Congrats Drew!

Congratulations to Drew Brees for setting the new NFL single-season passing record.

We are your biggest fans Down Under!

Moments like these make us miss home especially when they show clips of Cafe Du Monde prior to the game...yum.

Geaux Saints!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Hi all.
We hope everyone has had a very Merry Christmas and will have a great New Year. For Christmas, we went to a friend's house for lunch then fell asleep at 5:00 in the afternoon...how embarrassing for a young couple! A few days prior, we went to the beach. It's very strange with Christmas during the summer.

So, what will we be doing in the coming month?

Dec. 31st - Move out of our luxurious apartment
Jan. 1st-17th - Trip to New Zealand! (includes Shawn's b-day & our 2nd anniversary)
Jan. 17th-25th - Final Goodbye to Adelaide while staying with friends
Jan. 25th - Fly from Sydney to Dallas - Texas de Brazil or Papacito's, anyone?
Jan. 26th - Arrive in New Orleans :)

We will certainly post our New Zealand pictures following that trip for your viewing pleasure.

Our time here is coming to a rapid close. It's been an unforgettable experience. How beautiful a place!

Graduation Celebration

Graduation was held on December 16th. It was a great ceremony held in a local church. Because Andrew Carnegie was Scottish and Carnegie Mellon has the only bagpipe degree that can be earned in the US, the procession was led by a bagpipe.

Shawn graduated with distinction for good grades and earned an award as "Best Teaching Assistant."













Shawn receiving his diploma:




Shawn receiving his Teaching Assistant Award:














View during dinner at Mount Lofty Bistro:

Party After Finals

To relax after finals, Shawn and his classmates had a little BBQ and graduation/Christmas party.

Port Lincoln

We took a trip to Port Lincoln, South Australia for a weekend with a group of international students in early December. It was a lot of fun surfing down the huge sand dunes near an incredible coast line and swimming with really large tuna fish. Port Lincoln has many millionaires because of the prosperous tuna fishing industry - they earn a lot more than our fisherman back home, but that's why their seafood is extremely expensive.



View from our host family's home:












Shawn surfing down the sand dune:




The big tuna!








A local family's dog - cute:

McLaren Vale

While Paul and Rachel were in visiting, we returned to the beautiful wine region of McLaren Vale. Everything was nice except for the minor bush fire some kilometers away!











For our Moms:

Kangaroo Island

Paul and Rachel, our brother & sister-in-law, came in to visit us last week. We were so excited to see family for the first time in almost a year. We hope we were good hosts. We went down to Kangaroo Island for one day, and we almost spent 2 days because we barely made it back to the last ferry in time...that was stressful.

We had a great time and saw natural scenic beauty, old caves and lots of wildlife.

Hope everyone had a very happy Thanksgiving!!! Geaux Tigers & Saints!





























Kangaroos!






Lazy Koalas!










The Remarkable Rocks:




















What a day!