Our Big Australia Trip begins!!

** Pictures (hopefully) coming soon!

Our Great Australian/NZ Family Vacation has begun! And so far, it has been a wonderful start! We left home on a 5:30pm flight from Boise, and traveled to Los Angeles. We had to wait at LAX for a few hours before taking off on our loooong flight to Melbourne, so we got some food and got out some electronics and coloring supplies to pass the times. Brian wrapped up some work stuff (finally! yay!), so now he should be free and clear to rest, relax and enjoy! The Jensens are traveling with us for part of the time, which has been lots of fun so far. They ended up sitting right in front of us on our looong flight. And we sat in two rows of three… Samantha and Spencer claimed the window seats for the duration, lucky kids. Nat and Brian sat by Spencer, and Millie sat in the middle of Sam and me, and she slept a lot… which means I did not. FIFTEEN and a half hours to Melbourne!! That’s a long, long time in the air. There was turbulence pretty rough for a few hours in the middle, which kept me awake a lot. They even had the flight attendants take their seats a few times, which is always nerve-wracking. But Camille slept through it all on my lap, lucky girl! She kept kicking Samantha a lot – trying to stretch out more in her sleep, and Sam would get irritated, of course.

When we finally arrived in Melbourne, we had to hurry through customs and recheck our bags to get on our final flight to Brisbane. (And yes, we could have flown straight to Brisbane, but the very-amazingly-good-deal tickets that allowed this adventure to happen in the first place had a layover in Melbourne, then on to Brisbane, so there we were.) Spencer and Natalie were kind of BEYOND reason during that last layover. Natalie kept sitting down on the floor in a dramatic, sobbing heap every two seconds, and Spence did NOT want one more flight (apparently we forgot to tell him about that last leg of the trip, oops!). He just kept saying he wanted to go outside and breathe some fresh air. He actually DID run out outside the airport door at one point, which was frustrating, but we got him back and boarded the plane. My most comfortable seat was on that last leg of our journey. But the guy behind me kept kicking/kneeing the back of my seat, rude! (even pushed my seat back up when I reclined! And didn't speak English so I couldn't even ask him what his problem was) So… no sleeping. Sigh. 

Oh, but there was lots of good food on that big ol’ flight! I had a curry masala plate for dinner (the soft rice felt good for my somewhat-still-queasy stomach), and Samantha had a creamy spinach/chicken pasta dish for dinner. (Camille wasn't ever hungry and just slept, or watched the same episode of Princess Elena 20 times.) Then they brought little turkey sandwich rolls around sometime in the night (after the turbulence died down). In the morning before we landed, they served omelets and hashbrowns or blueberry pancakes, either option with fruit, yogurt and a muffin. It was all really tasty! And I watched TONS of movies while I was NOT sleeping. (I highly recommend Goodbye Christopher Robbin, btw, which left me in tears, and may even deserve its own post on my blog, someday... It's slow, but sooo touching.)

FINALLY! WE arrived! Sooo exciting! Our luggage was waiting for us on the carousel by the time we got to it, so we went straight to our rental car place. While Brian rented the car (a really big roomy 8-person van) and checked it for scratches, etc, the kids all got into their luggage and changed into some more comfortable, summery clothes. (Some in the rental car bathroom, and one 4yo just stripped down on the sidewalk in front of the rental place before I could stop her! Lol!)

We split up from the Jensens, thinking we’d both probably just get checked in and get some sleep first thing. But once we were all settle in our car, we decided to drive downtown into Brisbane for a bit and check it out. First stop, McDonalds, because all our kids were FAMISHED! Guess what? The first real person we talked to here in Australia was the cashier at McD’s. Guess where she's from?! IDAHO! No joke! She asked us if we were from the States. We told her yes. She said she was, too, but her mom is Australian so she has lived in Australia for the past six years. Then she said, she is actually from Idaho! She grew up In Eagle! So crazy, huh? Kids liked the familiarity of a hamburger or chicken nuggets. And they had awesome “family” fries that everyone devoured, as well as $1 pineapple smoothies which were delish.

Right near the river, there’s a nice walking path that winds along some cliffs for a ways. We walked along there for awhile, and found a couple of lizards and pretty birds. We even took some stairs down the cliffs to the water, just exploring. (But then we had to walk back UP the stairs, which was hot and taxing, in this humidity!) Then we stopped at the LDS temple, which is right downtown, right there along the river path. It was gorgeous! We had to tell Camille to stop picking all the flowers in their flowerbeds, though. Lol!

After that, we drove to the other side of the river and walked along in the botanical gardens that are also right downtown and free. Spence got really close to a great big lizard that was just camped out on the sidewalk. I think he would have tried to pet it if I hadn't made him stay back, crazy kid! There was a really fun playground there so we let the kids play for a bit. We were all getting pretty tired by that time, so we drove out to our place where we’re staying, which is up the coast about an hour at King’s Beach. Our little condo unit is one block from a really nice beach with a splash pad and free community pool! 

We got there and got checked in around 4:30pm, got settled and changed to our suits, then walked down to our beach. It was gorgeous and amazing, with super soft, packable sand, and the water was so nice and warm! We stayed and played until the sun was gone and we were all wiped out. It was perfect... One of those precious family moments that makes my heart just well up and my eyes almost fill with tears. (Or maybe some of that was jet lag?;) Then back to our place for baths and food and an early bed. Actually, Brian went to grab some groceries for dinner (and a picnic tomorrow after church), and while he was gone, the kids snacked on crackers and cold cereal. Spence and Nat couldn’t even wait for him to come back, and went to sleep at 7:30 with only that as their dinner. The rest of us had some goodies and stuff before an early bed. Lights out by 9pm for all. Nice, lovely first day of our trip.

And so, now here I sit at 3am with my lovely jet lag. J It’s kind of hot and humid here. There’s an AC unit, but it mainly just cools the front room, and fans are in each bedroom. But I’m just wide awake anyway. I’ll see if I can upload some pictures with this, hopefully soon!