HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY!!

Happy Australia Day! This happens every January 26th. This is very similar to 4th of July, but Jan. 26th is the day that Australia was discovered! R looked SOOOOO cute! We had bows for her hair from last year, and a CUTE shirt from Target here! And this picture shows her flag tattoo!

Our traditonal Australia Day family photo! R wasn't looking at the camera, but my batteries were almost dead, so I didn't dare for another one.

It was HOT so R loved her icecream! Love this picture!!
We were at a city called Wollongong. Their celebrations are very similar to Art City Days, with a beachy feel! This is R on carnival rides. Making faces as usual!

We even got in on the action!

The Free Style. Well worth the money!!

Riding a horse ride again! Being a cowgirl!
Dinner with the family! All the fixens! This is R's cousin Cherish who is 7.

After dinner while waiting for the fireworks, we went down to the beach and R taught her other cousin Ella(3 1/2) how to crab hunt!!

Showing off their crab hunting sticks!!! Very proud of themselves.

Just before the fireworks the kids did some sparklers. They enjoyed them so much Ella and Cherish's dad couldn't keep up with the demand!

The girls enjoying the sparklers!
This is Jared's cousin Donna and her husband Sandy and their kids Cherish and Ella after the fireworks!

We had SOO much fun on Australia day! Glad that I could be in the country this time for this great holiday! I also posted a new post after this so check out the cute photos!!!

Escaping the HEAT!!

It is summer time over here, and with the humidity it gets REALLY hot!! We decided to go to the beach, that has a fun board walk. They have a little carnival, and a water fountain thing that kids play in. These are a few of the pictures!

This is R enjoying the "whie hor"
R on "Mike's bike" at the carnival!!!

The very fun water park for kids..... did I mention its FREE!!!! R was a little nervous at first, but then LOVED it!!!

Jared trying to show R that it really is fun! I love her little ruffle bum!!

Finally enjoying it, and being brave too!!

She ended up staying there for such a long time, and loved it! It was such a fun FREE place to escape the heat!!!

Kookaburra sits in an old gum tree....

Ok for those of you who don't know a Kookaburra is a famous bird here in Australia. There are many songs which refer to this bird (hence my title for this post). Well Jared and I were coming back from outside of Sydney. Jared driving with his window only 4-5 inches down and me reclined in my seat trying to sleep with my whole window open. When we were almost home I was awoke to a "THUD". I quickly opened my eyes to see feathers coming from Jared's window(which was only open a tiny bit) and going out my window. I asked Jared what did we hit(know that it had to be a bird). He said "I didn't see anything". R was asleep in the back, so I looked back to see if the thud had woke her up, and there was a dying bird in between her legs.. AHHHHHHHHHHH she was still asleep, so I tried to stay calm, and said "Jared pull over, pull over, pull over NOW" but there wasn't any place to pull over and R started to wake up, and I knew she would freak out to see this dying bird (whose beak was still opening, and closing...YUCK). So me being the Mom of the Year (who didnt want to touch this dying/dead bird) used R's leg(yes I know) to kick it off before she totally woke up. So we just hurried home(which was only a few minutes away). When we got home, Jared sat the seat forward and this is what he saw. It was upside against our garbage bag. And YES those are R's underwear, and skirt(she had a pull-up on since she was sleeping)

When Jared moved the bag, he said "its a freaking baby Kookaburra" My first up close encounter with this famous bird, and its dead in our car!!!
This is R showing the dead bird IN OUR CAR!!!! EWWWE!!!! NASTY!!!!

Jared decided to just use the clothes that it was dead on to pick it up, and move it to a little parkland near the house. I really don't know why he is smiling, because it was so gross!!!

It was just funny that it made it through Jared's window which was only 4-5 inches down, and landed in between my babies legs. So just to redeem myself. R was automaticly put in the bath, and her clothes and her carseat cover has been washed, and cleaned!! Anyways, I hope this makes you laugh as hard as us!!!

Jenolan Caves

We started our journey by stoping at the Sydney Olympic Park! I hadn't ever been there, and it was fun to see all the Olympic things that are still there!

