Brekky & Boogie Boarding at the Beach!

While we find ourselves missing home more than ever, we are trying to cherish everything we've come to love about living in Perth.  One of our new favorites is a Saturday morning date to the beach for breakfast and boogie boarding!  (And we usually try to make it back for more boogie boarding after church on Sunday afternoons too!)  This has become a K&T tradition and we've added it to the list of things we'll miss most about living here!

Chef T has mastered the art of eggs, bacon and toast on the bbq's at the beach!

We look forward to our Saturday morning date all week long!

And of course on this Saturday morning it chose to be cloudy and even chilly outside!  We didn't quite make it into the water with the sun hiding behind the clouds and all...but we totally broke out the dominoes and had just as much fun!

On our way home, we saw this car and couldn't help but think that both of our dad's would appreciate this picture!!

Happy New Year!

Tyson and I decided that New Years Eve was the perfect time to take another Aussie roadtrip.  Especially since we knew that we'd probably be extremely lonely and sad sitting around our all-of-a-sudden empty again apartment.  So, after driving my family to the airport on the 30th, we wiped away our tears (okay, MY tears) and headed North from Perth on New Years Eve.  Once we left the Perth city limits, we found ourselves surrounded by the true Australia Outback!  (And this Outback does not serve delicious steak and bread like the one we know at home all too well!)  This was the first time since we've been in Australia that we've actually seen the barren, dry, dusty, yet surprisingly pretty landscape that IS the land down under.  Talk about adventure!  We drove for four hours through much of nothing but desert and twisted shrubs to the coastal town of Geraldton.  And all along the way we prayed for no punctured tires and thanked the Lord for our mint condition Hyundai Accent! :)  We settled into our hotel room and then drove around the city and explored some of the beaches close by before going out for a New Years Eve dinner.  We ate at a quaint Italian restaurant where we had the best table in the house and spent our night talking about how fortunately blessed we were in 2008.  And then, K&T brought in the New Year by playing dominoes on our balcony overlooking the gorgeous ocean!  We certainly missed all of you more than you could ever possibly know.  We'll never forget the start to 2009!

On New Years Day we woke up and drove 2 more hours through what looked like an even MORE intense and deserted Outback to Kalbarri.  Kalbarri is a small town known for its huge National Park and its beautiful ocean cliffs and river gorges.  We had a blast exploring this tiny town!  Our favorite part was definitely the views of the ocean cliffs and all of the red rock that they were made from.  We hiked through the Aussie Outback to see the river gorges in the National Park.  Hello HEAT!  It definitely felt like we were in the middle of the desert and we can now attest to the true intensity of the Aussie SUN!  Unfortunately, the "river" was a bit dried up, which meant that the gorges did not look near as pretty as all of the pictures in the magazines I had seen when I planned our little hike.  Oh well!  It was still worth the adventure!

Family...God's greatest blessing.

Tyson and I have said over and over again how blessed we are to be on this adventure together in Australia.  We've seen and done so much more than we ever dreamed we would during our short time here.  But, despite it's beauty, Australia lacks one thing that we have missed beyond measure....family.  As it turns out, we happen to have the best families (Thomas, Casswell and Cross-Trainer) that two kids could ever hope for and so this means that for the past 13 weeks, our hearts have been craving something that just can't be found in Australia.  (Yes, we've also been craving Pappasitos, Chick-fil-A and Blue Bell Ice Cream...but we can do without those for now!)  I think we both realized how much we truly NEED our families - when it boils down to it, we love you so much we can't live without you!  This is why there are hardly words to describe how special it was to finally see my family again.  I spent the last 13 weeks counting down to the minute they would step off the plane.  13 weeks that seemed to drag on and on and on.  I spent 13 weeks planning out exactly what I would have to show them and everything we would have to do during their 12 days here.  12 amazingly perfect and wonderfully special days that couldn't possibly be over already.  I hardly breathed and they're already gone again.  While the time went by in what literally felt like the blink of an eye, we made a lifetime of memories in those 12 days.  It would take entirely too long to describe everything we did during their trip - but it was simply perfect just being together.  I've decided to post a slideshow with some (over 200 - and that's just a small sample!!) of the pictures that we took during the Casswell's Christmas Vacation 2008.  If you click on the slideshow it will take you to an album where you can view captions and make the pictures bigger.  I'm sorry that I didn't blog at all over the holidays, but I wanted to soak up every second with my family.  Tyson and I were thinking about all of you and we pray that each of you were blessed with a Merry Christmas and a magical New Year!  We miss and love all of you so very much.  13 weeks of waiting is back again....we are beyond excited to see Tyson's family (hopefully!) in March!!