National Vacation-part four (Great Ocean Road)

I decided that this portion of our trip needed it's own post. We really had so much fun on the great ocean road and our trip to Adelaide. We stopped at Apollo Bay as it started to get dark and as found a hotel to check into. It was a Best Western and had 2 rooms as well as a living room and kitchenette. It was roomy and we really felt comfy there. Once we were checked in we decided to take the kids to the huge park along the highway so they could get some energy out after a long day in the car (and we never tell the hotels how many kids we really have so the less energy they have the better). They had a blast on that playground and there was so much to do but it was hard to get very many pictures as it was getting pretty dark and my camera didn't want to focus very well.



After a good nights' rest we headed out once again with the 12 apostles in our sights and Adelaide afterwards. It didn't take us very long to get to the 12 apostles. We found ourselves a parking spot and too a walk across the walkway, under the highway and to the ocean viewing area. It's a breathtaking view to see. The rocks, years ago, used to be connected to the land. Through the years it washed away the land around them leaving them out in the middle of the ocean the way they are. There used to be 12 of them and they were called something else which didn't get any interest or people coming to see them. Then they changed the name to the 12 apostles and made viewing them easier and now they are something that people come to see all the time. There are also only 10 or 11 of them left, as the ocean has since washed a couple more down to the point where you can no longer see them above the water. It's something that everybody should see and take it one day. God's natural beauty!

Our family with some of the 12 apostles behind us

Some of the 2 apostles in all their beauty

The view from the other side (aka the rest of the apostles)

Once we saw and took in the apostles we jumped back on the breath taking Great Ocean Road for awhile before we cut up and across our scenic route to Adelaide. We made pretty good time throughout the day and arrived somewhere around 9pm that night at the familiar home of our friends the Watts.

National Vacation-part three (Melbourne)

Melbourne added for us some challenges. We arrived at the Westin, which took us a bit to find, later in the evening only to find that we had to park in a lot that wasn't very close to the hotel. So we unloaded right out front where the whole world could see how many kids we were shuffling in. We also had to initially walk all the kids past the front desk to the elevator, hoping they wouldn't see them and try to charge us an arm and a leg for having so many. Our room had only 1 king size bed which meant that all the kids had to sleep on the floor. As it was, they wanted to charge us $60 per night for a roll away bed to put in the room. Talk about a rip off-Sydney gave it to us for free. We got settled in and even though they complained, we got the kids sorted out on the floor ( I think the Sydney Westin spoiled them) and we went to sleep for the night.



The next morning we woke to rain. Sometimes it was heavy and other times it was just a mist but it pretty much kept on in some form or another the whole time we were there. Almost all of the activities we had planned in Melbourne were outdoor so we had to get creative and look for something to do indoors. The first thing we found was the Melbourne Museum. The kids enjoyed themselves so much at the one in Sydney that we figured we couldn't go wrong. It wasn't too far from our hotel and it was only $8 per adult and kids were free-how can you go wrong? Well, let me tell you. It happened to be the first days of school holidays in Melbourne and I think that everybody and their siblings decided to go to the Melbourne Museum that day-it was crowded to say the least. We were constantly counting kids and checking to see if we had them all, losing some of their crafts and even lost a kid at one point (only for a minute-then we found her again). Even with all the craziness we still got to spend quite a bit of time at the museum and the kids had a blast.





Dinosaurs at the museum



The kids all dressed up in their Pompeii themed helmets

Had to get a picture with Yoda before we left the museum. Isn't he cool?

We did a lot of sight seeing and shopping in Melbourne and our stay there seemed so short. We tried to get to this supposedly really cool park called St Kilda's while we were there but the streets were so confusing and not labeled correctly (and we forgot our map at the hotel) so after about an hour of driving what should have taken 10-15 minutes, we gave up and went back to the hotel. We spent another whole day finding a laundromat and doing our laundry and it was really cold the entire stay there. As you can see in the pictures, we had to pull out the big jackets in order to stay warm.

