Say Hello to the newest Surfer in town!

Hey Everyone! I hope everyone had a good Easter weekend!! We just wanted to say a quick hello to my buddy Brendan who just proposed to his new fiancee Jen last week!! (she said yes... poor girl) just kidding, Congrats guys!! And also to my cousin Ryan Peardon who is going through chemo and a stem cell transplant these past few weeks... he is doing well so far and I know he'll get over this cancer stuff.
Alright, time for the update. Well this weekend we had a big road trip planned to go down south with Barry and Lynz, but after deciding back and forth about 8 times we called it off... it was just too busy this easter weekend. So instead Erynn and I went to Penguin Island 50kms south of Perth. It wasn't quite the big road trip we had planned but it was nice to get out of the city. We didn't see any wild penguins cause they were all out feeding and only return at night. So we had to make do with the captive ones. We got up nice and close and got to see a feeding which was pretty cool. Erynn wants one as a pet now... one more thing to smuggle back home... great.

On Monday I signed up for a 2 day surf camp in Lancelin - about 150kms north of Perth. I figured that I had better learn soon since we only have 4 months till Hawaii. Erynn wasnt too keen on learning and its a bit pricey so she stayed at the hostel plus she worked Tuesday. I am still sooo pooped out right now... I was surfing for about 6 hours a day, and I was always last one out of the water. I am actually pretty good at it too.... it's alot like snowboarding... just when you wipe out its a bit harder to breath n stuff. The coaches moved me up two levels to the harder/smaller boards so I could turn and control them way easier. The water is soo beautiful too!! Its a really light green and the waves are huge!!! well 6-8 feet anyway... big enough for me. I did have a few good wipe outs though haha.... one of them even ripped the leash (rope that attaches you to the board) off my ankle, another time I caught the board right in the nose, its still a little bruised, but no blood!! Usually I bleed pretty easily. My hands are really raw from gripping the board, because you get smashed by about 8 waves on the way out before you are far enough out to catch a big one... I went out a bit further than most... :)
I felt pretty bad telling Erynn what a great time I had when I got back... I guess on Monday everything was closed and she had absolutely nothing to do all day... I wonder how she is gonna react when I tell her that I am going surfing Friday since I don't work... hee hee.
well thats about it for now!
Oh on a side note me and Erynn have become quite the little masters of chop sticks!! there is a little Japanese restaurant we frequent and can down a bowl of chicken and rice with no problems at all!! I thought I would share that with everyone... we are pretty impressed with ourselves! : )
Only a few more weeks in Perth and then we head north!!! I won't give too much away on what we are gonna do, so everyone will have to stay tuned...
and as Ryan would say: Keep fit and Have Fun!

Nate & Erynn

Working on the West Coast

Hey Everybody!! Sorry for the long delay since the last post... we havent had too many adventures to report since the grape picking... its hard to measure up you know? We've just been working and drinking mostly. I have a job unloading PVC pipe from a ship container, its hard work, which is a nice change from typing away on computers all day like I am used to. I am actually using my muscles!! When I was in Sydney I lost 15lbs!! I think I got it back now just from these 2 weeks The job is pretty slack too! The only time we get in trouble is when we are working too fast!! Our boss had to come and tell us to slow down otherwise we'll finish the job too quick and work our way out of some money!! haha not too shabby for $18/hr!!

I do have one story/adventure for everyone though! Last week I was going around in the truck delivering this pipe to all the stores around perth, and at the end of the day I had asked the driver if it would be cool just to drop me off near the hostel since we were going by anyway. He seemed a bit reluctant (lazy) and as we were driving down the highway we went passed a train station and he pulls over and tells me "just to walk back to the train station and catch it into town..." So I had to get out and walk back 2kms to the train station, climb an 8ft concrete barrier to get onto the walkway, catch the train into town and then walk another 2kms to my hostel... all because this driver guy was too lazy to take 5mins and drive me right to the hostel... The next day I told my boss (Dave) about this and he flipped out!! When the driver showed up Dave tore a strip off of him!! It was pretty funny to see actually... and after we loaded up the truck the driver went back to the depot and they changed drivers... I guess he went home to cry or something... hahaha. I have lots more stories about my boss Dave (the coolest Aussie I have met so far) but I dont think that they are appropriate for, well, everyone haha. So they will have to wait till I get back to Saskatoon and I will tell people over some beers...

Erynn is working for a company called HPA. They are basically a mail service provider for larger companies. Her job is a mindless one where she basically just hits the 'enter' key a million times a day. There are forms from schools that are scanned into the computer system in which the computer is programmed to interpret what the writing says. So every word that it doesn't have 'confidence' on it prompts her to see if it has the correct word or not. So if the word it thinks the form says is correct she just hits 'enter'. If it's not correct then she just replaces the wrong word with the new word. Haha - how easy is that. Making good money though so who's complaining!! She just started this job last week but it's lasting for at least a month so she's happy about that. Even better is that it's only a 10 minute walk from our hostel!! How the hell does she get so lucky with these close jobs?? Just like in Lane Cove when she worked at Double Day. Not fair that I have to travel so far and she can just leave 10 minutes before her shift!!

So other than working, all we seem to be doing is going out drinking with friends. Wednesday is BBQ night - $5 for 2 sausages, a steak, potato salad, salad, a roll, and a cold pint of beer!! Hard to turn that down! Then usually on the weekends we go out with grape picking people, or people we met in Alice Springs... hard life hey?
Thats about it for now, we are hoping to go and do something over the easter weekend - maybe a road trip down south, snorkelling or I might try my hand at surfing finally!!
I hope everyone is well! talk to you next time.

Nate & Erynn

P.S - Erynn here - Whats with that nonsense on Nathans face?!?!? nice stash!!