Day Five

We began our fifth day by heading to Manly beach. The beach was huge and there were a ton of people! We laid out for a while ( right next to some girls with their tops off!) and then took a little dip in the freezing water!

We walked around and looked at all the shops they had and got us some free Ben and Jerry's icecream. We spent most the day there, and then headed back on the ferry to our hotel.

We got ready for the evening and then headed to Darling Harbor. They were having their Christmas tree lighting on this night and so we were hoping to watch that. When we got there, we were both starving and just wanted to find somewhere to eat. Almost all the restuarants were full of people waiting to watch the tree lighting and so we weren't having much luck. We walked to the other side of the harbor and found this restuarant that had seating. It was right along the water and we had a view of the tree. We ordered this meal for two that had all kinds of seafood, our favorite! When it came out, it was on this huge layered platter with tons of seafood! As soon as our food came out the fireworks began right in front of us and they lit the tree. It was the perfect evening. We had amazing food, a beautiful view, and some alone time with each other!

After dinner we went to the Imax and watched a haunted house movie. It was 3-D and it was so neat to watch. The Imax has the worlds largest screen, which was 8 stories tall.

The Imax screen

Caleb and I in our very stylish glasses!



You can't really tell, but I am eating an octopus. The first one was all right, but the thought of what you were eating just started to gross us out!

A close up of the octopus.

Anytime they served prawns, they were served like this with eyeballs and all!

This was our tower of seafood!

Our camera did not like taking these pics, but they turned out really cool! These were the fireworks that we watched while we ate.

More crazy fireworks pictures!

A not-so-good pic of the harbor.

Caleb and I at Manly beach.

A pic of a beach at Manly, but not Manly beach.

Day Four, Better Late than Never!

The morning of our fourth day, we went and walked around Darling Harbor. There were lots of shops, restuarants, and the Imax ( which has the world's largest screen!). We just walked around and looked for some souvenirs in the mall. We had to be back by that afternoon for a trip to the bush!

On the way out to the bush, we stopped at a zoo that had kangaroos, koalas, and many other native animals. We were able to pet the koalas and feed the kangaroos. It was so neat to get so close to the animals. Some of the kangaroos had little joeys in their pouches. It was not at all what I thought it would look like. You could barely tell the baby was in there. All you could see was their little feet or a tail sticking out of a hole. The koalas were so soft. They were so docile, they could care less if you were touching them! They said that they sleep 20 hrs. in a day and then eat the other four.

They took us on a bus to what they called the bush and what we would call a ranch. When we arrived, they showed us how they made black tea and bread. They were both pretty good, but it was so hot and we were sitting right next to the fire! After we ate a little, the ranchers showed us how their dogs herded sheep and then they showed us how to shear a sheep. We learned how to throw boomerangs and crack whips. It was an entertaining afternoon! The ranchers had such thick accents you could hardly understand them. We had dinner and drinks and then headed back to the hotel shortly after sundown.

Trying to get a pic of the sunset, but we missed it!

The beautiful sunset!

Shearing a sheep!

That is a joey sticking out of her belly!

They gave us honey nut Cheerios to feed the kangaroos.

I was amazed that they weren't very tall.

On a ferry leaving Darling Harbor.

Day Three in the Land Down Under

We started our third day by heading to an area called Watson's Bay. There was supposed to be this really pretty walk around the edge of the ocean and you walked up to this lighthouse at the peak of a cliff. The walk was pretty, but not that impressive. The lighthouse wasn't really anything to talk about and the views weren't what we had expected. The highlights were seeing a nude beach (with no hot girls!), a nice beach area, and some well known fish and chips. We laid out on the beach for an hour or two and broke in our skin for the extreme sun!

We left Watson's Bay that afternoon, took a dip in the pool at our hotel, and then got cleaned up for our dinner cruise.

That evening we went on a dinner cruise around the harbor. We cruised around the harbor for a couple of hours and they fed us a fancy 5-course meal with unlimited beer and wine (which we loved, ha, ha!) Several of the other agents went and partied afterwards, but we thought a nice comfy bed sounded nice!

A blurry view of the lights along the harbor.

A night view of the Opera House

We finally found someone to take our picture!

Up on the top deck of the dinner cruise. It was a beatiful night and the weather was perfect!

This was the pool in our hotel. It was supposively heated, but not very warm.

This was a view from the cliff near the light house. The water was pretty calm that day.

Another view from above.

Sorry, we don't have any pics of the nudists! Maybe next time!

