mattjo

Hi Everyone!

We're in the Airport at Springfield Missouri at the moment (free Internet...sweet!), smack bang in the middle of the USA. We're hoping to board our connecting flight to New York via Chicago shortly. The weather is really bad, with many flights being cancelled (There are tornado's in Dallas, so all of the flights in and out of there are cancelled... yikes!) Hopefully our flight will only delayed and not cancelled as the weather in Chicago isn't too bad.

It's been really cold, but sadly for me (Fantastic for everyone else) it has not snowed even though some nights have been 0'C and below. Alas I still have hope, as they are forecasting snow in New York this week.

We've had a great time in Springfield, just relaxing and catching up with some old friends. Yesterday we went for a cruise through the town by ourselves and saw all of the town's highlights, they have a great Wal*Mart and Bass Pro Shop here. Our dads could easily spend a day or 2 checking out all of the nifty gadgets at Bass Pro, we spent at least 2 hours there walking around, playing with some real guns, and being mezmorised by all of the flashy lures, boats, trike's, camping equipment, the live snakes, and cool indoor natural looking aquariums with giant waterfalls, complete with fancy ducks. It was great!

But as always the highlight would have to be the people that you meet. I had the privilege of meeting Pastor Jess and Paula Gibson, who totally spoilt us with Dinner on Saturday night and lunch on Sunday afternoon. They pastor a wonderful church called Cornerstone, (The Church that Matt did Masters Commission at in 2003) where we attended on Sunday, they had a cool Gospelish feel to the music, which was great to experience, Pastor Jess spoke about the importance of Palm Sunday, and whether we want to do things and see things our way, or do and see them God's way. It was a very neat-o day indeed.

We also met up with Rick regularly (Matt's Masters Director) whom picked us up, ran us around the town, and dropped us off. We spent yesterday evening with He and his wife Nicole and their 3 children. It was great just to chat with them and get to know them, they are a great sort.

We're about to board our plane, I’ll keep you posted with all of the adventures that we are about to have in New York, New York.

and as always, I have posted a bunch of photos on Jo's MySpace, check them out at www.myspace.com/mee_too_you

Love Love Love

Matt and Jo!

Wow what a place Vegas is. If you wanted to have a continual 'schoolies' then this is the place. Nothing but drinking, gambling and sleeping around. Of course that isn't US at all. So we just walked up and down the Vegas strip of hotels (Luxor - Stratosphere) and ate lots of food.

The food was awesome but the atmosphere here isn't, but once you get into a show - the entertainment is world class!

We are so cheap - we got roped in for a Timeshare presentation (4 hours mind you) and after getting through all the tough sales tactics we got 2 free dinner buffets and 2 free shows. We saw the Toxic Audio which they do these cool songs and beats with nothing but the human voice - very cool. And we saw the V Show - which is like a sampler of all the shows in Vegas. Matt was a volunteer with one of the acts. It was so hilarious - he had to get up on stage and the presenter placed a rubber mask on his face and made him do some funny stuff. He had the audience in stitches. For that effort he won 2 more show tickets to Toxic Audio that we had already seen. Oh well - we are going to find some random couple and bless them with the tickets.

Tonight we saw 'Stomp Out Loud'. That was totally awesome and energetic. They were dancing around the place and banging and tapping bits of metal junk, garbage cans and just things you see everyday. It has us tapping everything when we left the show. We nearly walked up to some random bald guy and start tapping his head to a beat!

Jo has updated her myspace with photos so make sure you check them out - www.myspace.com/mee_too_you

We head off to Springfield tomorrow to catch up with some friends and shake off the dirt of Vegas.

Talk soon

Matt & Jo

L.A is Urban Sprawl gone mad! Its like everyone wants to live in the same place in a 3 bed house on their own piece of 600sqm land. So what do they do - just go nuts and spread all the houses out! Then put in major highways to connect everyone. So then it takes 1 - 2 hours just to get to work. Public Transport exists here - but is very sporadic!

Yesterday we went out to Universal Studios at Universal City which is an hour and half drive from Anaheim and we are still in L.A. As we were driving out there we went through Hollywood and Beverly Hills. The Hollywood sign came up really quick and missed the opportunity to take the photo shot! But in Universal Studios they had a mock up sign so we took a photo of that! The theme park was good we got to experience where all the major movies are made. However I must say that our Movie World is a lot more fun then Universal Studios.

Been hanging out with Josh and Cheryl (friends from Springfield Masters Commission) and they have been showing us around - its been awesome. We go to church tomorrow with them. Josh gave me his car to drive around. It was freaky at first as we have no sat nav we just rely on printing out directions from Google maps. Once you have the directions its all so well signed and its quite hard to get lost.

We trudged through Disneyland today. Both Jo and I were so tired from walking all day yesterday through Universal Studios that we just didn't have the energy to fully experience Disneyland. I have been before, so we just went and did the best rides and then walked through the rest of the park to experience the ambience of Disneyland.

