The Big Leap

We were so blessed to be fed by people we love our whole last week in Gladstone. We have such wonderful friends! Our last night in Gladstone we were given an island feast by the Manukau's, Malo's and Paulo's.  I love this picture of Bridget devouring her chop suey.

They treated us to a Hakka to end our wonderful evening.  I love my island brothers and sistahs.

The next morning several families from the branch saw us off at the airport.  The picture didn't turn out, but just seeing our farewell party through the windows made my heart sing.  As I sat on the plane waiting for take-off, the reality of our departure set in.  Of course, the song playing over the plane sound system was something about "this is goodbye" and I cried heartily.

We were lucky to have a couple days in Brisbane before taking the big leap across the ocean.  We had time to say goodbye to some of our favorite things like Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.

Waiting for the bird show.  Evelyn got chosen to wear the glove and have a barn owl land on her arm.

We saw friends who had become family to us.  Our "neighbours" Brad and Hyacinth and Celese.

The Boazas.

The Muntz's (that I can't BELIEVE I didn't get a picture of!)  Same story with the Hutchins, good grief.  And finished off our visits with Milany's gelato with the Raffels.

This is us at the Brisbane airport ready for the big departure.  It was pretty unreal.  

Lucky lucky us got to fly business class, thanks to ConocoPhillips.  We told the kids to enjoy it, because they'd probably never get to fly business class again!

We had a lay over in Taipei, Taiwan.

It was a cool airport and everyone was really nice.  They had a huge Hello Kitty store next to an entire gate that was Hello Kitty themed with a playground!

And our second plane's business class was super posh!  Isaac thought it was so cool that the stewardesses called him Master Johnson.

We totally loved our flat beds!!

Everyone travelled so well!  I wish I could say the transition back on the ground was as good, but we had a really rough first night in the hotel in Houston.  What a whirlwind journey and the end of a chapter.  We love and miss you, Australia!  I tell myself in 15 years we'll go back with Bridget and Alice to show them where they were born.  Either that or Mike and I will go on a mission there when we're older.  So not really a goodbye, just a "see you later."

Birthdays

Before we left Gladstone Evelyn and Lydia both had birthdays.  In the hotel.   Since our house was being packed up.  Evelyn turned 7!  This is her weird face that she likes to make for photos which drives her mother crazy.

 We were so blessed with people who fed us our entire last week in Gladstone!  We have such wonderful friends!  Seriously.  After dinner with the Amai's we broke into Evelyn's birthday marble cheesecake that she picked out all by herself from the Cheesecake Shoppe.  She felt so grown up.

Lydia turned 12 and got some money and a letter from her parents telling her what gift we owed her, because her parents were lame and didn't prepare well enough for her birthday to get her a real gift.  

She had a great day nonetheless.  She had her first day in Young Women's (I really missed her in Primary) and we got to go to the Gibson's for dinner for the most incredible meal!  Crab!  Adam teaching us how to clean them. 

It was like truly amazing.

It's hard to see, but Lydia is holding up a leg and a claw to be "12."

And Kris made Lydia the most gorgeous pavlova!

We have such great friends!

An exciting part of Lydia's birthday happened later that week just before we left Australia.  She got to attend the Brisbane temple for baptisms!  How lucky that her first temple got to be Brisbane!  And getting to share that with her was a beautiful parting gift.  

A World Away

Wow, I have HEAPS of catching up to do.  We've left our beloved Australia and have been in the U.S. for two months now.  Before leaving Australia we had a YSA in the branch take our pictures at the beach. Here are a few of my favorites.  I will always treasure these photos!

This one had great potential...

Not quite as magical, but I took some individual shots of the kids in our backyard around the same time.  I loved our Gladstone yard!  And I have some pretty cute kids.