Australia- Sydney

SUCH a long time coming! When you have ONE Amazing trip to AUSTRALIA plus 1300 pictures... it's a little daunting to sit down at a computer and try to face the blog! BUT I'm here and am finally getting it recorded! We went to Australia... yep, WE, the whole fam, July 30- August 14! When we first started planning our trip, it was going to be without Kaylen, but after she was born... we just couldn't go without her! SO, originally, it was going to be Gregg, myself, Kaylen and Leslie, but Cherie, Katie and Ian jumped in along the way. Warren wasn't able to make it due to leave from work, etc. We had quite the crew! And it's impossible to go into too much detail, but with Australia and all the amazing things we had the chance to do... it's hard not to! Pretty much all of Cherie's family still lives there, so we were able to stay with family the entire time which not only allowed us a ton of extra time with them but saved us money along the way!



Our flight out of Los Angeles was close to midnight, so we all (including Kaylen) flew well there. We all tried to get some sleep. The service on that flight wasn't so great so the 14 hour flight definitely felt like 14 hours! But we made it to Sydney and were happy to have arrived! We stayed with Gregg's cousin, Aaron, and his wife Dina while in Sydney and they were there to pick us up!

It's hard to explain just how amazing the family was both in Sydney and is Brisbane were to us. Everyone was so welcoming and hospitable. We are so grateful for all the time, energy and money that went into having us there. Aaron and Dina live in Kogarah, a suburb of Sydney. Below is a picture we took at the train station that was just a 4 block walk from their house.

The below picture of "kanga bangas" is out of order for whatever reason, but one of the nights we were in Sydney, Aaron and Dina bbq'd us a FEAST! They bought kanga bangas and kangaroo fillets for us to try. Try we did... but I don't know that I would try them again! But like I said, they made a feast, so not only did we have the kangaroo in our options, but they made delicious steaks, chicken AND shrimp, so we were plump full by the end of the meal!

The first day we arrived in Sydney, we headed down to Cronulla Beach and had fish and chips. The beach there is BEAUTIFUL and there were a TON of people out enjoying the beautiful day! I had many favorite days, but this was one of them! It was just so beautiful and relaxing! After getting fish and chips at this amazing fresh fish shop, we took our food down to the beach.

The beach was beautiful, the scenery was beautiful... everything was perfect! Just off the coastline, there were these rock pools. They basically formed little pools off the shoreline to break the waves so that people could swim. Our whole trip was during Australia's winter, so it wasn't warm enough for people to be enjoying the water, but it definitely looked like a lot of fun!

Below is a picture of the fish and chips we got that first day... by far the BEST fish and chips we had the entire time we were there!

Cronulla

Aaron, Dina, and Kaylen at Cronulla

This was the feast as mentioned above

Aaron and Dina's house in Kogarah

One of the great things about where they lived was the super easy access to the public transportation! This is the train station.

We only spent two days in Sydney, so the 2nd day, we did downtown Sydney. We were able to see Sydney Harbour, the Harbour Bridge, the Sydney Opera House, and take a ferry ride.

There were two aboriginal groups that day playing didgeridoos. This group invited people to come take pictures with them as well!

Group picture

It was great to get up close to the Sydney Opera House!

My two loves in one amazing city

One CUTE rump!

Another didgeridoo player. This guy played to music though, which was pretty cool to hear.

This was in a little area close to the Harbour called The Rocks.

We soon found out that some of the best pictures of the Sydney Opera House were from the other side of the water! This was one of our favorite pictures!

Us with Dina

The Harbour Bridge

A GREAT picture from our ferry ride!

We took a great ferry ride in the Harbour to Darling Harbour. It was so great to see everything from the ferry! It gave us a whole other view! It was beautiful! There was the Sydney Aquarium at Darling Harbour that we were originally going to do, but we must have had such a good time that by the time we got there, we had just kind of run out of time!

The next day, both Aaron and Dina had to work, so we ventured to Bondi Beach by ourselves. Cherie and Katie actually stayed home with Kaylen as the weather wasn't so great at the start of the day (but cleared up later!) and Kaylen really needed a nap! So, it was just Gregg, myself, Jay and Ian! And we handled the public transportation like rock stars!

Jay and Ian at Bondi

Aww... US at Bondi

Rugby is HUGE in Australia. And Aaron, being the gent that he is... renewed his membership at the St. George (Grandma's favorite team!) Leagues Club so Gregg could see all the memorabilia and we could have a yummy dinner!

