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!

The Summer Keeps Getting Better!

My parents made another visit out here to get a Kaylen fix before we take off for Australia. I still feel like we're in the middle of summer, but shortly after we get back from Australia, Leslie and my Mom will start back up with school and shortly thereafter, Gregg and the younger kiddos will start! So, we're really glad they were able to make it, it's always great to see them! Here they're taking a little stroll around the court outside our apartment.

My Mom has been asking since we moved out here to see the Great Salt Lake. So, we decided to take her to Antelope Island. It's about a 30+ minute drive and you jet out into the lake on this island. There are a few things to see and great views of the lake. Unfortunately, the last time Gregg and I went, years back, it must have been around May (not the dead of summer!) so it was MUCH more pleasant the first time around! Apparently, mid summer brings out all the biting deer flies, brine flies and lots of spiders! Ugh... bring out enough biting bugs and I start to lose ALL interest. But we made the most of our time on the island. We saw a ton of buffalo compared to the last time Gregg and I went. And this was Kaylen's first time seeing the lake... I'm sure she'll remember every minute of it, ha ha.

This was at the old ranch that has been on the island since the Mormon pioneers came to Utah. They have the old ranch house, etc all set up as it was in the beginning. In the pic, Gregg's roping himself quite a catch! :-)

Kaylen was actually in the salt lake with her Daddy, but this was a better picture of the both of them. The brine flies got a lot better the further you went out into the lake. It was quite the walk to get out there though due to the drop in the water level! But my parents were total troopers. I was the one with the bad attitude thanks to all the deer flies! Long story short, I don't plan on going back! So, I'm glad we took my parents out there!

There is a GREAT restaurant up the canyon from our apartment. We don't take the chance to go as often as we should. My Dad hadn't been yet and they have incredible outdoor seating, so we went up there for breakfast. Kaylen had her very own teddy bear pancake.

The next weekend, Gregg went camping/ backpacking with his Dad and brother, Ian. They had such a great time! It was so fun to go through all their pictures, but I picked just a few for the blog. They camped right on the edge of a beautiful lake up in the mountains and hiked to another one even further up one day. The campsite was at 10,000 ft!! They were prepared with all the necessary luxuries, tent, two different grills, steak for dinner, their air mattresses... the only thing they weren't as prepared for was the cold! It's a lot colder that high, so the 35 degree nights were a little shocking, but they made it through and made some great memories on top of it!

They did as much fishing as they could get in and went on some good hikes. Ian caught the biggest fish and if I remember correctly, they were able to eat about 10 of the caught fish while they were up there. They spotted quite a few bear tracks and tried to keep their eyes out for the mommy and baby bear that were across the lake from where they were camping, but no luck on getting a glimpse.

They got some really great quality time together. Even though Kaylen and I missed Gregg tremendously, we were very glad he had such a good time!

I had a feeling I was going to get a little lonely with Gregg gone, so my wonderful sis-in-law, Jay (Leslie) came down from Logan for a visit! We actually had a day off at work that Friday thanks to a Mormon state holiday, so we had a long weekend together. Minus Kaylen getting an ear infection that Friday, we had a great time hanging out!!

(Oops, wrong place in the blog... this was a pic from when my parents were in town. It goes with an Adorable video of her laughing hysterically that I can never manage to figure out how to get posted!)

(Oops! Ha ha... also random picture of my two cuddle bugs that probably should have gone somewhere else in the blog, but I can never figure out how to move pictures once they're in here!)

Okay! Here we are back to my two pretty girls! We had a little Subway lunch in the park near our apt. It was a great night and we got to take Goliath (Jay's Yorkie she brought down from Logan with her), too. We had a good time chancing Kaylen around the playground when she refused to sit down and just eat something... but as is life with a 1 yr old!

Jay was in town while our friend, Dane, celebrating his 1st birthday, which actually fell on 7/27, but it was great getting to celebrate with him! He is so good with the camera! Kaylen's new trick is to try her best to not look at the camera or you when you're putting on the whole show just to get a tiny bit of eye contact! Meanwhile, Dane shoots you the best smile ever when he sees the cameras come out! We'll have to get him to teach Kaylen how to do that.

The last day Jay was in town, we all went to the Bees game after Gregg got back from Wyoming from camping. It was Kaylen's first Bees game! We bought her a Kaylen size baseball, which she had fun throwing down the stairs any chance she got. There wasn't a crowd as it was a Sunday game after the big Utah state holiday and it was in the high 90's. So, we got a good deal on grass tickets, but sat in the shade in the stands and never got kicked out of our seats! So, it was a lot of fun!

We have had a lot of fun this summer and are preparing to head to Australia this week. Life has been crazy busy lately with everything fun, prep and work related. I just got a completely new job at work, so there will be a lot of training going on for me, not only getting trained on the new job, but training 3 people on all the things I was doing. So, it's been a very stressful week at work, but most things I won't be able to deal with until I get back. I will be one happy girl when we get on the plane and everything that's done, is done... with work, with travel prep and all we can do is live it all moment to moment! We are very excited! We have a lot of great things planned while we're there! We're just crossing all fingers and toes, sending up our prayers, and might even have to attempt spitting in one hand, wishing in the other that Kaylen will do as well as can be expected on this trip!

The next blog will be everything AUSTRALIA!