Not much to say.....

except.......

yay............Survivor finale is on this Thursday. Now, we are only just catching up on the 2 episodes that screened while we were away, plus the one just gone, (because we wanted to catch up before we saw that), but I have seen the ads so do know who has gone. What I love is the CBS website does not show the winner on the front page anymore, even though they know in America, it's not spoiled for us. I would often go into the site to check something while watching the series and find out the winner ahead of time. An all girl final, yay for the girls! Do you watch, if so, who do you want to win?

Nope, got nothing to show you as far as layouts from Australia. I really want to use Scenic Route Grafton, so was just waiting for Andrea to catch up, having been not well, and will order that now, and then look at photos.

I love the layouts from this lovely lady, (she was so helpful answering my questions) and am really inspired by her work. After reading her recent blog post I went and bought a CK, which I haven't done for ages, but was quite pleased, both with the magazine itself, but also getting freebies, which included an older magazine, so effectively made them $5 each. I did that last year, waiting till June/July, and bought them, and got all the ones from earlier in the year. Anyway..... in the recent issue is some great articles on layouts with lots of pages, and album ideas, etc, so that got me going.

Other than that, I'm busy washing, washing, washing, and no, not catching up from our trip. We have a lovely visitor, who has decided my drawers make a good home. I have washed all my clothes, but haven't put them back, as the sneaky bu@@er has eluded me. I have used an old wooden style trap, as I like to just throw the whole thing away, but the mouse has been able to eat my peanut butter without setting it off, so I'm just about to set one of the peg style ones, (then hubby can empty it!)

Anyway, back to the washing!

Aaaaargh, just about had them in order, then I tried to fix the last day, and now it has come up first, so read that last!

THURSDAY - HOME

We wandered into the shops to spend the last of our Australian money, and to see the Doctor. I had thought I was getting the flu on Tuesday, but that seemed to clear, but now I had an ear ache. I have had problems with eczema in the ear canal in the past, so wasn't sure if it was that, or inner ear infection. After a long wait, and an expensive visit, I found out I had a fungal infection, so had some strong painkillers and more drops. This cause great problems on the flight home, as it is I usually have problems, but with a sore ear it was 5 times as bad. The flight was good, the kids good, and we got in to Auckland a little earlier, and stayed at the hotel again, before arriving home mid Friday afternoon.

Where to start???????

I had intended to update a couple of times while away, but we just didn't get near a computer till the last couple of days. I was going to do it in one big post, but then had lots of problems with photos matching up, so I have done a post for each day, just skim through the photos if you wish, as it is more for my future references.

SUNDAY

We stayed the Saturday night in Auckland, as this meant we were only a step away from the airport, and gave us free car storage, and shuttle to the airport, so our holiday began with a 3.30am start. The hotel bed was hard, and I had only just got to sleep about 1am, so it turned into a very loooooooong day, especially with the time differences aswell.

The kids were great on the plane, and we had no problems getting to our 'apartment', only problem was we were early and they hadn't finished getting it ready, so we were given a spot to store our bags and went for a walk. We had some lunch, which was actually breakfast for everyone there, and had a wander down the beach. We made it back to our 'home' for the next few days, wow. It was nearly if not as big as our house. 3 bedrooms, ensuite, lovely open plan living area, full kitchen including dishwasher, and laundry. After getting sorted out, we jumped on a bus, and headed out to a new stadium to watch the Warriors play the local team. That was interesting being the odd ones out, but it was impressive to see how many Warriors fans there were there. Back to the apartment for fish and chips, and I think I was in bed, asleep at 8.30.

TUESDAY - Movie World

Waiting at the Bus stop when another Matamata family walks up, have a quick chat to them, and then while at Movie World also see another family from Matamata, whose daughter goes to the Primary School with the boys.

MONDAY - White Water World

Not a good start to our day. Our first ride was the Green Room, and I have to admit, it was horrible. Unfortunately we had just put sunblock on, and our hands were slippery, and the ride really required you to hold on tightly. It put Cameron off trying anything even slightly adventurous, although Braden did try a few more different rides

WEDNESDAY - Shopping

We had hoped to head up the Coast to a Factory Outlet we had heard of, but got caught up in traffic due to a burst water pipe, so we jumped off the bus and went to the Wax Museum, which also included a tour of 'A torture chamber'. It covered the history of various tortures, fascinating, although the kids weren't impressed, and we weren't able to take photos. We were able to take photos of the wax models, and the kids liked that part, but I have to admit the rest was a bit too much for them.

