Back to Oz

Well, that was a whirlwind, as expected. To finish up my trip summary started in the entry below, here is a list of the activities of the 2nd half of our trip:

1. Lunch with Alicia - good times reminiscing about Highland Elementary, etc.
2. Day with mom - we didn't do much, but it was fun anyway.
3. Breakfast with Carissa, Nick and EJ on their way up to Redding.
4. Gym with Dad followed by wild rental car return adventure on the way to dinner with Tiffany & Adam (and getting to see their plush new house).
5. Thanksgiving day: Indian food for lunch and traditional dinner at Aunt Jane's with the fam.
6. New shoes as big Black Friday purchases.
7. Ethiopian dinner and Phantom of the Opera in SF with Mom and David. (note: separate blog entry required for comments on Phantom).
8. One last Mexican food meal for lunch on final day with Mom and Dad. Then packing and cleaning up and making our way back to SFO for the trip back.

The flights back weren't bad, but the movies we watched were. It was our own fault, we chose to watch crappy movies and chose to keep watching even after realizing they were bad. Five movies in a row: Wanted (Angela Jolie, terrible, don't see it), In Bruges (not bad but I hate when the main characters die, sorry for the spoiler), The House Bunny (no idea why we watched this, just as bad as you would expect, maybe worse), Wall-E (good, finally), Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (not so good but not painful, it's a kids movie). It was quite a trip. I slept some on the 12 hour flight to New Zealand, so that was nice. No jetlag upon return and we're completely back on track after an excellent night of sleep last night.

So that's it. Back to normal, boring, Australia life. We've decided that we need to do more here since we tend to stagnate in the name of laziness, avoiding the weather, and frugality. We'll work on that. In the meantime, we're back to finalizing plans for our trip to Tasmania over Christmas and starting to plan The Big Trip for next June-ish.

It was so great to see everyone that we could during our visit, and apologies for those who we weren't able to fit in. Next year, for our Epic Return, we will make sure to spend some time with everyone who wants to! Until then, stay safe and happy and send me a dang email once in a while.