While in Malbourne we recieved information from Josh's command that something might be wrong with our house. They said that somebody made an anonymous report that our house was trashed and that our cats were shut in the bedroom with nothing to eat or drink. We freaked out. We called our neighbor, who has a key, to ask her to go look but she was too busy (I won't go there) to walk next door at that moment. So we called the friends watching our house who promptly drove across town to check it out for us. They called back within the hour to tell us that everything looked fine and that our other neighbor said the only people he had seen in and out were the other neighbor, our housesitters and the AC maintenance guys. Bingo! The maintenance guys had entered our house without permission, saw Mimi, who has been quarantined in our bathroom and made up a nice story about the house to report it to housing. So then the army guys had to walk through, housing had to walk through and our neighbors came over to straighten up a bit for us. Talk about a nightmare! We've had words with housing since.

We got to go to church on Sunday and the members volunteered to set up childcare for us to go to the temple on our last day. We loaded up the car, checked out of the hotel, dropped off the kids with the ward's young women (I think they counted it as one of their service projects) and went to the temple. We got to do a session and really enjoyed our time there. We got some really good pictures of the temple too.

After leaving the temple we pretty much headed straight out on our trip-car loaded and all. We decided to take the scenic route to Adelaide along the Great Ocean Road. It's a beautiful drive and there's so much to see. We took our time and stopped at beaches and lighthouses along the way. We didn't get very far the first day. We could have made the trip in one day if we had left early but we decided to take 2 days instead and just take our time. As it started to get dark we looked at where we were and decided to stop in Apollo Bay for the night so that we could see the 12 apostles the next morning in the light.

One of the lighthouses we stopped to see along the way

To be continued....

You know it's been too long when...

I decided last night, after reading somebody else's blog, that I should come and look at my own. I started typing it into my browser and usually it pops up options of recently viewed sites, there was nothing. That's when I knew that it had been too long since I wrote in or even looked at my blog. so here I am. I'm going to try and make a better effort to update something on here at least once a week. It seems to me so often that nothing important is happening anymore because a lot of what I do it just the mundane day to day stuff with the kids. However, some of that mundane stuff might be interesting to others and there is some other stuff that isn't so mundane as well, it's just not as prevalent.

So, recently (or semi-recently anyway), we had the month of November. After Halloween we took down our decorations, kind of slowly, I think it took about 2 weeks to get them all put away, and then got out Christmas stuff. Last year Josh made me wait until after Thanksgiving to put up the Christmas decorations and somehow we didn't even get the tree put up until the week before Christmas. The lights went up on the outside of the house at the same time and we didn't get much else even put up. The year before, I had a 2 month old baby and somehow managed to put it all up with heaps of time to spare. The difference? It went up right before Thanksgiving the year before. Granted it was only a couple of days before but still, it was before. So this year, knowing that we are now leaving here in January and that everything has to come down the week after Christmas to get ready for packing, I told Josh that it all had to go up ASAP so that I could enjoy it. The house looks great, both inside and out, and we are really starting to enjoy the Christmas season more this year and getting anxious for all the festivities.

For Thanksgiving we decided to have a big group of people over. We were kind of slow at inviting people to come over because somehow Thanksgiving came upon us really fast this year. We tried to invite our friends the Kaeslers but it was too late and they already had plans. We did however, have over our fried Marilyn and her brother Calvin, the 4 elders serving in town, Krystal Taumalolo, Tyne Martin and her 3 kids Jesse, Jono and Aotea, and our friends the Maritz, Chantal, Kevin and their kids Nathan, Ethan, Kristin and Nicholas. It was a full house but isn't that what Thanksgiving is all about? I'll miss being able to have such big and multicultural get togethers once we get back to the states for good. For example, Krystal and Tyne are both from New Zealand, Marilyn and her brother are part aboriginal and full Australians, the missionaries had 3 Americans and 1 Aussie and the Maritz are from South Africa. I love having so many people from so many places over and then we all get to try some of the dishes from each of their countries. Everybody loved the Aussie salad and I loved the South African desert and they all really enjoyed the pumpkin deserts, even though they were all leery at first to even try them. It's great to share.

