No Dive & Party

May 14, 2010

Ryan has been scuba certified since he was 12 years old, but he has never been on a cool dive. He got certified at Lake Mead, which is so gross sounding to me! Lake Mead is very murky and is full of hideous Carp.

Australia has some AMAZING places to dive. It just so happens that right down the road from my parent place is a company that takes you out to a particularly great dive spot. I really wanted Ryan to do the dive even though it's expensive. This is rare for me because I really am tight with the purse strings! So we set up the dive. They only do the dives on certain days, so it ended up that there would be only one dive time he could get into while we were there. It was all set up and he was thrilled, honestly I was too! I had a hard time sleeping because I wanted to make sure he would be up in time. My mom and I made him breakfast and we excitedly sent him out the door. About two hours later Ryan walked back in the door. This was an all day trip so I knew something was wrong. It turns out the dive was canceled. He only found this out after calling them. He had been sitting there waiting getting nervous that he had somehow missed them or that he was in the wrong place. They said they tried to call him the day before but the number they had was wrong. We are not sure if they did somehow have the wrong number but none of that matters. What matters is he didn't get to do the dive! He was crushed!!! It still makes me sad when I think about! I hope he gets to do a cool dive someday!!!

I wanted to cheer Ryan up so suggested that we go to Healthy Noddle a tasty Asian place down the street from my parents. We got some food and headed down to the beach to picnic.

That evening Alan and Andrew had a birthday party. It was fun to meet some of my families' new friends. I am really thankful to all the kind people who have warmly welcomed them to Australia!

They had a great time!

Brisbane

May 13, 2010

Ryan and I took a day trip to the city of Brisbane and left Ezra with grandma. There is a river that runs through the city so to see some great sights riding the City Cat down the river is the only way to go.

We spent the day riding around the river and getting off at different spots to see the sights. There is a LDS Temple on top of a hill called Kangaroo point. Below The temple there is a area for rock climbing. The cool thing is it is fully lit at night so you can climb all night!

We were looking for somewhere to eat so we asked one of the city workers. She said our best bet was to go across the river by the mall. So that's where we went. When we got to the mall we found the information center to ask for a good recommendation. The ladies there said "You are in the city, there is nothing good in the city." OK.....I was hungry and wanted good food. They did tell us where we could get some good food several blocks away. Once again we were on our way to food. When we got to that area nothing looked great and it was all really expensive. I was having a breakdown just thinking about spending that much money on food that didn't even sound good. I was also thinking about all the places we could go to at home for that same price. Ryan was so patient with me during my mini melt down (darn pregnancy hormones). We finally found somewhere that had some decent prices and it looked pretty good. The was a sign stating a dress code. I told Ryan that it really meant that you just had to be wearing a shirt and shoes. People are so laid back in Australia that it is perfectly normal to see someone in the store with out a shirt and without shoes. Ryan and I were indeed wearing shirts and shoes so we were ok to eat at the restaurant. Onto the food.....it was not so good.The thing is that just a couple of day previous to this day we had another not so great food experience. At this point we were beginning to think we were cursed to pick bad restaurants! Las Vegas has spoiled us. We have tons of really great places to eat all over the valley! So full but but not satisfied we headed back towards the river.

There are TONS of bridges in Brisbane. So to get a good feel for the city we decided to take one of the foot bridges. The views were amazing!

Me and my ride
A big thank to Ryan for pushing me around the city!

I LOVE this picture!

After our walk/ride over the foot bridge we decided to hit up a ice cream/yogurt shop we had seen earlier. It looked So good. You picked your yogurt flavor and then berries and they had this machine that mixed them together. It turns out.....we were cursed! It was not good at all. It wasn't very sweet and just didn't taste very good. The only reason we ate it was because we spent six dollars on it.

Other than the food malfunctions we had a great day in the city of Brisbane!

Soak up the sun

May 12, 2010

Just four steps out the door, one lift ride (elevator), three steps to the door, out the door and make a left, ten steps and make a left, then a short walk to the end of the street and there you are.....

The beach

That is how close my parents flat is from this beach!!!

Ezra spent many days at this beach with Grandma, a few with Daddy and one day with Mommy.

