No Such Thing as the Seven Year Itch

Today is the 7th wedding anniversary for Cory and me.  On this day in 2003 we were both anxiously awaiting our beautiful ceremony at The Hotel Galvez in Galveston, TX. We met at Texas State University in 1999 and both knew it was a good thing from the start.  Eleven years later we're still going strong, living in the land down under.  Here are a few of my favorite photos from over the years.

Our first date - Grant & Lyndsey's Wedding (1999)

One of our most fun dates - San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Playoffs (1999)

On our first trip to Europe - Nice, France one of our most 

favorite places in the world (1999)

At The Hole in the Wall Pub,  Paris, France (1999)

Cory's SWT Graduation (2000)

First New Year's in Houston (2001)

Bike Ride in Houston (2001)

First Trip to Chi Town (2001)

The Night we Got Engaged (2002)

Second Trip to Europe - Rome Colosseum (2002)

Venice (2002)

We're Hitched! (2003)

After Our Wedding Ceremony (2003)

On Our Honeymoon - Grand Cayman Island (2003)

On Lake Travis - one of our other favorite places in the world (2003)

Snowboarding in Breckenridge, CO (2004)

Our Anniversary: One of Our Last Dates Before Kids - Phantom of the Opera (2005)

Photos in The Heights, Houston (2010)

First Week in Brisbane Australia (2010)

I would (and have) traveled to the ends of the Earth with this man.  Here's to many more years of adventure and happiness!

A Second Week of Firsts

Our second week in Brisbane was more bringing in of the new. One of our biggest prayers before arriving in Australia, was that God was preparing friendships that would be ready to be realized upon our arrival.  Thankfully, our God is good and that's exactly what has happened!

I didn't get to take as many photos this week because of a nasty sinus infection that chose to catch up with me.  I fought it all week long before breaking down to see a doctor on Friday who kindly prescribed me some Augmenton (sp?) that finally took care of the pain.  So, Monday I was in bed all day feeling bad and Tuesday I bucked up a little to go over to our new friend's the Strachan's and Browne's house for our first Aussie BBQ.

The Strachans are Cory's parent's friends who have kindly taken us under their wings to show us a bit of the ropes here in Brisbane.  Jeanette has been driving us around to show us different areas as I mentioned in last week's post.  The Brownes are John & Jeanette's daughter, Louise, and son-in-law, Jacques, who are living with them until they move into their new house close-by.  They have two little ones a boy who is almost 2 and a brand new, sweet baby girl.

Here is a photo of Cory and Jacques grilling.  You could feel the comfort of home wash over Cory as he stood in front of the grill with a beer in his hand!

Jeanette made this yummy pasta that the kids shoveled up in two helpings each.  I have to get the recipe so that I'll have a new stand-by favorite in my Australian kitchen.  I'll be sure to share once it's in hand.  Here she is in her kitchen being silly!

Hallie had fun meeting their Chocolate Lab and we all felt heartsick missing our favorite Lab, Chessie back home in Texas with Cousin Dan.

We ate out on their beautiful covered deck - which is a standard fixture on almost every house we have seen here.  I don't think many people actually eat inside often.  The breezes are fantastic, and it's just perfect to sit outdoors and eat with friends on a cool evening.  Here is the table they prepared for us - we had sausage (always a hit with the kids) and grilled kangaroo.  Yes kangaroo!  It was awesome!  Just like steak.

Wednesday we met a new friend named Anna.  She is the sister-in-law of the family we met in the park last weekend.  She's studying real estate now that her youngest child started prep (Kindergarden in The States) and she has a passion for helping people.  She came to our apartment and walked us through another round of information on areas in and around Brisbane and other odds and ends she thought would be helpful. She was kind and down-to-earth, and Cory and I both remarked that she was so easy to be around that it was like we were old pals.  Such a huge blessing!

Thursday was another first  as Cory and I set out to conquer driving on the wrong side of the road.  We got a rental car and, WATCH OUT AUSTRALIA, started driving ourselves around.  This is Cory getting behind the wheel for the first time.  It should be noted that he did a great job getting us where we needed to be and braved the winding streets of Brisbane without so much as one complaint.  And, he only hit the curb twice!

