Australia!

Australia

Where do I even start? Despite absolutely horrid weather, we enjoyed 2 magnificent weeks in Australia! Here are just a few of the highlight photos.

Sydney

We all decided that Sydney just might be our favorite city in the whole world! So clean, well layed out, great shopping, and so many fun "neighborhoods" surrounding the city, including Darling Harbor, Manly, and Bondi. Most things are best accessible by water taxi, which is a great way to see the city. 

After a LONG flight!

The Opera House - a beautiful architectural centerpiece of the city.

We HAD to take the bus to Bondi beach, but it literally poured the entire day! What a bummer.

The Sydney Zoo was so beautiful and clean. This guy below is a blue-tongued lizard!

Darling Harbor

One of our favorite spots. Great shops, restaurants, and the best park ever!

The Gold Coast

We wish we could have surfed Snapper Rocks, but the locals aren't too friendly with SUP and weather was crappy!

Boomerangs on the beach - thank goodness the beaches were huge and vacant so my boys didn't kill anyone!

 Thank goodness for Penny Boards! Kirra had an awesome beach walk that went about 5 miles.

 Crew driving the Aquaduck! A tour van/boat!

Theme Parks

The Gold Coast theme parks are THE BEST! Seriously may be worth a trip back just for these! Clean, themed soooo cute, fun thrill rides, AND animal encounters.

 My boys absolute favorite ride! The coaster even goes in an elevator shaft and goes backwards!

The highlight of my entire trip was the animal encounter at Dreamworld! I sooooo wanted to keep this koala. And we loved feeding the kangaroos. Best day of the trip!!!

Grandma LOVED Wiggle World! She was missing Brennen terribly this day. :(

 A loop-d-loop waterslide. We saw several people get stuck in these!

We will definitely be going back to Australia someday!

Thanksgiving Cruise

WOW! I can't believe it's been 3 months since my last post. I will attempt to get somewhat caught up.

For Thanksgiving, we took a cruise of the Hawaiian islands. The kids loved roaming the ship, all the activities, non-stop food, and seeing all the different islands. Geoff and I loved the free kids club every night ;)

The 2 days we were in Maui we explored the whole ship and pretty much had it to ourselves. We played lots of basketball, shuffleboard, air hockey, ping pong, arcade games, swimming, and the gravitron.

NOT recommended for those who have any sort of a weak stomach!

One of the diners open all day for burgers, appetizers, milkshakes, etc. There were so many different dining options aboard the ship.

Sailing the Napali coastline was a favorite for all. It was GORGEOUS!

Hoolii in Hilo was beautiful with perfect SUP waves. The boys can't WAIT to go back with their boards.

Of course we had to check out Volcanos National Park. It was cool to see but we were disappointed not to see lava spouting in the air.

The only picture we got in Waikoloa. We were having too much fun!

Kauai was our favorite. Paddling up the Hanalei river was the highlight of the whole trip!

The boys were desperate to get in a little surfing.

The Sunset Bay surf competition was going on while we were in Oahu. It was cool to see but nothing like Pipe.

The boys scored some free swag.

The Disney hotel in Koolina in Da Bomb!!!

We were beyond spoiled in our Trump Tower suite in Oahu.