course it was.

As race morning was getting closer and closer I was dreading it more and more. Mom and dad were scheduled to come down for the race so they could try and promote Run For Food International while cheering me on. I even told them at dinner the night before that if they had not planned on coming down then I probably wouldn't have gone.

But alas, they came down and I didn't want their trip to be in vain. So I unwillingly got up and got ready for the race. I bundled up in my cold weather running gear and grabbed my rain jacket to throw on top. Good thing...I never took it off.

It was raining when we got to the race, but we were lucky and found a perfect parking spot close to the start of the race so we didn't really have to stand out long in the rain before the race started. 8:30 am and we were off....all 7, 000 or so of us. I did pretty good the first 2 miles, I kept a steady pace and was proud of myself that I didn't start out too fast like I normally do. The only thing that was cold were my hands, but they quickly warmed up and I had to take off my gloves at one point. The rain was still coming down, but it had slowed to almost a sprinkle. I made it to Krispy Kreme! One thing that I do regret is not having a camera with me. To see the piles and piles of boxes of Krispy Kreme yet to be eaten...and then to turn the corner to see the HUGE pile of empty boxes that had already been eaten. It was an amazing site to see.

I grabbed my box of donuts and took one out to eat, but I needed water. I search for a while and finally found some. So I began walking trying to juggle my box of donuts, the one I had taken out to eat, and my cup of water when it starts to rain again!!! And this time it was not sprinkles. It was coming down harder. So I ate my donut, drank my water and took off for the 2 mile trek back to the Bell Tower. I started out pretty going good back, but then maybe half a mile in I sort of felt like my ONE donut wanted to come back up. So I stopped and walked for a bit. I ended up having to do this the whole way back. I'd feel better so I'd start running then I'd fell bad again so I'd stop and walk. I give props right now to all of those people out there who did the challenge and kept all twelve down. You all rock. I could barely keep one down!

So, despite the bad weather I really had a good time at the race. It was an entertaining run. Lots of people dress up for this race so there were plenty of things to look at while you ran. I definitely plan on doing it again next year....maybe I'll come up with a costume.

A Sydney New Year’s Eve

Ah, new year’s even in Sydney. You can’t get much better than that!!  Heidi and I started out the day by doing morning tea at the QVB. It was yummy and they had these blood orange macaroons. They were to die for. So far I’ve not seen any around to buy, otherwise I might have to buy another suitcase just to bring them back!

Later that day we met up with Justin at his sister’s house to head to dinner and then to see the fireworks. So apparently Australians love to blow things up therefore this was going to be a spectacular fireworks display. They actually had a 9:00 fireworks for families and a midnight fireworks for wild and crazy folks like us.

So, now to let you know what we did for new year’s eve. The day before while we visiting the aquarium, etc we saw a guy with fliers about a new year’s even cruise. After talking with him we decided that we would give that a shot. Apparently if you want a good spot for fireworks you pretty much have to camp out starting at 2:00 or 3:00 and then a lot of your day is wasted. So we decided to spend some money in hopes to get a good view and not  have to deal with tons of crowd. The crowds were similar to that of New Year’s Even in NY at Times Square. Let me just say that we made the right decision on the cruise.
So we got on the boat about  6:30 and it pretty much just cruised around the harbor until it was time for the 9:00 fireworks. We were close to the last people on the boat so we had to actually sit inside. Turns out that was a good thing, because it was cold and windy up top. When it was time for the 9:00 fireworks we just headed up top and watched them. So the view was awesome. They were actually shooting them off in several directions, so being up top you could see them all, but you did have to focus on one set b/c the others were actually behind us.
Oh,one other thing I forgot to mention about this cruise, was that we were also in a parade of lights. We were on a whale watching boat so we had a big whale lit up on ours. Or so they say, I never did see it, since when we boarded the boat it was still light.

Once the 9:00 fireworks were over the dancing began!! We had a blast! Then of course when it was midnight we brought in the New Year with even better fireworks. It really was awesome. The experience of a life time!

We got off the boat around 1am or so and headed to Justin’s sister’s place and then drove out to his mom’s place because the next day we were headed to the blue mountains…..

Tasmania!!

Today’s stop was Tasmania….yep, the home of the Tasmanian devil. Unfortunately all the tours out to the parks to see the Tasmanian devil were sold out so a post card had to be good enough for us. I can say that the real Tasmanian Devil looks nothing like the cartoon one that we grew up with. They don’t look anything alike so I can’t figure out where the cartoon one came from. Oh well, I may never know…or I could probably just Google it.

We walked around the city for a bit and then took a tram tour around some of the suburbs of Tasmania. It was nice seeing some things further out. Nothing extremely exciting happened this trip so this post won’t be very long.

Another day at sea and then back in Melbourne. Maybe we can actually see Victoria Market this time, since it was closed the whole time we were there for a week.

Sydney Bridge Climb

Today was another busy day. We met Justin around 11:30, but prior to meeting him, Heidi and I toured around the Queen Victoria Building (QVB). It was beautiful and full of shops. Who could ask for more!!!

We met up with Justin and his sister and his mom for Yum Cha (we call it dim sum). I had never had dim sum and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. After lunch we went to the aquarium, the sky tower and the wildlife center and Heidi and I got our picture taken with a Koala. We couldn’t hold them because it is illegal apparently. But we did get to pet it so I was happy about that.

After we saw all the wild life and sea life we could stand it was getting closer to time to do the bridge climb! We went for dinner in The Rocks area which was very near where we needed to get on the bridge.

