Thailand

Phi Phi Island.

George and I went to Thailand for 10 days and had an amazing time. We spent the night in Kuala Lumpar in Malaysia on the way over and then spent 3 night on Phi Phi Island and 7 nights in Phuket. The picture above is the view as you arrive at the resort from on a boat to Phi Phi, not too shabby! See below for a picture of our delightful hut.

The view from our hut.

Phi Phi is where they filmed the movie the beach and the picture above is of the location, at least we think it is.

Low tide at the beach.

We spent a very educational evening in Pao Tong beach in Phuket, it was interesting to say the least. We also happened upon a full moon party and were able to send up a fire balloon.

We did not spend much time in KL but here is one picture from our agonizingly slow and completely uninformational hop on hop off bus tour

After we returned to Perth we went straight back to work and I headed up to Birla Nifty again. I encountered some not so friendly dingoes and learned what not to do when one is aggressive towards you. They really did not want me to sample this well!

It has been a record breaking summer in Perth and Mr. Darwin has enjoyed spending a lot of time in his pool. I have never seen a dog that loves water this much. Thats all from me for now.

Cheers!

I have rejoined the world of technology!

Well I had a several month long boycott against using a computer outside of work, that was not my I-Phone, but now I finally see the fun again in wasting huge amounts of time on the internet!

Much has happened since I last blogged. I shall start with the best and most exciting news. While George and I were down south in Busselton for George's Ironman the sneaky little devil proposed! We went down to the beach to watch the sunset and he popped the question over a bottle of wine. I said yes of course, check out this rock! Below it is the location of the proposal.

We moved into a house in Perth in order to get our dog Darwin, here are the latest pictures of him. He was recently neutered hence the cone and drugged look.

Last but not least here are some lovely pictures of our new home. I bet none of you are lucky enough to have a house that is named and has a sailboat on the front door. Jealous much?

Our main living area, the owner just adored curtains..... and seafoam green.

Our kitchen, 2 ovens!

Our lovely backyard with sweeping lake views!!!

The bedroom with more tasteful curtains.

The bathroom, why yes that is a naked lady etched on the door.

That pretty much does it. We just got back from a trip to Thailand this week, perhaps I shall blog about that in 6 months. Cheers!

Exciting news

It has been over a year now since I moved out of the US and we have almost lived for a year in Perth. To celebrate this George and I are moving again and will be living in a retrofab house a few kilometers away. We are also as many people already know getting a black lab puppy named Darwin (don't tell Max!). He is 5 weeks old right now and we get to take him home on the 21st. Very exciting. Some other great news is that my sister had her baby. Bennett James Chan was born on July 27th and was in no particular hurry as he was a week overdue. He is healthy and adorable and I can't wait to meet him unfortunately that won't happen for a while unless Laura is keen on flying 14 hours with an infant...maybe not. George and I are both still happily working away in Perth and are eagerly awaiting summer. It actually gets pretty cold here at night so I am super excited to get 100 degree days back again. I have included some pictures of Bennett and Darwin. He was one of 10 puppies, there is one with all of his litter mates, pretty much the cutest thing ever. I will post some pictures of our new house when we get around to moving. My favorite picture so far

Darwin's brothers and sisters. His mom is a beautiful black lab and gave birth to black and chocolate labs

Auntie Colleen!

My brother and his wife Melissa had baby Garrett on March 12th. He is already over a week old and so adorable. Here are a few pictures I have taken off facebook. Garrett Thomas Lindberg is doing great and so are his parents and I can not wait to meet him in a few months when I am home. I will be in Omaha from May 25th to June 3rd. George is presenting at a conference in San Francisco so I am going to spend the weekend there and then come home. I didn't need much convincing to join him on this trip back to the US. Not much new to report here, we did a dive in the shark tank at the aquarium of Western Australia. We got some pretty awesome pictures of it on facebook. The sharks are huge grey nurse sharks but they can't eat you because they have to swallow you whole, or at least that is what they tell people to convince them to get into the water... Check out my handsome nephew!

