Howdy folks, welcome back to the adventures of Jim & Lauren! By the recent photos you can probably tell what's coming up...

We left the natural beauty of the Pacific Highway passing through Carmel, Big Sur, Hidden Valley, Santa Barbara and onto Malibu. Part of the coastal road rivalled the Great Ocean Road in Southern Australia - mountains rolling down into the ocean with a road cut into the cliff face. Malibu at sunset is very picturesque but misses the curvy ladies and muscular bodies of the Baywatch cast! But plenty of yellow trucks and lifeguard huts complete with the hanging red floats.

We arrived at Santa Monica, LA and it wasn't long before we realised we were back in the city of celebs, surgical enhancements and now of course the Beckhams! The city where you're always being judged on what you are wearing and how you look. Our trouble is we fair pretty badly in our worn out rags that have been dragged across three continents! A good box of Ariel and an iron wouldn't go a miss! And as Lauren keeps moaning about, access to her wardrobe! Our famous adidas and green shorts along with the vests are becoming national icons!

Spent 5 days around LA visiting Hollywood City (Universal Studios) and Disney. We also spent some time cruising the Southern Californian beaches with our new CD blaring, yep the Beach Boys Greatest Hits! Had an awesome day at Universal visiting the film sets of War of the Worlds, Evan Almighty, Mummy Returns, Live Free Die Hard (ippy-ki-yay!) plus plenty of the old favourites Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, King Kong, Jaws and plenty of horror, not to Laurens amusement! There were loads of shows where you get a closer look at the stunts and special effects, even bumped into Shrek and Donkey! Lauren joined the queue of kids to get her photo done with the ogre himself while donkey sat in his shed baring his gnashers for a cheeeeesey smile! Disney certainly topped the lot though and brought the kid out in both of us. From the moment you walk through the gates the sounds and characters of disney are all around you. You could spend days here with the two parks - Californian Adventure, Disneyland and Downtown Disney to choose from. More rides and simulators than Universal with enormous queues to match! We've been to DreamWorld in Oz and Alton Towers in UK but Space Mountain is still the best ride of the lot, a high speed pitch black two minute rollercoaster which even got Jim shouting! Pirates of the Caribbean, Splash Mountain, the Matterhorn and the new one Buzz Lightyear where you get to shoot at targets along the way, which Lauren managed to win at! As evening approached, the Parade of Dreams floated down Main Street towards the castle, you certainly feel like you're in another world. Doesn't matter how old you are it is one happy place to be! Finally at 9pm there was an amazing firework display to the sound of Western movies, Disney tunes and Star Wars. Definitely went out in style, best ever!

LA is a great city with a fantasic buzz about it but well beyond our budget so headed back into the Californian desert into the Coachella Valley. Once into the desert landscape the feeling of home hit us, well as homely as we've felt since Western Australia. Palm Springs is a desert oasis with a real friendly feel, lively atmosphere and a great place to chill out for the rest of our amazing trip.

Went up to the mountains into the San Jacinto National Park, the only way is by cable car, the biggest in the Western hemisphere. After a 3 mile trip up to an elevation of 8300ft you get great views of the Coachella Valley, Salton Sea and on a clear day as far as Vegas. In the winter the area up there is a cross country skiing area. It's strange that the temperature in Palm Springs is 110 degrees, and on top of the mountain that shadows the valley it's a chilly 70 degrees. We were up there for sunset which was pretty cool.

Whilst in Palm Springs we had to pay a second visit to Knotts Soak City waterpark, and yes we loved it! That'll be our 5th visit to a waterpark this year, not bad huh! Spent most of the day on the Kahuna Beach House (water-soaked adventure frame) soaking kids and adults with buckets of water, not to their amusement, until they realised a 32 year old and a 23 year old were responsible! Then they had to laugh but we could tell revenge was on it's way!

Unfortunately we still haven't managed to get to a baseball game. We had full intention of going to the Palm Springs Powers on Saturday evening but got chatting to an LA couple with three bottles of Champagne, needless to say we didn't get there! Ended up going to the local liquor store for one more bottle to keep us going through the evening. A crazy couple, only in LA!

These past 8 and a half month have been truly amazing. We've seen so many different sights and experienced so many different cultures. Not only have we learnt about different ways of life but we've learnt a lot more about ourselves and each other, and as a result we've grown even closer. We've lived a very different lifestyle since we left home and it's given us an insight into how we want to continue living once we get settled.

We've spoken to our 2 paddy friends who are still living it up in Oz and we heard a very true saying:

"Home is good for a couple of days but being away is good all the time" Bernard Eyres, 2007

It's true when they say that you get the travelling bug, and our list of places to visit has grown!

We've done it differently to how we first planned, seeing lots more of Australia and New Zealand than we ever thought we would. The parts of North America we've visited are something else, so different to what many people imagine of this area. Asia...well we still haven't decided but take planty of pants and Immodium if you go! But we haven't regretted any of it and as we like to say:

"We did it our way!"