I'm sorry I didn't get my own picture of us driving our first car.  It was green as green gets and a wagon! Our friends the Ecob's said it looked like Kermit the Frog.  You get the idea. Here is a photo from carguide.com.au. Haha!

Thursday night, Grandma Pat treated us to one last night of babysitting so that Cory and I could go out for dinner to celebrate our upcoming 7th anniversary.  Cory chose to book reservations on the Kookaburra Queen riverboat, which is a dinner cruise that spans up and down the Brisbane River at night.  It was such a beautiful ride, with breathtaking sights of the city at night.  Too bad the food was the worst I've had yet.  I truly ended up eating rice with butter.  Even dessert was terrible.  Please tell me how you can screw up dessert?  I think a do-over is in our future!

Here are some shots I took before and while we were on the boat.

Friday was another bad day for me, as I clearly was not getting over my sinus infection.  I broke down and went to my first AU doctor - thankfully there is GP office in our apartment building so it was easy to figure out.  They do 10 minute consultations here, with absolutely no regulations on what doctors can charge.  I paid $65 for a 10 minute consultation, which I hear is pretty reasonable for the city as some have said they have seen doctors charge $155.  Of course we will be reimbursed by our health cover here, but I thought it would be an interesting tidbit to include.

By Saturday morning the antibiotic had already started taking effect so we headed out as a family to see some new areas of Brisbane and look at more houses.  It was a great day for many reasons, not the least of which was that we saw this as we were driving...

Yep, that's right, our first Mexican experience in Australia!  It wasn't half bad, even though it paled in comparison to the Tex-Mex we have back home.  Of course, I had to try the queso...small, different, but better than no queso! I do believe we'll be back when we're feeling a bit homesick.

Everyone's all smiles!

Sunday we headed South, about halfway to the Gold Coast, to meet some friends who were introduced to us by our old Champions neighbors Glen & Sharyn.  Tracey and Matt Ecob used to stay with Glen & Sharyn when they came to The States for Matt to play as a pro in the Championship Golf Tours.  When we told Glen & Sharyn we were moving here they introduced us by e-mail to the Ecobs and they were a huge help in getting us information while we were still in Houston.  They invited us out to their house for another Sunday BBQ and the kids were in heaven getting to know Mackenzie (9) and Lauchlin (sp?) (5).  It was clear that Caden had been in desperate need of some rough and tumble boy time as the two didn't stop the entire time we were there!  As we pulled out that night, the two boys would not stop yelling "Bye!  I love you!" until we rolled out of their driveway.

Here is a photo of me and Tracey.

And, while the Ecob's drove us around to see some of the Gold Coast neighborhoods we had our first officially random Kangaroo sighting.  Just like deer on the side of the road in Texas, these roos (actually Wallabies) were just grazing away.  We were the only cars that stopped to look, it's just a normal thing around here apparently.  Note to self - need a better zoom lens for this sort of thing.

And so our second week in Brisbane drew to a close and we got ready for Cory to start his new work at URS.  I must say after all the kiddo crazies these past few weeks, I'm a little envious of his new purpose!  More about week three to come soon!

First Week In Brisbane

Well, The Heitzmanns are now residents of Brisbane, Australia...see map below.

Our family left the States on Friday, May 7th.  It was an exciting day as my kids boarded an airplane for the very first time.  Ok, so exciting might not be exactly how I felt.  Maybe anxious is a better word.  But any anxiety I was feeling quickly left the building when I saw how happy they were for the experience.  We started out with the best help as Uncle Brad helped us get checked in.  And, we lucked out with the kindest and most knowledgeable Continental rep that we have had yet.  The ease of check-in reminded me of the great power of prayer.  We felt completely covered by our praying friends and family as we set off on our crazy journey.  The overwhelming amount of text messages and phone calls from everyone the day of our trip will always stay with me. But, on to the trip...

