US-Bound

Heading back to the US for almost 2 months. 0330 wakeup for a very EARLY morning departure from Wellington. Wellington to Sydney flight was a dream with Liam passed out and Charlie gorging himself on cartoons. We are now is Sydney for a 5 hour layover with a pretty pathetic kids play area (see pic below). I love QANTAS - amazing support with the kiddos - the flight attendants were awesome and the pilots even helped pull Charlie in his GoGo BabyZ carseat stroller. Next flight is 14+ hours so fingers crossed it goes as smoothly.

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Liam and Anna

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Hippie Ice Cream

We spent a day in the Daintree Forest near Port Douglas, Australia (a lot of the previous pics I posted were from there). We took a car ferry and drove about 1 hrs north searching for rain forests, beaches and cassowaries (HUGE flightless birds). We didn't expect to stumble on the world's best homemade ice cream with tropical fruits grown on the premises.


I always tease Jason because 90% of his photos flora and fauna instead of our 2 gorgeous kids. He actually captured many precious pics of the kids on this trip.

A cassowary, not in the wild but at Hartley's Crocodile World

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Coolest Bathroom Aquarium Ever

The weirdest thing about bathroom aquariums is when you see a scuba diving aquarium cleaner while using the loo.

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Profile

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Crocodile Beaches

Liam LOVED running to the murky water's edge...


Blissful dash to the shoreline!

Tears after mommy and daddy cruelly brought him away from the water's edge where possible drowning and crocodile attacks awaited him. ;)

Milk Shake

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Sandman

Beach Boys

GBR

We arrived to Port Douglas on Friday evening and prepared
for our Great Barrier Reef trip the next day. I understand the boat ride can be a little miserable in high winds (we
have 2 known pukers in the family), and the weather forecast looked warm and quiet
for Saturday.    I was a little nervous
about taking the kids on the trip.   Charlie and Liam are great little travelers but it’s A LONG day out –
with a 3 hours roundtrip boat ride and 4 hours at the reef.  We booked with Quicksilver as they were the
only boat company that allows strollers. Liam doesn’t sleep on us (as evidence by MANY hours of sleepless
overtired plane trips sitting on our laps) but he does fine sleeping in a
stroller or car seat.   The trip was
absolutely phenomenal.  For starters,
Liam passed out for most of the ride out to the outer reef.  Jason and I are both certified open water
divers, but we haven’t dived since 2007 when we were in the Philippines.  We didn’t think there was any possibility of
diving given the timing of everything with the kids.  We were excited to take turns snorkeling and
have some family time with all of us in the water.  When the dive people came around they said
that we could take turns diving.  We
decided we couldn’t pass up the opportunity – and I am SO GLAD we didn’t!   We got
to the outer reef and Jason hurried off the ship to be in the first diving
group.  I took the boys to the underwater
observatory where we saw daddy make his descent into the water.    We also went on an underwater dirigible
(submarine-like thingy) that was so stinking cool!    It was Finding Nemo on steroids.  J    It was perfect for the boys to see the
underwater life around the reef without getting in the water.  We ran around to see daddy come out of the
water and I was so excited for my turn to dive. I was a little nervous because it’s been so long since I last went
diving, but it all came back (I did start to pass out at the end of the dive, I
think I came up too quickly – and the instructor helped me out for a minute or
two).  I also saw the boys in the
underwater observatory as I was finishing the dive – Jason has a great picture
of us that we’ll post as soon as we get home. The dive itself was AMAZING – the visibility was 25 meters and it was
just overwhelming the diversity of life on that reef!  It just made me think of the amazing
creativity and even humor of our Creator God – wow!!!!     As I
got out of the water, the ship blew its horn signaling it was time to depart
the reef.  We hurried back onto the boat
and enjoyed the return trip back to Port Douglas.  It was a perfect day. 

We booked a trip for the following day to the Lower
Isles.  Jason and I felt a little selfish
that the boys didn’t go in the water while we played, so we decided to do the
trip where the kids could hang out at the beach and snorkel.   The Lower Isles don’t have the impressive
corrals of the outer reef, but there was a good possibility of seeing sea
turtles.   It took just over an hour to
get to the Lower Isles and we had the seafood lunch on the larger vessel before
ferrying over to the island on a glass bottom boat.  On the boat ride we were thrilled to see
turtles.  We also saw a sting ray, and I
later discovered that Steve Irwin was killed not far from where we were
snorkeling with the kids – YIKES!   The
island had gorgeous powdery white sand and we set up camp under a palm branch
hut.  Charlie had talked about snorkeling
for 2 weeks but when it came time for him to actually snorkel in the water he
got a little freaked out.  We got as far
as putting on the mask and snorkel and he could breathe and would put his face
in the water, but he just didn’t want to float around on his belly and look at
things.  I don’t really blame him, I was
a little freaked myself.  The water was
super murky by the shore and I was freaked out of being blind to jelly fish and
other little sea critters.    Charlie
begged us to play in the sand on the beach, so Jason and I took turns
snorkeling with the turtles (Jason even pet one).   Liam is insanely daring when it comes to the
water.  I think he’s had to watch one too
many of Charlie’s swimming lessons and he wanted to play too.  At the end of the afternoon, Charlie and I
walked through a shallow lagoon and found several turtles swimming around.  One popped his head out of the water about 2
feet from us and then darted away swimming incredibly fast in the other
direction.  Charlie LOVED it!  

Here are some pics and videos from the trip.  Jason has the really good ones on his camera
and we will post soon!