At our hotel (Hilton next door to Disneyland) there is the national cheerleading championships. Oh my God - we are invaded with screaming 14 - 17 year old girls all dressed in their uniforms and running around the hallways and riding the lifts etc. We thought we could get away from them by getting into Disneyland - but alas our fortune was misconcieved! Disneyland was absolutely packed. One of the better rides - Splashmountain, the wait line was over 2 hours - just to get on a 5 min ride. We might head back in later tonight to see the fire works and ride some more rides - as the park is open untiil midnight.

We wind our clocks forward another hour tonight as LA goes into Daylight Savings. So if you are reading this in Australia our time difference is 7 hours in front but on the previous day.

Jo was going nuts today all through Disneyland taking a whole heap of photos. She was taking random photos of just anything - trees, pavement, signs, little kids, straws, rubbish bins? What the? Who knows what goes through that cute little head of hers!

We are having a great time and look forward to hearing from you!

Wow, we arrived in L.A last night and drove for an hour out to Anaheim. This place is amazing - Disneyland rules out here and everything just feels so ‘Disney’. Jo was singing like a typical Disney movie “la la la la la” in the shuttle bus when we started to drive through Disneyland.

Last couple of days we were in Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii with Uncle Brian and Kazemaru. Our objective there was to find a suitable property for their future home to settle down together and for them to be able to run retreats from this home. Well Praise God – we found the right place just in the nick of time. It is a great property of 12.3 acres with views of the ocean, its own private stream and a working rambutan orchard. The house was very well looked after with 3 bedrooms 2 bathrooms upstair and a whole area downstairs that can be converted into another 2 bedroom apartment. Whilst Brian and Kazemaru aren’t there they can rent it out which will cover most of their holding costs. So all in all a great investment! We managed to sign on the 11th hour with us getting contracts to the seller for him to sign, with all the terms & price that we wanted. I must say it was one of the smoothest real estate transactions that I have ever been involved in.

It was great catching up with Uncle Brian and meeting his fiancé Kazemaru. They are both lovely together and we are looking forward to spending more time with them in the future. Well now they have this place on the Big Island – Im sure Jo and I will be saving our pennies every year to see how we can get back.

The Big Island is not a place for the typical tourist, it is very chill and relax and a place to just ‘be’. The natural beauty there was astounding. When I had a swim near Hilo bay, a turtle came swimming beside me and he let me stratch his shell and we were just hanging in the water for about 5 min – before some Japanese tourist came splashing out – then he was off in a flash.

Here in LA, we are going to get out an explore the city and obviously run around like little kids at Disneyland and Universal Studios.

We will keep you posted.

To view heaps of pics of our trip go to jo's myspace www.myspace.com/mee_too_you (click 'pics' just underneath the photo of Jo)

Aloha from the Big Island!

We have been tucked away on the big island of Hawaii since Wednesday afternoon and been busy searching for properties for Uncle Brian and Kazemaru. We have managed to reduce the prospect list from 20 properties down to 3.

Its funny that we have found that even the real estate agents here work the same and act the same as real estate agents do back home! Also the planning and development process works the same way here as it does back home.

The big island reminds me of Tully and Mission Beach back in Australia – very tropical. This island is kinda shaped like a massive cone (due to the active volcano) so nearly every property no matter how far you go up the mountain have views to the ocean. Its really cool here as you can see all the seasons, from wintery snow to hot humid heat all in the same day.

Yesterday (Friday) was a truly magic day with the sky clearing and we were able to see the snow capped volcano in the distance. There are no sandy beaches here (well nearly none) the beaches come down from massive tall cliffs. So most of the beaches are all jagged edge rocks or large smooth black stones.

On Thursday we went and swam in the green lake, which is a lake (about 2 acre in size) in an extinct volcano. They say that this lake doesn’t have a bottom and a diver explorer came and dove down 100 ft and there was still no sign of reaching the bottom. Freaky huh! Swimming in this green coloured lake was like something out of the movie Anaconda!!! After this swim we went down to the beach and dipped in a hot spring rock pool which is half tidal and half freshwater. Swimming in the rock pond felt so refreshing and invigorating as all the minerals were absorbing into our skin. I felt so awake after that swim!

We have seen some beautiful properties here, many had their own waterfalls. The soil here is so rich that the locals say when you plant a tree you need to have a machete in the other hand so you can start hacking the tree down.

Today Uncle Brian arrives and we need to go into Hilo to pick him up as well as grab some more food. They have farmers markets here every Wednesday and Saturday and they are just like our Carrara markets. A lot of the ‘feel’ here is similar to Byron Bay with everyone into organics and vegan lifestyles. The fresh food here is really amazing, with massive mangoes, avocados, paw paw, bananas – the list could go on!

Mahalo