May 11 - Trip to Phillip Island

Tuesday was the best day to make a trip out to Phillip Island to see the penguins. Although it would make for a late night and Lilly had Kinder in the morning, we took our chance and hoped she would sleep in the car on the way home (wishful thinking on our part, who were we kidding?).

On the drive to the Island we thought we would check out some scrapbook stores. I mapped out three and we set out on our way. We saw a lot of stores that week so I can't even remember which ones were good. I just have all the pictures and I'll have to check them out again some time.





It seems that whenever I get out to Phillip Island the weather doesn't cooperate and this day was no exception. On the way out it rained. Big huge black clouds appeared and so did the rain. BUT, we see lots of rainbows down here and Emily got to see one and it was a good one.



We went to the Nobbies which is where you are supposed to be able to see fur seals but I've never seen one from there. It's always very windy when I go. We took a picture of the three of us but it came out quite dark. I could probably fix it but I don't know if you would be able to recognize us because we look like three Medusas with our hair all wild and crazy. So here's one as the sun was starting to head down.



And of course we went to see the penguin parade. You aren't allowed to take pictures of the actual even although I should have taken a picture of all the people who were there. Because it was just us. There are two stadiums and everyone sat on one side and we sat on the other so we could get really close to where the penguins walk. It was cold and rainy but we sat there for a long time waiting for the penguins and then at least an hour while they paraded up the beach. The little penguins are just so cute (these guys used to be called fairy penguins, now they are just little, take a second and look them up, they really are quite small, I mean, little). Emily was able to sneak a shot (without a flash) inside the visitors center. Shhhhh!

May 10 - Happy Late Mother's Day to Me

Lilly didn't go to Kinder last week since we went to Brisbane so we missed the Mother's Day Tea. This Monday was her first day back so she was able to get a present from me from the Mother's Day Stall. I love when she picks something out for me.



The hand soap went immediately in the downstairs bathroom where Lilly is the one who is most likely to use it.

Lowe's (in the US) has wonderful programs for the kids on the weekends where they can build neat little wooden projects. They've done treasure boxes, helicopters, coin bank and many others. I took Lilly to our local store called Bunnings and they also have weekend programs. When we went, Lilly painted a board from a picket fence. And then sprinkled glitter on it. Needless to say, Lowe's has a better program and Emily has brought some of the projects over. She helped Lilly make a jewelry stand while she was here.

May 9 - To Market, To Market

Sundays are relatively lazy days around here. Although I have noticed that there are a lot of cities who hold their markets on Sundays and community groups hold their fetes (usually like a fund raising carnival or market) then as well. We hopped onto the tram to the city and then down to St. Kilda. Not only could we hit an art market but also the beach and Luna Park.

We didn't really take pictures at the market but here are some of the beach and the park:



The large wooden coaster in the background is interesting. The driver rides in the middle of the cars standing up. I'll try to get a picture next time we head down there.



I can't leave without some fairy floss (AKA cotton candy)!



You can imagine how many shells a 4 year old puts in her pocket when we see this many!

May 8 - Sports Day for the Smaller One

Saturdays are filled with sports for Lilly. We start with futsal early in the morning and then swimming lesson right at lunch time. This is one of the most inconvenient schedules but we love the kid and she loves the activities so we'll deal with it until we can change it all.

So at futsal Lilly was put with the older kid group. While I was excited at first, they didn't do as much as the other group. There was a lot of standing around and waiting for their turn to do a drill. There was a lot of talking and fooling around in line (keep in mind that Lilly is usually one of a few girls that come to these trainings). Emily and I got a very good laugh when all the boys started doing push-ups around Lilly and showing off their muscles. All laughing stopped though when one brave little boy took his chance and gave Lilly a peck on the cheek!! Now I would love to post the video that happened to have been taken during this time but I do need to respect the kids and can't post them online. Sorry, but if you want to see it, I might be able to send you an email. In the meantime, I'll give you pics of her taking her turn and playing goalie during the scrimmage.

Drills:



Telling them to stop instead of taking a shot:



Running towards . . . ?



