Happy New Year!!!

Some pictures from our New Year's Eve celebration at Ray and Jamie's house in Volin, SD.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!!! Santa was good to us and was able to find us at Uncle Jeremy/Aunt Katie's house!

Jordan's entire Christmas wish list was "flowers". She even wrote a letter to Santa asking for some. 

She also got LEGOs, a MP3 player, oil pastels, unicorn/elf figurine, fill in word story books, LEGO toy story mini figures, bike wheel lights, socks and an orange (already eaten!). 

London had more "expensive" taste. Lol he requested THE LEGO Castle!

And also..

LEGO contraptions kit, Tell Tale game, fill in word books, bike wheel lights, toy story mini figures, "Peter pan" elf figurine, socks and an orange. 

And Santa didn't forget parents!

Troy got an iPad case and a whale shark figurine/toy. 

Mama got some LEGO baseplates and the research institute LEGO kit!!!! (All female scientists!)

And Santa decided to show off by giving us an hour of falling snow! Which we watched from inside. :) 

Happy 61st birthday dad!

Today would have been his 61st birthday. It's hard to even imagine since he has been gone for so long now. I tell the kids about him and when I mentioned his birthday would have been today they felt we needed cake. Who am I to argue with cake! I know the old man would have prefered lemon meringue cake but lest face it those are gross. So we got Plain vanilla and celebrated his birthday. 

 

A sandbox play date

Headed to good old willies for the sandbox with friends. Jo decided sand angels were the way to go. And big Wyatt was in love. :) 

August birthdays!

One of my mommy groups got

Together to

Celebrate the august birthday kids. There were eight! 

Jo was in heaven with all the frosting. 

Zoo trip

Today the ladies and I took the kids to the zoo for world elephant day! 

Twins and Astros game

London had his last writing class today. He got a surprise of three pencils with his first and last name on them. He was pretty excited. :) 

Tonight we caught an Astros and twins game. Twins won! 

Snip snip

Got a haircut today. Still so jet lagged our activities aren't much. :) 

Home Depot time

Today's Home Depot project was a bug house. I'm sure this will get lots of use! 

Rainy day but perfect night in Sydney for VIVID!

Most of the things I wanted to do and see in Sydney involved being outdoors. I didn't have many plans for being inside with rain. So this was an impromptu day. It worked out well.
We started with a double Decker tour bus you can hop on and off of while getting a tour of the town. We started on top but the rain came down hard so inside we went. Famous Coca-cola sign (the have political posts on it during busy times). I couldn't get much for pictures.

We hopped off at the Opera House to go inside and explore. It down poured on us then 

 We also made a stop at the Meritime Museum in Darling Harbor. They had a fun interactive Whale display there. The kids enjoyed all the "pirate" ship things also. They had a cool little kids area with books and coloring pages. Plus a theater that played Nat Geo videos...while you sat on bean bag chairs.

After a little nap we headed out to the Rocks/Circular Quay area for the famous VIVID show! It was amazing and i'm sure will be a highlight of this trip. They put up amazing lightshows on many of the famous buildings in town.

 They also have a ton of interactive light features. Like dance floors that move with you and "bubbles" that when you jump on them they changed colors. There were butterflies that moved with clapping sounds and light races when you pulled the cords. Kids were not happy when I made them come home from this!

A day in Sydney

We hit the ground running. We arrived at 6am and checked into our hotel and got cleaned up then headed out on the town.... since I knew the kids were jet lagged I just thought we would walk. Its of course raining so we got to test out those new rain jackets! First stop was circular quay (pronounced Key) for a better view of the opera house.

We were soaked so wanted to go inside and we were right next to the Museum of Contemporary Art so we went in. London's favorite was the sea star mobil. And jo loved the "abc" lights.

After the museum it was lunch time so we headed to The Rocks area... 

Got myself a great sandwich called "thanksgiving". it was great! We joined a local family here and the kids had fun trying to "fix" the others accents. LOL 

Wanted to keep us up and moving so we decided to hike up the pylon on the Harbor Bridge. Around 400 steps. They did great! Nice views on top and it was only drizzling by then. 

 View of the other pylon so you can see how high we walked up.

 You can hike up on TOP of the bridge. I would have loved to do it but you have to be 10yrs old to do it. So we just watched a group go up and over from inside the pylon.

Once we got back down we walked over the bridge and back. Jo got tired on the back part (she had walked over 5 miles at that point!). So we headed home and were sleeping by 7pm. :D

Heading Down Under/Arriving in Australia... combo days.

Today (ok it was the last two days) we left for a trip to AUSTRALIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm pretty excited. Troy left a bit ago so its me and the kids for the long flights. YIKES! But of course they did amazing and I didn't even need to break out the tablets.

 We got to Sydney and found the Sydney Opera House out our hotel window. Was pretty cool but the kids felt the rubber duckies and alligator soap was awesome also.