Now my parents live in Moreton bay so there are no waves. There is plenty of water and Ezra's favorite SAND!

Ezra became OBSESSED with apples while we were in Australia. He would eat the whole thing, CORE and all! Every morning he would get up and head straight to the kitchen and beg for apples. The apple in the picture is covered in sand but that didn't stop him from eating it!

Can someone tell me why babies eat sand? Ezra ate quite a bit while we were there. The only problem was he got a rash on his bottom......then imagine wiping sandpaper on that. That's what happened every time we changed his diaper after he ate sand.

Dad's office & The Flying Nun

May 11, 2010

We of course had to check out my Dad's office.....I mean it is the whole reason they moved to Australia!
Ezra getting his adjustment.


After our adjustment we to a short ride to a little town called Samford. There is the cutest little cafe called The Flying Nun. It is a former church- with stain glass windows and all- that has been converted into a restaurant.

The food was AMAZING!!! So fresh, so tasty! Ryan and I are still talking about it!!! Thank you Mom and Dad for treating us!

Here is Ryan's lunch, a meat pie.

When we were ordering I couldn't take my eyes off the display case that was full of beautiful deserts. Ryan ran back inside and ordered a couple to try. We had a slice of pecan pie and a slice of key lime cheesecake. Both were delicious!

Happy, after a amazing lunch!

Hungry Jack

May 10, 2010

In Australia they don't call Burger King, Burger King, it's called Hungry Jack. Now food is really expensive in Australia (along with everything else) But a Hungry Jack they have this special meal deal where you get a sandwich (burger or chicken), fries, a drink and a ice cream for five bucks....not bad. Then you can upgrade your regular ice cream for a fancy one with mix-ins for a dollar more. The kids had talked about Hungry Jack and this deal several times. We thought it would be a fun treat to take them there, so that's what we did. And of course we upgraded to the fancy ice cream, which was really good! Ezra had a great time playing in the play area with the kids. He liked to smoosh his face on the glass and look at us. It was really cute!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Mother's Day to me!

May 9, 2010

I was fortunate enough to spend Mother's Day with my Mom! Now that she lives far away I didn't think we would be together, but I got lucky this year.

Ryan and I have three wonderful Moms! They have each enriched our lives in different ways and for that we are thankful to them.

Here are the beautiful flowers Brennan sent to our Mom.

I was asked about a month before I went to Australia if I would teach a lesson to the 12-18 year old girls at my parents church. I was honord that they asked and agreed to teach. It just so happens that I taught on Mother's Day. I wasn't feeling very well that day but I was able to teach the girls and it was a great experience! I'm so glad I got to teach my little sister Bethany!!!!

My Mom and I shared our special day with Alan and Andrew as they celebrated their 11th birthday. Alan and Andrew were born on Mother's Day. It is always really speacial for my Mom when their birthday falls on Mother's Day.

Alan and Andrew got a scooter and a bike and a bunch of other little goodies.

I'm so glad we were able to be there to celebrate with them!

We LOVE you!!!

O' Reilly's Treetop Walk & Glow Worms

May 8, 2010

In the beautiful Lamington National park is O' Reilly's Rainforest. In the Rainforest there is an amazing treetop walk, i.e. there is a bridge built so you can walk through the top of the trees.

After you walk across one of the bridges you can then climb up a ladder to see the view from above all the trees. I didn't take my little prego self up there but Ryan, my Dad and Andrew went up and said it was amazing.
Here is what they saw....

Ezra had a blast!

The Strangler Fig starts as a tiny seed in the canopy. The roots grow down to the forest floor where they take root and begin to take nutrients from the soil. Gradually the roots wrap around the host tree, slowly forming a lattice-work that surrounds the host's trunk. The fig's crown grows foliage which soon overshadows the tree. Eventually, the host tree dies leaving the fig with a hallow trunk.

The pictures are from the view if you climb inside and look up. See the hole in the top? They are really amazing!

