Friday December 24th

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We were pleasantly surprised to have Lucas do his Olympics closer to 7 than 5 today which was an added bonus. After doing some computer work, I made my way upstairs for some breakfast and typing. The boys were up and at em and had a busy day yesterday filled with breakfast, swimming, shopping, swimming and visiting with Great Aunt Ronnie/Roger and playing cards.

Kids slept in til a whopping 7am and we let them play a little Wii to occupy their time as it was another heavily overcast and windy start to the day. Krista, Melissa and Toni went off and did some last minute shopping with Lucas while Darren and the other kids hung out in the pool for a couple hours. After some lunch, Darren took off with Nicholas Roger Ronnie and Toni to do some grocery shopping and pick up an adaptor for Nicholas’ Nintendo. They weren’t charging even though we were using an adaptor we had brought from Canada, but with the change from 110v to 240v, they were being fussy. We found the right attachments and Nicholas was ecstatic to say the least.  We stopped at the grocery store and got a few goodies and headed home to start cooking for Christmas day. Ronnie put a turkey and a ham in the oven as Toni was under the weather and needed some rest.

After 630, we headed about 20 blocks away to a house party at friends of Melissa and Devin’s parents place.  Upon arrival, we discovered a piano in their back room and I was so ecstatic to play some Christmas carols as they are few and far between here. The piano was unique; I had never seen one before, with giant pump pedals where the normal 3 pedals would be. It was a player piano – where a roll of sheet music with holes in it would be wound around and with the pedals moving, play a multitude of notes engulfing the whole house in song. Nicholas and Jacob were completely enamoured by the whole event and we played around 10 songs before they were bored which is near a world record I believe!

Once we took a break, we grabbed a few nibbles in the front drive and wandered around a bit. We were in a neighbourhood with a unique theme on Christmas Eve. All the houses for 10 blocks would put paper lunch bags partially filled with sand and a tea light around their property and light them once it was dark outside.

It made the neighbourhood look a runway at the airport, complete with the already bright and twinkling Christmas lights on people’s homes made for an amazing sight. People congregated on lawns and garage pads eating and visiting and occasionally going for a stroll to see what everyone else’s property looked like.  It was still +20 out at 830 pm and a wonderful experience walking with the boys around the neighbourhood wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.

We headed for home after 9 – got the kids showered and to bed as Santa would be arriving soon. After a flurry of wrapping last minute gifts and such, the parents dragged themselves into bed before midnight, eagerly anticipating sleep and preparation for the amazing day that would await them in the morn…….

Thursday December 23rd

The day started off as usual, at 515 a.m. with nephew Lucas doing his Olympic running trials above us. After checking emails and doing a bit of blogging, we were up by 730 and making plans for our day. We contemplated driving 2 hours to the Blue Mountains to do the gondola, train ride and cave spelunking but the boys weren’t up to another long car ride today.

We decided to go into Sydney and leave the boys with Granny and Melissa. We were on the train by 9 and in the city by 10. We stopped for ‘someone’ to get a latte first and then into the marketplace to pick up some last minute Christmas gifts and souvenirs for Canadians in Paddy’s market.  We spent an hour there and caught the train to Circular Quay. We toured the Customs House with its 3D models of the city under glass in the floor.  We went to the deli for a quick chicken Panini sandwich and then off to the train for a quick trip over to St. Mary’s cathedral for mass.  We toured the park in front and enjoyed the giant fountain as well as the buskers – particularly the giant bubble making fella.

 St. Mary’s cathedral was breathtaking. At almost 200 years old, it was absolutely majestic. We toured around a bit inside and weren’t allowed to take pictures obviously.  We were ‘moved’ by the Holy Spirit to actually attend confession – fearful of lightning bolts destroying such a beautiful church – alas, all was well and mass was over in 23 minutes – complete with communion.

We left the church and went back by train to the Quay and toured the Sydney Opera House.  An amazing facility with such unique architecture, the documents that show how it was designed/built was fantastic.   We bought a couple things at the shop and headed out to see the harbour.

We walked into the next community called The Rocks and found a local pub called Hart’s. They had a 2 for 1 deal on burgers and a couple of pints. We had a great visit with the cook and bartender and talked Canada/Aussie for a bit before striking out and walking 8 blocks over to the theatre district. We wanted to see the Broadway musical ‘Jersey Boys’ as it just started playing in Sydney. It had won quite a few awards and luckily enough there were tickets available in the 4^th row on the end for only $40 each! Sweet!

