The children were on holidays from school for two weeks and we managed to get away for 5 days to a lovely beach town just 2 hours north of us. We had an amazing time! The weather was gorgeous (about 80 degrees the entire time!) The sands were white and the water was warm enough to body board! Everyone had so much fun. The highlight for all of us was the daily dolphin sighting!!!! They loved surfing the waves as much as we loved watching them! Hopefully I will have time to post more photos later, however Matt is gone to the US (to get our house fixed up!) for the next 12 days and well, time seems more limited (or maybe it has more to do with the 10 loads of laundry I have done today??!!)
whew - it has been so busy and I really need to post some photos from our Cairns vacation and Christmas, but my computer has been acting crazy (and I did a newborn photo shoot for a friend - very fun!). If you want to see some Great Barrier Reef photos you can pop over to my Mom's blog: Rita's Adventures and scroll down a post. We had a blast taking photos with our new underwater point and shoot canon camera. It took video underwater too! I just haven't figured out how to post those yet. I had a deadline to finish the book we ordered on our New Zealand Cruise last year by January 1st so I worked on that almost non-stop between Christmas and New Year's Day. I'm glad to have that completed! After I ordered it they sent me a link where you can view it online. If you have a few minutes and you'd like to see all the fun we had feel free to check it out here: So there is a little of what we have been up to. It has been really wonderful having Matt home almost every day over the past week and a half. We will miss him tomorrow :(
My Mom will be here until January 24th and the children all go back to school the week after she leaves so we have a few more weeks of fun before switching gears to moving in June or July. It has been a really amazing and wonderful three and a half years and we are definitely totally blessed to have had the opportunity to experience living in Australia.
We are really looking forward to the next phase in our lives. (and no we don't have any idea where we will go next - We hope to have some idea by March!) We have been reminded recently of the scripture God spoke to our hearts before we left for Budapest in 2001:
"The LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore." Psalm 121:8
I was finally able to download our photos from our big trip home (my computer memory was full and I couldn't load them until I got my new "My Book" hooked up). All is well now and there was plenty of room for our 1,000 plus photos :)
I'm just starting to look through them but when I saw this it just made me smile. I hope it makes you smile too!
After our trip two weeks ago where we made the grueling one hour climb to the top of Uluru (the world's largest monolith and an Aboriginal sacred site and Australia's most famous natural landmark). I had to take Isabella to the Dr. Isabella complained quite a bit about her ankles and knee hurting during the climb (and had been complaining previous to this trip) but she made it to the top! When we got home she was really complaining so I took her to the Dr. and now she is not allowed to do gymnastics for 3 weeks! She has achilles injuries in both legs and a hurt knee on one side. This photo was taken right after the climb and I guess you can tell by the look on her face that she was unhappy - poor Bella :( >
Jonah, Isabella & I (ellie) spent the weekend at Uluru, also called Ayers Rock. This is in about the center of the country and is known for being the huge red rock. here is a photo of Uluru at sunset.
here we are in front of it. we climbed to the top of it. it was challenging. (we rock!).
We had a fun 5 day trip to Fraser Island, 3 hours north of Brisbane (about 15 hours north of Sydney on the Eastern coast of Australia). This sand island is a Unesco World Heritage site and is known for having the purest strain of dingos in Australia.
Here is a photo of the kids near a famous ship wreck. I will try to post more photos soon but tonight we're headed to what could be the State Championship Baseball game for Jonah & Matt's team! We're excited about that!
It will take me a while to blog our over 1,000 Our New Zealand Cruise photos but you know me . . . I will do my best! Here are a few of our first day:
Jonah and Matt left early to bring all our luggage to the ship. After I picked up Elijah & Isabella from school we dragged the rest of our luggage and the stroller with Tia and took the train to the city. This was our first view of "The Volendam" as we arrived at the Harbour - it was so exciting!
(this photo is larger however it's not "clickable").
First stop the dining room! Passing by the Harbour Bridge . . . Stunning! The party is in full swing as we cruise past the Incredibly beautiful Opera House! check back soon for more photos of our New Zealand Holiday!
I changed some of the settings on this blog to enable larger photos however I want to know how it looks on your screen? Please let me know if you like the change or if it is more difficult for you to view. I'm also curious as to whether you like the slightly smaller but "clickable" photos or the larger size. thanks for your input :)
This is our family scrapbook . . . thanks for stopping by! It's fun for us to stay connected to our family and friends while we are so far from home. PLEASE leave a comment every now and again - it makes us feel like we are not forgotten :)
Aus speak
Chockers (short for Chock-A-Block)
Chock - A - Block (very busy or "full-on"!)
full on (this is the BEST of Aus speak!) Full on means totally busy or completely absorbed in - a child that is super busy can be "full-on" or a weekend crammed with activities is "FULL ON!" We love this expression because it does not seem to have an American equivalent and we can't imagine how we were able to express ourselves adequately with out it!
gobsmacked
Give it a little rub (your head, when you bump it)