Next is swimming lessons. Really not much to explain here although most of the pictures were probably taken after her lesson when I let her have a little play time in the water.





Ok, it wasn't all fun and games just for the little one. After some much needed rest, we headed towards the city. First stop, Lygon Street for some Italian and dessert.







And next stop, the MCG for a footy game.

May 7 - Ordinary Days

We spent several days just having normal days. This was more for Lilly than anything - although we needed a bit of rest from the running around as well. I do need to give credit here to Emily for a lot of the pictures from her trip. Some days we only took one camera and during the normal days she was more excited about the things to see so she took hers.

Friday is library day for Lilly. Stories are read and the kids get a small activity. Lilly sits right in front of the 'teacher', often on their feet. This day they made bear masks.





After the library our normal routine is to go to the "Mall" to get "coffee and muffins". It's an outdoor eating area in between a bunch of coffee shops and bakeries and I get hot chocolate and croissants (if you know me at all, you know I don't do coffee or tea).





Emily mailed a postcard to her girls and since we were close to the post and a letter box:



And then we went home and Lilly danced the afternoon away.





And to show everyone what dedicated scrappers we are . . .



We don't have a picture of me scrapping that week but if you squint your eyes a bit you might think that is me. In case you didn't get it, that is Emily, she is wearing my sweatshirt.

May 6 - How much can we see around Brisbane?

We had limited time this day because we had to return the car before we caught our flight back to Melbourne. So we headed to Mt. Coot-tha to the Botanical Gardens. We didn't do much, mostly gave ourselves a driving tour. We saw a couple memorials



and some Aboriginal totems.



And a view of Brisbane . . .



Then we headed off to the Mt Coot-tha Aboriginal Art Trail. The trail was 1.5 km through a wooded area but we had about 30 minutes to get through it and check out the art. The art has been there for less than 20 years so we aren't talking about history. Some of the art wasn't well marked and I'm sure we missed things. But we made it in under 30 minutes! I figured I would take Emily to the art museum in Melbourne and she could get a better sense of Aboriginal art even though it would be in a sterile environment.



Next was a quick stop for food and a dash to the airport. Oddly enough no pictures were taken. I don't know what happened with that. Oops, wrong - here's a picture of Lilly on the plane:



When we got back to the airport one of Seth's co-workers picked us up in our car. We dropped him off at home and headed straight to my soccer game. The only thing I really remember from the game is that I fell, twice. And not just a trip, one of those feet were swept completely out from underneath me and landing on my hands and knees with the sound of thunder echoing in my head. Fortunately Emily didn't get pics of that either fall although I would have like to have seen it. I didn't let her take a picture of the bruise either.



While I can't remember the score, I am pretty sure I scored twice that night, one for each fall.

May 5 – Gold Coast

This time we drove south of Brisbane. We went up in the Tamborine Mountains. First stop was the Tamborine Rainforest Skywalk. There were lots of very big trees - Figs are very popular in these parts as well as ferns. It was pretty neat to see all the different trees that we wouldn't normally see around the city.

We saw some quaint little shops and cute towns. But we skipped them all to go to a liquor shop. There we met a very nice man who gave us lots of samples of his wares. Lilly was sure he was Santa Claus 'but he drank a lot'!

We wanted to hit a beach since I knew it would be far too cold in Melbourne to go. So we headed for the coast and waved hello to Sea World as we passed by. We ended up on Main Beach. I don't know if it was the best beach but it did the trick. Lilly played in the sand and touched the water a few times and Emily and I basked in the setting sun. Our pants ended up a bit sandy and salty in the end, oops!

Teaching Lilly some laws of Physics. Stinks to go on vacation with two teachers, everything is a learning moment.

On the way back we stopped in to see another of my friends (really, what are the odds?) from Xenia. Evan now plays with the Brisbane Orchestra. We ate some dessert (never mind dinner, it was vacation) and then Emily took our picture in front of a store called . . . Xenia!!