 After purchasing tickets, we wandered down Pitt St., the heart of the shopping district and enjoyed people watching. There were buskers every 50 feet for 10 blocks. Some absolutely amazing artists/singers as we headed to the Sydney Tower, towering far above the city and at least twice as high as the Calgary Tower. After viewing the city for half an hour, we did some more shopping and headed to the show. It was Fantastic! The story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons had tons of singing and a great storyline.  After leaving the show after 11, we had to wait 30 minutes for our train and another hour home. We crawled into bed at 1230 and called it a day…

Wednesday December 22nd

The day started much earlier than hoped as my eyes opened at 6am.  Not so good as I stayed up til after midnight watching a movie on the laptop. After checking email and reading a book, I was informed we were leaving the house by 830 sharp. It was an exciting trip to Reptile Park north of Sydney.  Being south of Sydney, we had about a 2 hour trip to get there with 8 of us, so we filled two cars and off we went. Traffic moved quite quickly as the morning rush had ended.  We went past the airport and under the tunnel while huge jumbo jets taxied right above us. We went through several long underground tunnels and over the huge Harbour Bridge in Sydney where there was a massive tour ship parked in the bay.  We spent another hour on a couple huge interstate highways before finally arriving at Reptile Land.  It was a bit overcast and the temperature was just right for a day of exploring.

We first watched the two Galapagos turtles that had been there since 1960 and 1980.  They were massive and very interesting.  We went over to ‘the pit’, the main area where shows took place every thirty minutes with the education coordinator humorously explaining the lifestyle of the snakes, lizards and alligators operated in the park.  After frightening many of the children, we got to touch a rather large python and have our photo taken with it.  We proceeded to tour around the park and look at all sorts of indigenous creatures including dingoes, wallabies, assorted snakes, ducks and spiders.  We next attended the alligator show where frozen chickens were fed to many hungry alligators in the pond. Lucas’ shoe fell over the edge and had to be retrieved by a staff member.

 We let the kids run around on the playground equipment and had some fries/pop before the next couple shows on the koala/wombat/snakes took place every 30 minutes at ‘the pit’.  We had an ice cream and headed out to find the kangaroo before our day was done. They had been hiding all day as it started to get warm, but finally found a few hiding and bribed them with some food we bought specifically for them at the gift shop.  Jacob was completely enthralled with the Kangaroo and fed/stroked him for 15 minutes.  The roo was quite enamoured with Jacob as when we left – it followed for a bit and then vigorously hopped after us for ten seconds! We bolted for the gift shop and proceeded to leave another $50 there for a couple more keepsakes the kids will use for a whopping ten minutes in the next year of their lives….

The trip back was much busier as we caught some rush hour traffic around Syndey. After 2 hours, we arrived home and lounged around before supper. Nicholas played some Wii golf while Sienna and Jacob hauled about $6 in from their lemonade stand out on the street. They were quite excited about their money making venture.  After we got kids showered, fed and to bed, we watched a bit of tv and surprisingly did a little research on the computer as to what our next adventure would be tomorrow.  We will see what the boys are interested in doing when they get up. We have to be ‘out of the house’ for the house cleaner who arrives at 830 am so that will be an adventure. 

Tuesday December 21st

The day began nicely again with not a cloud in the sky and very little wind. Up at 5 and read til 730 when the boys got up and ran rampant around the place. After some reading and breakfast, we packed up and headed for the Ocean. The wind had come up again to a mere 40km/hr and blew us around a bit, but we made do as we found a nice beach 10 minutes from home and set up on the sand with all four kids, Toni, Krista and myself.   We set up the little Cabana tent to provide some shade and wandered out into the bay for some cool water. It is only between 17-20 degrees, far from the balmy waters of Mexico two years ago.  The tide was going out, leaving shallower water that warmed a bit for the little kids to play in. We took some photos and the boys tried out their boogie boards again, but the waves were very calm despite the strong wind.  Nicholas and Jacob met and made friends with 5 Australian boys about their age and played a great game of soccer for almost an hour. Darren took a walk around the point and admired all the 1-5 million dollar properties along the shoreline. Interestingly enough, there were a couple bathing beauties every 200 metres that chose to suntan topless, which added to the scenic walk around the point as well.  Perhaps we may have to venture back to that beach more regularly… Ha!

We packed up and headed home around 3 and had a quick swim in the pool which surprisingly hadn’t warmed up a damn bit over the last three days.  After a few showers, we have all been playing some games and winding down a bit after a busy afternoon.  We had a nice supper watched a bit of telly and called it an evening. Busy day tomorrow if the weather cooperates….

Monday December 20th

After our excursion around Sydney all day yesterday, we needed a day of recuperation. Because it was cool, overcast and horribly windy, we stayed around all morning, read and played games. I decided to do my manly attempt at fixing up the homestead as there were a few things in need of repair.