Here's our clan making our way through IAH

Hallie loved looking out the window.  Here she is with her face glued.

Caden and Marin enjoyed the flight to LA, where they promptly crashed as soon as we met up with Grandma.  It was midnight Texas time when she met us in the terminal and it wasn't a minute too soon.

The V Australia leg was a little more difficult at boarding time because of the sleepy kids.  We had all of 5 minutes to board the plane before they called the masses, which made it all feel very hectic.  Waking the kids up to get on the plane at 2am their time was a mess too.  Needless to say I didn't get any photos after they were awake!  

We arrived in Brisbane early Sunday morning.  The city was covered in sunlight and we were all happy to get off the plane, stretch our legs and breath in some good Aussie air!  Driving into the city from the airport got all of us excited as we passed palm trees, cute Queenslander houses (more about that later) and the beautiful Brisbane river.  Here's a photo of the hotel apartments where we are staying...right across the street from Cory's new office.

Caden and Marin love looking out the windows from our 7th floor apartment.  Scary thing is these windows are not child friendly, they open by a latch with nothing to stop a kid from going overboard.  Here are a few pictures of them sitting on the window sills before we figured out how dangerous it was.  They haven't been up there since!

Our first day was spent mainly recovering from the long trip.  We staying in and tried not to nap during the day so that our jet lag wouldn't be terrible.  It didn't work.  We all crashed about 4pm that afternoon and the kids woke up around 3am.  This lasted for the first several days and is just now working itself out a week later.  A friend of mine told me that it usually takes about a day for every hour your body has to adjust to the time difference.  That would be 16 for us.  Yikes.  Cory, Marin and I did venture out for a brief walk that first afternoon to find the Brisbane River. This is Cory and Marin on the Victoria Bridge.

The view from the Victoria Bridge.

The next day we ventured out for a bit of a longer walk.  We saw City Hall, which is currently under reno (renovation), The Clock Tower, and King George Square.  The kids love looking at all the statues around the city.  We even saw our first kangaroos...even though they weren't real :)

The Clock Tower at City Hall

We kept walking towards the west side of town to the river and found the Wheel of Brisbane and some beautiful parklands.

On Tuesday we walked the opposite direction and got our first glimpse of the Story Bridge and the Brisbane Botanic Gardens. The kids were excited to see their first playground since arriving in the city.

Later in the week we were treated to a visit to Mt. Coot-tha (coo-tha) by Grandma Pat's friend Jeanette.  She has graciously been driving Cory and I around town to learn about the millions of beautiful suburbs they have here so that we can pick where we want to live.  On this afternoon, Caden wanted to join us, so he got to see the City from this unique perspective too.  The sights were so breathtaking that it immediately went to the top of my list of must-do trips for anyone who comes to visit (hint hint).

We decided to take it easy over the weekend and hang out with the kids.  While this post doesn't show it, the first week in Brisbane was mostly spent trying to figure things out.  Things like bank accounts, cell phones, new jobs, health insurance, etc.  It was all a lot of information to absorb at once, so we needed a breather.  We walked about 5 blocks to the north of our hotel to the Roma Street Park.  The kids enjoyed another playground and there we met a family of 6, the Fekete's, who we hope to be good friends with.  In addition to the playground, they had an amazing garden where we saw all kinds of plant life that we are used to in Houston - Crepe Myrtles, Magnolias, Split Leaf Philodendron, Crotons...the list goes on. 

On a side note, Hallie is learning to smile and I had to include a picture in here of her long "cheeeeeeeese".

One thing we don't see much in Houston are these huge lizards.  I wouldn't say they're everywhere, but we've seen at least five since we've been here walking around.  

They also have these beautifully weird trees here called Moreton Bay Fig Trees.  They have gorgeous root systems that are massive, some coming right down from the tree limbs themselves.  Here's a picture of one of the biggest I've seen so far in the Botanical Gardens.

Dreadfully long post, I know, but that's how our week has felt.  We have a lot to learn and a lot more to share, so more to come later.