Happy Labour Day!

Today is a public holiday and we get the day off work. It has been a much needed break for me as I have been working 4 weeks full time now. It is amazing how difficult it is to get back into the working routine. I have been getting busier at the office and have been doing quite a bit of field work, including asbestos monitoring at a 3 million dollar mansion, not too shabby! Over the weekend we went to an Aussie Rules Football game, picture a more confusing and violent version of rugby. Well the West Coast Eagles (Perth's team) got absolutely smashed by Port Adelaide but it was fun nonetheless. We watched the gold medal hockey game this morning at 4am at one of George's coworkers houses. I was outnumbered 3 to 1 by Canadians so as you can imagine the end of the game was not the most pleasant experience for me. I have finally gotten around to putting pictures on my computer so I have included some from my parents trip over, our SCUBA adventure in Queensland and our trip to Shark Bay.

Great Barrier Reef

Look closely. One of the many sharks we went scuba diving with on the reef

Getting the car ridiculously stuck at Shark Bay

New Year's Eve at Fibber McGee's

George feeding a wild dolphin at Monkey Mia

The top of the Bicentennial Tree

Stringray at Hamelin Bay

Stromatolites oldest living creatures on earth at Shark Bay

Employment!!

I have almost made it through 2 weeks at my new job! I started with WSP, an Environmental Firm, on February 1st. I had some visa issues so I started two weeks later than originally intended but it all worked out. The company is international and quite large but the Perth office is really small, it is an interesting combination. I really enjoy the people I am working with and it is great being able to greet the whole office in 10 seconds. My office is only 3km away so I have started biking to work which is an adventure in itself. I have not done a lot other than training at my job yet but once I get going I will be doing a variety of environmental work. They do cleanup mainly for developers and I will get to monitor groundwater, sample soil and take landfill gas readings among other things. This job will have a lot of variety and will involve little to no travel. George is still doing great at URS and I was lucky enough to find some casual work there while I waited to start my new job. The weather here is getting a little cooler but there are still a few more months until "winter". Well that's all for now, cheers.

Queensland Adventure

Well I am not sure if anyone still reads this since I post on it about as often as Hailey's comet comes by but here goes anyways. My parents stopped by for a lovely visit and we had a great week in Perth. We showed them all the city has to offer, including some rather lively trips to the beach, and even went on a nice tour of the southwest and popped into a winery. After a week jam packed with fun my parents went on their merry way to Uluru (Ayer's Rock) and then to Cairns in Queensland to join up with a tour. George and I flew to Cairns and spent a few more days with them. We had a great time walking around the city but got a tiny bit wet as it is monsoon season up there. Then on the second day of our trip George and I started our 5 day Open Water SCUBA diving course. We spent 2 days in the classroom and a swimming pool getting the basics down and then we boarded a boat for the 60km journey out to the Great Barrier Reef. We spent an additional 3 days and 2 nights living aboard a boat that went to several dive spots on the reef, it was amazing. We got our Open Water Certification on the second day on the reef and then we were free to dive on our own. We participated in a few adventure dives including one night dive where we saw 20+ sharks. Some were within 3 feet of George's frightened flippers, it was incredible! They showed little to no interest in us but it was still a little scary since some were 10 feet long. The fear soon subsided and it turned into my favorite dive of the trip. We had a few more dives and saw some other amazing creatures and I can not wait to get back into the water in Western Australia. Things are good back in Perth, I should be starting my job any day now, just waiting on visa approval. The weather here is scorching and it never rains so it seems to be business as usual. I will write more to all my devoted follower(s), likely just my Mom, when I start working. Cheers for now.

Our Apartment!!

Hello, here are some pictures of our new townhouse in Perth. The neighborhood is Leederville and it is a great location with plenty of restaurants and pubs. Our shipping crate arrived last Friday and we are totally unpacked, it is a miracle!