The middle photo is Andrew inside one of the stranger figs. Now look very closely to the center of the other two photos and you will see a tiny caterpillar! These caterpillars were hanging by a threads. We saw four of them. Some were climbing or sliding (I don't know what else to call it) up and some down. I sat and watched one "climb" all the way to the ground, then it broke the string and crawled into the stranger fig. Pretty cool!

On our drive on the way to our next stop we saw a couple of cool thing we did not get pictures of but I think they should be mentioned.

First we saw a bunch of cows crossing the road. I was really crazy to see in the middle of the a winding road. The other cool thing was that we saw a wild wallaby with a baby in her pouch also standing beside that same winding road.

Now our last stop was something I personally was really excited about......

GLOW WORMS!!!

Did you know they were real? I sure didn't. I thought it was just a cute toy Fisher Price made up.

Here is the beautiful waterfall an the way to the cave.

The view from inside the cave.

Here is a picture of the glow worms. It does NOT do it justice what so ever!!!

We sat in the cave waiting for it to get dark and all of a sudden you would see one little light pop up, then another and another until the cave looked like thousand of stars in the sky. The younger the glow worm is the darker it needs to be for their light to shine. The reason they glow is to attract their prey.
What an amazing sight!

Pelican count & Soccer Game

May 7, 2010

Just down the street from my parents house is a place called Pelican park. Each morning at 10:00 they do a pelican count. A park volunteer goes out with a bright yellow bucket of fish and the pelicans fly in. I guess during the season we were in they don't get very many pelicans, so we were really lucky to see two! The purpose of this "count" is not really for the counting of the birds, it is more to check them to make sure they are not injured. Our birds were very healthy!

See how close Ezra got!


I love this picture!!!
A seagull is trying to swoop in as the pelican catches the fish.

We were able to go to one of Alan and Andrew's school soccer games. Each Friday (weather permitting) at the end of school the kids are bussed to the field and they play a few games and then they are bussed back to the school. No taking your kids to practice or games, just show up and watch. Now that's what I'm talking about!

The boys are really enjoying soccer. We had a great time watching them! Good job boys!!!

Mary Cairncross & Montville

May 5, 2010

We liked Mary Cairncross Rainforest so much we knew we had to go back during the day. When we were in the visitors center the workers were telling us about the wildlife we might see. They were telling us about these giant worms and told us we would be lucky if we saw any. As we left the office Ryan said, "I've got to find one of those worms!" And what do you know, as we started down the trail what did we almost run over?

A worm!
This is a small one. A picture in the visitor's center showed an earthworm thick enough to fit fully in the palm of your hand. Try fishing with that bad boy.



The natives of Australia found me VERY desirable!

The first night we got to Australia we went to the beach by my parents house. I was enjoying digging my toes in the sand until I looked down and saw that my feet we COVERED in sand mites. I got over fifty bites!!! Me legs and feet got very swollen!They itched SO bad they kept me up many nights. None of the itch creams is proven safe for pregnant women so I used some tee tree oil which sometimes helped a little. So what is that bleeding from? Well as we were leaving the visitors center I thought I felt something on my leg. I lifted up my pant leg and there it was hanging on my leg.....

A LEACH!!!

Yes, a leach sucking away on my blood! It took a while to remove it. The workers were about to salt it. But lucky for that little leach Ryan was able to pull him off and he was put back into the wild to live another day and attack someone else.
(Just for the record today is June 17th and I still have red spots from the bites......It's been over six weeks since I was bitten!)

Of course the Rainforest had a park next to the parking lot! Man Australia is great!!!
Ezra really liked this spinning toy.

We loved driving around because it was so beautiful! The drive from the rainforest to Monteville was exceptionally beautiful. We kept saying "WOW, this is amazing!" I've honestly never seen such beauty in my life. As we were driving enjoying the amazing views we saw a sign for a lookout. We had to stop and see what could be more amazing than what we were already seeing.

As we were enjoying the view all of a sudden a rainbow appeared in the sky.
Magic!

The rainbow
So we got to the cute little town of Monteville at about 3:55PM. We were hungry so we went to a little cafe. As we were looking at the menu the waitress informed us they were closed. Not only were they closed the WHOLE town was closed!

Many places close at about 4:00PM in Australia. If you ask people why things close so early they say, "Why would you want to work late? What about family time?" Yes, families get home from school and work and spend time together. Wonderful!

