First day of school

Here she is..   she begged and begged to go to school.  We thought originally that she wouldn't be able to go to school because of a mis communication.  But we soon figured out that they would allow her visa.  So here she is in her school uniform.  I have never had to deal with a uniform before.. man are they expensive.  She had to have the dress but at least that one doesn't have the school logo on it and can be warn later.
She loved her first day.  She met a girl named Charlie who took her under her wing and showed her the in's and out's of grade 1.  Then the second day she got in the car an continued to cry her little heart out all the way home.  I guess it was show n tell day and all the parents came and got to walk around.  I wasn't informed of this activity so of course I did not show up.  She was crushed.  Also she said that Charlie didn't play with her as much and so on and so on.. just not a good day.  We talked for a long time and got her to go the next day.  She just doesn't like being the new girl.   I told her to give it a couple of days she agreed.  So far she hasn't had any bad days again.  She loves it.  I have to drive her to school which is new for us.  But so far it has all worked out. 

almost a year and I can't believe it...

Can't believe my little man is 11 months old. I don't have any new pictures..or none that are downloaded off the camera yet.. but I found these from the girls camera. Poor boy! His sisters sometimes don't know how to leave him alone.





Sometimes his sister's love him a little too much but he takes it pretty well.
Cooper has been into everything lately. He walks along furniture pretty well.. and can get going pretty fast. He claps on command and is starting to wave. I even caught him standing by himself with out holding on to anything for a couple of seconds. We cut his hair again this week and he looks like a whole new boy! A big boy! Can't believe he's growing so fast!
Oh and he had his two top teeth pop through this month.

More Pictures

Last weekend we headed down to Phillips Island. We had heard about a little place to stop off at and be more interactive with the Kangaroos. It was probably the most ghetto "Zoo" I have ever been to but it was the best place to see the Kangaroos. They had lots of animals there. I swear it looked like somebody's back yard turned petting zoo. But we had lots of fun. You will see two big Kangaroos going after the food in Jordan's hand. Every time Jordan tried to move away they would grab him an bring him back. He had to maneuver his way around them to get out.




Dottie spotted the Joey first. There were actually two of them that had Joey's, very cool.





Who do you think is going to win?

The girls looking out over the ocean.

Healesville Sanctuary

On Saturday the 31st we went to see some animals that we probably wouldn't get to see out in he wild. The Healesville Sanctuary is about an hour and a half out side of Melbourne. It reminded me a lot of the "NW trek" up by us in Washington. Only it had native animals to Australia. The drive out was amazing. The views were awesome.... rolling hills and farm fields. Some fields full of sheep that were scattered everywhere. Sadly we did not get any pictures of these yet.

A wombat, much bigger than I expected.. these things were big. Also I think these were the girls favorite animal. They both saved up some chore money and bought themselves each a wombat stuffed animal.

Not sure what this Kangaroo was doing.. but it looked kind of cool. *update.. Jordan said it's walking. They use their tail to walk.

Petting the Kangaroo's.

They did have some larger Kangaroos but those ones didn't really come up to us. Kind of glad they didn't.

Up close to the Kangaroos. Dottie feeding it out of her hand.

A Wallaby. Very Rodent looking. He probably only stood 18 inches tall.

One of the Koala's up in the tree. Not quite as cool as the ones we saw in the wild but still very cool to see it close up.

Tasmanian Devil or a rodent of unusual size. I expected something different not sure what but different. About the size of a small Dog.

These Pelicans were huge! Probably the size of Dottie.


A Dingo

Saw this guy at the end... very interesting how they lay down. Also very interesting how closely they look like a deer to me. This is a red Kangaroo.
We really wanted to get some pictures of the duck billed platypuses. But they didn't turn out so well because it was dark and they were swimming in water. But they were very cool as well. Much smaller than I pictured.

Click on the actual picture for the video of the pelican. Our friends that went with us shot this video of the pelicans.

10 months old

So I am a day late here in Australia but it is still the 27th in the states...
My little Cooper man is 10 months already.. man time flies.
His sisters love him... almost to much at times. They are big helpers though.
He finally started crawling a month ago and now he is into everything. He can go where ever he wants and he does. He pulls himself up on furniture and walks around it. He only started crawling a week before we left to Australia so that has been a trial in and of itself. Getting used to a mobile baby and a new place with furniture that is not ours. But we are surviving. He loves being in the stroller and going places so that is very nice. In fact he gets up set if the stroller is not moving.
This baby boy desperately needs another hair cut but I did not bring my hair cutting stuff (not sure why I forgot this).
He sleeps well for the most part, took a while to get adjusted to the time change. Over all he is a very good baby very mellow, calm and content. We will keep him.


