For Diana

Hi everyone. It's me, Mallory. And I came down to the internet cafe with the sole purpose being to update my blog (well that, and to download the new episode of How I Met your Mother). And I just realized I didn't even put all of the newest photos from my camera onto my computer, so I'll have to come back tomorrow to catch you up all the way on our lives right now (and if not tomorrow, then two weeks from tomorrow).

Let's start with Kelsey's birthday which is what the picture above is from. The next day her parents arrived in Australia, which was awesome. The Collins Family stayed in Coogee for a week, then to New Zealand for a week.




Every night, Terri and Pat Collins blessed our stomachs with the best meals I have ever had (minus the kangaroo pictured above....not that it wasn't prepared well, it's just not good meat. AND we found out at work today that most Australians haven't ever had it. God we are such tourists).


The last night they were here, they prepared a huge picnic of appetizers and at it down at the beach. Seriously - I cannot stress how amazing the food I had that week was.



On Sunday, we headed to Hunter Valley for some wine and cheese tasting. It turned out that it was the hottest day we have had thus far (about 105 degrees). The wine was fantastic and Pat taught me a thing or two about fermentation (did I spell that right?) Apparently, mold on grapes makes the wine sweeter. Who knew? And I got kinda tipsy and bought two bottles....one for Thanksgiving (which we thoroughly enjoyed) and one is being saved for Christmas.





On the way back from wine tasting, the air conditioning in our van broke. Me and Emmy (or Emmy and I....whatever) were sitting next to the windows and felt like a furnace was blowing on us. Seriously, let's get a group drunk, then make them sweat like they have never before. Our body limits were definitely tested and when we finally got back to Coogee and regular temperatures, we all had cankles and swollen toes like you wouldn't believe.




This is just a pic of a Chick in a Box.

In New Zealand, the Collins fam went bungee jumping and skydiving. We booked our trip to New Zealand for December 10th, so hopefully we will have similar luck with the wild adventures.

I have pics of Thanksgiving, but not on my computer....so that will just have to wait for the next update. I'll be back soon.