Friday, March 28, 2008

Spring Break









My big brother, Gabe, and his wife, Sonya, and their 3 kids Jared, Emma, and Addison came to visit from Oklahoma for spring break. It was so much fun to spend time with them. We will really miss only being 1 state away when we move to the other side of the world!




All of the family went to Moody Gardens for the day and had a great time. We saw all sorts of fun animals. Gabe and Sonya treated everyone to a 3D movie which was super cool. I had never been to a 3D movie!

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Zoo Day








Bruce's older brother, Shawn, and his wife, Christine, along with their 4 kids: Andrew, Tanner, Heather, & Kyle also came to visit from Arizona over spring break. All of the families went to the Houston Zoo together. We all had a really great time and the weather just couldn't have been better!! Family is wonderful!

Monday, March 10, 2008

Australia Bound

That's right. Mandy, the girls and I will all be moving to Melbourne Australia within the month. We have known about this for just over a month now. It didn't really sink in for me until yesterday. I've been in Melbourne on business. Scoping out congregations, places to live, and thinking about being over here perminantly on March 31 gave me a good reality check.

Is it far away or what? Right now Melbourne is 17 hours ahead of Houston time. After we both go through daylight savings that will change to a 15 hours difference. A flight here from LA is about 15 hours. You land in LA before you even took off in Melbourne.



Melbourne is beautiful. It is right on the Yarra river.




At night it is spectacular. For the last week I have been at the Langham Hotel on the left. The Esso building where I work is right behind it in the popular Southbank area. It must be ExxonMobil's nicest building with a built in atrium, in the most popular district in the city, and within 100 yards of the largest train station in town.

The Beaches are phenomenal. We will be going into winter but might be able go swimming before it gets too cold. The girls just got matching rash guards and bottoms. That's right, we'll have a set of pro-surfers before we come back.

Consider this an open invitation for family and friends to come and visit. There are so many nice places to visit. Ski resorts are within 3 hours during the winter and surfing is only 30 minutes away. It is a lot dryer here than Houston and as a result they actually have 4 seasons here. Luckily we won't get snow in Melbourne.