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australia-day 3.

Valentines Day!

We headed out to the grocery store this morning to pick up a few things we needed for dinner that night, and when we came home Wes was there with a big surprise for all of us girls… flowers!

A dozen for his lovely wife.

An arrangement of tiny pink roses for his little girl.

And roses for us too!

But much to my surprise they were actually from Darren, even though his hand writing looks suspiciously like Wes’s. Thanks Bunny Fluff, love you too! (wink)

Lena was thrilled with her flowers and gave her Dad a great big hug, while showing him her card.

After all that romance and excitement, it was time to go swimming!

After swimming we started getting ready for our Valentines party that night for the kids.

Making a robot rocket ship for a table centerpiece.

Decorating cupcakes.

It was so, so much fun to do for them. They were so appreciative of everything we did. It made all the effort worth it.

australia-day 2.

We all loaded up in the car and headed out to the beach today! One thing that I thought would freak me out was the fact that they drive on the other side of the road. But it really wasn’t that scary after all. They don’t have 4 way stops here (well I didn’t see any) but they use traffic circles or round-a-bouts instead. They’re everywhere.

Just getting a view of the beach (tiny blue part in the middle of the picture)

While we were driving to the beach, Wes got a phone call from his friend saying that Bethany Hamilton the girl from the Soul Surfer movie was in Sydney that day and going to be surfing at Manly beach. Not the same beach we were heading to, but still swimming in the same ocean at the same time as her, so that counts as pretty cool right?

Coogee beach.

The seaweed was different than I thought it would be, it feels a bit like plastic, and was really thick and spiky. Strange stuff.

I was taking a picture of the pink building in the background, but the guy in the green striped shorts is an added bonus for all you ladies out there. You’re welcome.

After we spent some time soaking up the sun Wes asked if we were going to go swimming, I guess if you just flew half way around the world, you’d better at least dip your toes in.

Me and my nephew Reid were splashing around in the waves, when all of a sudden he says, “Whoa, Aunty Amy this is a big one”. I didn’t even turn to look at it, but just started to run back to shore. Guess who moves faster… big furious waves, that’s who.

It went right over my head, knocked me down and swirled me around with it, then slid me across the sand scraping up my legs and spit me out on shore.

Nice hey. I was picking sand out of my hair for days. Later that night after I had showered, I felt something fall in my ear and out came a teeny tiny little seashell. I’ll admit, I was kind of grossed out by that. LOL!

Wes and the boys walked to Oporto and picked up lunch for us. Oh my goodness, it was SO yummy. The fries were coated in chicken salt and the chicken burgers were grilled with a slice of fresh pineapple and bacon.

One brave seagull got a yummy treat that day when Reid showed us his fry trick.

After lunch we decided that we were pretty tired, I mean laying around at the beach all day is hard work. The boys were covered in sand, so we walked down the beach to wash off in a little tide pool that has a rock bottom, but the catch was you had to walk along this rock wall to get to it.

I hadn’t intended on going to the tide pool, I was just taking pictures of the scenery, when last minute I decided to join them. The tide was really high at that point in the day, so our climb along the wall was slow and scary at some points. Especially since I had my camera with me, I really didn’t want to fall in.

The green mushy stuff in the picture above was quite possibly the grossest thing I have ever touched in my life. It was thick and slimy and squishy and disgusting. I knew I had to cross it and Wes was saying encouraging things to me like, “just pretend it’s Darren’s back”. Such a nice brother in law. (he’s always joking around with us)

That wasn’t even the worst part, all along the rock wall in the cracks and crevices were crabs. They would run along the wall and hide in all the places that we were putting our hands to hold on. Shudder.

Still it was really cool and by the end I was glad I went along. Plus it gave me the chance to take some pictures of the whole beach from up high. So beautiful.

Just a perfect day all around.

Except when I got home and realized I had missed a strip of my forehead, a stripe down my leg and patches of my chest with sunscreen. Patchy sunburn 1. Amy 0.

australia-day 1.