Day Two in the Land Down Under

On our second day in Australia, we had a tour of the area we were staying in, which was called "The Rocks". There were several historical points to the tour, but our tour guide was so awful, we really didn't pay attention! The tour ended at the Opera House, which we could see from the window in our hotel room. What an amazing building that was! After a couple of hours, the tour ended and we went off on our own. We took a very scenic tour of the city of Sydney. We walked around forever and ever. We wen to Chinatown to a market that had tons of vendors and they were all fairly inexpensive. We kind of mapped out the prices and what souvenirs we were going to get and then headed back to our hotel. We headed back to get ready for dinner and thought we would head back to Chinatown to have some dinner. Again, we walked forever trying to find something that looked good that was a price we were willing to pay. All the restuarants were so expensive and nothing sounded good. We finally ended up in a mall in Chinatown that had ten different places to buy Chinese food. We found something that looked edible and we thought $9 a plate sounded great. By this time we were starving and the food wasn't even that great! That was the end to our second day.

A sideways view of downtown. (I can't get the pic to rotate and I can't delete. I hate this blog sometimes!)

You would see these weird looking birds about as often as you saw pigeons and seagulls.

A view of the harbor from the steps of the Opera House.

You'll see a lot of pictures like this. We didn't make very many friends so we had to take our own pictures of ourselves!

The Opera House

This bridge was huge. They had these tours that you would walk up the bridge to the very top and then walk back down the other side.

This was a view of our hotel from the road. Our hotel is the one in the background with the yellow lettering. It was called the Shangri-La Hotel. The Australian Hotel you can see in the foreground served pizzas and we had a crocodile pizza there. They called pubs hotels.

This is what our bed looked like every night. They came in and turned the bed down, put out a bookmark, layed out the remote and tv tray, and then put slippers out by the bedside. It was great!

Day One in the Land Down Under!

On November 22nd, Caleb and I made our way to Australia! We left at 7:00 Sunday night and arrived on Tuesday morning. When we first arrived, they picked us up from the airport and took us to our hotel for lunch. Are rooms weren't quite ready, so we took a nice walk around the downtown in search for Chinatown. We spent a couple of hours walking around and then headed back to the hotel to get freshened up for our welcome dinner. For dinner, they served a variety of traditional Australian food. Included in this was one of my favorite things, SEAFOOD and it was never ending. They just kept piling it up and you could eat as much as you wanted. They had lobster, crab, prawns, and bugs. It was wonderful! They also served kangaroo, which was not so good, but now we can say we've tried it!

Caleb and I posing with an Aborigian playing his dijaradoo.

We had a busy/enjoyable Halloween. Our evening started about 4:30 when we went to Great Grandma's to have dinner. Trevor and Christina and their kids and J.J. came with us. It is always fun to go there and see all the smiling faces. They love to see the little ones and it seems to make some of their days to see them! We had dinner and then the madness began! We stopped at Aunty Karen's, Aunt Cammie's, and Uncle Kenny and and Jinnie's house. It was so fun to stop and visit everyone, but it made us a little late to James and Chelsea's party that started at 6:00! After all our visiting, we finally made it to their house and the boys still hadn't gone trick-or-treating and so we took them on a quick run around the neighborhood. Unfortunately, most the people had their lights out, but fortunately, it was a beatiful night so we didn't mind staying out. Aunt Cammie and the kiddos

Aunty Karen and the kiddos

Caleb and our tired little fairy

Grandma and Great Grandma with the kiddos

Gavin, the Denver Bronco

Bronco and Pirate

Bronco, Fairy, and Pirate

Annual Pumpkin Carving

About a week before Halloween, we finally had our pumpkins and decided it was time to carve them. I always enjoy carving because Caleb does it with us! I still, every year, am so amazed that he will sit and carve pumpkins with us. I never had a dad do that growing up so I think it is so neat that my kids have such a wonderful dad who participates in these types of memories! We love you Caleb!

Obviously, Addison wasn't able to carve a pumpkin this year, but she sure kept herself entertained. She had this plastic cup that she had put a ball in and she just loved shaking that cup. It was so cute! The boys literally carved their own this year and really loved it. It was nice to not have to gut theirs and carve theirs, they did both all by themselves. We never had a chance to light the candles inside them, so I don't have a pic of the final results.

Addison and her cup. (Yes, Aunt Cammie, her eyes are red!)

Gavin hard at work!

He was so happy to be able to use a "knife". It was not really a knife and it cut really well so I think it was pretty safe!

Trenton is such a character now. He loved cleaning out the guts of the pumpkin.

My boys hard at work! Yes, we are carving pumpkins in the living room. It was Caleb's idea and I didn't argue. I think next year we'll go back to the kitchen!