So last time I was on here Jamie was travelling like mad, we
had family photos scheduled to be taken, I had another IPL appointment scheduled
and Jamie’s parents were set to arrive May 7th. All of Jamie’s travelling went off without
any issues, my IPL appointments still hurt like hell, and our photo shoot went
really well, actually a little too well according to our credit card statement
for that month : ) We’re still waiting
for our prints/disk to come in but hopefully that will be soon. I’ll be sure to post a few as soon as they
do!
Jamie’s parents arrived on time, without any issues as
well. It was so cute to see Kylie’s
reaction to them, seeing as though she hasn’t seen them in person since
September. I know that 6 months isn’t
really too long in the grand scheme of things for adults, but to Kylie that’s
like a ¼ of her life! Thanks to the
wonderful invention of Skype she completely recognized them and even went right
up to them and gave each a hug and kiss.
Totally cute!
Hanging with Pops and MiMi, fresh off the plane!
We spent the first few days with the parents hanging out
around Brisbane. I’ll start off by
saying that I am a total organizer.
Spreadsheets, calendars, lists, you name it, I do it! If you haven’t guessed by now I also absolutely
love to plan vacations as well. One of
the things I enjoy most about moving is finding out what’s around the area to
see/do/travel too. With that being said,
I already had a list of things to see/do around Brisbane but we’ve been holding
back on doing a few of them until they arrived.
The 2 big things in Brisbane were the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and
Mount Coot-tha. Both were nice, but Lone
Pine was amazing! There are only 8
places in the world that allow you to ‘cuddle’ a koala and this is one of
them. You can also feed the kangaroos,
pet emus and have your photo taken with crocodiles (if you really want to!). Kylie absolutely loved feeding the kangaroos. I had no clue she would be that into it, but
really the kid couldn’t get enough of it.
I actually felt bad making her leave; because I knew she was having such
a good time!
Lone Pine - Kylie with her 'roos
Koalas too!
View from Mount Coot-tha lookout
After a few days here we headed up north to Port Douglas for
7 days. It’s a small, tourist town a 2 ½ hour flight
from us with tons of stuff to do. We
could have easily spent another week up there and had plenty of stuff to do. We rented a house and car for the week and pretty
much just relaxed. We took walks on 4 Mile Beach,
visited the oldest rainforest in the world, went on a tour of Paronella Park and checked out a few other sites as we went
along. The main reason for us going up
there though was to take a trip to the Great Barrier Reef.
Breakfast with the Birds - Wildlife Habitat
Mossman Gorge
Babinda Boulders
Paronella Park
4 Mile Beach
For me, I think it’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever
done! At the last minute Jamie and I
decided that we would just snorkel and not do a dive, but if we ever go again a
dive will be a ‘must do’. The reef was beautiful
and just the experience itself was amazing.
I know that we live in Australia, so some might not understand why I’ve
called it the “trip of a lifetime”. You would think that living here it’s a no
brainer to go and see it. I am actually
amazed to hear how many people are from Australia though and have never done
it. When Jamie and I were dating one of
the conversations we had was what places we’d like to visit one day and the
reef was at the top of both of our lists.
For us it was a given that we would do it before we moved out of
Oz. Thinking about it though, I guess it’s
really no different than the US. I’ve
met loads of people who have never left the state they were born in, haven’t you? Hell, I’m from the US and I’ve never been to
the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls so who am I to judge anyone? Both are on my
list though!
Anyway, I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed it! The photos below don’t even do it justice! I wish I could put all of the photos on here
but there just isn’t enough room! Even
what I put up on facebook is just a small sample of the photos we took and an
even smaller sample of what we actually got to see! My only disappointment is that Kylie wasn’t
old enough to go with us. Hopefully we’ll
get a chance to take her back up there before we move back home!
Photos from the reef
When we got back to Brisbane Jamie’s parents only had
another week before heading back to the states.
We spent that time going down to Manly boat harbour, Southbank and just
hanging around in general. It was so nice
to have that time to just relax, especially since we’re not used to having
Jamie home for that long all at one time!
Since the folks have headed back to the states it’s pretty much been
right back into the daily grind but we’ve still managed to squeeze out some ‘adult’
time too.
Last day of parents visit - Manly boat harbour
The first weekend that our holiday was officially over, we
had an ‘adults’ day/night out. We went to
the Doomben 10,000 (horse races) to celebrate our neighbors birthday and then
from there went to a bar in the valley for dinner and drinks. It was the first
time either of us had ever been to the races and we had a pretty good
time. We won a few and lost 1 big one
but overall had a pretty good time. Unfortunately,
Jamie had to fly to Tokyo that same night on the midnight flight so it wasn’t
the big night out that we hoped it would be : (
Since his return from Japan, we’ve celebrated my birthday, Jamie’s had 2 trips to Melbourne
and next week he’ll be off to Sydney. I’m sure July won’t be much better in the
travel department either. To keep myself
busy during the nights that he’s gone I’ve started planning the rest of our
vacations for the year.
Earlier this year we decided that Thailand would be our big
holiday for the year. Since then we’ve
decided to go to Fiji instead. The
reason for this was solely based on the travel time, about 12 hours to Thailand
versus 3 ½ to Fiji. Either way I’m
excited. I’ve always wanted to visit
Fiji and if we didn’t go this year we would have gone next year so it works out
either way.
We’re also planning a big home trip this year. We plan on heading out around mid-December, stopping
off in Houston for a week or so and then heading over to Florida for a few
weeks. It’s a good bit longer than we
usually go home for, but Jamie decided that we need a trip away (just the
adults) and the only way that’s going to happen now that we have Kylie is to do
it when we’re in the US. At this point we’re not exactly sure what
we’re doing, but it’s looking like it’ll either be a cruise or North Carolina
(to hang out in the mountains). We’ve briefly
talked about Vegas as well, but neither of us wants to deal with the 6-7 hour
flight to get over there. It’s pretty
safe to say that this is a trip we are both really looking forward to! If anyone else is interested in leaving the
kiddos behind for an adult’s only long weekend away, consider this your invite
and feel free to come join us!
Well, that’s about it from here. Hopefully I’ll have some updated family
photos to post soon but until then here’s a few recent ones to get you by, lol!
Our best race of the day, 2nd and 3rd place winners : )
My little Tiger
Kylie heading out to tell Mr. Charles happy birthday