THURSDAY - Brisbane

Jon had an appointment up in Brisbane on the Friday, so we had hired a car and were going to head up to Australia Zoo on the Thursday, but by the time we got going and got the car, we knew it was going to be late, so he managed to squeeze an early appointment (7am) out of the guy, and we just took our time heading up the coast. While driving we spotted what looked like a great place to stop, so wandered around there, bought some clothes, and....... bumped into Vicki. Now, I knew Vicki was going to be there, but fancy meeting her there, and on their last day! Lucky she recognised us, 'cause I wouldn't have noticed her. We stopped in the middle of Brisbane somewhere, because we didn't have a map we were just following traffic, which was probably our first mistake, we didn't need to go anywhere near town to get to the airport. Finally found a motel, that was easier said than done, and caught the city cat into town to do some shopping and dinner. We obviously had no idea where we were going as there were no shops to be found, probably further out in the suburbs. We did find a small mall type place where we had some yummy dinner, but not much else. There were no movies on for the kids, so we just jumped back on the ferry and headed back to the motel.

FRIDAY - Australia Zoo

Jon went out for his appointment, and then we headed up the coast to Australia Zoo. Have to say, while it was a pain to drive so far, it was a great experience. The place was beautiful, very, very clean, nice options for lunch, friendly staff, etc. We were fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, and got a sneaky encounter with the koalas. It was right on closing time, so they had taken the signs down to say the koalas were resting (as we were to find out later), and there were no staff around so we just wandered over to them, and had some great interaction. Finally a staff member spotted us, and ushered us to the koala on 'display', who was half asleep, and very boring.

SATURDAY - Seaworld

Cameron loved it here, he got to see sharks. Big ones. and stingrays. The shows involving the seals and the dolphins was neat, the photos don't do justice. No one else wanted a photo with the Sesame St gang, so I did!!!

SUNDAY - Mini putt, shops

We had a quiet day, played Mini Putt, went to the shops, thats about it!

MONDAY - Dreamworld

Labour Day in QLD. We ended up at Dreamworld, not the best decision, but wasn't too bad. One ride we waited for about 45 minutes to go on, but most were reasonably quick. Oh, no, hang on, after waiting 45 minutes for that ride, we went to go on the revolutionary Mick Doohan Motocoaster, which had a queue a mile long, so we didn't go on that, which was disappointing as it was definately something different. Dreamworld seemed quite bitsy, I thought it was OK, but because we had done all the others we probably could have passed on it, the reason we went was I had free passes using our FlyBuys. I did step out of my comfort zone, and go on the Tower of Terror, which was all over in about 10 seconds. 160 kph in seven seconds, 38 storeys high, 100 metre vertical free-fall backward. LOL

TUESDAY - Wet n Wild

This was what I had been waiting for all holiday. Only problem was I was so tired by this stage, and was also getting a touch of the flu, so climbing all those stairs was really draining. A great place to spend the day, and if we lived there I could see us getting an annual pass. There was so much variety, although the tamer rides were separated by miles, which was a little frustrating trying to fit in some of our rides with the kids, walking forever.

In the evening we got a babysitter in, and went to the Casino. Unfortunately because I wasn't feeling so well, and was also tired, we came home early, which was fine as we weren't doing so well anyway!

WEDNESDAY - Movie World/WWW -again

WEDNESDAY - Movieworld/WWW

We decided to make the most of our pass and go back for a second day to these 2 parks, meeting up with a Matamata couple on their honeymoon. The boys, including the big one, took an opportunity to get a photo with Batman. Jon went on the 2 rollercoasters the first visit, which was good as the Lethal Weapon one was down this day, but he did try the Batman Escape, which he then convinced me to try. It wasn't tooooo bad, although you should have seen the gouges in my hands from gripping so hard! We finally made it to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, which was beautiful.

MIA..........

........but here's a preview!