Our relaxing week at the Driftwood has again not disappointed us! Providing more great characters for us to meet and make strong friendships with, and reaquanting with old friends.

With the Miami Dolphins Vs New England Patriots season opener looming on the Sunday, the street outside our resort was shut down for an almighty 'Patriots Street Party'. Complete with live band, food, drink and dancing.

The game itself was amazing! Decked out from head to toe in Patriots gear the Connor family headed to the stadium after checking out of the Driftwood and heading further south towards Miami.

Sitting high in the stands we were witness to a great opening ceremony of the National Anthem, fireworks and a full field sized flag show and cheerleaders!! Although the day was hot out in the sun (around 92 degree's F) we enjoyed hot dogs, soda's and unfortunately saw the Patriots get beaten.

We headed up the coast to have lunch with Randy in West Palm Beach, in our Mustang convertible, lovely Asian and Thai food. 2 hours further up towards staying our week with Nicole, Charlie and family, we were fortunate enough to stay a couple of nights with our new friend Jack whom we also met at the Driftwood.

Jack is a New York Firefighter. Jack had incredible stories and such 'raw' photos from being on the frontline of that fateful day of September 11. Jack was a great host in his beautiful home and crazy friendly dog - Raider! We saw the sights of Saint Augustine, visited the Alligator Farm and drove along the beach in his big black F250 truck. We are very thankful for all the kind hearted people that take us in on our travels. Jack sent one very happy little boy on his way with his actual old firefighter badge to keep!

We're back - Sept 2014 !!!!!!!

16 hour flight into Los Angeles, 18 hour stop over before our next flight....hey why not go to Disneyland and do the rides that Jackson was too small to go on last time! Running on empty, we trecked out to Anaheim got a $60 hotel room, threw our bags in and headed to the parks! It was less expensive to get a motel room than to store our baggage off site at LAX.

11.45pm our next departure time to Florida (via Houston in Texas). Soooo tired and jet lagged - did not even see the safety demonstration on the plane. 

Arrived in Florida at 6am Saturday morning. Headed out to our resort at the Driftwood beach club (pictured above).

Took about a day to become 'human' again after settling into the time differences. Lovely to see all our friends from here again.

Took a water taxi in and around Fort Lauderdale/Miami on day 3. Wow...the $$$, the mansions, the yachts! How do people get so rich?

Enjoyed some Margarita's & Mexican food with Anne and Erika along Los Olas Blvd.

I saw more MASERATI's today than I've ever seen back home !!!

Back to the pool for a swim, and play some board games before bed. It's taken 3 days before our Australian winter skin and soft feet have finally adapted to the weather and conditions.

1 Year on......

Exactly 12 months to the day......May 14th 2011, we flew across to L.A for our epic 6 month tour of the United States! Now we have settled back in Ballarat, and after getting back on our feet again renting for 6 months we have purchased a house.
Renovation city.......!! Picked the house up cheap enough and have done a lot of hard work and modernised it.
This next picture is of the beautiful red carpet  it had in it when we purchased it......... then the next one is the after reno' shot.

And of course Jackson's new room!

Heading into our Australian winter now. It's going to be a real shock to our systems this year as we managed to avoid it between the 2 countries for the past 18 months. That's a quick update from Oz. Have started to re-read our diaries from the trip tonight to remember what we were doing 12 months ago, and each day the great people we met!

Stay warm!
Team Connor Oz.