its here

we leave TODAY!! yea, are you thinking what im thinking? HOLY CRAP!!!! what did i get myself into?!?!?! tonight we hop on the plane and in 14 hours we are lost and homeless in oz! yea, sounds crazy, but we have nothing set up. not even a rent a car. oh well. it will be tons of fun and we are super excited. wish us luck and ill keep you posted on life with the kangaroos.

cincy

ok, so in june we went to cincinnati for a class reunion and another rush concert. justin spent like 2-10th grade in ohio and it turned out that the class he would have graduated with was having their 10 yr reunion on that saturday. so after re-living all his childhood memories, like old schools, skyline chili, rallys, and the udf, and even a bike ride through sharon woods. (if he ever talks about cincy, its usually about football or sharon woods. it was fun to see what he was talking about.) that night at we had so much fun seeing all his old friends and we were both pretty shocked at how many people he remembered, and remembered him too. it totally made his week seeing all his old friends. the next day we went out to justins old ward and he recognized no one. too funny. however, his old ym president, who also works for p&g, just happened to get back from 3 years in germany recetly. we went to their house sunday night and had a wondeful time getting to catch up with them. the next day we went to kings island, think a smaller six flags magic mountain theme park. it was fun to go on the rides and play like a kid again. that night was the rush concert with my dad and his bf bill. lots of fun and we finally caught a t-shirt (the ones we have been trying to get every show for over 10 years now). it was tons of fun.

gone baby gone

we have been saying alot of goodbyes lately. wednesday, i said goodbye to my work of 2 years. thursday, we said goodbye to our wonderful house in eugene. and in july we will be saying goodbye to the USA and all our loved ones in it as we move to Australia for a semester. Its weird and exciting to think about, and ever so intimidating to prepare for. Ill give some facts so you all know what im talking about.




through justins law school, they have an exchange program with the university of adelaide in australia. they allow 4 people per term to go and study there, while gaining credit and grades that count towards his law degree. Adelaide is located about 16 hours drive directly west of Sydney. its right on the coast and is a good sized city, though not as big as sydney or melbourne. it has its own LDS temple and international airport, which are both necessitates. we originally planned on going during his spring term of the third year, but that means he would miss taking the bar in july, and would miss his graduation. both no good. we had thought the deadline had passed for getting in for the fall term, but when asked the australian school, they said we still had about a month left to apply. so after a few weeks of waiting to find out, we finaly got the verdict that we were accepted for the fall term. now that was back in march and since then we ahve bought our tickets and begun planning for our departure in just over 7 weeks! yea thats less than 2 months! AHHH!


it had been my dream to travel around the world after studying there for 4 1/2 months, but that was proving to be quite expensive. so after lots of thought, quotes from agents and hours of researching countries, we decided on a different plan. since the school runs from july 28th to november 20th-ish, we will be in ausie till then, and then hop over to new zealand for about 7 weeks before we have to be back in oregon in january. we absolutely loved NZ and couldnt wait to get back, but we had no idea it would be so soon.

we are still working on our visa's and neccesary study abroad stuff but we are so excited. and now moving straight up to portland when we get backs means we can hopefully find a good house to buy and be settled in for a little while. to think of being in one place for more than 9 months... that will be new.

ultimate army

Terracotta soldiers:

we flew into Xian (in the middle of the country) and spent the day looking at these amazing clay soldiers. the first emperor of china, Qin Shi Huang, had ordered an army to be made to help him in the next life. over 7,000 soldiers have been found so far, and none of them have the same face. the army consists of soldiers, generals, archers, horses, chariots, ect. and were once all painted. they were buried with the emperor and discovered when a local farmer was digging a well and found one of the heads in his bucket. oh and did i mention this was all done in like 200 BC. this is yet another example of the great power the emperors had over the people in their time. and again, no pictures do this place justice.

This day also happened to be our three year anniversary. I cant believe that it has gone by so fast, we still talk about when we were dating like it was last week. after dinner we went across the street to underneath this freeway overpass, but the people of Xian had turned it into like a dance club. they had music and hundreds of people dancing. we jumped right in and im sure stood out. i was a lucky lady getting to dance with the boys. that is something i will never forget. what a way to spend an anniversary, you cant even plan something that good. we usually dont make to big a deal out of the "holidays" mostly just spending time together. but considering we didnt have a "first dance", it was pretty cool. later that night the town had fireworks that we watched together from our hotel room. I still cant believe how wondeful life has been with him, and how much more i love him then when we got married. our plans change daily and tomorrow seems so far away but with him i have no worries.

big palace

the Summer Palace:

a huge 2.9km total area, is dominated by this man made hill and lake (the lake was dug and the dirt was made into a hill). standing on top of the hill (named longevity hill) is the Duobao Glazed Pagoda. stunning and HUGE!! also, the marble boat is sitting just off shore in the lake.

we hiked started by hiking around the lake to see the views, check out 17 arch bridge, and then hike to the top of longevity hill. we then headed back around to the front of the palace were we watched a show of traditional dances put on at the palace theatre. next we walked through the gardens and ended near the suzhou street, which is like a chinese venice and patterned after south-eastern china. all in all, it took around 5 1/2 hours and our driver thought we were crazy! a lunch at Mc Donalds followed, as we thought we needed to try one in every country. honestly, it was better than in the states.

Temple of Heaven:

this was the temple to which the emperor would go to pray for a good harvest. also on the grounds are the vault of heaven and the earthly mount. here, locals get together and play traditional music and cards on the walkways.

home of the emperor

Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City:

"standing in this square, you can feel the communism." -justin
that about sums up the feeling of this place. it is a huge square in front of the forbidden city gate entrance and is surrounded by government buildings and museums. this was once the route the emperors took to get to their palace, and any visitors had to walk about a 2 mile distance through 7 gates beginning at one end of the square going all the way to the end where the emperor would greet them. a picture of Mao Zedong hangs on the front of the gate over looking the square. he was a leader of the communist party during the civil war, and eventually a leader of the people's republic of china. the city was under lots of construction and renovation while we wewre there gearing up for the olympic games this summer.

temple time

The Lama Temple:

it houses the largest buddha carved from one piece of wood, 70 ft tall. it is beautifully colored with yellow tiles, as it once served as the imperial palace during the Qing dynasty. it was later converted to a lamasery that housed mongolian and tibetian monks. heres that giant buddha, it go four stories upthis is made with sand, amazing!

old dead guys

Ming Dynasty Tombs:

this place was cool. it was a valley filled with 13 of the 16 Ming dynasty emperors tombs. most are underground under these big structures. We only went into one because we were still a bit jet lagged and had little sleep that night before. sorry, i was playing with the photo colors with this crazy tree