Brisbane

After working his tail off in Canada for a week and Melbourne for five weeks Travis took a week of vacation.  We flew to Brisbane to visit our dear friends the Hodsons.  Their oldest child, Cooper, is exactly the same age as FFM and they played together when we were Brisbane residents.  It did not take the two of them very long to connect again and together with 2.5 yr old Scarlet and 14 month old Harper the kids managed to keep four adults on our toes.

Cooper and FFM catching some wind on the City Cat enroute to Southbank.  

If you recall the City Cat is public transport up and down the Brisbane River, like a bus or train, just on water.  Southbank is the neighborhood we lived in while we were there.

The Hodson and Moore clans (you can just see Harper's pram in the corner) enjoying the evening at Southbank.

After a couple of days enjoying the city life (shopping, dining, Southbank, shopping...) we headed north for some beach time.  On our way we stopped to spend a day at the Australia Zoo.  This is the zoo created by Steve Irwin of Crocodile Hunter fame, and is my favorite zoo.

Scarlet and FFM banging the bongos at the new Africa exhibit.

Sara, Cooper, FFM, and Harper petting and posing with a kangaroo.  Harper's in the pram again.

Look!  A Mama and her joey!  The boys even spotted the joey sneaking into the pouch for a snack.  And look, there's cutie Harper, out of the pram at last.

After the trams, FFM will continue on to tell you that this was his next favorite part of his trip to Australia.  Petting the koala.  After that comes the baby kangaroo/joey.  And then he remembers the waves at the beach...but that's another post.

See, they may be thousands of miles and a giant ocean apart, but they're still buddies.  It felt like we'd never been gone, some friends are just great like that :-)  Thank you Sara and David!