I began with a thorough cleaning of one of the three cars. It got a complete wipedown and vacuum as well as tires cleaned. I then tackled the garage and reorganized much of the junk piled on the sides as well as swept and vacuumed the whole thing. I got one of the garage doors working and one of the fluorescent light fixtures working again as well. 

After a quick shower, we packed up the kids and headed over to the Cronulla market. There were many shops side by side and we did a bit of shopping. There are certainly no deals at Christmas and the economy continues to be bustling, despite the 20-50% increase in costs relative to Canada. We found a little playground for the children to run around on while Toni and Krista had a coffee. We ordered a bit of breakfast to share amongst ourselves and then I did a little walkabout through a few shops. The bank was going to give me a horrible exchange on my US travellers cheques – so we remain with the theory of just pulling $500 AUS out of a bank machine when needed as it only costs $515CDN with all the fees and exchange rate. The post office was lined up 20 people long in the queue mailing packages all around the country. I popped in to a grocery store to check out some prices and nothing really caught my eye.

I stopped at a specialty bread store and bought some scones and some cheese buns as they looked and tasted fantastic! As the wind refused to die down, we headed home for Lucas’ afternoon nap and a bit of quiet time. I took Jacob, Nicholas and Sienna as well as Penny ( the dog ) for a 5 block walk to a park and played soccer for a while. We had a good bit of exercise and came home again.  We bummed around for a bit before readying ourselves to go out for supper. We hired a babysitter from 630-1030 so we could go Oceanside for some fish and adult company. Prices as imagined were $30-$60 and after appetizers and babysitting fees were accounted for, there was $200AUD less in the wallet! Ouch!

Alas – not something one does often, but in hindsight, should have bought $2000AUD two months ago at 85cents compared to the 1.03 it is now.  We stopped at the local casino in the Legion building, not a soul except 5 people on the slots and 30 playing bingo which wrapped up as we entered. We all lost a few dollars and proceeded home and called it a night as Devin and Melissa had to work early in the morning and we had a handful of kids and the dog to entertain for yet another day.

Sunday December 19th

Of all the days the kids decide to sleep in, they pick Sunday, the day we need to get to church and off and running to get to downtown Sydney. Church got bumped from 8am to 930 am and was promptly over by 1015.

 After returning to the house to get Darren's wallet, camera lens and a few other things we were on our way. It was a beautiful sunny day and a great start to our day of exploring! We parked our car at the train station and purchased an all-day pass for 5 of us for a whopping$12.50 ( Sunday family pricing - normally $110!! Yahoo!! After riding the train for 45 minutes, we arrived in downtown Sydney. The skyscrapers in the downtown core stretched high into the blue summer sky and truly felt like a summer day. We hiked around the downtown seeing a few sights.

 We proceeded to the Paddington Farmers Market, a year round building filled with 500 vendors selling every known tourist trinket known to mankind. After stocking up on t-shirts, a few toys, some last minute gifts and clothes. we vacated the building with 4 bags of stuff in tow. We decided that our feet were too tired to walk the 30 blocks to the aquarium so bought a day pass on the monorail. We were there in no time flat.

Toni decided not to waste $40 on the experience as she had been to the aquarium before.  We jammed some hotdogs into the children and toured around the place. As expected, there were hundreds of varieties of fish and sea creatures, but the highlight was clearly the underwater tunnels beneath two different pools in which fish would swim right up to the glass and were extremely close! The first tank was simply fish and turtles, but the second had 10 sharks, 2 of which were well over 12 ft in length.  There was a 15 foot stingray that coasted around while walking through as well.  The boys were fascinated by the huge water creatures. It was a bit pricy, but appropriate for an aquarium of this magnitude.  The animals were fascinating and like nothing we had ever seen before.

After departing the aquarium, we waited for Toni to arrive before striking out for the ferry. We travelled across the bay towards the Sydney tower bridge and the opera house. The ominous clouds appeared and was totally socked in and pouring. Our views of the bridgeand Opera House were tainted by weather, but still, amazing world landmarks to have been seen.  We arrived at Circle Quay and tried to decide what to eat. Being a huge tourist area, restaurants were top notch with prices ranging from $20-$50. The kids wanted McDonalds and Toni/Krista wanted a glass of wine - so we compromised. I took the boys to McDonalds and they went for pasta and wine.  We met up an hour later and by then the rain had magically subsided. The clouds parted and we had a nice sunset to complete our downtown Sydney experience.

