We have been spoiled lately and have had lots of lovely friends visit.  Last weekend, we had a wonderful time with Jen and Chris, exploring some new areas and laughing and relaxing!  The picture above is a winery in McLaren Vale, one of the wine regions of South Australia.  It was the first one we visited on our 'wine and cheese' tour of McLaren Vale.  Recently I've decided that it can still be really fun to drive yourself around the wine regions.  You can pick and choose where you would like to go and it's much more cost effective!  I'm taking a bit of a break from booze so that makes things even easier - no arguing over who will stay sober and drive :P

 Sampling wine around a barrel.  I was standing with them at one point, and there was a fairly big spider right on top of the barrel.  Needless to say, Jen and I got everyone's attention when we noticed.  Chris saved the day, scooping it up with his hands to let it go outside.  I loved the pictures on the wall behind them - they are actually photographs of the area.  Sadly I didn't have an extra $550 in my pocket this time around.

 Big vats in the Rosemount cellar door.  Obviously it was necessary to pose in front of them.  Because...they're giant vats.

 Aw, I love these guys!  To mix it up a bit, we stopped at Ekhidna, which offers beer tastings as well as wine tastings.  I took a few sips to assess, and, well...yuck!  I wasn't hugely sold and neither was anyone else.

 Sunday, we decided to start the day off by visiting the Adelaide Showgrounds Farmer's Market.  This ice cream place had the most interesting flavours - kakadu plum, lemon myrtle, and my personal favourite - lilly pilly and ginger.  My aim was to buy cheese curds but they were SOLD OUT!!!  Just goes to show, Adelaidians appreciate a good thing when they taste it.  Either that, or there are lots of curd deprived Canadians lurking around.

 It was a beautiful day for a leisurely paddle boat ride in the CBD.  It was even warm enough to work up a tiny bit of sweat, but also nice and breezy. 

 Jen and Chris making their way under the bridge in their snazzy blue paddle boat.

All the actual paddle boating pics of Jeremy and I are on Jen's camera, just like all the ones of her and Chris are on mine, so I leave you with this irritating mushy one!

We had such a good time.  Jen was my very first friend in Australia and I'm so happy that we've remained close friends.  I met Chris the first time I met Jen, and I love that they now own a house and are engaged!  So exciting.  Ah, the changes that 4.5 years in a country can bring.

After all the hustle and bustle of Kayleigh & Jason and Jen & Chris visiting, it'll be a bit sad to go back to the normal routine.  However, I'm actually planning to spend the next three weekends away in the Yorke Peninsula area (where Jeremy is working at the moment) and we have lots planned, so I guess it won't actually be a normal routine!  I also have several more visitors to look forward to in June and July!