Honolulu

Just after being in Sydney for a month we had to travel to Honolulu so Mark could take his boards.  Seeing as how I have never been to Hawaii, I was more than happy to tag along.  To get there we had to experience the longest day ever, literally, it lasted 45 hours.  We were happy to arrive in a sunny, warm climate which was a nice change from the cold and damp weather we had been having.
Mark was not up to studying the first night, so we made an exciting trip to Walmart!  For those who don't know Sydney ranks in the top 20 most expensive cities to live in in the world, so even your basic toiletries are outrageously priced.  For example, the contact solution that I use cost an obscene $40 in Sydney and only around $8 in the states.  So we stocked up on some basic necessities while we could get them reasonably priced.  I think I now have about a years supply of Lactaid pills!
As for the more interesting things we did, or I should say I did was soak up some sun, shop in Waikiki, hike through a rain forest, and climb to the top of Diamond Head.  It was a little difficult basically being on vacation on my own, but in the end I had a great time.  Hopefully we can go back so Mark can enjoy it too.
My hike through the rain forest was beautiful.  I scheduled myself for a tour to the Manoa Falls.  It was quite a hike and I got a little muddy, but all worth it.  The other people on the tour were very nice and helpful.  Here are a few pictures from the hike.

The tree above was used in the movie Jurassic Park.  The large egg they found in the movie was placed at the bottom of this tree.
After hiking through the rain forest, I decided I needed another workout so I booked another tour to climb Diamond Head.  Thankfully, I booked the early morning tour as it was quite hot that day.  I don't know what I was expecting when I booked this tour, but they claimed it wasn't a very difficult climb.  I guess that would be the case if you hadn't hiked 4 miles the day before.  They also didn't tell you that you had to climb hundreds of stairs, steep stairs.  Once I made it to the top it all was worth it.  When I looked down to see how far I had climbed I was pretty proud of myself and the view was incredible.  You could see the large crater Diamond Head is known for as well as a great view of Waikiki.

Diamond Head from afar.

 View of Waikiki from top of Diamond Head.

 I made it!

Hard to tell, but this is a view of the crater from the top.

Diamond Head at night.

 After Mark took his boards, we had one last night together before we had to head home, so we went out to celebrate.  I'm so excited to have my husband back!

 All in all it was a good trip to Hawaii, hopefully we will have the opportunity to go back!

My new home

Before I left Orlando, everyone asked me to start a blog so they could experience my adventures in Australia through my blog.  Well, after a little over a month I finally figured this thing out.  So to put everyone up to speed this is what has happened so far...

We arrived in Australia on July 6th after a long trek halfway across the world that lasted over 30 hours.  Needless to say when we landed I had no idea what day it was and really wanted to shower.  We arrived at our hotel after paying $70 for a taxi with all 8 of our bags.  We were feeling ready for lunch, but it was much earlier than we had thought, so we had breakfast again.  After a few days of requiring afternoon naps like a small child we adjusted to the time change.

During our first week here, we had so much to do:
*Fill out more paperwork for Mark's job
*Open a bank account
*Find a place to live
*Buy furniture for our new house + so much other stuff you don't realize is essential for a home
*Buy a refrigerator and washing machine (haven't quite figured this out yet, but a dryer is usually included, but not the washer???)
*Set up all of our utilities
*Get cell phones
*Figure out how to pay for all of this stuff when the majority of your money is in US dollars (we have learned there was probably a better way to take care of the money stuff, now we'll know for next time)

Luckily the house search wasn't too bad considering there were not that many options.  Once we factored in price and location we were left with one apartment, which by the way is the smallest home I have ever had.  You think paying the outrageous price for our little home you would have everything you needed, except heating and air conditioning.  Since it is winter here, it was quite chilly in our house.  It would have been very entertaining for someone to watch us walk around our tiny home looking for the thermostat only to realize there wasn't one.  Space heaters were quickly added to our list of essential items.  For those who don't know how cold natured I am, I usually like the temp in the upper 70's, nearing 80, so the low 60 something it was in our apartment was just not working for me.

We did finally get just about everything we needed, unfortunately all of our furniture needed to be assembled, so this kept us busy for a while.  After a month we are still waiting on our chairs for our kitchen table and really hoping we get those soon.  For now we use the ottoman and the desk chair.  I'll post some pics of our house soon, just finishing up an art project to make our walls look less boring.

Here is one of our first pictures taken in Australia:

The Sydney Harbor Bridge with the Opera House over Mark's shoulder.