November 23 - A jump rope

I finally opened my jump rope. Only to find that it is too light and isn't very easy to use for the purpose of getting an actual workout. Anyway, Lilly wanted to try it so I shortened it a bit and let her have a go. She's starting to get the hang of it. Just. very. slowly.

November 15 - Spiders

If you don't like spiders, don't look at the pictures. I know it's not much of a warning, but I figured I would throw it out there.

We have a little tiny 'garden' out back and our grill takes up a good chunk. Seth grilled burgers on and put the grill cover on the ground. As he was getting ready to put it back on he noticed the one spider. He didn't tell me that there were two. Note: These were OUTSIDE, I did not completely panic.

November 13 - Melbourne Museum

Another trip to the museum. I love getting yearly passes and then we can just hang out for a couple of hours and not feel like we need to see the entire museum.

A new exhibit opened on the day we went. I didn't know they were opening it on this day. It's called WILD. It's a room with a bunch of stuffed animals. Sure they are realistic (as they are dead and stuffed), but there wasn't too much for the kids to see.

There is also an outside area with different activities for the children. Lilly tried to jump rope but she spent more time just looking at the rope than moving it.

November 7 - On my way

Now that I have Alan and Pennie's trip done, I'm gonna try to get all caught up. While I'm sure I have exciting stories every day, I probably won't have something for every day. I'll stick to days that I took pictures. I just don't write enough things down to tell you what we've been doing.

On this Saturday, Seth and I split up. Not literally, I just went off to a baby shower for another American and he took Lilly to a birthday party. Chloe is the daughter of one of Seth's co-workers. She is less than three months older than Lilly and they make great playmates. Chloe had an Elmo pinata and Seth took a classic video of Chloe hitting her dad with the bat.

November 1 - Harbour Bridge Walk

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is the one you can climb up to the top and get an amazing view. You walk around the top a bit and then come back down. I really want to do it while I'm here. BUT . . . you can't take pictures, I'm guessing the company that runs the tours takes lots of pictures and then you can buy them. AND it costs almost $200. So, I'll have to settle for the next thing. They built in a pedestrian side walk along the side of the bridge (on one side is pedestrian and the other side is for bicyclists).

So Seth and I left Lilly with the Grandparents (we didn't have too much time and she is a slow walker) to go swimming and we took off for the bridge. We did the water ferry again so we got lots of pictures of the harbor. Then we walked across the bridge and on our way back to the ferry, we stopped at a really cute Sunday market but I don't know that we got any pictures. I'll just put a few pictures and again, I'll try to have Seth put in the folder of all our pictures.

We had lunch with Alan and Pennie and then it was time to head back to the hotel so we could get a shuttle to the airport. Alan and Pennie stuck around Sydney for a few more days. Thanks for coming to visit!!

October 31 - A Very Relaxed Day

Alan (my father-in-law) has a business associate who lives outside of Sydney. He came and picked us up in the morning and took us out on their boat for several hours. We went cruising around their 'neighborhood'. His parents live in a house on the lake but their house is built into the cliff (some of the rooms in basement have the exposed cliff wall as a wall). In order to get to the dock, you have to go down some very steep stairs or a little electric elevator/escalator.

Our hosts were amazing with the day on the water and lunch/drinks. It was a little chilly but in the sun it was easy to forget about that.

Once we were dropped off at the train station, we made our way back to the city. We headed for Sydney's sky tower type building. I don't think I mentioned that in Melbourne, everything was labeled and you received a map so at each station, there was a number and your map told you exactly what you were looking at. Since we live and travel around Melbourne, we were aware of the buildings and sights. Sydney was a whole new ball game. There were no maps and no numbers. We really didn't know what we were looking at. There was also a newer building that obstructed our great view of the Opera House.

October 30 - Try a little Surf

Seth, Lilly and I worked through Sydney's public transportation to find Bondi Beach. The transportation in this city was not nearly as easy as in Melbourne. Don't get me wrong, you can get everywhere you need to go. We just had problems with finding which bus to take and how to pay (you can't just buy a ticket on the bus). In the course of the day, we did ride the monorail, a bus and a ferry.



Bondi Beach is a famous surf beach and everybody goes there. It was a little chilly and I didn't expect to get a suit on, but within minutes of playing around it was evident that Lilly was going to get more than her feet wet. The longer we played around, the bigger the waves got. There were life guards and instructions to swim between the red flags, but it is easy to see how people can get into trouble in these waters.

[Note: we are not in any of the beach pics and we were careful to not include any speedo clad men or topless women so don't bother looking]




We met Alan and Pennie later in the afternoon and walked to the Opera House. We took some pictures and then left Lilly with Alan and Pennie and had a date! We took the ferry back to the casino and got a few good pictures along the way. More of these to come!