Austrailia - Days 7 & 8

Monday, November 31st was our last day in Sydney and we had planned to just relax at the beach, taking in all the sunshine we could before returning to the frigid Utah weather. Unfortunately, the weather turned on us as well. The day started off alright and we spend about 1 hour finishing some souvenir shopping and ironically, sending post cards to the kids (yeah, would have been better for us to to that on day 1, but the kids were just as excited to get some mail once we had gotten home!).


We decided to take a ferry ride to an area called Watson's Bay. Based on the ferry schedule/map it was the fifth stop. Apparently our schedule was wrong though, because it was actually the 2nd! It had started drizzling and was really windy though, so as our ferry headed back to harbor, we didn't actually mind :)By the time we had finished our ferry ride I was freezing cold and really wanted to go back to the hotel, but Jared convinced me I would be alright. Just next to the main ferry terminal were the Botanical Gardens. Jared had been running through them earlier in the week and I had really wanted to walk through. Since we were right there, we decided if we didn't go see them now, we wouldn't get the chance

The gardens were beautiful, as it was the end of Spring in Australia. They were also HUGE. You could spend half a day walking around the different parts. Luckily it had stopped raining and the weather was a little cooler, but every once in a while the sun would break through.

These lily pads were enormous!This was one crazy looking and HUGE spider!

One of the reasons Jared really wanted to go back to the gardens was because we had heard from others who had been walking around there at dusk that there were these HUGE bats flying all around. So we looked up in every tree and saw nothing. After walking around for awhile I saw a sign for a bathroom and automatically started heading that direction (pregnant or not, I never pass up an opportunity to empty my too small bladder!). While I was in the bathroom, Jared looked down and saw a TON of crap EVERYWHERE. That prompted him to look up, and he saw this:We had found them at last! In the middle section of the park there were a TON of bats! They were noisy and ENORMOUS! If we had been there at dusk or later I wouldn't have enjoyed it at all...but as it was midday I was ok. By this time I was starving so we found some lunch. I wanted some fish and chips and so I ordered some, assuming they would be fried...but when I opened my take-out box, there was 1 large UNFRIED fish fillet. It still tasted ok (in fact, Jared thought it was great), but as I was anticipating something else, I just couldn't enjoy it. So I ate the fries (you can't go wrong there) and Jared ate most the fish.

By the time we got back to our hotel it was around 2 pm and we didn't really have time to go out somewhere else, plus the weather was terrible and we had to pack! So I decided to take a nap. At first I was feeling really guilty about spending my last afternoon in Australia in my hotel room. But then I realized that this was MY vacation...and I can't just get an uninterupted nap in at home...so after a 2 hour nap I felt GREAT!

That evening Auto-Owners held their Farewell dinner. We ended up sitting at a table with 4 of the 5 LDS couples. One of the couples we hadn't even met before that night. I think the waiters picked up quickly to stop asking us if we wanted more wine :)

The food was of course wonderful. I had a super yummy chicken and Jared had a steak - YUM! And these chocolates they served for dessert were soooo good! And I'm not even a huge chocolate person! They also provided us with some great entertainment by way of 3 violin playing chics that were amazing! (and also had pink violins!)

Here we are with Cynthia & Doug and Jason & Colleen. We had a great time with these 2 couples.

Tuesday morning we were up early to get our bags set out, eat our last FABULOUS breakfast and then on the bus to the airplane. We arrived at the airport 3 hours before our flight took off, so there was a lot of waiting.

The flight home was long, but uneventful. The nice thing about flying back, is the flight from Sydney to LA is almost 2 hours shorter. It was still long, and all I can say is thank goodness for in-flight movies and Tylenol PM! It was another full flight, but I think I actually got a stretch of sleep that was almost 5 hours long! We also gained a day back. We left Sydney on Tuesday, December 1st at 11:30 am and arrived in Salt Lake, Tuesday at 11:15 am!

Of our 2 checked bags, 1 was left in LA, but made it to our house by Wednesday morning! This vacation was fabulous and we loved every second of it, but we were ready to come home and it was great to be back! I actually had a pretty easy time adjusting back to "real life". The jet-lag didn't seem to get to me and it was nice to have my mom around until Wednesday evening. Speaking of, we are sooooo thankful to my parents for being willing to come out and watch our kids while we were gone. It was soooo nice to not even worry once about how our kids were doing!