We caught a train and headed for home arriving back at around 9pm. It was a full day of walking and the boys were quickly asleep as were there parents shortly after 10.  Great day - tomorrow will be a mellow one around the pool and stay put at Melissa’s as Devin and Melissa have to return to work and we are back to full time parenting all four kids!

Saturday December 18th

The day miraculously started off at 7am as we slept in a bit as did the children. After a bit of emailing, I was able to Skype mom in Martensville and have a good ten minute chat with her.  It’s great to stay connected with the other side of the world!

We had a bit of breakfast and packed up for our adventure on the pontoon boat. Devin and Melissa's friends Jamie and Gita invited us to go for a tour around the many harbours in the Sydney area. We arrived to the cliffs above the bay and hiked down with 7 adults and 7 kids in tow. It was quite overcast and breezy but just right considering we had so much sun the day before at the beach.  As we cruised around the many bays looking at the houses on the cliffs, it was clear that anyone on the water was quite well off.  Jamie said the houses were all between 1.5 and 5 million. Yoikes.  They are jammed right beside one another with very little privacy, but because of the year round temperate climate, everything grows like crazy and is green all year round.

There were many people out and about in boats of all shapes and sizes. Many people were out racing their yachts and on all sorts of water toys. Most of the massive boats 20 feet and longer were in the docked marinas set up every 300m to the cost of $2500 AUS / month. People with smaller boats just moored them to a buoy on the floor of the bay and paddled out on a dinghy or swim out if it isnt too far.

After touring around for several hours, we parked in one marina and watched Tim dive off the roof of the pontoon boat showing off his moves - most of which got the entire boat wet! Nicholas found the courage to give it a go as well and jumped into the ocean a few times. The water is 20 degrees - much better than the 16 degrees it was a couple weeks ago - but much cooler than the pool outside of our house that the children spend hours and hours in. 

Just as we came in mid-afternoon and got everything packed into the vehicles, we got a quick shower for 15 minutes and then it cleared off yet again.  We arrived home and entertained the kids with card games and such for an hour to give the ladies a break. Devin and Darren managed to get away for 3 hours to play some golf. The course was gorgeous and only $15 for all the golf you can play after 330 pm. There wasn’t a soul on the course so we got 14 holes in and headed home for supper. It was steak night and we didn’t want to over extend our good fortune of getting a few hours to ourselves on a weekend.  

After a great meal of steak, potatoes and veggies, we got all the youngsters to bed and dove in for a couple hours of Texas Hold em.

poker. Krista made her usual early departure followed by Tim and Toni and Devin, Melissa and Darren battled it out for the $60 purse. After an hour, Darren had a substantial lead and Mel was down to $5 and in an effort of good faith to the hosts, i chose to take $25 out of the pot and they could split the rest. No need to be greedy - hopefully the bill at the end of the stay will be reduced after showing such EXTREME GENEROSITY in not kicking both their asses for the sake of filling the wallet! HA! Off to bed at 11 as the kids will make their usual 6 am appearance followed by Olympic running and stomping events in the room above ours.....

Friday December 17th

Our day began at 6am as it does every day, with the arrival of a small child at our bedside. "Dad....." with a whisper... followed by "Dad..." a little louder... followed by "DAD!"

 “WHAT JACOB!??"....

"Look what I got from the tooth fairy!"

In his little hand, a $1 coin and a smile with an extra hole in it....Pretty great way to start the day despite never quite getting enough sleep...

Jacob lost his first tooth ever two years ago in the Cook Islands and was lucky enough to get a $5 note but the tooth fairy has been less generous since then. He had been dying to pull that tooth out for a week but was set on waiting til he got to Australia so he could have Australian money. As a 7 year old, he is quite enthralled with money and loves spending in much more than saving it - hence the purchase of a stuffed monkey at the Calgary Airport with his own money - so he could have a travelling buddy... How is a Dad to say no?

Like our trip to the Cook Islands at Christmas two years ago, we are up at dawn with the sounds of children running all over the house ( much better than the incessant crowing of the roosters at 430 am in the Cooks!) It was cloudy, breezy and cool ( if you can call 25 degrees cool ) After the normal routine of breakfast, showers and checking email and Facebook, it quickly turned into 8am. You can get a lot done in a day when it starts at 6am...

We decided to head to the mall and do some Christmas shopping while we wait for the sun to make an appearance. Krista's sister Melissa took Jacob, Sienna and Lucas to Sienna's swimming lesson while Darren, Krista, her mum Toni and Nicholas headed to 'the shops'.  Traffic again was an adventure with everyone on the wrong side of the road (the left ) driving quickly in the city. We took a while to find a spot and headed into the madness - a mall at Christmas time....

