Officially Spring!

It is officially Spring here in Australia. They change seasons on the first of the month--we don't know why since the rest of the world does it based on the, you know...sun. But as of September 1st, it is spring, and it's definitely warming up. We spent the whole day outside today, and it was a much needed relaxing day.

There is a walk that goes around the entire Lescheneault Inlet, it's a little over 3 miles. We did our laundry this morning and hung it to dry, and figured since it was only 11:30, we'd do the walk. We've been wanting to do it since we discovered it when we first got here, but it was always either raining or we didn't have the energy to do the whole thing. Today was a perfect day to do it, it was so warm and breezy, and we didn't have much else to do. The walk has a boardwalk section over an estuary type thing, all staying close enough to the water to touch. It also goes along the city edge, through a small part of a residential area, lots of parks, and by the popular beach at Koombana Bay (where some dolphins live and often swim with the people.) It was cool to walk in so many different areas, all along the same path. Here are a few pictures from our adventure (we took about 2 hours enjoying it!)

The beginning of our adventure. Check out the pirate in the left bottom corner.

This outlook was on a "shipwreck".


I want to like this, but it continues to creep me out. These wooden people were on all four corners "raising the roof" to this rest area along the boardwalk.

Cool bench! And how easy does it look to make? Were they lazy or creative? Hmm..


This bird was fast at grabbing up little fish under his feet. You can't see it very well, but he has really light fluffy feathers on his bottom-region.

It's weird to see a different flag waving. Australian pride!


Gorgeous house on the Inlet.


Art and graffiti. It reads, "Wake up to the blood stain of real life and REVOLT."

Our landlords are doing some renovations in the unit behind us, and decided to CUT DOWN THE LEMON TREE. We are so sad. BUT, Ben climbed through the fence today, and there were the lemon branches, just laying in a pile with most of the lemons still attached. He filled a huge shopping bag and brought them back into the house. We made more fresh lemonade (thanks for the new recipe, Mel!) and have a huge bowl full of lemons for the next time. Here are a couple pictures showing how incredibly HUGE some of these lemons get!

Look how happy we are with our ginormous lemons!

This weekend has really been great. Last night we celebrated Nat's birthday at Mark and Tyler's. There were just six of us, and we barbecued and had cake and chatted. It was really fun and just the sort of night with friends that we needed.

After our walk today, we went back to the beach we saw at Koombana Bay. We had never been on that beach before, and it was great! We brought our books and fell asleep in the sun for a couple of hours. They have grills that are free to use, nice gas ones. People were grilling up veggies and sausages, and playing with their kids in the grass and on the beach. It was beautiful. Ben and I both kept saying, "this is what we thought Australia would be like." We're going to start grilling dinner down there a couple nights a week and hanging out on the beach until the sun sets after work. We love being outside and need to enjoy the fact that we CAN be outside 12 months out of the year without snow pants on. :)

That's all the adventures for this week. This month is very tight money-wise--I've just started working full time, and we have 3 rent payments this month instead of 2. And because of the landlord screwing up our rent, we are paying back a week of rent that got skipped. So, money is tight. But it's okay. Next month we're going to find a way to get down to Margaret River for our 1 year marriage anniversary (4 years together!) even if it's just for a couple of nights. What good is making money if you don't enjoy the way you spend it?