Australia! Welcome to the Land Down Under.....

We flew into Australia on my birthday, July 11th. This picture above shows me celebrating my 37th birthday on the floor of the overcrowded Nadi, Fiji airport waiting on a delayed flight. Good times!



Once we got to Australia, our first order of business was to find the kids a school. We didn't know which part of the city we would be living in, so we tried to look at schools all over the city of Canberra. Brandon chose the Canberra Boys Grammar School, which requires a fancy-pants uniform to be worn daily. See below.

The twins and Savannah chose Emmaus Christian School. It is much smaller than Brandon's school and requires a more casual uniform.

We have loved the topography and scenic countryside here in Australia. Not too far from our house is a huge National Park called the Tidbinbilla Nature Preserve. The mountains are beautiful and the fields are full of animals like kangaroos, koalas, emus, platypus, etc.

Below are some pictures of our day spent at Tidbinbilla.

Dylan and Savannah are sitting quietly- waiting to see a platypus.

The boys looking for wildlife.

Shane and I both think the topography of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) closely resembles the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Having a spring picnic at Tidbinbilla.

These next two pictures were taken on the top of Mt. Ainslie, which is one of the hightest peaks in Canberra. There are great views of the city from the lookout points.

Below is koala in a tree at Tidbinbilla. Did you know that koalas are very picky eaters? They eat only a few specific types of eucalyptus leaves, and these leaves by themselves are not very nutritious. Because of their not-so-healthy diet, they are very lethargic. They have to sleep 22 hours a day because they don't have enough energy to stay awake longer! It seems like natural selection would have led them toward a richer diet, but no. They are quite content to sleep their lives away.

A little stream in Tidbinbilla.

OK, I have to say that kangaroos are EVERYWHERE here! Not just in zoos, not just in nature preserves, but literally everywhere. They are on the side of the road, grazing in the field behind my house, etc. On a typical drive to school in the morning we will see about 50 kangaroos. Amazing! This one in the picture below was on the side of the road. We pulled over, rolled the window down, and I took this picture out the window. Check out the little joey in the pouch. So cute!

We were driving along and so these kangaroos in the field, so we stopped and I took this picture of Shane with the roos in the background.

Believe it or not, Brandon has turned 14 years old! Unbelievable. For his birthday he got a set of cricket gear and he is now playing on his school's cricket team.

It is springtime in Canberra, and it is beautiful! Every year, Canberra has a festival called Floriade. It is an outdoor festival that has vendors selling food and trinkets; there are rides for the kids; but the main attraction is the thousands and thousands of flowers that have been planted months ago and cultivated for the festival. I felt like I was in Holland because it was tulips as far as the eye could see. It was really beautiful.