Todd and Lisa's RTW trip

Ok so pretty much we think this will be a boring blog entry, because we understand that reading about our family vacation is not as interesting as 3rd world countries.  We completely understand if you skip all the words and go directly to the really cute pictures of baby ben!! 

Lets start where we left off… before the family arrived, we headed up to Cairns for our 3 day live aboard dive trip on the Great Barrier Reef.  We had crappy weather the whole time, but the diving was still good.  We were not at all impressed with the reef itself ( We know, we are such snobs), but the marine life was AWESOME.  We saw HUGE sharks, turtles, rays, ginormous schools of fish, etc.  We also did a night dive alone.  We ain’t goona lie… it was freaky!! Lucky for us, we were up there the week before the cyclone. Thanks for those who were worried about us…

When we got back down to sydney the family crew arrived and we spent a few days hanging around Coogee (where Ivan and Floria’s house is).  We got a real dose of birth control, as baby ben had explosive diarrhea and vomiting for two days ( or as Ivan called it–Pinwheeling).  After Ben (and Mary) recovered from the trauma of a 20 hr flight, we rented a van to head up north to the beach.  We didn’t rent just any van though, we rented the MEGA- van.  It was huge, held up to 12 people.  We could stand up in it.  Everyone had their own row of seats.  The trip up to Byron Bay took two days.  It felt like forever.  No offense to the family, but i am pretty sure everyone felt the same way.  After not seeing each other for a while then getting into a car together can be a little difficult.  Fortunately, this did not set the tone for the rest of our week. 

We rented a spectacular house on the beach.  The beach was amazing.  It was huge and empty, and always had fun waves rolling in.  We rented a couple of surfborads and “ripped it up”. Ok, the truth is that Todd and Mary ripped it up, Lisa and Ivan kinda just drank Ocean!! Even Mama J hopped on the bogey board and showed us how to do it grandma style!!  We don’t want to bore you with all the fun details, overall it was a wonderful week with beautiful weather, great food and a really cute baby!!

We made the return trip in one day!!  Spent a few days being tourists in Sydney, the harbour bridge, shopping (for opals) and the zoo.  The highlight was going to the opera with 2nd row seats. Thanks Ive and Floz!!!

Australia was great.  It was SO nice to be with family after being alone for so long.  It’s definitely a place we could see ourselves living. Hmmmmmm….

Yesterday we sadly left, but happily arrived in Aukland NZ.  It was so strange when we got here.  We felt like we were in Hawaii.  This place is loaded with the same pacific islanders (tonga, samoa, cook etc) as Hawaii.  Maybe some of you know this, but we had no idea.  If you look at a map, we guess it makes sense. We rented a station wagon for 38 days, and plan on cruising around both islands… we’ll keep you posted!

(again… click to enlarge) 

Heres the MEGA VAN

 

So cute huh??

Like father, like son..

Here we all are at Ivan and Floria’s house.

This is the Sydney Opera house.

So we have been in Australia for about a week now and it has been FABULOUS. We were greeted at the airport by Ivan and Floria (Lisa’s Cousins), taken to their comfortable house and fed steak… it is what we had been dreaming about for months. Our first few days we spent readjusting (read- eating) to being in the western world. We couldn’t stop talking about how nice everything felt. We went on about having real towels instead of our stinky pack towels for a bit too long. We haven’t had this kind of family treatment since visiting Arwen and Scott. You all may think we are lucky that we have been on holiday all this time,which is true, but let us tell you it has been FAR from luxury…. until now!!! We now consider luxury anywhere with a kitchen and hot water!!

After hanging with Ive and floz for a while we headed down to Melbourne to stay with a family that we met in Vietnam. We have been here a few days going around the city and the southern coast. Australia is so nice. It’s like california… but better (because it doesn’t have californians– sorry Spencer and DD). Tomorrow we leave to fly up to Cairns. From there we go on a 3 day live aboard scuba trip to the Great Barrier Reef. VERY EXCITED…..

And then to top off the wonderful time that we are already having…. Ivan, Mary, Ben and Mamma J come and visit us for 2 weeks.

When we were in Kuala Lumpur, we followed the Pelaccio’s (Eva’s family) advice and headed out of the city to a restuarant called Fatty Crab. It is the namesake of Zac’s new restuarant in NYC. On the way there the cabed driver stopped trafic to get out of his car and take a pee. It was so funny, we had to snap a photo, and since we are still joking about it, we had to post in on the Blog.

 

By the way… it was GREAT

 

We also went up the Patronis Towers. They are the highest building is the world… blah blah blah

This was today… thats Todd and John

 

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