So now we're well into the month of December and the holiday season is in full bloom. The kids all finished school last week, Josiah graduated the 3rd grade, Noah from 1st grade and Raven finished Transition (the equivalent of American kindergarten) . It's a little bit weird to have the school year over and done already, but only because we're now going back stateside and they'll have to repeat the grade they just finished for a few months.

Josh has finally started getting job offers and interviews, which is such a relief. He has already interviewed for 2 companies in Ohio, one said they have no positions right now but want to hang onto his resume and the other is sending him an offer this week. He's also interviewed out here at base for a position that he'll find out if he get the offer this week too. There's a company in the Virginia/DC area that wants an interview and another in Colorado for the same. The job we really want in Tucson, AZ might not find out if they can hire him until as late as March, which is a big bummer. Perhaps we'll start hearing from some of the other Arizona companies he applied to before too long-I can hope can't I?

We should be getting orders any day now and we are to fly out of here on or about January 19 to start out processing and be done with the military. There are parts that I'll miss, like the health care being covered 100% as well as housing and all out utilities, but there is so much more that I won't miss. I'm ready to have my own house and not have to worry about the kids spilling things on the carpet or breaking things that don't belong to us (then I can worry about them breaking things that we have to fix ourselves, right?). Ok, that's about the extent of my thoughts for now. I'm sure there will be something else that comes to me later, but that'll just give me something more to write about. Maybe I'll finish blogging about our trip one of these days-so much has happened since then.

New family pictures

As one of our fundraisers for the preschool each year, we have a picture company, Moving Pictures, come and do family pictures. They never cease to do a beautiful job with them. It costs us $15 for the sitting fee and an 8x10 (probably a bit bigger, I usually have to cut it a bit). Of the cost $10 goes to the preschool and $5 goes to Moving Pictures and then we have the option of purchasing picture packages as well, which of course we bought. It's a good fundraiser because so many families participate and all love what they get in return. This is our results. The family picture is at the top of the blog now and the rest are below. Enjoy! I know we will.


