Last day in Sydney

Following the good advice of our travel agent we decided to head over to Manly via the the Manly Ferry. Paul had told us to skip the harbour cruises and instead to use the local ferry. There were awesome views from the ferry as you can see from the pictures

Excuse the pole in the middle of the picture.

Not much you can do when the pole is part of the ferry and there was no room to have Rory move over.After a lovely ferry ride full of spectacular views we made it to Manly.

My kind of picture- Christmas decorations and palm trees not to mention the handsome man and cutie giving him a hug!The next pictures are two of my favorite!

As you can see Dylan had a wonderful time at the beach!

On the way back into Sydney we went right through the middle of a sailboat race. There were literally hundreds of sailboats!

As you can imagine Rory was loving it and missing sailing with his Dad.

After spending time at the beach we cleaned up and headed to the Shangri-la. It is a hotel with a bar on the 36th floor with amazing views of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. The nerd in me had to add this photo. Of course it was also the nerd in me who took the picture. I am new to the world traveling business and therefore have never seen a rent-a-toilet. You have to pay for this toilet and you only get 20 minutes. Wonder what happens when the time is up?

Look at these handsome chaps!

Below are views from the Blue Horizon

Our time went too quickly in Sydney! We will have to say that out of the 3 destinations Sydney was our favorite! Maybe someday we will have the opportunity to go back.

This next picture we saw at the airport as we were heading to Cairns - made us stop and ponder for a moment:) At least they are honest!
On to Cairns the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef

Sydney and Bondi Sightseeing

As you can tell, we decided to tour around Sydney and Bondi Beach on this brightly colored inconspicuous:) tourist bus. For the majority of the time we sat on the second deck of the bus taking in all the views as the wind blew through our hair and the sun warmed our cheeks.

Below are some random pictures from our tour around the city.Notice the kangaroo on the Naval ship?
One of the great aspects of the sightseeing tour was that you could jump on and off the bus throughout the day. The next few pictures are from the Royal Botanic Gardens not far from the Opera House.
Entering the park there is a welcome sign inviting you to "smell the roses, hug the trees, talk to the birds, and picnic on the lawn". We took them up on the offer and became Tree Huggers for a few moments;)



Back on the bus and heading out to world famous Bondi Beach (pronounced Bond-eye)

The stunning Bondi Beach
As we ended the day, I tried to capture the fact that the water does swirl down the drain the "wrong" way when you are Down Under. Dylan was also analyzing which direction the water swirled (hee hee)

Stay tuned for a trip to Manly...

Merry CHRISTmas 2008

The generosity of our family was so appreciated and a blessing to all three of us! It is so neat to see the symbolism in how our family gives so freely just as Jesus Christ did so many years ago. He left behind a royal throne and heaven to be born as a human in a stable. Coming to earth to pay our debt by dying on the cross! The first present to grab Dylan's attention was curious George! Grabbing the stuffed animal was preceded by scratching under his arm and making monkey noises;) They needed to introduce themselves before they played hee hee

As we walked out of Dylan's room Christmas morning, he didn't even notice all the presents under the tree until Daddy and Mommy pointed them out. His little face erupted into expressions of wonder and excitement as he signed down down with his whole body. He touched two presents then was back at mommy's legs signing up:) What a goof ball!

After breakfast the fun began...No, Dylan does not generally have a stocking over half his size.

NOT thinking, I decided we didn't need to bring any Christmas decorations - what a sad mistake on my part. What was I trying to do? Make it even tougher being away from extended family??? Of course my honey came to the rescue, we bought a mini tree, a few ornaments and a huge Japanese stocking. We found this bright orange stocking at the mall down the street from base. Inside the stocking were many Japanese "treats" we added cds, toys and books.

We got this drop-jawed look of excitement combined with thrilling shrieks many times over the course of the morning and loved everyone!!!!!!!!

Dylan and his Japanese bullet train.
The train has a variety of sounds we know well: warning that the doors are closing, a train is arriving, a horn blowing and of course many many words in Japanese that we only guess at their meaning;) Dylan really gets a kick out of his train as it shoots across the floor at not lightening speeds. Before we leave Japan, we do plan on riding the bullet train.

More family Christmas fun...

Around 1pm, we headed over to our friends home for Christmas dinner. Do you remember Kim who made her debut on the blog when she and her four boys took Dylan and I out for my b-day dinner? We went over to her home. Rory and I had a splendid time visiting with Kim and her husband Andy. Dylan had the best time of all playing with 4 boys!! He only came over to see Rory and I once or twice the whole time we were there. We were so blessed to spend time with fellow Christians on the Lord's birthday.

So from the pictures below can you see how much fun Dylan had with the boys (age range 13-4yr), who by the way were AWESOME with Dylan!

This was Dylan literally a moment or two after we left the Gibbon's home!

Doesn't look to comfy to me!



We pray that everyone had as wonderful a Christmas as we did here in Japan!!

I wonder what adventures and blessings the Lord has in store for us in 2009?

The rest of our Australia pictures are coming, we just needed to share Christmas with those we love!