Ocean Grove

 On Wednesday we drove back down towards the Great Ocean Road to Ocean Grove, a really long beach with some pretty good knock you over surf. It was our first time there and it was fun to get to be there with our very good friends, the Mathiasons and the Mejias. Not so fun to be there with what felt like the entire country of Australia, but it's what happens during summer break. Apparently we're not the only people in this country after all...

We ended the long full day with pizza and a movie, while we all nursed our sunburns. It was definitely a favorite day.  I was determined before we came, not to grow attached to anyone here, but I'm failing miserably and we will be very distraught when it comes time to leave these beautiful people to come home.

fa la la la la it's Christmas

Words to describe Christmas this year: different, fun, simple, warm, hard, happy, memorable. It really was a little bit of everything.  I had hoped our simplified life would make the season last a little longer this year, but we kept really busy straight through and it flew by. We weren't able to do everything we wanted to do, but we were able to enjoy many wonderful times together, from Christmas lights walks and drives,  barbecues, church activities, beach time, city time, family time, and even a few traditions from home including our family sleepover, Christmas stories, secret service and the Nativity story. We even got our first family selfie...
In spite of all this, it really never felt like Christmas for any of us, even as we were going through the motions, because the weather made us feel like it was the Fourth of July. But we decided that it was probably more like the first Christmas than our white Christmas's ever have been, and that made it a little more real to us. We focused more on memories than gifts, and it was really hard for me, but really good for me to keep. it. simple. It really was a wonderful time and we are so grateful to family who made it that way.

Giving Thanks

I can't even describe how much we loved Thanksgiving this year. It was one of our very favorites ever.  There's something really special about sharing something that you love with someone who has never experienced it before. Especially when those someones are people that hold a really special place in your heart. Just looking at the photos makes me teary with gratitude, and I know it will for years to come.
I am so thankful that we are here. That we are really truly in Australia living in this beautiful home with beautiful neighbors and family and ward members surrounding us with love. I am thankful to have my family with me. I'm thankful for the priceless experiences that we are having. Together.  I am thankful for my heritage. I'm thankful that as a 14 year old, my mom was prompted to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, here in a country where it's not really a common thing to do. I'm thankful for the difference that has made in my life and in the lives of my children. I'm so thankful that the Lord has blessed us with this irreplaceable experience.

Sari gets every bit of photo credit.  She took some pretty awesome pictures that will make great memories for us.  The sad part to that is that there is not a single photo of her in the lot. We'll have to make up for that later.  And teach her to hand off her camera to include some photos of her... Her quickly acquired skills are definitely making her the designated family photographer.

Anglesea

Joseph and Leah were camping this weekend at Anglesea.  We were going to go with them but there was too much going on and we couldn't make it work. So we decided to just drive down for the day on Saturday. We stopped on the way to see the flying fox colony in Geelong that Keith has been DYING to see.  There are over 400 there right now and in the next couple of months there will be over 3000. I just thought they were completely creepy. They were making this crazy screechy howling sound and kept stretching their wings out wide as they slept. Shiver...

So now we check that off the list.

Anglesea was such a fun beach. It's been one of our favorite days so far.  The weather was warm and the water was warm and shallow, the surf was small, and the sand sprawled out forever. The kids played and even Shawnie got in the water for a bit.

We did have a rough ending to a perfect day with Z getting stung by something in the water (He got big blisters on his legs that now resemble burns, very sore!!!) and then we experienced a ginormous rainstorm while Shawnie huddled under a canopy trying to keep her chair dry.

Royal Australian Botanical Gardens

Today we were on the other side of Melbourne on the Mornington Peninsula so we decided to stop by and see the world renowned Royal Australian Botanic Gardens. They were absolutely huge and very artistic. We spent several hours wandering around marveling at the creative brains that people are blessed with to come up with the spectacular displays. 

 These signs were not our favorite and they were seriously everywhere.  I couldn't even count how many we saw...

These are painted chalkboards on timber half-posts. I am totally putting some in our yard when we get home, they were awesome.

 

This is a floating bridge that goes from one side of the lake across to the other.  It was crazy but really cool to walk on. Shawnie even braved it all the way across.

This little guy is also going in our yard back home. :)

Halloween

Halloween is one of our favorite times of the year. We all knew coming into it that it would be hard. It was honestly pretty hard to begin with.  I realized by the end of it that I'd kind of put myself on strike from it, hoping that we could just slide past it, but as the day came and we received photos from family and friends, we were pretty homesick. Halloween is not much celebrated here. Who knew it was such an American holiday?

We've never been involved with a trunk or treat before. In fact, I've spent most of my life being a protester of them. Probably because we've always lived in the greatest, safest neighborhoods in the world, I've always felt like it's so much more enjoyable to visit with friends and neighbors at their homes rather that at the 'boot' of their car in a parking lot. When Halloween night rolled around and we had two children (who didn't know us and we didn't know them) come trick or treating instead of our usual 150ish, I kind of caught the vision. It was a very sad evening for us! Thank goodness for the church, who on November 1st put on a 'sausage sizzle' and trunk or treat. We thought it was a little weird to do it the day after Halloween, but in the end were glad to be out at around the same time as friends and family at home.  

We knew that this year would be filled with different experiences. We also knew that it would be filled with good experiences. Halloween was definitely both, and we came through it grateful for the opportunities that we are blessed to have during this time that we are here.

Zachary didn't take long to commit to the concept of people handing him fistfulls of lollies for fun. He is going to be quite a fan of the holiday, we can tell already. He had a great time being a superhero with his cousins, dancing from car to car to the music, and of course, eating lollies as he went.

Shawnie had a pretty bad attitude to begin with. She wanted nothing to do with this adventure. She didn't want to dress up and didn't want to go at all because it wasn't what we've always done with the people we always do it with. But from the moment we arrived, she had the time of her life hanging out, running around, and dancing it up with all the young women. We didn't hardly see her all night, which is just the way she likes it these days...

Keith turned Bruce into, well, Bruce.  He was a little disappointed because he worked so hard on it and the wind tore it to pieces as soon as he set it up. It was pretty funny, though. He and Joseph had the rough job of sitting on lawn chairs inside the van out of the cold wind handing out the lollies. 

He thought he was pretty hilarious when he put the fin on for the drive home...

Sari missed out on all of the festivities, as she was making her own memories at the YSA campout. She made some great new friends and had some pretty crazy experiences.

She's got a rough life, huh.

While she was gone, her friends at home snuck in for a Halloween 'trick'.

Geelong

Today we drove about 45 minutes away to a small town called Geelong.  It is absolutely quaint. Seriously. We loved it. There is a boardwalk that runs all along the bay with these sculptures of people that tell the social history of the area and they are just cool.  If I remember right there are over 100 of them. We didn't see all of them but we did get to see a lot of them and we really had fun.  The weather was nice and we got a good walk in along the bay. We saw jellyfish in the water and visited the local botanical garden which was just gorgeous.