Aaron and Dina at the St. George Leagues Club

Aaron and Dina have cute, TINY pet turtles! I got to hold this one!

I have no idea how to sum up our time in Sydney other than... it was AMAZING and wish so much that we could've spent more time there and had more time with Aaron and Dina. Just before we took our trip to Australia, they took this incredible world-tour trip and one of their stops was to visit Gregg's family in Star Valley. We got to see them very briefly that time, but neither time was long enough! We missed them the day we left and still do today! THANK YOU to such a wonderful time!!

Australia- Brisbane 1

The above picture doesn't fit here, but I wanted to start this next blog with one of my favorites from Brisbane. It was the day we spent at Wynnum Bay and visiting Grandma and Papa's house in Manly West. We only spent 3 days in Sydney and the rest of our trip was spent in Brisbane, which is where most of the family lives. We battled some illness the day we flew to Brisbane with Gregg, Katie and Ian... but thank goodness it was short lived and had a great time after that one travel day!

Had to include these two pictures as they were taken in and of the ginormous van the family rented to get all 14 of us around everywhere. Not only was it such an incredible thing for them to do, but it was the ONLY way for all of us to spend so much time together! So, we were super thankful for it! Gregg, myself, Kaylen and Leslie stayed with Gregg's cousin, Ben and his wife Dina, at their home just outside Brisbane! They were also such amazing hosts!! We consider ourselves so very lucky to have had all the extra time with them! Cherie, Katie and Ian all stayed with Dianne and Les in their home. We were also very grateful that Grandma and Papa decided to stay in Dianne's home as well so they could be that much closer and come on all our adventures!

Gregg was SUPER excited to tour the XXXX Brewery in downtown Brisbane!! Gregg had done quite a bit of research of all the things we were going to do in Australia. At first, I thought this was something that we would do to make him happy, but we all actually had a really great time! Gregg, myself, Jay and Uncle Les went on the tour.

It was pretty hardcore! We weren't able to bring in purses or take any pictures of any of the brewery! Just before and after! This picture is before we would meet, Matt the tour guide... ah, Matt. You'll have to ask Jay about Mr. Perfect... uh, I mean, Matt! ;-)

We were able to see pretty much every part of the process at the brewery. It was all actually very interesting! At the end, you get to sit in their bar and with the regular entry, you get a punch card with 4 beer samples. You can only have one of their dark beer, but you get to sample 4 of any of their beers! Gregg was the only one to get a dark. XXXX Gold is their most popular beer, but I fell in love with the XXXX Summer! It was their lighter, lo carb, beer they came out with during their previous Spring. It was yummy! Quite frankly, they all were! Uncle Les doesn't drink, but we were happy to hear that he really enjoyed himself on the tour!

While we went on the tour, the rest of the family went to a nearby park. We hear that Kaylen had a fabulous time! After we all met up, we headed to the Hyperdome (a big mall) to have lunch at the food court. Gregg and I had a great chance to chat with Grandma and Papa. This was the start our realization that Grandma and Kaylen had already formed an INCREDIBLE bond for which we are SO grateful!

Grandma and Papa at lunch at the Hyperdome

Couldn't help but post this one... SO cute!

The next day, we headed to Wynnum Bay which is really close to Grandma and Papa's house in Manly West. It was a beautiful day and we thoroughly enjoyed it with some fish and chips and ice cream outside in the park! We got a great group picture off the pier!

Daddy and his beautiful baby girl on the pier.

One of the many reasons for heading to Wynnum Bay was so that I could see where Grandma and Papa live. They have his great sun room in their home! I will take this moment to brag about what an amazing, talented woman Grandma is. She is a painter.... an AMAZING painter! And she has not been doing it all her life! She only took it up some years ago. And may I remind you that she is 93 AND an AMAZING painter! She gave Jay the painting she had recently done for her and gave Gregg and I two of the paintings she had finished. We are so grateful to have a piece of her and her talents now hanging on our walls at home.

Here is our little monkey chilling at Ben and Kate's house. Oh... haven't mentioned it yet... but we found out shortly before we visited that Ben and Kate are pregnant with their first child!! It is such an exciting time in their lives and we were happy to share it with them!

