A little bit of Mukinbudin from Rachel’s house

Our trip up… we stopped at Brumbie’s Bakery to grab some yummies to eat on the 3 1/2 hour trip.  REALLY someone needs to open a bakery like that here!!  They are everywhere in Australia.  The scenery was beautiful.  Hope you don’t mind some scenery shots.  The fields of flowers were gorgeous!

Feel free to note the badly out-of-focus-but-beautiful wildflowers heading my blog at the moment.

We went out exploring in the bush and on big rocks… complete with a little snack of Cheezels… a childhood favorite I had to let my children experience!!

Rach and I couldn’t let THEM have all the fun!

It is fun to see the cousins together, don’t you think?  I love family!!!

And a choice piece of real estate… we could be comfortable here!! I mean, check out the view!!

Are you sick of it yet… cause i’m not done!!  next stop… the farm!

A little bit of Perth from Raewyn’s house

Its 2am, and I can’t sleep. I just put the kids back to bed for another round of sleeping after some popcorn and Looney Tunes.  We are back in Alaska and thought I’d continue or journey.  More for me than you all, but you are welcome to read along and comment and gaze at my lovely Australia.

I just couldn’t get around to blogging. I had to upload pics the LONG way, so it wasn’t very inspiring. PLUS… Our family took turns getting some nasty flu bug, we moved every 3-4 days, and … wait for it… I’m pregnant! SO throw in a little nausea and a bunch of extra exhaustion on top of normal travel and jet lag weariness and … I didn’t blog!

SO here is our first few days in Perth.

Bryan was VERY sick on the way over. chills shaking his body, etc. Our trip to and from Perth was the ‘cheap’ (that’s relative!!) midnight flight. Our flight from Cairns to Brisbane was so delayed we missed our connecting flight to Perth, so had to stay in Brisbane the night. We were less than impressed, but enjoyed the sleep!

We stayed the first few days with my sis Raewyn, and got to know her little six month old Gregan, (pronounced Greegan) who is ADORABLE.

Shand much time switching pacifiers with him, feeding him… or just eating it herself…

Raewyn spoiled us, buying all kinds of Aussie treats we grew up with… here is Keenan and Thad having a sample one night. Freckles, bananas, musk sticks, bullets (choc covered licorice) milk bottles, jaffas…

Each morning they woke up and watched Sponge Bob with a cup of Milo (sort of healthy hot chocolate) and a blanket… what a tradition!

We spent some time with other relatives. Spent the day at King’s Park in Perth with the four sisters. its the best park EVER, smack dab in the middle of the city over looking the Swan River. gorgeous… and its WILDFLOWER season! It has 4 different parks, We saw lots of birds, including a pair of kookaburras which did their thing (laughing) very well and frequently to my boys delight. There are too many pics to choose from, so I’ll skip on that. the amount of amazing plant varieties, and beautiful children shots, and the parks and trees and gums and ghost gums… its amazing. You just MUST go! BUT I will share this picture of Shand… she found her nostril. Its momentous, really!

We got to have morning tea with an internet friend, now REAL LIFE friend Val at Pause for a Moment

She REALLY knows how to put on a morning tea!!

Rae and I had a day out shopping with just us (and Gregan) while Bryan and the boys stayed home and vegged… Bryan recovering, and Keenan in full swing with the flu.

Then we headed up to Mukinbudin to visit my eldest sister Rachel and her family. Brad is a pastor in this wheatbelt town and also pastors another church at the moment. They have a wonderful ministry. Its a whole nuther post, and not my story, so I’ll probably never share it, but suffice to say they have seen much adversity both of the spiritual kind and physical kind, and natural disaster kind… and they are seeing the fruits of discipleship and prayer and faith and God’s grace and power. awesome stuff. More pics Muka later.

