Archives for February 2013

While we were in New Zealand, we made the very difficult decision for Ben to accept a position with a junior mining company out of Vancouver, Canada.  This would mean moving back to the US by June, and setting up in a new town, closer to family and friends, but not really near any, by North America standards.  Diana had been taking, and really ejoying swimming lessons, and we had just won a third consecutive Trivia Night, so we certainly had mixed feelings about leaving.  Em and the girls took a trip to Jakarta with Tati to try to get her a VISA so she could travel with us for one last vacation.  The trip was emotionally draining as we spent hours sitting at the embassy hoping, and didn’t get it.  Poor Tati was devastated.  But she got to bring a lot of things to Java for her family, and we got her a very nice flat screen TV while we were there (and picked up a bunch of teak furniture for ourselves).

We had a nice going-away lunch at our cafe and had a tearful farewell at the helipad before heading off on our new adventure, with a stop in Hawaii on the way.  More on that soon…

When we were in Brisbane at the Steve Irwin zoo, they had a walk-through kangaroo enclosure.  Diana was in her element.  She pranced around petting kangaroos, happy as a clam.

Helen has been transitioning away from needing her nap. It’s been mostly easy, but today this happened after we got home from the library:

In April, on our way home from New Zealand, we spent a week in Brisbane with Louise and met up with an old Tembagapura family. We enjoyed the sunny warm weather, and time at the beach. The Natural History museum had a fun kids interactive exhibit on dinosaurs, and Diana went full-on mommy mode collecting eggs and guarding them in the nest. Both girls were very cute with their little dino tales on. We also rented a car and drove to Steve Irwin’s CrocoLand (or whatever it was called), and got a special treat (I guess….) because it was school holiday, so Bindi, Terri, and the little boy were there running the croc show. It was a fun zoo, and we saw red pandas, elephants, and lots and lots of crocs. The girls were suitably tentative about the crocs. Brisbane has a wonderful urban pool and beach where we spent most of our time playing in the water and sand. The girls had a wonderful time.  Enjoy the pics! Hopefully this is the beginning of or regular blogging for us.

Well, we are settled in our new house in Washington state, and are going to try to get back into the swing of things and blogging again. Here are some recent pics of the girls.