Me with Raven and Rebekah AKA, the girls

Josh with Caleb, Josiah and Noah AKA, the boys

The kids: Caleb, Raven, Rebekah, Noah and Josiah

And Josh and I

Time out for some venting

As I've mentioned before, I sit on the parent committee at Rebekah's preschool as the president. We all get together once a month to plan our fundraisers and go over the things we've already done to see what we can do better next time. We have one mom who serves as our treasurer and thinks that she is in charge of everything and we all need to bow down to her. Every time we plan something she suddenly comes up with a better idea the next day and then takes over to make everything the way that she wants it to be. Then the rest of us sit in a dizzying spin wondering what happened and why on earth we even bother having meetings or a committee. She seems to think that she IS the committee after all.
Last year I was also on the committee as president when Raven went to that preschool and we had a wonderful committee. When we had meetings we all shared and listened to each other's ideas and then tried to incorporate as many of them into our fundraisers as we could. I loved being part of the committee so much that I decided that I'd do it again this year. I also enjoyed so much being the president last year and all the stuff I got to do as such. This year and this group of parents has really made me want to be out.
Tonight we had our monthly meeting and have been planning for the art show that happens next week. The art show is our biggest fundraiser for the year. We sell sausages and steak sandwiches, drinks, there is face painting, raffles galore and this year we even got fun light sticks with swords and a fiber optics to sell. So we proceed to talk about all the stuff we need to organise and then we come down to raffle prizes. We took inventory of what we have to raffle off (we've all been out hitting up businesses for donations). We have a voucher for $80 worth of dinner at a restaurant, an Avon basket, a really nice cake, a tent, a couple of other things and our big prize is a couple of really nice sets from Tupperware (earned at a party the preschool hosted). This mom decides that the set of Tupperware and some of the big prizes shouldn't just be "given away in a raffle," that instead we need to do a silent auction for them. Now granted, the one Tupperware set is supposedly a $300 (aud) value, so I see the point in maybe getting a little more money from it, but we didn't pay a cent for it-it was given to us. So I suggested some other ideas to raffle it off and get a bit more money instead of a silent auction where many of the parents on as tight a budget as we are won't even bid. Isn't the point of a raffle to get a prize that is worth much more than the ticket(s) you paid for? Of course not, it has to be HER way or the highway(she could afford to just go out and buy the set straight out). Every idea I gave was shot down almost faster than I could say it. The teacher looked like she was trying to iron out the best way and still get some money for it. I gave in. A silent auction might not be too bad and we'll probably still make some money for it and maybe the bids will stay low enough that I'll have a chance to win it too-she was talking about $30 or $40 being the finishing bid. So we move on with our planning.
Toward the end of the meeting she suddenly decides, out of nowhere, that we need to set a minimum bid for this set and it should be no lower than $50. Now, I love Tupperware as much as the next person, but there is a reason why my kitchen is NOT full of it. Tupperware is expensive. As much as I like the stuff, I just can't rationalize spending that much money on something that a $1 container will do just as well. a $50 minimum bid just put me out of the running altogether, and probably many other parents as well. Yes, we live in a really nice house and we have some nice things. But I'll be the first to tell you that we don't pay for our house, we don't pay for our utilities and the only reason I can even afford my groceries is because the military gives us a cost of living allowance on top of our pay that almost covers the groceries we use each month. From each paycheck I have about $150 that I can use, after groceries and bills, to buy other things. This paycheck it's buying new school shoes and church shoes for my ever growing children and then that money is gone. So, a $50 minimum bid just shot me out of the running altogether.
What bothers me more is that only 1 other mom agreed to this and the rest just kept quiet. They're under the impression that this lady just doesn't give up and that fighting her won't make a difference. Well, it will, cause on a committee the majority rules. That means that if only 3 of us say anything and 2 are for and 1 is against, that the 2 will win. It doesn't matter that the other 4 didn't agree, they didn't day anything so they lose. OPEN YOUR MOUTHS AND SPEAK UP!
I'm so frustrated with the way this lady takes over-maybe we should make her the president, vice president, secretary AND treasurer, she thinks she owns the place anyway. Who needs a committee when she takes over anyway.
Josh and I have come up with a much better idea to approach this raffle/silent auction thing and I plan to take it to the teacher tomorrow, alone if I have to. I just hope that she understands where I'm coming from and that other parents just aren't made of money that way. And, that there is so much more money to be made with a raffle as opposed to an auction anyway($10 per family times several who will put in for it adds up much faster).
Ok, that's the end of my rant. I hope it makes sense. If not, then I'm sorry but it made things a little more clear to me anyway, and isn't that what counts?

National Vacation-part two (Sydney)

We left Gold Coast pretty early on Friday morning, June 26 and headed for Sydney. We had a reservation at the Westin, Sydney starting Friday night so we wanted to get there at a decent time (not 5 or 6 am the next day). We arrived right before Midnight, found the hotel (which wasn't as easy as you'd think it should be), found a parking spot (also not easy) and Josh went to check us in while I stayed with the kids. I was feeling a bit nauseous so staying in the car and out of the night air was my idea of a good time. After about 10 minutes Josh came back and got in the car, just as I was about to ask him where we were going he says "they won't let me check in because the reservation is in your name." Are you serious? This is so annoying! Half in tears, tired, now more nauseous and just plain ready to go to bed, I storm out of the car and into the hotel. The lady at the counter says "How can I help you?" I need to check in so I tell her that. then I say "I'm a bit upset that you wouldn't let my husband check us in tonight and that I have to come in to do it myself" She starts in on this "it's policy" garbage to say that the reservation was made in my name and therefore I have to check in. I told her that we are joint owners and both on the account and, therefore, there is no reason for him not to be able to check in for us. I was a bit mean but I was tired and cranky and hormonal to boot. She starts checking us in and I calmed down a bit. I finally apologised and told her I was tired, pregnant and nauseous and just plain wanted to stay in the car until it was done. She changed into a different person, offered me a seat and whatever else she could do for me (funny what pregnancy can do for you). She offered me room upgrades (which she should have anyway) and got all checked in and sent me out with a bellhop to unload the car.