I had to get a picture of this bat that was outside one of the shops.

We left Monteville in search of food. I suggested to Ryan we stop at Big Dad's Pies, a place he had been wanting to try. We stopped at Big Dad's.......closed.....you know...... family time.

Thankfully we found another one that was open.

So what is Big Dad's Pies? Apple, peach, pumpkin? No, it's meat pies. Meat pies are kind of like the American pot pie, but different. They don't have the gravy and they are full of filling, meat, vegtables, cheese. Delicious!!! You can eat them with tomato sauce, but we liked them just the way they came. Meat pies are really big in Australia. When you go to a ball game instead of hot dogs and hamburgers there are meat pies and fish & chips.

Jamieson Park

May 4, 2010

In Australia there are parks EVERYWHERE! You can't go more than about a mile without running into one. This is just one of the AMAZING parks we went to.

The view

Can you believe this is a park?

I'm pretty sure this is what the parks in heaven look like!

Australia Zoo

May 3, 2010

I can't believe we got to go to the Australia zoo! It is somewhere I've wanted to go for quite sometime. I leaned a lot more about it when Steve Irwin passed away. So here is a little info for those who don't know about the zoo or the Irwin family. The Australian Zoo was started by Steve Irwin's parents. The zoo started very small as a place to bring animals that the Irwin family rescued on their family adventures. Steve is famous for his show The Crocodile Hunter. A show that featured crazy Steve capturing crocodiles and saying CRICKY! He would catch crocs that were causing problems in areas. He saved the crocs lives because they would have just been killed. Steve was nine years old when he pounced his first croc!

The zoo raises not only money for but awareness about these wonderful animals and what we need to do to save them.

Ezra ready for a fun!

Our family with a statue of the Irwins.

When you first walk into the zoo they have animal handlers with animals you can touch. Ezra really liked the baby alligator!

He liked him a little TOO much!

As Ezra was patting ( that's what they call petting) the alligator he decided to squish his tummy. Do you like the reaction on my face? I sure hope Ezra learns how to be "soft" before the babies come!!!

So crocodiles that could eat Ezra in one bite he loved but a man in a crocodile suit FREAKED him out!

Feeding the kangaroos was AMAZING! You are walking around in their habitat and you can walk up and pat of or feed any of them. The nice thing is that the kangaroos can go into "no touch" areas if they want a break. I think that is so great! As you can tell there were plenty of kangaroos out for us to play with!

On a bad day this might not sound like a bad option......Ha ha ha!

We all got a chance to feed the elephants.

Ezra was amazed by the bird show at the crocasium.

If you keep a croc in a cage and just throw in food they would die because they wouldn't get to use their instincts. At the zoo they make them work for their food. It keeps the crocs happy and it's fun to watch! The Crocodile Hunter car is one of Steve's old cars.

Ezra is signing bird.

After all the animals were feed it was time to feed the people.

Ezra liked smooshing his face on the stroller canopy. He looked like a little spaceman.

Daddy and Ezra with the Red Pandas

Most people refer to Koalas as koala bears but they are not bears they are marsupials. Marsupial young are born immature and they develop further in the safety their mother's pouch.

Sweet baby!

When we found out we would be going to Australia I knew one thing I wanted to do for sure, and that was.....

hold a KOALA!!!
Look at my face..... I was SO excited!

They are so soft, kind of like a bunny.

These tigers are some that the zoo is trying to save. The handlers are using milk to get them to show off. Something that is very apparent at the zoo is how much they truly love and respect these animals. They really work with them a lot! The Australia Zoo is the only place in the world where handlers can get blood samples from the tigers without it being sedated. That is amazing! Not something I want to try, but amazing. Another example of love was with the Tasmanian devils. As we were getting ready to leave the zoo we saw a worker going into the Tasmanian devil habitat. She said each day, morning and night, they are cuddled. There she sat cuddling a little devil!

More kangaroos

This crocs name is Casper because he is white. He is not a albino. Albinos lack pigment in their skin Casper lacks only black pigment-he is called leusistic.

CRIKEY!