ava's birthday celebration

Wow! Where have we been for the past month?! (Oh, that's right...we've been to New Zealand, Brisbane & Paupa New Guinea. Sheesh! I'm tired.)

Anyhow, for Ava's 1st birthday on September 30th, we decided to do just a family celebration. We went to Build A Bear - which was a lot of fun! I'm so glad Bruce and I thought of that because it was a perfect activity for our little family. Also, because we went on a Thursday night, we were the only people in the entire store! Fun! After that, we went home and had cupcakes and presents. It really was a perfect birthday for our sweet baby Ava.

Taking our stuffed friends home! (This pic should be last, but oh well..)

Oh, so many choices of clothes, undies & shoes for our furry friends....

Haylee and Gracie loved giving their kitty & bear a bath.

Stitching up their animals. Serious stuff to a toddler :)

The finished product of Ava's birthday duck! So cute!

Ava was in a binky-sucking mood...she's funny about that thing.

Haylee is digging for gold while Grace dances and sings. Typical.

Ava loved us singing "Happy Birthday" to her!

Reaching for her presents...she's a clever one!

Yummy!!

Happy, happy birthday to my sweet, sweet gorgeous baby girl!

Sea World

We have been saying for years that we would take our girls to Sea World. This past weekend we got the chance. I had a conference (for work) to attend. Mandy was also invited by my work. We decided to take the girls and spend the weekend in Brisbane. The weather was great. Sea World was a blast. Grace and Haylee loved the dolphins, sharks, sting rays and sea lions. Grace did not like the loud music during the shows. Poor girl covered her ears the entire time.

Just about everything seemed to go our way. The weather cleared up just for us. In the airport, we were let to the front of most lines because we were traveling with children. The car rental place upgraded our full size to a luxury sport car for free. It made me really want to keep the Audi A4, much nicer than our Holden. Our hotel gave us a 2 bedroom suite.

The conference was very nice and well put on by SPE. Most days I was able to get home earlier than usual and play with the girls at the swim park. It was right in front of our hotel and girls loved it. One of the nights, we were able to get a sitter and go on a dinner date.

New Zealand

We're back! And I'll be honest...I'm a little depressed. New Zealand was incredible! By far my most favorite place I've been so far...beats out Fiji and The Great Barrier Reef, in my opinion. (but don't get me wrong....i loved those places!!!) It really was that beautiful and amazing!!!! Here are only a tiny handful of pictures - I'll post more, but here's a start....Enjoy! Oh, and we did take a Lord of the Rings horse treck which was fantastic! Those pictures are on the other camera, so I'll get to those in a couple days.

At Milford Sound. This was cut out by glaciers - glaciers that are still in the fiords. You can see them above Bruce's head. Incredible.

On the pier in Queenstown.

We took a flight over the glaciers, waterfalls, fiords, etc., along with two other couples. This was the plane we went on and our pilot. I sat co-pilot. I can't tell you how incredible and awesome of an experience this was. However, very scary, too. The little plane just got tossed around above those mountains. At one point, the plane dropped straight down out of the sky about 75 feet (at least). Yeah. Scary. Bruce puked. He really did. And one of the other guys almost did.

How amazing is this??!?!? Ah, just awesome! To give you an idea of the grandure, you would have to stack 27 Niagra Falls on top of one another to get to the height of this waterfall.

On our boat ride through Milford Sound we saw native fairy penguins. They are about 10 inches tall. Do you see them? on the right, standing on the wet rock just out of the water. There's two.

The waterfalls were incredible. We couldn't believe the force of the water.

We saw wild dolphins! It was so exciting!

They came up SO close to us. Do you see the baby?! So much fun!

More dolphins...or a shark. Exciting either way :)

This waterfall is double the height of Niagra Falls! Just amazing to see such massive and beautiful parts of the Earth.

Native seals! So fun to watch them sunbathing. This little guy cracked us up!... upside down and was so close to rolling off the edge! He was snoozin' for sure!

Mose sleepy seals

We rode the gondola WAY up the mountain (Queenstown down below) and then did the louge down. It was a blast!

And now, for my favorite picture of the entire trip.....I honestly laugh out loud every time I look at this!!! I'll let you make out what's going on......

More to come!!!

bye, bye Australia.....

....hello, New Zealand!!!
Bruce and I are off to Queenstown! I'm soooooo excited!!!!!
Passports...check.
Camera...check.
Sunglasses...check.
NO KIDS...check. WooHoo!!!!!!

See ya next week! :)