Isaac had a birthday, shout hooray!

Isaac is 7! Here he is scarfing some homemade Hawaiian pizza (pineapple is never my first choice of pizza toppings, but for his birthday I made an exception).

Isaac wanted a goldfish for his birthday. We went to the pet store early in the week to get the tank set up so he could pick out a fish on his big day (which we found out would be the pet store man's birthday too!). When we got the little tank set up at home, it looked so pretty with the gravel and lights that the kids loved watching it, even without the fish! Finally on Friday we went back to the pet store, with a cupcake and a birthday song for the man. He was so pleased he let us take the fish for free, as a present for Isaac. How sweet!
Isaac got two beautiful goldfish and an algae eater. (Unfortunately the algae eater died two days later, because there was no algae for him to eat! We learned our mistake and will get another down the road after the tank dirties up a bit.) Meet Bubbles Squirt and Scarface Speckle

Isaac loves his fish! So does everyone else!

We have it on a little table until we can find something better for it, which is the perfect height for Bridget to point at.



Oh and here's the cake of Isaac's own design. "Chocolate cake with green mint frosting and a yellow lightning bolt!" By the way, I discovered instead of powdered sugar I bought "icing mixture" which has cornstarch in it. It turned my usually dreamy buttercream into a sort of fondant buttercream hybrid. It wouldn't spread worth a darn, I had to literally mold it onto the cake. Like play dough. But it still tasted good! 

Happy birthday, Isaac! We love you, crazy kid!

Lady Elliot Island: Part 2

As much fun as the lagoon was, Mike and I were eager to snorkel in some deeper water in hopes of finding turtles or manta rays. We were able to get Lydia and Isaac into the kid's club, where they learned about whales, walked around the entire island (we did it the day before and it took us an hour) and played ping pong.

And the younger two were watched by a sitter for 2 hours.  They colored and played on this playground.

It was the most expensive two hour date we've ever had, but also the most amazing!!! Here are a few things we saw. Aside from hundreds of brightly colored fish, here were my favorites. Two yellow trumpetfish, about 3 feet long.

A leopard shark! It was just hanging out on the bottom and was so pretty!

This Maori wrasse was huge!

The tasseled wobbegong shark was a rare find and looked so cool as it shimmied along the bottom.

Groupers are enormous!

We saw turtles! They looked so... cuddly in an odd turtle sort of way. I guess in comparison to everything else in the ocean they could be cuddly. (Sorry, no pictures) And then there were manta rays! (Photo courtesy of our snorkel instructor.) My dream was fulfilled!  We saw 3 manta rays! I was so in heaven! The best moment was when one swam towards us and I got to see his face (if you can really call it a face) before he swam away again. Magical!  These creatures are absolutely magnificent! They were a good 12 feet across! Huge! I was so happy!

The last day we took the family on the glass bottom boat. The kids had so much fun! We saw turtles and a giant parrot fish and tons of other fish. They let us do some snorkeling off the boat, but Lydia was the only one of the kids who wanted to. Here's Mike helping her get on her fins.

Off they go!


I was happy to stay with the other kids and look at the fish through the bottom of the boat.

The snorkelers had quite the visitor! A dolphin! Here are a few pictures the instructor took.

The dolphin came to say hi to us on the boat too! (Of course, I could never capture him until he was already going back in the water.) He gave us quite a good show. Isaac counted 17 surfacings.



What's that fish? Oh, it's Daddy!

Here's one happy, albeit freezing, snorkeler Lydia! Who got to swim with a dolphin no less! What an experience for her!

The captain let Isaac drive the boat back to shore.

One last foray into the water at mid tide with periscopes before getting our traveling clothes on.

Unfortunately, our adventure in paradise had to come to an end, but we received a lovely parting gift. The most stunning rainbow against a dark grey sky! This picture really doesn't do it any justice. Just moments after that the rain came down in torrents.

There is a bucket of umbrellas in the main hall for such moments. Clever!

Luckily, the rain stopped just before our flight in the tiny plane. Goodbye Lady Elliot Island! Thank you for the trip of a lifetime!

Lady Elliot Island: Part 1

Bucket list for Australia: The Great Barrier Reef. Check!

We got to spend three days on Lady Elliot Island, a tiny island on the southern tip of the GB Reef, a half hour's flight off the coast. We flew on the tiniest plane I'd ever been on! A 12 seater. 

Evelyn liked that the seats were soooo soft!  During the flight we hit an air pocket and Evelyn giggled, much to the delight of the old ladies on the plane.

Here it is! Lady Elliot Island! You can see the reef see the light blue all around the island.

Here we are, excited for our adventure! Check out the picture of the manta ray behind us. That's about life size. I was realllllly hoping to see one on this trip. By far one of my favorite sea creatures! (Evelyn has adopted that as her picture taking pose.)


First stop was to the pool for some snorkeling instruction. The kids took to it like fish to water! Even Evelyn!

But the water was a little chilly.

Nice hair, Isaac. (In fact, we all had crazy hair for three days. Something about sunscreen and salt water. And boy did we lather up! No sunburns here!)

By the way, I will apologize in advance for the lack of good pictures. We were too busy having an amazing time! So unfortunately there's no pictures of us actually snorkeling in the lagoon. But here we are taking a break. Note aforementioned crazy hair.

It was a very coarse beach of broken coral pieces. No sand castles here and reef shoes were a must. But you could see tons of fish and coral right there off the shore! Mike and I traded off holding Bridget while the other did a bit of snorkeling. Lydia enjoyed swimming out with mom or dad while Isaac and Evelyn were happy to stand in the shallows with their snorkeled faces in the water. We saw tons of little fish, but my favorite had to be the Picasso triggerfish. (Photo taken of the wall of the education center. There will be many of these borrowed pictures as I don't have an underwater camera.)

But the lagoon was even great fun at low tide. Here we are reef walking. Notice Mike's patriotic swim trunks!

The rippley lips of a clam cemented into the reef. These colorful guys ranged from three inches to a foot across.  And there were tons of harmless sea cucumbers, like fat black worms (lower left of the picture).

A blue sea star.



Lydia loved the brain coral.

My favorite was the branch coral.

We took a walk the first evening around the whole island.  It took only an hour.  

Isaac spotted an epaulette shark! The one we saw was about 1.5 feet long and hard to see (hence wall photo). Good eye, son!

The coooooolest thing we saw in the shallows was this massive sting ray! It was about 4 feet across and was just hanging out, trying to cover itself with sand. It eventually gave up and swam out to deeper water. Amazing!

At 3:00 every afternoon was a fish feeding by the staff. A tradition they've continued from the lighthouse owners back in the 1900's. The kids laughed to feel the fish crowd around their feet.  Nothing too exotic, meaning no brightly colored fish, but it was still fun.

Here we are having JUST missed the sunset. Oh well. It was still absolutely beautiful!
My good looking husband! Anywhere with him IS paradise, but this takes the cake.

After our evening walks we'd get dinner.  This is where we ate dinner and breakfast.  Both offered a delicious buffet.

And this was our lunch spot.  Lunch was less impressive, but you couldn't beat the view!

We had a 2 bedroom suite.

 Isaac slept on the couch in the living room, Lydia and Evelyn in one bedroom, while Bridget slept in a portacrib wedged next to our bed.  It was small, but wonderful how well they accommodated our "large" family.  Here are some views from the front porch.

 Dreamy!

Our reef shoes.