As some of you may know or not, I just got back from a once in a lifetime trip to Australia! Can you believe it? Myself and my sister Nicola were able to go and see my other sister Amanda and her family who have been living there for 7 years now.  I really wanted to post about my trip right away before I forget any important details or special memories from our amazing experience.

Starting with getting there.

It was an exhausting way to start our arrival to beautiful Sydney. I was up at 4:00am on Friday morning in time to pack my last minute stuff, shower and drive the hour to the airport for my 7:00am flight. After flying into Calgary I met up with Nicola (sister #1) We ran a few errands around Calgary, met up with my parents for supper and then once again off to the airport for flight number 2.

It was 9:00pm Alberta time, which is 11:00pm Ontario time for me. I had been up so early that day I was exhausted, and we hadn’t even begun our journey yet.

After a quick flight to Vancouver we prepared ourselves for the 14 hour journey to Australia.

Not ever having the experience of flying for 14 straight hours before, I couldn’t even explain it to you if I tried. Somewhere around hour 10, you start to get delirious, wondering if you’ll ever touch ground again, and then when you’re at hour 12 it feels like you’ve been flying for at least 2 weeks.

The strangest part, once you land and get off the plane it’s like it never happened. Sort of like forgetting the pain of having a baby. And let me tell you, were we so excited to see our family waiting for us. Worth every minute.

We loaded up in the car and headed out to Amanda’s house. It felt strange to have lost an entire day in time difference, and even though we were exhausted it was amazing to drive through Sydney, soak up the sun and take in all the sights.

Once we arrived at their house, the kids were so excited to show us around and take our luggage up to our room. Amanda’s boys are so helpful and kind, they carried our bags in from the car and took them to our room, such sweet little guys!

After lunch, we got the chance to sit around and chat, and Lena the only girl in the family took the time to show us her dancing skills. She is just too adorable for words!

Lena Dancing

For supper Wes made us waffles with whipping cream and syrup. I mean, who doesn’t like breakfast for dinner? It’s my favorite!

After dinner we were pretty much wiped. The time difference was really starting to take it toll, and I’m pretty sure we headed off to bed around 8:30pm. And of course, woke up all bright eyed and bushy tailed at 3:30am. But it only took us one more day to adjust which was sooner than I thought it would. Good thing, since the next day we were heading to the beach!!

valentines party 2012.

ETA: Minute to Win it from from HERE! Thanks you for all your kind comments. ♥

It’s hard to believe that we’re already into February, it feels like Christmas was yesterday, and now we’re moving onto Valentines stuff. I’m posting my party earlier this year, because I’m leaving on a jet plane this Friday for Australia! So exciting!! (I’ll share more about that later)

So anyways, every year I like to throw a little party for my kids and it gives me the chance to pull out my hundreds of pink dishes, bowls and heart shaped knick knacks to celebrate.

(You can check out my Valentines post from last year and my other Valentines stuff HERE!)

It was actually quite similar to last year, but instead of making pizza we ordered in. We had the Missionaries over for supper, played a fun game and had a wonderful time together.

Red velvet cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting.

Of course the standard salad with cheese X’s and O’s (using a cookie cutter) and heart shaped cucumber and red peppers.

For these little pudding cups, I dipped the rim in melted chocolate and then rolled them in pink and red sprinkles. They turned out really cute.

 

We played Valentines Minute to Win it. And it was tricky, only one person managed to make it at exactly a minute. Phew! Minute to Win it from from HERE!

I had some little gift baskets with candy and fun little treats and toys for the kids (and Missionaries!) Theirs had a lint roller and some other more “big kid” stuff. I also did my annual letter to each of the kids, but I’ll give that to them later to read on Valentines day. For the Elders I printed off a copy of a talk given by Elder Richards and just wrote a little note of encouragement and expressed my love and gratitude for them.

We had a great time, and as usual I had so many other ideas/plans and there just never seems to be enough hours in a day. Good thing I have lots of years ahead of me for parties like this!