The girl unloading the car was so nice, maybe in her early 20's and eager to help out how she could, but very knowledgeable. We unloaded a lot but hadn't told the hotel just how many kids we actually had, so trying to not be up front about them while they were all asleep (for once). I took Caleb up with me (we had to walk past the front desk to get to the elevator) and I got all of our stuff put into the room while Josh parked the car and brought up the rest of the kids. Our room was big and spacious with a great view from the 20th floor. We had 2 double beds and quite a bit of space. Caleb kept looking out the huge windows at the street saying "car, cars Momma. Look car cars!" Just as I expected Josh would be there any time, there was a knock at the door so I answered it. It was the bellhop and she had brought us more towels, soaps and toiletries as well as another bed "we were talking and thought you guys might like another bed with all the troops you had in the car." Talk about nice and helpful. Our first night may have started out crazy, but we definitely picked the right hotel to stay in while in Sydney. I highly recommend the Westin on Martin Place in Sydney and you can feel free to tell them I sent you.

On Saturday we did some shopping and walked around a bit but really didn't do a lot past that. On Sunday we made a trip across the bridge to go to church. We attended the Greenwich ward and they were so friendly. While at church we found out that the temple was closed until Wednesday morning so we basically had Wednesday and Thursday to go while we were there. We got some names and phone numbers for people who might be able to watch the kids for us while we went and headed back to our room.

On Monday we went to the Sydney opera house and walked all around it. It was a nice, long walk that took us about 20 minutes to get there but it was worth it. The kids all marveled at the look of the opera house and loved all the docks on the water and the bridge just over the water. It was a beautiful day and we all enjoyed ourselves. We thought about taking the tour until we discovered that it would cost us close to $200 for the whole family to go-not worth it in our books. We stopped at the gift shop and let the kids each pick out a small, inexpensive something before heading on our way back to the hotel again. On the way back we discovered a really cool looking park. It had what appeared to be pieces of decorative stone from a building that was no longer together and they were all spaced out to look nice. There was a photo shoot with a model (who looked really unhappy and uncomfortable) and they took up about half the rocks but they took a break just after we got there and didn't resume shooting until we were about ready to leave again. The kids loved climbing on those stones and the especially loved posing for pictures on them-Raven was the camera ham that day, I think I must have got about 20 pictures of her alone as she kept yelling "Momma, take a picture of me on this rock!" We found a fountain to play in on the way back and discovered a free Australian currency museum that we tagged for another day when our kids weren't complaining about sore feet.

On Tuesday we went to the currency museum and Noah especially really enjoyed seeing all the money and learning a bit about how it was made. It was a self-guided thing and pretty quiet in the other side of a bank but it was free and really cool. After that we went to a park and found a place to sit and have lunch. We made sandwiches and had mandarin oranges and the kids enjoyed chasing the birds away and climbing a tree that was nearby. We kept having to look for Caleb as he would chase a bird and keep going until we called him back and he'd turn and see how far he had gone. The other kids all kept pretty close though. After lunch we headed to the Australia museum of Sydney. It cost us just under $50 for the family because we opted to see the exhibit on mammoths that they had going too. The kids loved the mammoth exhibit and all the bones and videos and everything that was meant to be touched. When done there we saw the rocks and gems, stuffed animals, dinosaur bones, insects and so much more. We were in the museum for hours and the kids really enjoyed themselves. We finished off with the kids' activity corner before we left (we knew we'd never see anything else if we started there). We then hit the gift shop and picked out one small something under $10 for each kid and some things for ourselves before they kicked us out of the museum (you'd think they all wanted to go home or something). It was just starting to get dark when we got outside so we put on our jackets and took a leisurely stroll back to our hotel, picking up some dinner at Pizza Hut on the way.

