Brisbane Anniversary

We've been in Brisbane, Australia for a whole year now and we still love it! As a fun anniversary outing we headed down to South Bank to take the kids on the Wheel of Brisbane, the big Ferris wheel in the city. Mike and I had ridden it on our house hunting trip, and the kids are always asking when they'll get to go.
We parked over by Mike's work and walked over a pedestrian bridge to get there. Here are the kids in front of the bridge. Look at that brown water! I think Lydia's being a robot.


Well, long story short, it was much further than we'd anticipated and a much warmer day than we expected. We never got to the Wheel, but we did discover some amazing things on the way instead!
We stopped in the GOMA, the Gallery of Modern Art. It was air conditioned and free! This is a giant cave of yellow painted cardboard and duct tape. What else do you do with old cardboard?


And a giant woven tapestry from... somewhere. Sorry.


We didn't stay long, but we did discover on our way out that there are indeed child friendly exhibits, which we'll come back for another time. We were still thinking we'd make it to the Wheel that day. INSTEAD we found the Queensland State Library right next to the GOMA! It was totally awesome!
Check out this cool plastic picnic spot!


We discovered an amazing children's discovery area in the library that had a maze and a little castle full of pillows


In which Evelyn was happy to bring Mike book after book.


And a flying carpet!


And a craft counter where Evelyn contentedly glued squares of tissue paper





and Isaac even drew something! Trying to get that kid to draw anything is like pulling teeth sometimes. And yet, he is my child.


I didn't take pictures of the giant magnetic word wall or the giant scrabble game. I am ashamed.
We had a little snack break on a balcony outside under a huge tree. It was sooo gorgeous!


Lunchtime was upon us and we had purposefully come without our usual stash of PB and honey sandwiches and the like. We wanted to do something fun and different for lunch. Luckily, the library had a cafe. A few sandwiches maybe? Typical cafe food, right? Or how about a lamb shank? (Which I realize now that you can't see because it's hidden beneath the green beans and mashed potatoes.)


And a pumpkin chickpea salad?


Wowsa! And it was good! We got some simple ham and cheese sandwiches for the kids, but they also enjoyed the lamb and the chickpeas.





Refueled and rested we were ready for the journey back. Here we are on the bridge. Look at that sky!



Nearing the end of our long walk, we were lucky to pass a gas station where we stopped for Popsicles, or "ice blocks." Mine was a lemonade Ice Pop that brought me back to the frozen lemonade of King's Island. Ahh, good times!



We are definitely having a good time in Australia! And we enjoyed our fun, yet unexpected, adventure that day. It was fun to discover new parts of Brisbane. We look forward to discovering more!

Birthday!

I turned 31 the day after the kids started school! What a busy week! It was also the hottest birthday I'd ever had! It was a steamy 87 degrees. So I was thrilled when some girlfriends wanted to take Evelyn and me out for ice cream!

Here is a cute story. After school the kids and I were eating frozen fruit cups out in the driveway when a flower van pulled up. As I walked up the driveway to meet the flower man he called, pointing to Evelyn, "Send me the little girl! I want the little one!" Evelyn happily ran up to him to see the flowers and he was ecstatic to get some little girl time. He then helped her bring me the flowers. It was very sweet. It's true, Evelyn is pretty irresistible.


Another funny moment with the flowers... After we discovered they were from Grandma and Grandpa (who live in Mexico), Lydia looked at the flowers in amazement and said "and they survived?" Ha!

I sure do love my children! They are so funny!


My cake this year was a Black Forest cake. Unfortunately, the cream in my hot kitchen never set up properly and I ended up over whipping it! Bah! Oh well, it still got eaten. Slather enough ice cream on it and you can't go wrong.

I had a wonderful birthday! I am so blessed! I have a wonderfully handsome husband (who is wonderful AND handsome) and 3 fabulous children and I get to live in this hot adventure that is Australia! I am lucky indeed!