Back from Guam and planning the next adventure

Besides the sunburn he incurred while snorkeling, Zac got home from Guam safely. He was gone for a couple of weeks - long enough for us to have a nice break from one another, but also long enough to miss each other. Most of our relationship has been long-distance, beginning with dating between OK and MN, then engaged and married between El Salvador and MN. Zac got done with ES and came up to get me in MN back at the end of August and we've been together since then. Six months! That's the longest we've ever been in the same place at the same time. So far very little of the newlywed shine has worn off, which I'm grateful for. There have been some growing pains, for sure, but I come out of each hiccup with a renewed sense of . . . happiness.

[Jeez Louise, I'm living under the military helicopter super-highway this morning. They keep roaring back and forth over my head. No, we're not being invaded. I promise I would tell you if we were. While it isn't anxiety-inducing, it is a bit distracting.]

Zac and I are planning a trip to Australia which is really exciting. It's quite expensive, but we figure that we're about as close to it as we'll ever be so we had might as well go now. It's still a frightfully long flight from Honolulu to get there. Due to it's distance we're going to be taking a couple of weeks down there. I suppose it's a sort of honeymoon. Many could argue that living in Hawaii is a long-term honeymoon, but while I'm living a life of leisure pretty much daily, Zac is working a lot and it would be nice if we both have an excuse to sleep in late.

We're not exactly sure what all we're going to see when we're there. We're taking the safe route and spending the two weeks in Sydney and Melbourne. Maybe not the most creative places to visit in Australia, but we really didn't want to over-extend ourselves by trying to hit a bunch of places/cities in two weeks and getting burnt out by our itinerary. This way we'll have a rental car and two home bases that we can use. We're hoping to see some national parks, tour some cool stuff like the Opera House and Harbor Bridge, drink some Foster's and hopefully catch a rugby or Australian rules football game. (I'm not even sure they're in season right now, but we think it would be a hoot to go to a game.)

The dates haven't been finalized yet, but we're hoping for sometime later this spring, which would be fall Down Under. I can't even imagine how many photos I'd end up taking. If I take 200 on a four day trip to the Big Island, I could easily come back from Australia with a couple thousand. I wonder if Walgreens.com has a deal for that - first 1,000 4x6 prints regular price, second 1,000 free?