On Wednesday we decided to see the botanical gardens. It was right near the opera house but not quite as far. There were so many trees and flowers to see and there were even a ton of bats that lived in the trees. The kids loved the walk along the ocean too. It was kind of windy and chilly so we didn't stay too long. We hit the gift shop to see what they had (not nearly as much as others) and spent very little there before heading back to the Westin again.

Thursday was laundry day so we went walking to the laundromat the hotel recommended. After a very long walk with a heavy load, we discovered that the place was not a do-it-yourself thing. They told us where another one was and we went walking again. It wasn't where they said it was so we stopped to ask directions again. Nobody knew anything so we headed back to the hotel again and pulled out the phone book. After locating a place and calling to make sure it was what we wanted, Josh took the boys for a drive (no, it wasn't walking distance as they told us) and I put the girls and Caleb down for naps. When we got up we got in the car to head to the temple. It took us 30 minutes just to drive the 5 or 6 blocks to the bridge with all the traffic and one way roads and then we missed our turn a few times and finally found the home of the family who had volunteered to watch the kids. We arrived there at 7:15 and the last session of the night was due to start at 7:30-the temple was another 20-30 minute drive from their house. We were bummed but knew that we wouldn't make it in time. So we sat and talked to the family and got to know them a bit and then took the kids to the temple to walk around. It was freezing so we didn't stay very long but we took some pictures and talked with the kids about temples and had a really nice night.

Back at the hotel we got everything folded and packed and loaded into the car again so that we could head off to Melbourne on Friday morning. It was a nice, long week in Sydney and I took so many pictures that I'll have to upload onto Kodak photo gallery for all to see-I'll let you know when I get to that one.

National Vacation-Part one (Brisbane/Gold coast)

Ok, slowly but surely, I'm finally catching up. Here goes.

The kids last day of term 2 was June 19th so our plan was to be out of here bright and early on Saturday morning, June 20th. That is until I realised that Josh was working a mid shift Friday night and wouldn't be home until just after 8am Saturday morning. So we pushed our schedule back a bit and I had almost everything ready to load into the car when he got home instead of the night before. Josh loaded up the car while I gathered the things that weren't by the door, I took a shower and we headed out around noon.


We had planned far in advance, mapping out our route using Google maps and that type of thing and put it all into a book to keep it together. So, off we went with the plan of making it to Tenant Creek before nightfall. As we turned down the road the directions said to, it was a road we recognised-the one that we took to go to the aboriginal camp called Mulgabor where our church has a small building and some great members. Of course we weren't turning down the road that went there, but instead continuing on down further. About 60 miles down this "highway" it suddenly turned to a dirt road. We continued driving it because the directions said to, but we were leery about how long the dirt road would last. We drove this dirt "highway" all day and through a lot of the night. After dark we dodged suicidal kangaroos, who hopped to try and get into our headlights (thank goodness we were faster than they were). Then there was the wild pig laying on the side of the road. Josh was driving at this point, slowed the car to a stop and pointed the headlights to see what it was. We saw it was a pig and Josh starts honking the horn at it. trying to figure out what his problem is I said "um, hunny, it's dead". We had a pretty good laugh and joked through the rest of our trip "piggy, why are you sleeping?!"


Around midnight the road finally turned back into pavement and we rolled into a town called Boulia just before 1am. The gas stations were all closed and we weren't going to make it to another town before we ran out of gas so we found a motel and pulled in. Of course, being a small town, it was also closed but had a bell for after hours and Josh rang it. The clerk answered the door in his boxers, gave Josh a room and key and set us up to pay in the morning. The room was pretty nice and we got about 6 or 7 hours of sleep. The price was much less than we expected it to be for a small town in the middle of nowhere and we were much in need of the rest.


