Sarah went roller skating

On Saturday Sarah had a roller skating birthday party - a little in advance - her birthday is December 28th. Grandpa made her a roller skate cake - looked pretty good! Her friends and cousins took to the rink - some have lots of bruises to show for their effort! Sarah is a great roller skater.

Christmas is coming!!

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas!! It took us a while to get in the Christmas spirit but it definitely is here. We have put up the tree and the grandchildren helped decorate it. It looks great. We enjoy the fresh pine smell especially after a hot day - it smells beautiful. The lights are up on the house and it looks quite a treat.

Cradel Mountain

On Sunday 23rd we went to Cradle Mountain and spent a week on the west coast of Tasmania. We had a wonderful time enjoying the wilderness, the cold weather and beauty of Tasmania.

60 Years

John reached 60 on November 22nd. We celebrated with friends and family at a party at home. The weather was kind in the midst of the storm season and we had a wonderful celebration.

Our Bunya Mountains Adventure

On Thursday 2nd October we loaded up Dan and Leah's car with 5 grandchildren, Grandma and Grandpa and as much food and luggage as it could hold! It was a bit squishy!!

We were off on our adventure to the Bunya Mountains. It is a three hour drive from Brisbane so we got a few "are we there yet" from the back seat.

We had a great time over the four days - we fed birds, went walking in the rainforest, had a BBq at Burton's Well, went on a horse and cart ride. It was all terrific fun.

We stayed in a chalet called Cloudlands - it was nice and roomy - the kids loved it.

We went to Church in Dalby on the return journey.

On the way back to SLC

After we had seen Old Faithful we made our way back toward SLC and stayed in Idaho Falls last night. We went into Rexburg and saw the temple and did a session at Idaho Falls. We got to SLC about 1pm today Friday and we visited Pres Hinckley's grave.

More Yellowstone

We went to Yellowstone NP on Wednesday after an early morning hike to Lake Phelps in the Grand Teton NP. We saw amazing geological rarities and many wild animals including buffalo. We stayed Wednesday night in West Yellowstone. See how close that buffalo was!! The next morning we went back into Yellowstone Park and went to Old Faithful - a geyser which blows quite high. It was all amazing - we had a great time.

Goodbye Texas hello Yellowstone Park

It was hard to leave Houston on Monday and say goodbye to Callie, Andrew, Thomas and Jack. We will miss them so much. We had a wonderful time staying with them for the last three weeks.

We arrived safely in SLC and drove to Ogden to see Sis Ferrin. We even managed the right side of the road. We had a lovely time with her. She talked about Elder Ferrin and his passing and how much she missed him.

We took off next morning up highway 89 and got lost!! We were supposed to be going through Logan but did not take the right turn at Brigham City!! We were on highway 30 which should still have got us there but half way along the road was closed - we ended up going into a post office to ask directions at Fielding. John came out with a bit of paper with some directions scribbled on it - take long road - turn at the hay and farm machiner!! But we got back on the right road and continued to drive up through Teton National Park - it was absolutely glorious. We stayed the night at Jackson Hole and took a ride up a chair lift which gave us a fabulous view.

Last Houston Posting

We have had another great week in Houston. We went down to Galveston on Tuesday and Wednesday and enjoyed our time at this Bay area. We paddled in the Atlantic Ocean!! The beach is a little different from the Gold Coast - the seagulls and the pelicans are grey and pidgeons walk the sand alongside the seagulls.

We had a great time. We drove all the way along Galveston Island and saw the interesting house on stilts in case the tide comes over. It is a flat sand island.

We also enjoyed looking at the historical area of Galvestonan and we had a great ice cream at the ice cream parlor.

Carol & Evan Jones arrived on Friday - 4th July and we enjoyed the fireworks at one of the local shopping malls.

We celebrated Thomas's birthday on Saturday night and Dad made him a Thomas cake.

Today was Jack's blessing. He was very well behaved. It was lovely.

Last week's roamings

We took off to San Antonio last Monday- we hired a car from Toyota and made our way down the highway to San Antonio - took about 2 1/2 hours.

We visited the Alamo the site of a standoff by the Texans against the Mexican Army. It is regarded as a war memorial as all the men lost their lives as the Mexican army stampeded the mission. The alamo is a mission and church that was built by the Spanish in the early 1700's. After we came home Andrew showed us the Disney version on film.

They had this great 'riverwalk' - a small shallow river - partly man made than runs through part of the tourist area. It is bordered by a few shops but mainly lots of restuarants. It is very lovely and quite remarkable. We went on a boat tour of the river and they showed us the big gates they close if it is going to flood so the shops and river area where the tourist are does not flood.

We really enjoyed the two days.

Last Friday we went into the city and walked along the underground tunnels that connect the high rise buildings to each other. It was full of workers walking the tunnels to get their lunch from the wide variety of food stores in the tunnel. After we felt we had enough of the tunnels we caught the light rail downtown which took us past the medical centre. This area is huge and so many large (I mean skyscraper buildings large) hospitals -probably a couple of dozen hospitals. I am not sure where all the patients come from!!

On Saturday Andrew & Callie took us to the Houston Temple where we enjoyed a session. It is a beautiful temple. It was opened in 2ooo. We drove though some lovely parts of Houston with quite wooded areas near the Temple.