One of the things on our list of things we hoped to do, was to spend a little alone time in Surfer's Paradise... a beautiful tourist city along the Gold Coast. Originally, we were expecting to rent a car and drive down ourselves, but the family offered to drive us down and pick us up the next day as the next day we would be having lunch with Auntie Barb and her daughters along the Gold Coast. It was such a relief that they would drive us down because I was assuming we would get used to the whole... driving on the opposite side of the car AND opposite side of the road thing and never did! So, we were very grateful!

It was a beautiful day in Surfer's Paradise the day we arrived! We booked our hotel online while we were in Sydney and weren't entirely sure what to expect, but we had a great room with a great balcony and an incredible view of the ocean! It was everything we could've wanted!

It was my first night away from Kaylen.... EVER. So, it was a bit of an adjustment/ struggle being without her at first, but I got over it and we had a GREAT time! We walked along the beach and ended up taking an Aquaduck tour on the river bay.

After our water tour, we headed back to the hotel and Gregg was bound and determined to get in the ocean! Unfortunately, we waited until late in the day when the temperature had cooled down, but he did it!! I was shivering just taking the picture, but he did it with a smile on his face! We quickly headed back to the hotel and spend a little time in the pool and hot tub.

We ended up choosing the seafood buffet at our hotel for dinner. Maybe not the best of all choices, but it was really great, fresh seafood... maybe a little too fresh, but we definitely had our fill and had a great time with each other.

Gregg made sure to get some great pictures of the morning sunrise... which I watched from bed! :-)

The family picked us up and we headed down the Gold Coast to have lunch with Auntie Barb, Traci, Samantha and Bec and their families! Samantha had just gotten married to Shane the weekend before but was still the most wonderful host and had us all over for lunch! We had a great afternoon eating some incredibly delicious food and chatting out on their great patio!

Grandma and Kalyen at the family lunch on the Gold Coast

It's definitely times like these that make you feel just how hard it is to be so far away from amazing family. Australia really is one of the most amazing countries... and unfortunately it is also so very far away. We really wish after spending such great time with so much family, we lived so much closer to each other.

We were in Brisbane for quite a while and did so many amazing things, I had to break this up into two parts... so the rest of our Brisbane stay can be found in the 2nd part!

Australia- Brisbane 2

One of the best experiences... holding a koala!! YES! We went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and it was such a great place! It hasn't been built up too much yet with tourism, so it's very low key and reasonable! We were able to get pretty close to all the animals as their habitats weren't too far away. And for $40, we were able to hold a koala, baby crocodile and sea eagle! We also got to feed and pet the kangaroos! It was such a great day!

Holding the koala

Gregg and I both got to hold the croc



Kaylen got to feed the kangaroos!

Ha ha... we're all in a pic with the kangaroo, but I promise... at one time the kangaroo was actually eating the food in my hand.

Gregg and the huge sea eagle he got to hold!

koalas

Tim Tams... best Australian cookie EVER

One day, we went to check out Byron Bay. There is this great bay, with lots of little shops and restaurants and a huge beach with tons of surfers! There was also a great lighthouse we were able to drive up and check out. From there, you can head down a path with some great look outs over the ocean.

The lighthouse

The most easterly point. It was also from here that we were able to see some whales off in the distance. Mostly, we could see the water breaking, but with the help of binoculars, we got to see them! There were also some dolphins swimming just below us.

We took the chance to check out Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. It was quite the place!! It is very expensive to get into, but the energy Steve Irwin left behind there was incredible.

The Zoo has a TON of crocodiles and Gregg tried his very best to see each and every one!

We were able to pet this koala in his tree!

Grandma, Kaylen and Gregg at the elephant habitat

This kangaroo let me pet him for a minute or two. We didn't feed the kangaroos here as the food was 5x as expensive as at Lone Pine, but they were super friendly at the Zoo!

The last night in Australia, we went to a Brisbane Broncos rugby game. We finally took the opportunity to get an entire group photo! The family watched Kaylen while we were at the game and it was a fun experience! Australia really does love their rugby!!

The Broncos ended up losing and as you can see, Ben was quite happy about it! He was cheering for the other team!

Seriously, this was a trip we could take one hundred times over. The expense is definitely what will keep us from doing it every month of every year! It really was so perfect in every way. We were able to do pretty much all the things we set out to do/ see and more. The family there made us all feel so welcome and went above and beyond being hospitable. We had the most amazing time, made such incredible memories and have our 1300 pictures to prove it! THANKS to all our wonderful family who made it all possible!! We miss everyone so much! We can't wait to do it again!