Bugs and other Creepy Crawlies

So Australia is known for a lot of different species of bugs and dangerous ones too!  Luckily, we haven't encountered any poisonous bugs and just one poisonous snake!  The snake just slithered off, thankfully!  On my first day in Kalgoorlie, I killed 7 spiders in our house and don't get me started on the ants!  We live on a giant ant hill.  Our house is just in their way.  Here are a few pics of some fun bugs and creatures we have captured.

So nobody uses a clothes dryer here.  Everyone just hangs their clothes out to dry on the line.  It's so hot here they dry in no time, at least at this time of year.  So one day I was doing a lot of laundry.  So I was hanging clothes out and taking them down and I looked up and noticed these two friends above me.

I figured they were harmless so I just let them be, but that praying mantis began to creep me out.  I kid you not, his big eyes were following my every move.  I could visibly see him move his head every where I went.  It was seriously creepy!!  It was giving me the heebie jeebies!  Luckily, he was gone the next day.  If he didn't leave of his own free will I was getting ready to move him myself.  He was quite the stalker.

See look how he is staring me down right now?  Those eyes would just follow me everywhere! 


This beastly spider, known as the Huntsman, crawled out of a tree when we were in Esperance.

This spider to me is like not even an insect any more (or whatever spiders are), this thing is like a small animal or rodent! 

We saw this goanna lizard on the side of the road.  It was so cool!

Lastly, there's the cockroaches!  Eww!!  One day we were out swimming and Will loves to open the skimmer box and look inside.  It's something he sees Cory doing, so I think he feel like it's the manly thing to do.  So he kept pointing to something and jabbering on about it and then he'd close it and open it again and do the same thing.  So I finally decided to see what was in there about at the same time that Will was reaching for what ever it was.  Well it was a huge brown cockroach with super long antenna.  It was disgusting and I screamed.  Will was a little shocked that I reacted like that to something that he thought was a little friend.  So I decided it was time to get rid of it.  I tried to just flick it away, and it ran straight into the pool!  I thought maybe it would drown, but no, that bad boy could swim!  So I scooped it up on a kick board and threw it over my fence into the neighbors yard!  Gross!  Gladly, I have no pictures of that!

I'm sure we have many more bugs and creatures to discover!  Can't wait!

Life in Kalgoorlie

So since we have arrived in Australia, I've done nothing but post amazing pictures of amazing places.  It has been pretty amazing.  However, these are not the places that we live (to my dismay!).  We live in a place called Kalgoorlie.  It is a mining town in the middle of Western Australia.  It's seriously all that you would picture as the Australian Bush.  Red sand and scraggly looking trees.  There are hundreds of gold mines all around the surrounding area and most everyone here works for one or in a mining related profession.  Every where you go, everyone is wearing high visibility jackets and shirts.  I think I better get one so I can fit in. Cory got one, so I need one too!  But I guess he needs his for work!

See wouldn't I look great in that? Haha!

I'm only joking, but we have been trying to adjust and assimilate into life in Kalgoorlie as best as we can. 

Here are some pictures of our new home sweet home.

 It is fun to have palm trees and hibiscus flowers and other such exotic plants in our yard.

It's also great to have a pool in our yard!  Dream come true for Lily, our little swimming maniac!

Here are the kiddos getting ready to swim for the first time.

 Here's the pool, still looking a little green! 

Here is Lily with a hibiscus from the yard and her new purple wall in her bedroom.  It was meant for her!

 Ava with a yellow flower from our flowering tree, who knows what kind it is!

 Here are the kids in their new play room all playing together. 

There have been lots of things that we have needed to learn being in Australia and Kalgoorlie.  They do speak English here, but there are some things that are a bit different.  "Bit" is one of them, they say that word all the time!  Every thing is a bit this or a bit that, or can I have some bits of this or that.  I know what people are saying, but we just don't use some of the words like that in America.  Diapers are nappies, whining is whinging, the trash can is the bin, the dump is the tip, going to the store is going to the shops, and they use the word "heaps" instead of "lots" all the time.  It's fun learning a new lingo and I am amazed at how fast the kids are picking it up.

Here are a few random pictures of the kids just having fun in a new house. 

 Here's the backyard. 