A little bit of Cairns… Crocodile Farm

Day 5.  oh to choose… out to the reef or to the crocodile farm?  Good thing we chose the crocodile farm since it rained off and on all day – it really wasn’t a ‘boat on water’ sort of day…

Crocodiles… it was very educational.  and entertaining.  They took wasteland and returned it to the former habitat of swamp and bush and have reintroduced all the native plants back into the area.  They have made a wonderful habitat for the crocodiles and other birds and animals inhabiting the area.  we went out on a boat in the river, and they fed crocodiles for their well-being and our entertainment   there was a croc show, a  snake show – poisonous ones and all that, and some other animal exhibits. 

The first koala here is just hanging out… literally… just HANGING.  the second pic… can you see the mama koala and her baby?

We had lunch by the river watching the crocs float, and eating his kin.  For those who are wondering… it tastes like greasy chicken with the texture of steak or pork.  We have eaten it previously, but it was the boys first time.  And they liked it.

A little bit of Cairns… the lagoon

so lets see… what day are we up to now?

Day 4.  Monday. The Lagoon!!  This fabulous community spot they have for the Cairns crowd.  By the beach.  WIthout the jelly fish. Its beautiful.  We went in the evening, took our meat pies down to the Lagoon and let the kids play in the sand and water.  My favorite pics are of Shand and her Puppa… isn’t it precious?

Just as it turned dark, thousands of bats came out – an endless stream from the one side of the sky to another.  It was amazing.

You can see the big fish in the sky – there are streams of water that come out of their tails and fins and their mouths… and of course the fountain there as well.  It really is truly beautiful!

A little bit of Sydney…

So… we brought the rain with us to Sydney… its good really. It probably kept us from overdoing it with our tired and jet-lagged selves.

1st day… just get to the hotel!! THAT was a big walk from Central Station at Town Hall through to the other side of Darling Harbor. Yeah for a hotel that welcomed us at 9:30 am, let us drop our bags while we wandered off to find some breakfast.

Back at 11:30 to shower and nap… glorious horizontal sleep!!! Up and out around 4 to catch the last 20 minutes of the the free section of the Maritime Museum (otherwise known by Keenan as the Martini Museum! hmmm… I wonder what that would look like?) And finding some dinner and wandering around Harborside in the rain… Thinking a little smarter and catching the Monorail… THAT was a hit. Every time we hopped on, we went around an extra turn before getting off… taking advantage of dry warm seats and the happy kidsos in awe of the city lights at night.

2nd day, the next morning, still rainy and blustery, we went to the Powerhouse Museum. Being a homeschool parent, I was ESPECIALLY fond of this place. This is a ginormous interactive museum. Its been around a while… I went to it a couple times when I’ve been in Sydney on other occasions. The big space section was a highlight… specifically the anti-gravity capsule. The energy conservation section. The science show using liquid nitrogen and other fun showy things was fascinating for the kids.

Paddy’s markets (picture above) where we went for lunch overwhelmed us with the amount of people and noise. Compounded by our extreme exhaustion, I think we are definitely small town people!
We put the kids down for a bit of a rest at 4pm… well that was the end of that!! They would NOT wake up to eat the pizza we ordered, until 5pm the next morning.

3rd day… SUNSHINE! Glorious sunshine. We packed up and they held our bags down stairs while we outside for a morning of walking and sightseeing through the city.

We headed over Pyrmount Bridge (pic #1), wandering through the city (pic #2 – the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.  I love all the old buildings)…

Then over to Circluar Quay where we gazed at the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Opera House…

…walking back through the Royal Botanical Gardens and as you can see the boys LOVED the big trees.  We saw lots of fabulous birds, and native Australian plants which we identified for our notebooks.  We’ll see if we actually every MAKE our notebook pages.  BUT we have still enjoyed them, if not!

We spent the last half hour wandering through the Rocks… a fascinating area of old buildings and historical sights, reading all the signs on the walls. Old rocks and cobblestone streets, lots of moss, tiny alleys and crooked stairs.  The second picture above was Sydney’s first hospital.  Now its the police station.  Then we hoofed it back to our hotel to catch our taxi to the airport and head off to Cairns… Nana and Puppa here we come!

Just in time for fish and chips on the beach. It’s so WARM!!! WE BROUGHT THE CLOUDS TO CAIRNS – but at least they are WARM clouds!!