Don't Stress - We're Here.

Got an itch to hear about our latest adventures?

photo by Mike Drake

Let me take care of that.

Hey Everyone, 

    My apologies for not posting in a while. Since our last post on March 9, 2013 (wow it has been a while), John's parents came to visit, John and I have been on a trip back to the states, I've had two exhibitions, we've gone on about 1,000 rock climbing day trips and added some things to our humble abode. I feel like this most of the time....

You see, now I'm getting ahead of myself showing photos of our trip to the Great Barrier Reef. I think I will just tell you what's been happening in chronological order. Hopefully I can remember things in that order. Maybe I will just show you some cool pictures.

Sunset at Mt Piddington from a camping trip last March.

Carrie Plays Soccer

I joined a soccer local soccer team. It was a blast and a great way to get to know some locals.

John's  Parents Visit Aussieland

No! Those aren't John's parents.... Those are just some adorable Roos that we saw on our trip to Queensland with his parents.

There we go, that's better. Here they are getting a tour of John's field site at work.

We did a bunch of things while they were here. We went to Queensland to visit the Great Barrier Reef and the Rainforest.

Sunset on the beach outside our renal in Port Douglas.

On our way to the Reef.

Fish Feeding.

Some Clown Fish and a Giant Clam.

Feeding Roos at the Wildlife Sanctuary in Port Douglas, QLD.

Apparently, you can't take us anywhere.

Sunset at the Three Sisters in Katoomba, NSW.

John's Birthday

John decided he wanted to do the climbing challenge on his birthday. The challenge is to do the same number of climbs as number of years old you are. Since he is getting up there in age (I love you honey!), we had to camp the night before so that we could get an early start. Down here in the southern hemisphere, it is still winter on John's birthday in May. My lips were blue the entire time! Some of our smarter friends came to join us during the day for some fun climbing. It was a blast, and believe it or not John was able to do 30 climbs in one day! Yay! 

John before his first climb of the day.

Chelsea on a climb. 

Me climbing with Danielle belaying.

I'll spare you the rest of the photos from that day. 30 climbs in one day for anyone is not a visually appealing sight. 

Here is John with one of his birthday presents. I made him some climbing hold mugs to help exercise his pinching muscles in the morning.

Around the House Work

John and I decided to start a vegetable garden at our house. Our landlord is awesome, he usually let's us do whatever we want. 

We weren't very smart in planning this garden. Both of us left for a trip to the states not long after it was planted. We came home to a huge amount of lettuce.... that we are still trying to eat as more is growing crazy fast out there. (sorry I don't have any photos of that.)

Visit to the States

John and I independently took a trip to the states. He was attending a conference and visiting family. I was visiting family and graduating from school. I mostly have photos from my end of the trip; so please forgive me for showing off my awesome family. 

My luggage consisted mostly of artwork. Who needs clothes?

It's a good thing Threadless had a huge sale just before my trip. I could just buy clothes and have them sent to my sister's house.

First I went to St. Louis to see my sister, brother-in-law and niece. Ashlyn, my niece, and I got our craft on...

 First, Ashlyn and I decided to make a wind chime. We used this tutorial. After putting the beads in a baking tray, we melted them on the grill, waited for them to cool, drilled holes at the top, tied string through them and connected them to a Kinex frame. 

Melting Beads

Melted Bead Wind Chime with Kinex Frame

Closeup of melted beads.

Ashlyn then wanted to sew a pillow. She had a bunch of leftover fabric from a previous project, so we made a body pillow. I think Heidi, their dog, fell in love immediately. I wonder if it became her dog bed.

Next, we tried to make a banner from melted crayons using this tutorial. Yea, that didn't work. I think the wax paper didn't adhere to the crayon. It still made a cool design. Until it fell apart.

The last project left us with half size crayons. We all know that half sized crayons are the worst. They don't really fit in your hand, so you are forced to hold them tighter which results in them breaking even smaller. That results in them sitting in your drawer until summer rolls around and they melt. Parents get mad, you have ruined furniture, it's a 'life fail moment.' No one wants that to happen, so we decided to try and melt the crayons down to make bigger swirly colored 'new' crayons.

Before Melting

After Melting

 That's all you ask? No way! Once Ashlyn and I get going, we are machines. We made her a hat.

We also made Kelly a purse, some project bags and a purse for me. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of those yet. By the way, we did leave the house a whole bunch and hung out with my sister, brother-in-law and Mom who also came to visit. We went swimming, shopping, exploring, all sorts of other things. Sadly, I didn't document any of that.

School and Graduation

After my trip to my sister's, it was time to get down to business. I had to finish school and exhibit my final artwork for the completion of my MFA degree. More on that can be found here. Here are just a few pictures from that week.

A photo of my exhibition at night.

My graduation was really special because it is an incredibly intimate presentation. Only the MFA students in the Visual Arts department are being honored. The faculty give personalized testimonials for each graduate and then families are invited to present the graduate with their diploma.

The Graduating Class

My advisor giving the most incredible speech about my time at VCFA.

Ashlyn giving me my diploma.

My parents giving me my diploma.

My family at Graduation.

After graduation, my family and I had a few days to spend in Montpelier so I took them on a few hikes.

Visiting Kathryn in L.A.

