it's a perfect day for

a snail...

 

a trip to the honeybee centre.
green bean soup - yum.
thinking about back to school.
taking over this blog and making it my own.

Adventures In Aus

Over our last week we have gone down to Sydney for some site-seeing and awesome time together!! Karissa, our tour guide (and not a very good one :P) and my whole family saw everything. we walked till our feet bled and our legs fell in crumbles after we sat down on the train. We saw the Opera House and the Bontanical gardens. We went shopping and boating and touring the battleships. We met up with Karissa's boyfriend, Tom. Tom goes to College there and is studying medicine. We saw soooo much things and so much things to do! It felt forever to get to Sydney because we stopped at lighthouses and Jails and campsites to rest our head for the night. But it felt like we were going in slow-motion compared from going back to Brisbane. The day we were leaving back our journey to Brisbane there were warnings that there would be a Tsunami all along where we were heading back. It was quite scary since there were flooding all around the coast in Queensland. I love it here Down Under!

Zipline by Koen

Today I went Zip lineing, it is a sport. My legs felt weird because I was scard. First they strap you up. Then you hold on until the end. I heard a 'Ziiip' sound! I say lots of trees and a river. It was raining out and we got soaked. Zip lines are scarey but fun, even in the rain. Just hang on!

Fiji Post by Saige

Fiji is a Awesome place and its warm and dry almost everyday. While we were there during the rainier season but everyone of the locals insisted that it would never rain but near the end of our time in our Beautiful in Rakiraki, it was windy and rainy and really fun to play in. The food was really good and the there was a church in every village. The people sing better than Anyone I have ever heard before. They all harmonize eachother very lovely. I am getting really used to the heat and I got burnt on the first day. We only went to one of the other Islands but you can't even see it on the map. Near the end of our Fiji expedition we went to the best "theme park" in Fiji! ZipFiji!! :) It was really fun zooming down the line and getting pelted by Borneo rain and hardly being able to breathe you are going so fast! A t the end of our trip we went to the Uprising Resort. I t wasn't as good as our private house but it was beautiful and there was hardly any people there. I was so upset to be leaving but I wouldn't mind coming back for a bit when I grow up. Onward to Austrailia! <3

Bula

Bula from Fiji. We have not had the internet access that I thought we would have. Sorry to all of you who have been checking up on us. We arrived on Saturday after a long and uneventful flight. The first thing we did was head out in our rental to the Sabeto hot springs, and mud baths, which was beautiful and interesting. We headed then to the town of Lautoka and got some water and groceries and then headed to the nearest church. We met some wonderful people and they fed us lunch, which was interesting. We then moved on to our rental house in Rakiraki. We are staying at the Bularangi Villa, which is amazing. We are right on the ocean and we have our own pool. In looking around at some of the resort and backpackers around here we have made a wise decision. We are paying just a bit more than the shoddy backpacker place around here and we have a whole beautiful house, housekeeper and the pool all to ourselves. We are spending our days doing school by the pool, swimming, snorkelling (there is a beautiful reef just out front with tons of coral and fish), eating, walking and talking, reading, and generally relaxing and spending some well needed quality family time together. We spent some time in the town of Rakiraki, and had dinner at the Volivoli resort (which has wireless internet) and took a boat ride over to the island of Rananu-I-Ra, where we walked to the other side of the island and built sand castles, swam and had a nice lunch with some people in the backpackers lodge.

The other night I realized all the things that we have been doing here that we would NEVER consider doing at home, and especially in a foreign country. Here is my list of 'unsafe-ness'
1. Renting a vehicle with only 5 seats because we needed 4wd. (Koen is wedged between the front buckets)
2. Barrelling down the rock roads with Devin riding in the back of the truck with Kamlesh (our caretaker)
3. Picking up a large strange man in Lautoka and letting him give us directions to the church.
4. Buying and eating $1 Roti, wrapped in newspaper from a lady on the street. (It was delish)
5. Drinking 'kava' out of a coconut bowl given to me by a man in the market who assured me it was not alcohol - wrong.
6. No sunscreen, No seatbelts.
7. No watch. (the only one we had broke on day one - oh well, we are on Fiji time now)
8. Swimming with jellyfish.
9. Sleeping with the doors unlocked and open.

Well that's all i can think of now and Koen has to do some school work while we have internet...

Kid's Eye View

Koen
I am going to fiji borneo and australia. i will be out for two months. (sixty days) that will be scarey! it will take one day to get thare. it will be summer. it will be nice. i will go ziplineing and swiming. i don't know what the food is going to be like. but i think it will be diffrint. i will see snaks, monkys, and lions. it will be fun. See ya later alagater.

Saige
I am not that excited to leave everything behind for so long but it will be very unormal and strange. I am mostly excited about Borneo because Hannah will be there with a whole bunch of other people I know, and Our family will go every year after! Austrailia will be cool because we will see Keegan again and I havent seen him in 3 years!! We will be there for his and my Birthday! Fiji will be scary because I have never been ther and we dont know many people there. I don't know anyone who has been on a trip quite like this one!

Introducing Bug & Miss Lou

'Bug' and 'Miss Lou' are pet names for Koen and Saige. As i write this Koen informs me: "you don't call me 'bug' - you NEVER call me 'bug'!" This is not entirely true, but i will admit that sometimes 'bug' will morph itself into 'bud', 'bun' or sometimes 'bum', though he can't really remember that either, which just goes to show that i was right when i said he never listens to me. While k & s are not my only children this blog was created so that each of them can communicate with their teachers while we are on our travels, and our friends and family can keep up with our adventures.

The thought of doing a blog has been somewhat of a daunting task to me, which is why i am only starting it out of desperation one week before we leave. So far it seems like it may be an enjoyable experience and who knows - maybe i can use it as a creative outlet for myself too.

So next post will be by Koen who is going to tell us his view of the whole getting ready for travel thing....