We then drove through the Blue Mountains, and over the Great Dividing Range to Jenolan Caves! this beautiful place is similar to Timp. Cave, but with many more options! The top 2 pictures are of the cave that the road goes through, and many of the cave tours start from! If you look closely at the top right, you can see Jared, and R! That shows how BIG this cave was!! The bottom left is the lodging that we stayed at! It was gorgeous! All the drinking water through out this place come from the cave! The bottom right is the bridge crossing the river that comes from the caves, where we saw 3 platypus(very rare!)

Our hike that we did! One of 10 I think(that you have to pay for)! The bottom right is down in a cave seeing the cave river!

Just some of the cave features!

This one is pretty cool! The left side one is over 5 feet tall made by the picture on the right. You can actually see the water droplet on the one that made it. This picture is zoomed in, the stalagtite is only an inch long! Crazy!!!

We had to hunch over to get through some of the path, so R thought she needed to as well(picture on the left). R was a little scared at first, but by the end loved it(right)!!

We stayed at the lodge, and then the next day did a self guided tour. No picture could do this cave justice. It was HUGE(on the right) you can see the path down below! We are really high up!

There were HUNDREDS of stairs. I really liked the picture on the left because it shows 3 stages of how the path has progressed! The picture on the right show the MANY stairs coming down from the self guided tour. And to brag, R came down ALL those stairs BY HERSELF(holding my hand, but still)!!!

It is about a 2 1/2 hour out of Sydney! In between Jenolan Caves, and Sydney is the Blue Mountains, where there is a famous look-out point!

The point that we were at, was to see the famous "Three Sisters"!

It was a nice quick get away! Good to see parts of New South Wales(the state where we live) that don't have to deal with the beach or Sydney!

Just a quick note! If you follow my blog you can remember when we went crab hunting, and only found like 3! We went for a walk at the same place yesterday and saw over 50! It was so cool! I guess we went at the wrong time last time! Sorry no pictures, I forgot my camera!

New Years Fun

New Years Eve was SO amazing! We were able to go to Sydney Harbour(yes that is how you spell it here). It was raining all morning, but we found a spot opposite side of the harbor from the Opera House. We got there about 2pm and it was hard to find a good spot! It reminded me a lot of how people camp out for the 4th of July parade in Provo. There were tents, tarps, and blankets EVERYWHERE!!! Because we had so much time til the fireworks this is how we spent the time! We put our blanket down, and rode a ferry to Circular Quay(pronounced "key"-the opera house side) and got some dinner at McDonalds. It was only 4 or 5 pm and it was already starting to get a little crazy. Glad we weren't over there! So we spent our time blowing bubbles, playing May I(family card game), and just enjoying the beauty EVERYWHERE!!!

These are some pictures of the spot we stayed to watch. The top left is from the ferry looking at our spot! The harbour picture is what we could see from our spot! And it shows how many people there were! The cool thing about this spot(which we didn't know when picking the area) is that is was an alcohol free zone! There were police constantly walking back and forth patrolling with loads of alcohol that was taken! There we also many port-a-potties near by. It was a great spot! Even thought there were so many people it was nice that I never felt uncomfortable there!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! This was actually at 9. They do 2 shows in Sydney one at 9 for kids, and midnight for everyone else! It was nice because R did fall asleep before midnight, but was still able to see fireworks!

I didn't have a tripod, so my firework shots SUCKED so here a few that I found on line! The Opera House is at the bottom left.

The Sydney Harbour is very long going east to west. So this is a good picture showing how they have the same fireworks all the way down the harbour (at 4 different spots) so you can see them no matter where you are. This also show how they had fireworks on the top of the sky scrappers as well as the bridge! The white arrow show about where we were sitting!

Beautiful bridge fireworks! It was voted worlds best firework show! I sure hope that it is because they spent over 6 million dollars on the fireworks!! Crazy,but you could see the differents!

Video of the fireworks! Remeber this is done with an old digital camera(with video settings) so it doesn't do it justice!

The next evening(18 hours later) we were even able to spend some New Years Eve time with friends back in Utah, thanks to Skype!! This picture was taken through Skype that is why it isn't the best! Thanks for letting us be a part of your New Years party!

I am excited for this new year and all the many possibilities that it holds. I am hopeful that it will be a good year! Happy New Years to you all!!!