May 4 – The Australian Zoo

When we told friends of ours we were moving to Australia, one awesome family gave us the Wiggles Safari. The Wiggles go to The Australian Zoo in this video and hang out with Steve Irwin (it is an older movie) and his family. Lilly loves this video! So she was delighted to go somewhere she saw in the video. Needless to say we listened to a lot of Wiggles songs and Lilly spent the day looking for the Wiggles.

The day was rather dreary, a bit rainy and only slightly chilly. I'm not sure if this effected the crowds or not, but there definitely weren't very many people. This worked in our favor!

The first thing we went to do was sign up Lilly for a Turtle adventure – more on this later. We met a snake named Lily. Very big snake, I might add. And then we decided to get our picture with a Koala. It was a short experience and a little disappointing but we did get a nice picture from the park.

Next were the elephants. I was under the impression it was going to be a zoo keeper talk while they fed the animals. The zoo keeper did talk but WE got to feed the elephants!! They even asked us to take several pieces of food since the crowd was small, this way they could get all the feeding in without having to have an extra feed (aka so the zoo keepers didn't have to feed them). It was very cool. I tried to go up with Lilly but she was just fine and wasn't afraid of the elephants at all. She did drop her piece of food once and wanted to bend down to pick it up, apparently that was not the way to do it. The elephants just picked up the food out of our hands and stuffed it in their mouths. We fed them chunks of fruit and veggies (I remember extra-large pieces of carrots).

We went to a show in the Crocoseum. When they were doing the pre-show warm-up they went through different countries to see where people were from. They said the US and Emily and I gave a little holler. Then they asked for people from Australia and Lilly did a little jump up with her arm in the air. While it was cute, I realize she now associates herself more with Australia than with America. I was a little disappointed she didn't yell or anything.

The show had a lot about the park, a lot of info about Steve Irwin and his mission and what the park is doing to keep it going. They showed birds, snakes, and the crocodiles. No one wrestled a croc, I was slightly disappointed with that, but they did feed on some chicken and got him to come out of the water so we could see how big it was. Not something you want to run into on your holiday.

And then there was the kangaroo enclosure. Apparently you could buy kangaroo food somewhere, but I never saw where. The kangaroos and wallabies all expected food so they just hopped right up to us! Lilly was taking lots of pictures with her own camera and the animals would come right up in front of her face. She thought it was hysterical and that they were all very nice.

Lilly and I did the tortoise adventure thing. We got to go in with these giant turtles (Igloo and Galiath) and pet them. If you rub their chest, they would stand up and stick their heads out really far to get a rub all over.

Zoo Keeper: How old do you think these guys are?
Lilly: I don't know.
Zoo Keeper: Do you think they are older than your mom?
Lilly: Nothing can be older than my mom!

Awesome . . . the turtles were about 33 years old, so Lilly was partly right.

We caught up with one more elephant feeding. We were able to feed all three elephants many times! It was still just as neat as the first time. We just cruised around for a while and saw whatever we came across. We saw a wombat being walked like a dog, a tasmanian devil, some birds, tigers, and lizards. I think Emily was impressed with all the different animals and I was happy to have been to that zoo. I'm sure we'll go again!

We took a train to a different part of the park and since we were one of two families on the train the guys running the train came and talked to us while they were waiting for more people to board. They mentioned the pony rides and I just slapped my forehead. The last thing I wanted to do was pay a bunch of money for Lilly to walk around in a circle. But, as we got off, one of the guys mentioned it was free. I could do free, but what about waiting in line? I told Lilly we would check it out and see what it was but no promises! Well, wouldn't you know it, it really was our lucky day. It was free and there was no line. Lilly hopped right on a pony and the zoo keepers took her on a nice long ride through some trees. Apparently this is one of Bindi's projects. Another reason why Bindi is Lilly's favorite person in the world right now.

Before we headed back to our hotel we stopped in to see some friends. One of the teachers I worked with my first year lives with her husband and two adorable children on the Sunshine Coast. While they do a lot of traveling and working in the states and Fiji, it was very lucky that we all ended up in the same area at the same time!