Sunday morning we headed to the gas station, filled up, found the best road atlas ever (to avoid any further dirt highways) and headed out again. We drove nice, paved roads all day, only stopping to make sandwiches or use toilets along the way. Our reservation was in Gold Coast, near Brisbane for Sunday night so we kept driving. Around 5 or 6pm we decided that we weren't going to get there any time soon so we called to let them know that we were coming but that it wouldn't be early. At that point we anticipated arrival around 2am. At around 10pm we pulled in to use a toilet and discovered something sticking out of the front, right tire. upon examination we decided that it was a small bone (possibly from any of the numerous kangaroo carcasses we ran over or near or the suicidal rabbit that dodged back and forth and ran under the front bumper of the car-the kids were quite unhappy about that one). But the bone wasn't causing problems and we had a spare tire so we kept driving. We arrived at the hotel, The Sheraton resort and spa, Gold Coast, around 5am Monday morning, exhausted and ready for some sleep in a real bed, and we checked in without any problems and went to sleep. When we got up sometime in the afternoon, we ate some lunch and went to find a grocery store to restock our supplies for the week.


On Tuesday we went out to the car and started to drive, only to discover that the tire with the bone in it was now flat. Talk about an answer to prayers that it waited so long to get that way. We changed it for the spare, got directions to a place to fix it and went that way. The tire was not patchable because the hole was in the sidewall of the tire so we needed a new one. They had a good, used tire they sold us for $45-this included putting it on the rim & putting it on the car (this we didn't expect for the price). The guy even aired up the spare and put in back under the car for us. We were feeling like we got an awesome deal as this would have cost us at least twice that in Alice Springs.

It rained a lot during our 5 days in Gold Coast (and they insisted that they were having a drought) but we still managed to play at the hotel's private beach, collect some shells and have a good time there. We found a really cool playground for the kids and spent most of a sunny afternoon there. We walked through the huge mall on the rainy days.

We had spoken to our friends in Alice Springs about going to the temples along the way and who they might know in each location that could help us out with kids so we could go. Some of them had family in Brisbane who agreed to watch the kids for us one day. On Thursday morning we headed out nice and early to get to where we were dropping the kids. We made it there without any problems and with plenty of time. Tui was so nice and was so helpfull. We headed off to the temple and got lost along the way. Our session was due to start at 11:30am and, after stopping to get directions, we arrived at 11:40. The next session was due to start at 5pm that night. A bit upset and not knowing what we should do, we parked and walked in figuring that even if we couldn't get in to do any work that we would at least take some pictures and walk around the temple. When we got to the desk they told us that they had some sealings we could do and that they were short people to do them. We excitedly grabbed our clothing and dressed to go in. It was beautifull and the spirit was so strong. We were down to the last few sealings and I suddenly started feeling lightheaded and not good. I asked to sit down and did so. I sat through a couple more and then I was done. If I sat there any longer I was going to pass out. I knew they had less than 5 minutes left but that was going to be too long so I asked to step out of the room. It was so hot in there and the hallway was so much cooler, it was almost instantaneous relief but I felt really dumb for having to leave when they were so close to being done. I sat a couple minutes and then everybody else was leaving so I walked with them back to get changed. In the changing rooom one of the other ladies came in and commented to me hoping I was alright. I told her whathad happened and she said "are you pregnant?" Now, what part of me feeling overheated and lightheaded said I was pregnant? It caught me off guard. I answered yes and she saithat she had once had a similar experience but she sat there until they were done wishing that she had stepped out and very nearly passed out herself. She said that she admired me for stepping out instead of sitting there and suffering-I think I needed that beacuse I was feeling a lot like a shmuck.

After we put our things into the car we grabbed our camera and walked around the temple to take some pictures and feel the peacefullness that is the grounds of the temple. Once we were finished we drove through the city (thank goodness for that road atlas we bought, we would have been driving the one way roads for hours without it) and headed back to get our kids. We visited a little and then thanked Tui for her help and headed back to our hotel. Once there we found a place to do laundry and packed everything up so we could head out for Sydney the next morning. We wanted to be out at a decent time so we weren't driving until all hours of the night to get there this time. We really enjoyed our time in Brisbane and Gold Coast, even if we didn't get to go and do and see very much. Perhaps someday we'll get to go back again and see more.