Australia, Part One

Well, it's only taken me 3 1/2 months to blog about our trip to Australia.  I was 14 weeks pregnant when we left for Australia (I'm 29 weeks now), and my doctor had just taken me off of my nausea medication the day before.  Great timing.  I wasn't feeling great during our trip, but I only got sick once (in a mall bathroom.  Fun times.).

We are so thankful we were able to make this trip, and we would LOVE to go back to Australia and New Zealand one day.

Caleb started getting sick right before we left Singapore for Sydney, and he coughed solid for 4 hours out of the 8-hour flight, and then he fell asleep for the last half.  When we arrived in Sydney, he promptly vomited in the hotel lobby. (Dear Singapore Airlines, please don't seal the top of your airsick bags.  It makes it very difficult to get them open in times of need.  And a sick, pregnant mommy will not enjoy cleaning the mess off of her and her child.)  It turns out his cough/cold had turned into an upper respiratory infection, so our first day was spend finding a doctor, a pharmacy, and resting.

On day two, we decided to take a cruise of the Sydney Harbour.  Here we are going under the Sydney Harbour Bridge:

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The kids and me in front of the Sydney Opera House:
 

Boys and Justin in front of the Opera House:
 

Bridge from the shore:
 

 

Let's just pretend that this is the next thing we did (the pictures of our time in the Blue Mountains are on another card).  We'll get to that later, but since it was completely cloudy and rainy the whole time we were there, you're not missing much in the way of pictures.  The weather was AMAZING, however, since we'd been living on the Equator for almost 3 years.  We needed jackets!  And pants!  And blankets when we slept!  It was awesome.

We went to a wildlife park (a couple of days after the harbour cruise) and had fun watching and feeding the animals.
 

We asked one of the workers to take a family picture, and this is the best we got.  Where's Caleb?
 

Caleb loved feeding the kangaroos.  We had to tear him away from this area so we could move on and preggo Mommy could get a snack!
 

Levi wasn't as sure about the animals, but he warmed up:
 

See the joey in her pouch?  So cute!
 

Our boy in his element:
 

 

If we're all lucky, I might post about the rest of our trip.  Hopefully it won't take me another 3 1/2 months.

China, Day Two: The Great Wall

I don't think there was ever a time growing up where I imagined I'd stand on the Great Wall of China. What a cool experience!


We chose to ride the chair lift up since climbing to the top with 2 kids didn't sound like a fun time:

The sights were beautiful on the way up, despite the smog:

On top:

You see that kid with his arms in the air on top of the tower? That's Caleb:

Amazing:

Caleb (wearing his "I climbed the Great Wall" medal) standing next to a cannon:

Both boys by the cannon:

It was about this point that Justin left us to go explore further on his own (the rest of the pictures are ones he took):

(Look closely and you'll see the closest thing to "Fall" we've seen in 3 years):

I'm so glad we had this experience.

China: Chinese Acrobats

We were able to go to the Chinese Acrobat show while in Beijing, and it was cool, beautiful, and slightly disturbing (see 5th picture down) all at the same time. A really neat experience!

Beijing, Day One - Pagoda and Hutong/Hou Hai Area

We crossed the street from The Forbidden City and climbed Jingshan hill to get to the pagoda at the top of this picture:

And I couldn't resist taking a picture of this girl posing for her mom:

View of The Forbidden City looking down the hill (and, yes, that's smog.  gross.):

Looking at the other side of the city, the Hutong Area:

The lake:

Caleb standing in the middle of Beijing!:

We came down the hill and found the tree, called the Guilty Chinese Scholartree, where the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty hanged himself to avoid being captured and executed. Read about the tree here.:

Levi was in a particularly bad mood this day, so I had to capture any picture of him smiling:

Family pic by the female lion (see the baby under her foot?):

Again with smiling Levi! A rare occurrence that day:

Hutong:

You can get churros in China!  They smelled sooooo good, but it wasn't worth the pain for me to eat one:

We ate at Hutong Pizza, which was really good:

And then I had to stop at Starbucks to get my Beijing coffee mug!

The Great Wall is next!