Australia!!

This is our first post from the beautiful Australia! It took a long time to get here, but here we are! It's the first time that either of us have been here- but we've wanted to come for a long time. It seems like each time we go on vacation, we always go to New Zealand because that's where Clint's family is. This time, we really had to go to New Zealand and Australia because Clint has two brothers and a sister who live there and all their extended family. After a VERY long trip (10 hour layover in Los Angeles... then a 13 hour flight to Auckland... another 8 hour layover in Auckland and then an 8 hour flight to Perth) we finally arrived. The picture of Clint above is the way we all felt and looked after so many hours on the plane! Emily and Rachel came with us, but they flew from the Auckland airport to Napier to stay with Clint's parents while we came to Australia. Zach came with us to Aussie land.

As we arrived, tired and grotty (that's a down under word meaning "nasty!") we had a whole slew of Armitage's to greet us! We had a great welcome and then headed to Simon and Diane's house (Clint's sister). Everyone came over and we had a potluck and I had pumpkin soup which is the BEST... but I only ever eat it over here. I should just make it at home! We visited for a while, and were drop dead tired so finally went to be about 9pm- about 44 hours after we had left California to start on our trip.

The next day we all went to play "super golf". I'd never heard of it before, and it was really great fun! It's basically a mix of miniature golf and real golf. It's a course that you walk around with a place to tee off and a green with a flag and hole etc, but you get 4 rubber clubs and a big rubber ball. We had a great time playing, but the best part was when I looked down the fairway, there were Armitage's EVERYWHERE! Seriously- it's crazy. The picture below shows how many people were out there golfing with us. It was really great to think of all these people putting everything on hold to just go play with us all week- and it really has been so great to see everyone just hanging out and having fun together.

Rita, Zach, Kate, Deborah, Hannah

Kate, Deborah and Hannah

After the super golf, we went to a local chocolate factory and had some samples of chocolate and then went and got fish and chips for lunch. Are you starting to see a pattern here of some good (but bad!!) eating? I know I'll gain about 10 pounds on this trip! The fish and chip place was fun because Clint's brother and nephew use to own it, so they named it Armies after Armitage. They sold the shop a few months ago, but the name is still there. So we had lunch there and took some photos.

That night-we had another potluck with lots of Armitage clan coming over. Today was our second day here. Although yesterday was a nice, sunny day; today was cloudy with bursts of rain storms pouring down. We went to the shops in the morning, hitting a bakery and eating a yummy cream filled doughnut- New Zealand style. Then we went to an over look point and saw the city of Perth from a distance. Here's our gang as we saw the overlook.

Then we came home for a while and hung out until Becky got off work. She's Diane's daughter and works in the mall at an ice cream place. We had gone to the mall shopping as well. After lunch, we drove into the main part of town to hang out and walk the streets. The city was a great fun place to look around. Here's some more pics of the gang shopping the streets of Perth.

This is Hayden, Clint and Brenden- two of Clint's nephews.

To finish off the night, we headed over to Rita and Davids house (Clint's brother). We ate more fish and chips and hung out. The funniest part of the night was when Zach started messing around with Clint on the floor, tickling him and generally being a pest. At one point, Zach had Clint on the ground and immediately, Hayden, Brenden and David got down to get Clint. They were tickling, punching and messing around with him until David sat on him and farted. Well, Clint got out from under the pack and grabbed Davids sweats which pulled them off and next thing you know- David is a naked guy from the waist down- we were all CRACKING up! There were only about 15 people in the room!

Anyway- we are having a super fun time. I'm falling down tired every night though from the jet lag. Like right now I'm typing and it's 10pm- but at home it's about 4am- give or take a couple hours. More Aussie tales to come later...