Cause I wonder where you are, and I wonder what you do.

And when abusive text messages and emails began to arrive from my family, I know I'm overdue for a blog post. Stop the shaming, guys. I'm here, ok?

How have you been? After days and days of rain, we've had some glorious weather the last few days--autumn is finally (hopefully?) here. This week, we spent a few days with Jason's parents in the Hunter Valley. It's the wine-growing region about 2 hours outside of Sydney, and it is really beautiful. See? I took this picture last night at dinner.

There's scenery like that ALL UP in the Hunter. There's scores of charming restaurants, shopping villages, little playgrounds, and of course, wineries. This weekend, Lionel Richie and Santana are doing concerts there. When I saw that, it made me think of this poster, which is making the rounds on the Interwebs:
I love that someone took the time to make that. There are so many fun people in the world. And isn't it nice to know that Lionel's still out there, making it happen?

I'm not really a wine drinker--it just never tasted good to me. Same thing with coffee. People would say, "It's an acquired taste; you need to just keep trying it and you'll like it eventually." But I always thought, "Why should I keep drinking something that tastes crappy to me in the hopes that one day I'll like it?" It's not like it's veggies or something. Y'know? Anybody? Anyhoo, even for a culture-less ingrate like me, the Hunter Valley is a really nice place to visit.

The kids were worried they'd be bored. On the way there, Ava told us that one of her friends warned her there was NOTHING to do and that ALL that happened is that adults drank wine and talked for HOURS. That made me laugh, because seriously, what could be worse to a kid? We reassured her that there was plenty to do. The kids have been wanting Jason to take them to play golf for awhile now, so Jason and his dad took Ava and Nate out when they played 9 holes yesterday. There was much excitement due to golf carts being involved. And looked who popped by?
See there, in the background? Oh, okay, here's a closeup:

Betcha don't get those in Napa, baby! We're city folks, so to see kangaroos in the wild is still pretty fun and novel for us. Ava said they saw at least 8 on the golf course. Which made me wonder, how do they keep them out of the vineyards? But anyway.

We had a nice time, in spite of Grace having a tough time sleeping. Which means Jason and I did too. Remember this post about our first night away on holiday last year? Y'all, that is like birth control in blog form, right there. This trip wasn't quite at that epic level of badness, but we're a bit tired nonetheless. Last night, she developed a fever, so we came home a bit early today. She was pretty wiped out, as you can see:
Here we are allowing a very risky situation: giving Grace both her Primary Bear and her Backup Bear at the same time. We like to live on the edge. A parenting pro trip that I learned the hard way is to always have a backup bear/blanket/lovey for your child. And, listen: take it with you when you go on vacation. You never know when the Primary will get upchucked on, dipped in the toilet, or--seriously, God forbid--lost. Today, with her fever and fussiness and a car ride, we had an official Two Bear Situation on our hands. Sometimes, a girl needs more than the usual level of comfort.

Well, I'm off to bed. I'm preaching this Sunday, and have some work to do tomorrow. Sermons don't write themselves, ya know! Or at least, mine don't. I might need to borrow the Backup Bear for this one.