We have said before that coming back to Adelaide feels more and more like coming home each time and this time was no different, particularly as waiting for us at the valet desk was a set of keys to Chantell & Simon's house with our names on! The lovely welcomes just kept coming when we reached their house and a very excited (and much bigger) Westin Coast Beagle sat waiting to greet us! We had missed him a lot and it seemed he had missed us as well so we enjoyed lots of cuddles, before tidying up the huge mess he had made of his room by ripping all the lining out of his bed and spreading it across his room!!
 
The main reason for us coming back to Adelaide, aside from catching up with everyone again, was that I had to complete a 'Responding to Abuse and Neglect' course in order to be able to teach in South Australia but we managed to pack in a lot more than that during our 10 day visit .
 
Matt and I had talked about going back to Genesis gym and trying to sweet talk them into letting us have a 2 week membership without having to sign up or trying out the local swimming pool but when we mentioned this to Simon, he announced that he still has a pass key to Liberty Towers (where his dad owns an apartment and Chantell used to live) which gives you access to the swimming pool in the basement! Matt went to check it out and came back very excited as there was not only a swimming pool but also a small gym area with treadmill, cross trainer and bike! Along with the added bonus of a sauna, steam room and jacuzzi. Perfect!! The only question now was "how the hell didn't we know about this before??" We made good use of these facilities while we were there with Matt going practically every day!
 
It had been 3 months since I had last had my hair done so, as you can imagine, it was looking terrible! There was about 2 inches of regrowth so I looked pretty ridiculous! Thankfully, I had managed to get an appointment at the hairdressers Chantell uses, Chi Hair & Beauty, Matt and Westy came for a walk down with me and after about 3 hours of pampering I looked presentable again!
 
When we were last here, we had been able to watch Simon's cricket final which saw his team earn the Premiership title and gain promotion and it seemed we had timed our return just right as we were able to attend their end of season presentation evening where Simon cleaned up, winning top batsman for the C grade, best all rounder for the club, a trophy for taking 6 wickets in a game, a medal for his team winning the Premiership and was granted lifetime membership! It was certainly his night!!!
 
Matt was very pleased to squeeze 2 basketball games in, each for a different team! The first was for a friend of Simon and the other was some of the lads from cricket . Neither was at the standard he plays back home but he's not exactly at his sharpest after nearly 8 months off the court. He really enjoyed having a run out even if he did get fouled out in the first game and got beaten by about 20 points, but he was pleased as he still nearly top scored for his team with 12 points. The other went better as they actually won by over 20 points and he had a much better game getting 18 points, a block and only 2 fouls!! The only problem with this is it's now given him his buzz back for playing so he's itching to play more. Matt also went with Simon, his brother, Ryan, and friend, Macey, to see another AFL game, this time Port Adelaide Vs West Coast Eagles! Chantell had tried to get us to be Crows fans when we went before but as they didn't do very well Matt was keen to switch teams to the Eagles as its Simon's team and of course Westie is named after them, so technically he did it for Westie!! They got there early as someone Macey knows was playing in the 'curtain raiser' game and this paid off as they were asked to go onto the pitch and hold the banner for the West Coast Eagles team to run through at the start of the main game! An amazing experience!!!! The game was on TV as well so we tried to record it for them but in typical sports coverage style they missed that part because of the adverts! With Matt, Simon and Ryan in their Eagles kits, they were always going to enjoy themselves as the away fans don't get separated from the home fans . Macey is a Port fan so, as you can imagine, there was plenty of banter, especially when the Eagles gained a 48 point lead. Although they had a big lead, they kept missing lots of kicks, nevertheless, the game should have been all over by half time. Port had a much better 3rd quarter and an even better start to the 4th, to the extent that they actually took the lead with 10 minutes left. The boys' cheers had turned into their heads being in their hands but it wasn't over as the Eagles again took the lead, giving Matt and Simon the chance to stand up and celebrate on their own in front of thousands of Port fans, only for Port to score again and actually win by 5 points! Yes, the boys copped a fair but of stick now it was all over, but even the Port fans admitted the Eagles played much better, just their missed kicks hurt them in the end. They continued to get endless amounts of cheers and heckling all the way back to the car and out of the car park, but they didn't care really and they found it all very amusing . Despite their loss, Matt has decided to stick with the Eagles and is now an official fan!
 
Unbelievably, we managed to fit in two trips to the cinema in a week! Normally, cinema tickets are really expensive but on a Tuesday they are only $10 and I had an offer from Telstra (my mobile phone provider) for cheap tickets so we saw Oblivion and Iron Man 3! Both were really good even if Oblivion was quite confusing and not what it seemed from the trailer. It makes such a difference seeing them on the big screen!
 
While we were here, we also had our first clubbing experience in Adelaide! April 25th is a public holiday because it is ANZAC Day which means the night before is always a big night out! Chantell and her friend Ebony, along with Muddy from Simon's cricket team, took us to HQ where they had an event called 'Neverland', playing music from the 90s to now!! I had a great time getting ready with Chantell, I've really missed the silly girliness involved in the prep for a night out: trying on outfits, helping each other with hair & make up ...!! Simon gave us a lift to HQ, he couldn't come as he had to be up at 4:45am to drive someone to the Dawn Service for ANZAC Day in the morning! The club was bigger than I'd imagined with 3 rooms playing different types of music! We had a great time, drinking, dancing and singing. We also took lots of photos and had a giggle being pretty silly! The night was coming to a close so we decided to have one last dance in the main room when out of the blue a girl, who had banged into Chantell on the dance floor earlier in the night, came charging up and started pushing and shoving her!!! The next few moments are all a bit of a blur but the end result was Chantell laying on the floor in tears as she had really hurt the knee she recently had reconstructive surgery on!! Somehow in all the commotion we all got separated but thankfully Matt eventually found me! We couldn't find the others anywhere and, as Chantell had my phone in her handbag, we had no way of contacting them! After much searching, we decided to get a taxi back home in the hope they had gone back there and if not we could use Simon's phone to ring them! They weren't at home when we got there, but they had called Simon so we knew she was okay! A little while later, Chantell and Ebony arrived home in a taxi and, now that the initial shock had worn off and we knew Chantell wasn't too badly hurt, we had a good laugh about the evening's events!
 
All in all, it had been an eventful few days but as always we had a brilliant time and were sad when the time came once again for us to leave! This time though we weren't totally leaving our Adelaide family behind as we were off to Orange to work for Chantell's family's company, MASTEC, assembling and delivering wheelie bins!!!!