One thing about the shops, or as I call them, the stores here, they all close at like 6 pm.  So its been kind of hard for me to get any grocery shopping done or anything like that since I don't have a car yet and Cory doesn't get home til around closing time.  But they do have one day of late night shopping on Thursday night.  So Cory gets home and I get to take the car and go to the wild late night shopping on Thursday nights when they stay open until 9!  Yeah, baby!  I really do look forward to it!  Which is sad, because I used to hate grocery shopping, but now its the highlight of my week.  I always get myself a authentic Australian treat.  Oh, the chocolate here, it's just like Europe!  Yum!

Here are some more fun random things going on here in Kalgoorlie.

Tea party in the toy room. 

 Twinners.

This little path of mushrooms cropped up in the middle of the night.  Does it not look like the cutest little fairy path?  I thought it looked so enchanting! Will loved it too!

 Sunset in Kalgoorlie.

 I made some sticky rice topped with passion fruit from our yard!  Delish!

 Swimming with dad after work. 

We have been here for a little over a month and I think we are all finally adjusting to life here in Kalgoorlie. 

Year's End Recap 2012

I know, I know, it's a little late for a year end recap, like 20 days late!!  But I really like to reflect and renew at this time of year and since I was vacationing at the time, I didn't really get the chance to do so.

2012 was a great year filled with all sorts of change for us!  We started the year with William's baby blessing.  Having a new baby and three kids was still a new change that we were all getting used to!  Will turned one in October and luckily by that time we had all adjusted and gotten used to being a family of five.

Here is Will at his baby blessing a year ago. 

And here he is now!  It's amazing how much can change in a year!

Ava also had to adjust and change in many ways. She had to get used to a baby brother and she had to get used to her best friend and sister, Lily going to school!  The day we dropped Lily off for her first day of school, I was doing great, then I looked down at Ava who was in tears!  Then we both just cried together.  It's hard being stuck in the middle sometimes, but she is such a sweet girl.  She knows how to get along with everyone.  Ava learned that it can be nice to have some alone time away from Lily and that Will is a great playmate instead of a threat.  They all have so much fun together.  Ava is the biggest party animal of all!  We love her and her fun personality.

Here is Ava last year.  

Here is Ava now.  Ready for a new year full of more changes and new beginnings! :)

Lily's biggest change this year was starting kindergarten.  She loved it!  Lily was made for kindergarten!  She had so much fun doing all the fun activities at school and learning.  She is now a reading maniac and can't wait to be starting first grade in two weeks!  It was so hard for her to leave her class and teacher back in Utah that is how much she loved kindergarten.

Here is Lily last year.

And here she is a year later.

The biggest change for all of us last year was Cory's job change to KK Machinery in Australia.  It was a long process to come about, but on December 16th we finally all made it here to Australia.  So 2012 was a year of anticipation for this change.  As we waited for the day to come that we were supposed to leave we decided to see more of America.  In 2012 We drove from coast to coast!  We drove to California in March.
There we got to see the Pacific Ocean.

 Then in August we drove all the way to North Carolina and there we got to see the Atlantic Ocean.

 Then we came here and we got to see the Indian Ocean. (At least that is the Ocean the every Australian told me it was, but I'm still not sure.) 

We were traveling fools in 2012!  But I was so glad to see so much of the United States before I left them for a while! 

  We look forward to 2013 as a year of new beginnings here in Australia!  We are already loving living in another country and all of the fun experiences we are having learning to be our own family.

May all of you have a wonderful 2013!  

Esperance

So Cory didn't have to work over the Christmas and New Year holidays, in fact, he didn't have to go back to work until January 7th.  Lucky for us the Prall's, a super nice family here in Kalgoorlie (and Cory's boss) invited us to join them at their yearly holiday destination, Esperance. 

I cannot even begin to tell you how fabulous Esperance is!  It is this tiny little beach town that is so charming with the most beautiful white sand beaches I have ever seen!  The best part is it is like a secret!  It was not over run by people at all!  In fact there were a few days that we were the only ones on the beach!  And lucky for me, it is only 4 hours away from where we live!  (Apparently, that isn't very far!  At least, that is what everyone kept telling me.)  I am hoping that my many pictures will help to show just what a wonderful place Esperance is!

We also got to meet a new family, the Barr family.  I cannot even begin to tell you how fabulous and generous this family is!  They are also members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and they used to live in Kalgoorlie.  That is how they met the Prall's and since we were friends with the Prall's, the Barr's opened up their home and family to us, no problem.  I don't know how anyone survives a move without the church!  I love being a member for so many reasons, but this right now is an especially great perk!  You automatically get to associate with great people wherever you go!  You know just where to find them, at your nearest chapel!  The Barr's and the Prall's were both so generous and kind and welcoming to me and my family and I will be forever grateful! 

