Koalas and Kermit the Car

First, Travis asked if I'd show him how to do posts, too. I agreed, but after his great success at Christmas letter writing now I'm wondering if I was a little quick on the draw. What if no one comes back to read what I wrote? Faithful readers please continue to slog through my posts even if Travis' turn out to be, well, funnier :)

Monday of the holiday weekend we toured the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Basically a little zoo with local fauna. The sanctuary is mostly koalas but they also have kangaroos, wallaby, dingos, echindas, and all kinds of birds. A bunch of snakes, too, but I skipped that part. One of the features of the Sanctuary is that there are select animals that you are allowed to touch. How cool is that?!?!

The Sanctuary keeps all the koalas in different social groups, and names them accordingly. This was naptime in Kindergarten (the young ones). Other groups included "The Boys" (bachelors), "Mums", and the "Retirement Home." The Sanctuary has some of the longest lived koalas on record, they are really well cared for. Travis and FFM hanging out in front of the kindergarten koalas (who were all napping, it was REALLY pretty warm on Monday).
We caught one of the shows, the Birds of Prey flight show. Afterwards the birds pose for photos. This is a Sea Eagle. It's gorgeous and not one we see in Colorado! Travis scooted a little bit to his left right before I took the photo. It made for a less balanced photo but a safer one, those grabby little baby hands were very interested in putting Sea Eagle wing feathers into his mouth (to check their consistency).Then on to pet some animals. The kangaroos run free in a big field, you are encouraged to roam around among them and pet them. Of course for a small fee you can buy a bag of kangaroo food at the gift shop but we found them all to be relaxed and friendly even without the temptation of food. And soft! I didn't expect that, I thought they'd be more like a rough dog or perhaps a horse's coat, but it's more like soft fuzz.
A wallaby hiding out in a tree trunk.
Nice and thoughtful feature, at every exit to anywhere you pet animals are big, well stocked handwashing stations.

Cuddling a koala! This is Fitzroy. He was smelly. Boy koalas have a scent gland on their chest and his was working. He weighed about what FFM weighs, perhaps a bit less, but was easier to hold as he was almost asleep and totally relaxed!
On the way home we remembered to take a picture of our car. Toyota Camry. Nice upgrade from the Ford Focus in Dublin. It's pretty snazzy (I'm serious, it really is, we like it a lot). And we're even OK with the crazy color, it cracks us up and Travis never loses it in a parking lot (it's WAY more vibrant in person and when it's clean, it's a little dusty in this photo). Travis has dubbed it Kermit the Car. Back at home, long day for all of us...

Happy Australia Day

It's Australia Day! January 26th is the day Australians celebrate being Australian (and some say the establishment of the first European settlement on the continent of Australia but that's a little controversial and not actually on the official website). We discovered the celebration aspect of it is most like our 4th of July. Festivities include lots of BBQ, beer, gatherings of friends, and culminate with fireworks. Music, especially live, also plays a large part. Monday is a holiday in Queensland (our state) so Travis gets a nice three day weekend for his birthday (which was Friday).

Today the young man of the house woke up from his nap all giggles. Every time he looked at me he howled with laughter. After I pulled the camera out he took it down a couple notches, but you still catch the drift.

And a still photo showing off the big grin.

View of the fireworks from our balcony. They were set off at South Bank park, literally in the river across the street from us."Sorting" the shapes from Aunt Suzie. Right now this pretty much means mixing them all up with both hands and then dumping them onto the floor :) Oh, this was so funny, this is the pool float that you may remember from Thanksgiving. It was sitting on the floor drying off and happened to be within arms reach. I was cooking dinner and it suddenly got suspiciously quiet. I turned around and this is what I saw:
then I scooted around to get a view from underneath. What a funny little guy, he was SO content!One of our expeditions this week was to the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens. Here's FFM in his stroller, complete with UV sun shade, in the mangrove trees. UV exposure is a big deal here, as the ozone layer is very thin over Australia. What this means is that there is less atmosphere to protect your skin and you will burn a lot more quickly. Being from Colorado we're used to this, we have the same effect being at high altitude. We just returned to our old habits of always, always putting on sunscreen, wearing hats and sunglasses, and FFM has a swim body suit that's sort of like a mini wet suit.

Home Sweet Home

Photos of where we live in a photo album here:

Brisbane Apartment

Finn enjoying his new digs:
Going for a walk in the park across the street. It's pretty tropical.


Showing off our Irish suntans.

Landed

We're here! Down under, that is. And I don't feel upside down...

FFM was an absolute perfect little guy on the trip down here. Other than a short meltdown while in line at security in Denver and another while in the LONG line at security at LAX he was just wonderful. We can't complain about him grumbling about waiting in line at security, we would cry and moan if we could, too.

Biggest news so far is that the weather has been truly Dublin-esqe. Pouring rain when we landed and gray sky ever since (we've been here appx 24 hours now). We're all a little groggy, but not as jet lagged as expected. Probably due to the fact that our gem of a child slept on the plane and therefore we all got to sleep on the plane, too.

More to come later, we were able to move directly into our apartment which was lovely, and so I have internet and the comforts of a temporary home immediately. New address will be on all out going email signatures starting today.

PSA

A quick public service announcement.

Tired of getting all those credit card offers in the mail? Opt out for five years or permanently by removing your name from their lists. You can do it by phone or online.

By phone:
1-888-567-8688

Online:
www.optoutprescreen.com

if you opt out permanently you will get a form mailed back to you that you will need to return.