Couldn't get a smile out of him this morning.. he wasn't really in the mood for pictures as you can tell.

I am not sure how much he weighs but he is a solid boy. At 8 1/2 months he was 20 pounds exactly. He is growing out of his 9 month clothes very fast. He doesn't always smile for people but I can always get a smile out of him.
He has two teeth on the bottom and one on top is coming any day. I actually think there are four on top that are about to pop through in the next two weeks.
We love our little Coop!

Polly want a cracker?

So this Saturday we want on a search for some birds. We were told about this spot where there were tons. So we headed up to the Dandenong Ranges National Park only about an hour from where we live. We were prepared and brought bird seed and the birds loved it. The red ones with blue feathers are called Crimson Rosellas. The big white ones are Cockatoos. Not sure if I am posting a picture of it but we also saw an Australian King Parrot, it is a green one with red feathers.



The girls loved having the birds land on them. It freaked me out. At one point, Dottie had one on her head when a tour bus full of Asians pulled up and started taking pictures of her like crazy. She was funny about it she kept saying "Get this bird off my head, get of you bird." We even tried to get Coop involved and put a little seed on his stroller. He tried to grab at them until one Cockatoo thought his little finger was food. Cooper did not like that but I am sure it hurt a little.

We went into the cafe they had there and ate lunch and watched the birds land on other people's heads. It was a fun afternoon.

It's been way to long...

since I posted anything. I was hoping to get up to date on this thing but I failed. And now all the pictures from May are on the computer at home. So I guess I will start with the pictures that I do have.
Just after Jordan's birthday in May we found out that his work wanted to send him to Melbourne Australia for a short term assignment. After much thought (and Boeing saying they would pay for the whole family to go) We decided we couldn't pass up the opportunity. So we all got passports and things started to fall into place. Once we got his work visa we bought plane tickets and left the 6th of July.
It was a long flight but we made it. The girls loved it. They flew us all business class so we had lots of room. I guess Jordan took all those pictures with his phone so you will have to look at facebook to see them.
When we got here we were so tired. We are staying in a nice place right in the city. We have an awesome view.

We got our car and had to start driving on the left side of the road. Very interesting but it seems pretty normal now. only had a few times where I yell out "wrong side, wrong side!"
Seems like we have something going on everyday so far. There is a group of people that all came out to work in Jordan's group. Most all have been here before. So almost everyday one of the wives has taken us into the city to show us around and how to use the trolley system. We went to a very cool open market kind of like pikes place in Seattle but bigger.
Since we have been here we have been on the look out for the "wildlife". But since we live right in the middle of the city that is kind of hard to find. We live on the bay and have heard about some penguins. So one night we went to check them out but we went way to early they come at dusk after they are done fishing and have their nest in the rocks. Plus we forgot it was in the middle of winter and it got way to cold so we left. We came back a couple of days later prepared this time. It was very cool. By the time we left they were all over some rocks on a jetty. Some just walking around on the dock. They were small penguins and the girls loved it.

So of course we wanted to see some Kangaroos. We have heard the best places were the golf courses. And were guaranteed to see some in Angelsea at their golf course. Angelsea is almost a 2 hour drive but we really wanted to see some kangaroos. So we headed out Saturday morning and got their about 11am and they were sleeping. They told us to come back late afternoon and they would be out eating again. So we did (I would load up more picture except on this laptop is it taking forever)
In between seeing the kangaroos we went to see koalas. This was probably the best part. We headed down the Great Ocean Road. Such a beautiful drive. We were told that if we head down to the Koala Cafe they would be in the trees everywhere. Took another hour to get there but it was so worth it. We had lunch and then headed over to the Eucalyptus trees. At first the ones we saw were very high up and sleeping. Kind of disappointing. Then we headed over to the camp ground near by and we saw this guy.


We probably saw about 10 different koala's. It was very cool.
When I figure out how to load pictures faster I will put more on here.
So far we are adjusting well to life down under.