Flying to the US from Australia means you have to go through some western city. This time, I chose Los Angeles so that I could visit Kathryn on my way back. We did all sorts of stuff, but mainly had a blast just hanging out again. 

Back In Australia

As soon as John and I were home, we went climbing right away. 

John found an older version of our climbing guide on one of our days out. He now sits around the house referencing both books to plan our next trip.

Meanwhile, I have been building things for around the house.

I hope this was a good peak into the past few months of our lives. Stay tuned for a post about the hassles of getting a credit card, internet in the modern age, bush fires in the Aussie summer and others. 

Cheers,

Carrie

Climbing in the Grose Valley- with video

The recent heavy rain in southeastern Australia finally broke, giving us a beautiful weekend of clear skies and moderate temperatures. We decided to try a long adventure climb in the Blues called Bunny Bucket Buttress. This is a 9-pitch route with 270 meters of climbing, mostly at the grade 18 level (about 5.10a). Carrie and I are reasonably competent climbing a single pitch of 18, but stringing 9 of them together in a remote location accessed only by abseil made for a formidable challenge, as retreating from the route wasn't a viable option. We finished in 8-hours car-to-car, thirsty and pleasantly sore.

Here's a video of our climb, shot by GoPro, my new favorite toy and a Christmas gift from my parents. Enjoy!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abIVrt4PGak&feature=youtu.be

Grand Canyon Hike

It's been a wet summer in Sydney, and the last four weekends have been soggy and rainy. Apparently Australia's reputation for being hot and dry doesn't apply to the Southeastern coast. The rainy weather has been particularly painful for Carrie and me as it limits our rock climbing to indoor gyms, and I seem to have a limited ability to endure stanky gyms full of obnoxious and stir-crazy kids.

We decided to forget about climbing and embrace the rain, so we drove up into the Blue Mountains and to do a hike through the "Grand Canyon". This is a craggy slot canyon, where a combination of limited sun and a confluence of rivers makes for a rain forest environment that is much different than the surrounding dry forest.

This is a popular bushwalk, so we met a few other hikers despite the rain. Early on, we past a number of hikers that had turned around at the first stream crossing- apparently all of the recent rain had swollen the rivers. We didn't mind getting our feet wet and there wasn't much chance of a flash flood, so we kept going.

We walked through thick ferns, past caves that were used as shelter by Aborigines, and descended deeper and deeper into the canyon. We were soon surrounded by rocky cliffs on all sides, and the wet forest began to feel timeless and wild. We stumbled upon a plastic soda bottle that was full of old handwritten notes, some at least 20-years-old.

This little video will give you a feel for the canyon:

 http://youtu.be/S20cHNn7ows


After wading across the river many times, we hiked up and out of the canyon, wet, tired, and happy.

One of many stream "crossings"

Gumtree - Australia's Craigslist

Gumtree is Australia's Craigslist. The 'I have everything you want and some things you never wanted to know about' website. I (Carrie) really enjoy spending my free time time looking at Gumtree ads. You never know what you will find. My favorite is the 'freebies' section.

Here are examples of how Gumtree differs from the Craigslist I am used to.

Come and get your horse manure! 

10 free alpacas.

In case you didn't catch that, let me say it again. Free horse manure and 10, count them, 10 free alpacas! Here is the link in case you are seriously interested. I wish I could take on 10 alpacas.

Indoor Climbing Adventures

Please ignore the sweat stains.

No matter what our shirts say, John and I are not climbing professionals! We just enjoy the heck out of climbing and want to meet more like-minded people. There are a number of climbing gyms in the Sydney area. Every year they get together and put on a series of climbing competitions call the Tour de Corde.

http://www.pulseclimbing.com.au/?ai1ec_event=tour-de-corde-2&instance_id= 

There are two gyms that John and I frequent - Climb Oz in Blacktown and The Edge in Castle Hill. Last week the owner of Climb Oz mentioned this contest to us and asked if we were interested in participating. We wanted to meet new people, plus the weather called for storms all weekend, so we said yes. In an effort to create camaraderie between gyms and have fun, this competition was created. There are five rounds, each one at a different gym around the city. So, John and I said what the heck and decided to attend the first of these. We joined the team Climb Oz, got t-shirts and had a great time.

Here are some photos from the day.

During the two hour competition, we all had to keep track of which routes we completed. Afterwards, everyone had to add up their score. It was surprisingly difficult to exercise my brain when my body was so tired!

Here is a view of everyone hanging out before the award ceremony. 

We had a great time, met some fun people and learned a bunch by watching the great climbers attack crazy routes without breaking a sweat.

The Climb Oz team.

Links to the Sydney Climbing Gyms:
Climb Oz - Blacktown, NSW - Awesome because it is with in walking distance of the train. They also just installed a large outdoor bouldering wall.
The Edge - Castle Hill, NSW - Decent lead climbing and fun atmosphere. Don't go here to boulder, they have a really small bouldering section that gets cramped.
Sydney Indoor Climbing Gym - Villawood, NSW - This place is huge and looks fabulous for lead climbing.
Sydney Indoor Climbing Gym - St. Peters, NSW - We haven't been here, but supposedly it is the biggest gym in Sydney.
The Rock House - Brookvale, NSW - We haven't been here yet and haven't heard much about it.