So now, our Bridge Climb adventure begins. Now, most of you know that I am adventurous and like to do lots of stuff, but I will admit that I was a little nervous/scared to do this climb, especially after seeing the bridge. Once we got there we were in the waiting area and watching a video of what all you were going to do the prepare. We had already gone to the bathroom, but noticed in the video that you would get a chance to use the restroom before the climb. So they began by giving us the wind suits. Our guide was amazing…she looking us all up and down and picked out the exact size for each of us. No one had to change for a different size. So we get the wind suits on and Heidi and started wondering are the going to give us a bathroom break before we get all of the gear on? So far no break…so the next thing we do is grab our harnesses and put them on. Once we had them on I really started to wonder how in the world I was going to go to the bathroom with that rig on. Next it was headlamps, fleece jackets in a pouch incase we got cold, and radios so we could hear our guide. Of course the radio was only one way…we couldn’t communicate with her through them, so I guess if we found ourselves hanging off the side of the bridge we were SOL. 

Next we did a test run inside on the steps that we would be climbing while on the bridge. Well of course everyone breezed through them, they were probably only 12ft off the ground. They didn’t practice what to do if you panic climbing those stairs high above solid concrete with cars traveling below.

So the climb finally beings. The first part was a little scary b/c it was a small walkway and you were looking down at cars/concrete below you. But over all, it was not as scary as I had made it to be in my mind. And I am very glad we did it at night. The city was full of lights. It was gorgeous. We took pictures on the bridge with the Opera house in the background, then once we were at the top we took a group shot of everyone in our group. The group shot was complementary, but we did buy some of the other pictures. 

I would recommend if you are ever in Sydney to do the climb.

Sorry I have no pictures to put on here for the climb, but  they are all on CD and my little laptop doesn’t have a disk drive. I’ll have to post them when I am back home.

Finally in Sydney

We have finally arrived in Sydney!! Now, we might be walking around like zombies….but we are here. We got in late from the Penguin Parade last night and still had to finish packing. Our apartment in Sydney is okay. It is very secure, but the apartment stunk of cologne….and it was strong. It took a few days for us to either get used to it, or it could have finally gone away…who knows.

Justin gave us some ideas of things to do the day we arrived and then we would meet up with him the next day. So we began to wonder around to see where things were. Our neighborhood we were staying in was pretty decent in a 2 block radius, but then it seemed to go downhill from there. As we were walking around we ran into lots of homeless and guys doing cat calls. We finally got out of there and found Hyde Park and the Botanical Gardens. They were both beautiful!! We got lost in the gardens, but eventually found a different route back to our apartment that was faster and safer then the route we took to get to the gardens. For dinner we found this little restaurant  about a block away and actually had an American waiter from New York. Pretty cool.

We met up with Justin the next day out at Manly beach. Apparently all the tourist go to Bondi beach, and Manly is left for the locals. So it was good to go with a local to show us around. While at Manly we ate lunch. Heidi was dying for some prawns and I wanted fish and chips. So we found a place that had a dish that we could split that had stuff on it that we all wanted. Well besides the oysters so Justin got those. So the food comes out and guess what? Heidi’s prawns had eyes and legs!!! You better believe I was glad I wasn’t eating those things. She attempted to crack into the prawn and when she did it’s poop squirted out! EWWWW. Justin was over there saying….just clean it off and eat it. I couldn’t help but laugh. She finally got them down though

After lunch we began some whirlwind site seeing. Justin took us up to the heads that had some wonderful views, then we headed back down to Manly and went to ocean world….which is pretty much an aquarium. It was pretty cool. We got to see a seahorse giving birth!! From there we  headed into the city and went to the Summit Bar. It is a revolving restaurant. So we sat up there for a while and had a drink while we revolved around the city and Justin showed us where everything was.

We had Chinese for dinner and then walked around Chinatown for a bit before we all went our separate ways for the evening. Tomorrow will be another busy day.

Dunedin…the Scotland of New Zealand!

Today’s stop was Dunedin. They call it the Scotland of New Zealand. Today we did two tours. One to the Cadbury Chocolate Factory and one to Larnach Castle….the only castle in New Zealand.

Let’s start off with the Cadbury tour. Can we say HEAVEN!!! The actual factory was closed so we couldn’t tour it, but we were able to tour other parts. The  tour started off by giving us each a bag of 4 candy bars. Uh…yeah baby…now that is my kind of tour!! On the site they had 2 silos that they used to use for making chocolate, but no longer do. We were able to go up in one of them. It was several stories high and there were these chocolate bin type things going up the middle of the staircase. Once we got to the top our guide told us to yell….”We want chocolate”. We did and he flipped a switch and a chocolate waterfall just opened up from the ceiling. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures, but I can just tell you that it was amazing!! After that  chocolate waterfall we headed down and he took us into a room where we sampled “liquid chocolate”. Basically it is just the initial base of melted chocolate before they do anything with it. YUMMMY!!!!!!!!!!!

At the end of the tour we actually got caught in a hail storm. Luckily it didn’t last long, but it did not stop us from making a run for it to get to the shop where we could purchase candy. Once inside….I was a kid in a candy store….literally. There were so many different kinds of chocolate. I bought a ton and guess what….I wish I had bought more because a lot of the types you can’t get in the states. Supposedly there is another factory in Hobart….might just have to make a stop by there and get more!!

After we were loaded down with chocolate and trying to keep it from melting, we headed on our tour of the Larnach Castle. The highlight of this tour was our tour guide…Max. Too bad we couldn’t bring him home with us. He was mighty fine! The castle was beautiful too though. The grounds were so green! Again, it’s one of those you’ll just have to see it for yourselves some day.

Next on the agenda is 3 sea days. One of those (tomorrow actually) is cruising around the Fiords.