It wasn’t as bad as we had imagined it might be. There was a definite buzz in the air as people were spending money furiously. We found prices of most things about 10-40% higher than in Canada for sporting goods/clothing. Food was a bit higher for some, but meat was surprisingly

equal. The Australian dollar was only worth 80 cents CDN a mere 6 months ago, but with the mining and resource industry driving up the dollar with new discoveries in Perth and Western Australia, the dollar has now risen to $1.03. Guess we should have purchased some money 6 months ago rather than waiting.

Krista purchased herself some netball shoes - a very popular sport in Aus./NZ as she plays weekly in Calgary.  They have 'gel support and higher impact technology' than the shoes we have in Canada.... ok.... $200 AUS later...

Nicholas and I set off to see what we could find in the 'boy dept.'. Lots of neat sports things including amazing Soccer jerseys from teams around the world, but all at ridiculous prices.  We found a bookstore for Nicholas and purchased him a 'crime scene' book as he is our avid reader and it’s hard to say no to buying a child a book when they desperately want it... Nicholas found a loud speaker that converted your voice to squeals and Darth Vader and after wearing out the batteries in the store whilst begging his father to purchase it, it was doomed to end up at the bottom of the pool - thrown there by his father... so it remained in the store...

We grabbed a quick bite at Subway (refused to get Nicholas something from McDonalds... It’s our first day, we can’t resort to eating fast food already...) Was quite pleased to find internet access outside of the McDonalds store though - great marketing gimmick for we tourists who are email and Facebook junkies... so Darren didn’t go into withdrawal from the social networking world.

We ended up in the grocery store and purchased some food and liquor for the week leading up to Christmas.  We set out for home and unloaded our wares into the house. We regrouped, had a bite to eat and decided we needed to see some of the city. We packed for the beach and headed for the ocean.  The sun had yet to appear, but we couldn’t wait any longer.

We headed east to an area of Sydney called Cronulla. It has a beach on the bay of the ocean with great sand and not too populated considering school had just let out on Wednesday two days before. We camped on the sand near the water and watched all the people body surfing and using their boogie boards.  Nicholas and Jacob got one each as a present upon arrival and were quick to strike out into the water, only to discover the ocean water was not quite so warm as the pool back at the house! After some acclimatizing, Nicholas was quickly mastering the art of riding the waves, as he did in Mexico two years ago, with some guidance from his Grannie who is greatly enjoying her grandchildren this Christmas holiday. Jacob was content to go back to the sand and dig tunnels with his cousin and truly best friend Sienna who get along like peas and carrots (Forrest Gump and Jennie...) 

We played some football while Krista mastered her new camera and after an hour the sun came out in blazing force. The temperature quickly reached the mid 30's and the reflection off Darren and the other Canadians was near blinding. It's good to get that 'starter burn' over with… Jacob had tremendous memories of hunting for crabs on the rocks and beaches of the Cook Islands so we set off for the cliffs/rocks to the south to seek out some treasures.  We found snails by the millions, and after some serious hunting, a few crabs.  We were unable to catch any as we didn’t bring anything to pick them up with, and they were quick as the dickens in scampering under the rocks.

We brought a pail with us, Jacob collected more than 50 snails and tons of sea shells for our journey back to the house at 5. We all jumped in the pool to cool off.  After a while, we readied all the children for a trip over to Uncle Tim's! Tim was taking the kids for pizza and video games for a few hours while Melissa Devin Krista and Darren went to a house party across the bay. The house got uniquely quiet for a bit as we headed out after 6!

We arrived at Paul and Karen's house, built into the rock of the cliffs, right on the water of the bay. A beautiful 5 level split house with three balconies and over 5000 sq. ft. ( approx. $4 million ) We sat out on the top balcony eating and visiting with friends of Melissa's while watching the sunset in the west. It was very beautiful home! After devouring scads of oysters, shrimp, prawns, bbq lamb and many other appetizers, Krista and I struck out for home around 1030pmwith Krista in the driver seat. It was only a 40 block drive, but in the dark, proved to be challenging enough as she still mistook the windshield wipers for the signal light. (As we did in the Cooks) We arrived home safely to a house full of snoring children and a Granny that was equally as wiped... We readied ourselves for bed, and the early arrival of the children as would surely come long before we wanted them to....Great second day in Sydney!!

Our Aussie Family Adventure

Well, after saving 80000 airmiles over a span of 20 years, we decided to use a chunk of them to go off to Australia and New Zealand to visit our family and friends down under! We left on Dec 14th and are having an amazing time! Please follow along and keep up with our adventures!!