We're moving again! But this move is a little further than the rest. We're heading down to Brisbane, Australia! Last week Mike's mother (bless her!) came to watch the kids while Mike and I looked for a house and checked out schools. After a frustrating week (Australian realtors are much more... laid back than I wanted them to be) we finally found a wonderful house! Hooray! It's hard to see, but here it is! I've always wanted a yellow house (the white part is the house next door - Australian lots are tiny). Luckily there's a great park just down a few blocks. AND the best part is it's a block and half from Lydia's school. Good thing because there are no school buses in Australia and I didn't want to have to brave the left handed traffic everyday. I'll talk more about the house when we actually get there. I want to tell you about our trip!

This was my first international flight (the one to Japan when I was 6 months old doesn't really count, parents). And we got to fly business class, thank you Conoco Phillips! Nice! The man on the other side of me was as excited as I was so I didn't feel so dumb. "Look we get a pen! And a foot rest! And free pajamas? Yes!" It was pretty awesome! And the flight wasn't so bad. I'm just hoping the kids will sleep when we take this same trip with them in Feb! Gah!

My favorite evening in Brisbane was when Mike and I walked and walked around Brisbane. What a beautiful city! We walked on a pedestrian bridge across the river and got to ride on a giant ferris wheel! Then we walked in some beautiful gardens. They have plumeria bushes (they call them something else) and we even get one in our yard!

Look at that tree! There are several of these down town.

When we walked back to downtown on yet another pedestrian bridge we walked through a mangrove forest and you could smell the eucalyptis trees (or gum trees, as they call them). And look what we saw across the river. Isn't that a gorgeous sight? We were able to go to the temple Wed night. So nice after a very (very) stressful and discouraging day.

Now let's talk animals! No we didn't see any kangaroos (Isaac asked me that everyday when we called home). Every house we looked at had a gorgeous network of spider webs in the bushes with altleast 2 BIG spiders living there. I love it! I am an entomologist at heart. Now the Australians are okay with such things as creepy crawlies. I was so impressed when our realtor stopped walking and calmly pulled a rhinocerous beetle off her ankle. I wish I'd taken a picture of that one! And we saw bats! And not just your teeny little hold in your hand size bats. These puppies looked like huge hawks soaring around, which is what I thought they were at first. Sigh, they were magnificent.

The birds were pretty cool too. We were driving around and saw these wild cockatoos hanging out on a corner. Like the ones you buy in pets stores!

Then we were eating in an open air restaurant and this huge bird ambles in through all the tables looking for scraps. Funny!

Now, let's talk food! Most of the restaurants we went to had no walls! Essentially eating oustide, all the time! Lovely! Every morning I had fresh fruit and really good greek yogurt. But I got the strangest looks each time I asked for a glass of milk. Even on the Qantas flights. One of the flight attendants thought I was kidding. Weird. But Ozzies love their tomatoes! They have grilled whole tomatoes any time of the day.

We went to a hamburger place and they serve sliced beets ("beet root"), shredded carrots, and fried eggs on their burgers.

Our realtor intoduced us to pies. They're like those little pot pies I ate as a kid, only way better! When we sat down I asked where the forks were, and she said "I'll show you how to eat them." With your hands!

The next day when Mike demanded we have pie again for lunch I tried a sausage roll, which is ground sausage rolled in pastry dough. Truly amazing stuff!

We are excited to begin our adventure in Brisbane, whenever that may be. It was supposed to be the beginning of Feb, but that's not happening. Hopefully it will be soon. I just know they can't tell us "just kiding" because Conoco Phillips just spent a LOT of money on this trip! And they're renting that cute yellow house for us. Patience.