Anyways, enough of those tangents, lets see the good stuff! 

When we first arrived at Esperance, Karen Prall, who we followed down decided to show us around a bit.  We drove along the coast line and it was spectacular!

Here we are at the Rotary look out. 

 Here is another look out point.  Isn't that amazing?

 Then we went to the Barr's residence where we would be staying.  They have a beautiful home on a huge property.  The whole front half of the property is covered with these Blue gum trees.  Lily and Ava enjoyed the swing hanging from them.  

 Alex Prall, the six year old boy in the helmet, was nice enough to let everyone have a turn on his motorbike.  Cory was a popular driver.  All the little girls wanted to ride with him! ;)  All except Ava, that is, she didn't want to ride that thing with anyone! 

 Will was a huge fan!  He doesn't look too thrilled in any of these pictures, but believe me, he was!  He never wanted to get off!

 The kids loved playing with all the toys that the Barr children had outgrown.  These pictures are just some of the silly fun they were having.

 Isn't that hilarious?

 The Pralls brought this awesome bouncy water slide.  We couldn't keep Lily off of it, even though the water was freezing! This thing went up multiple times a day while we were there!

 All the kids enjoyed it!

 Ava was wussy, of course, and wouldn't go down the big slide, but she still enjoyed the little slide. 

 There were seriously so many great beaches close by to choose from.  The first beach we went to was Twilight Beach.  It was like 5 minutes away from the Barr's home. 

Is that not incredible?  One morning, Cory and I got to come to this beach super early without our kids and we swam out to that rock and jumped off!  It was awesome! 

 The girls swam out to that closest island and found starfish. 

 

 Here are Lily and Ava with their new friend, Katie. 

 Here is Will inside the swimming pool we made!  He had a great time. 

Here we are at the 11 mile beach, we tried the 10 mile beach before this, and well it ended up being a nude beach!  Haha, who knew that "Free Beach" meant free of clothing! 
Here are Ava and Will playing in the sand.

 Here is Lily and Cory soaking up the sun. 

So the only draw back to Esperance, if you're a mormon, is the church is super small there.  The Barr's host sacrament meeting at their home every week.  It was really spiritual to participate in such a small little gathering of saints. 

On Monday, December 31st, we went to some beaches that were about a half hour away, so a little further.  They were amazing, but I am lame and my phone died!  And so did Cory's so we have no pictures. :(  But these beaches were amazing!  We got to drive right on them and park where we wanted to swim.  And there were even kangaroo on the beach!  The first kangaroo we ever saw in Australia and I don't have a camera!  They were the cute little kind!  It was incredible!  Then we just drove down the beach for about 20 kilometers and took in the scenery and had a little bit of fun off roadin'-on the beach!!! 


Every night we got fed a delicious meal thanks to Judy and Karen.  Here is Will chillin' in the backyard eating watermelon.

 We couldn't get enough of the beach, we kept going back every day!  Here we are on the other side of Twilight beach, with the place all to ourselves!!  Amazing!

 Is that not the cutest little snorkeler you ever saw??  Love it!

 We celebrated our new friend, Abby's, birthday while we were there. 

 One night we went down to the jetty.  It was such a pleasant walk, until Lily insisted she was too cold to make it to the end!  So Ava and dad continued on, and they made it.  Here they are at the end. 

 The fisherman who fish on the dock clean their fish right here.  There is a very clever seal who knows that he will get thrown fish, so he hangs out around here every night.  They call him Sammy the seal.  Can you see him behind the girls?

 Running to see Sammy.

We went to an animal farm while we were there and Lily was able to see the emu she'd been wanting to see and a kangaroo. 

 Feeding the kangaroo.

 Will loved every animal. 

Lily was a goat feeding maniac! 

We spent more days at twilight beach with it practically to ourselves every time.  We got in some great sand building, boogie boarding, wave jumping and snorkeling.  Lily was a snorkeling master!  When she saw fish for the first time she was so excited she was screaming through her snorkel!  It was so cute! 

 

Ava could sit forever in the surf. 

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 Boogie boarding, totally can't see but Lily is actually out there boogie boarding! :)

 It was a nice long holiday, but it had to come to an end.  I think we were all ready to come back and get a routine again.  It's been a long time for us!  Here are Ava and Will enjoying one last ice cream cone under the trampoline before climbing in the car for the drive home.