Family Vacation Baby!

So we were so excited for our family Holiday. The plan was to make our way down the East coast of Australia from Brisbane down to Sydney and stopping along the way.

We got off to a bit of a rough start. I gave myself food poisoning the night before leaving when I was supposed to be finishing up packing and cleaning for a rental inspection that was going to take place in our flat while we were gone. So I spent most of the night on the bathroom floor and relinquishing my body of every ounce of anything in my digestive tract. NOT FUN! The next morning I didnt want anything to go too far amiss and so I pushed through the ickiness. I was already feeling a bit better but not great, so we left a bit later than planned but we had our eyes set on getting to this place....

 Caves Beach, New South Wales! This was not our first nights desitination though. The first day we drove to Nambucca Heads....the gps got us lost about 3 times on the way (Sat. Navs. here are notorious for not being great).....and upon our arrival at our campsite-Erik had a major asthma attack. We had fun plans to camp for a night and it all came crashing down when within five minutes of being there Ej was wheezing and gasping for breath. I took him in the car to get him away from whatever the allergen was and regroup. He did well at trying to not cry and overwork himself to make his asthma even worse than it was. It's nice that he is old enough to understand our explanations of things now.

We ended up moving into a cabin at the campground and laying low instead of spending a ton of time outside. Halfway through the night, although improved Ej was still struggling....so Mr. Moon took him to a hospital in the next town over and got him a breathing treatment and fortunately for us they gave us an inhaler and no charges for the visit or meds/equipment. We were very looked after.

Next day we made our way to friends in Caves Beach who live literally meters from the beach. Oh and did I mention we had already figured out that we didnt have battery charge in our camera and thus a huge lack of pictures. Luckily our friends had a camera and we used our memory card in it for a morning and then switched ( I need to get her pics). But I will do a phone dump soon and get some pics I took with my phone.

 Anyhow we went to the beach and nearby caves. From the first beach picture you can see the rocks and that is where we walked to and had some fun!

 We looked in all sorts of tide pools, and played in the sand and even did a treasure hunt!

 Looking close at the little tide pools left in the rocks. We knew this family back when we were stationed in Washington. The husband was an exchange pilot up there (almost the same program as us) and so it was fun to catch up and meet up. Last time we saw them they were pregnant with their first and we didnt have little man in our lives yet.

 The dads and kids went around this corner and explored but you had to get pretty wet to do it and I am wuss when it comes to even slightly cold water, plus I didnt have my swim suit on so us Moms and the baby stayed behind.

 K and her little guy.

 Everyone ejoying playing in the sand

 Little Ej found his treasure!

My handsome Mr. Moon

Hanging out by the caves in front of the ocean. Really we are so lucky to experience such awesomeness on a regular basis. It will be so hard to leave the beaches, but I must admit I am excited to go back and do boating on lakes and camping in mountains and forest. I can wait ever so patiently though and soak up all the sun I can!

It was a lovely morning.

Not sure how many more pictures I will get from this trip so I will give you some great highlights. We spent time with our friends around their house and had an absolute blast. If you ask EJ what his favorite part of his holiday was.....it was riding bikes with his friends around their house. Their house is really the perfect set up, a beach in the back yard, a huge front yard with a security/private fence all the way around with a paved path perfect for riding bikes. K has set up the landscape to be a 'sensory' experience for littles. So every plant except one -which has its own little fence- is either edible or smells wonderful or has a safe but nice texture to feel. They built a see-saw, have a veggie patch, a little fire pit, a balance beam, all sorts of fun things. EJ was in hog heaven the whole time with having constant playmates and being in such a rich learning and fun environment. I came home really inspired to think about our environment at home and what more can I do to enrich little man's life. Siblings I know would really help, but we can't control that part. He really didnt want to leave their house. We also rode their jetski, fed ducks in a pond that had eels in it as well and it was funny to watch the eels bite the ducks in the bum to try and get the bread.

Honestly it was like we were in a bit of family paradise! We then went and made our way to Sydney from Caves Beach. We spent a lot less time there but packed in a lot of fun. We spent the first night walking around the suburbs in the CBD (Central Business District-which basically translates to downtown-each big city has a CBD area) where we were staying. We ate at a greek restaurant and patroned a local book shop where Ej picked out his choice souvenier (warmed his mama's heart!-albeit it was a batman lego dictionary with pictures of every batman lego set ever manufactured....it has kept his interest for hours). The next morming we went to famous Bondi beach and I even stealthily snapped a few pics of some of the lifeguards from the show "Bondi Rescue" that we see on TV here. Those will be in my phone dump! After the beach which turned out to be quite a chilly morning, granted it is still Spring and Sydney is farther south-thus colder, we went and walked around where the Opera House is and enjoyed time around the Harbour. Oh it was wonderful!

On the way home we stayed in a quaint little self proclaimed 'Celtic Town' of Glen Innes. We stayed in a heritage listed home (town house really-heritage listed means its really old and you have to get lots of permits to do anything) and it was so fun. That is where little man started having bad luck again, that night in the bath tub he tried some crazy antics and stood up on the side of the tub, slipped and hit his hip of the faucet knob (it was an ugly bruise even instantly, it only got worse). Then the next morning before the last leg of the road trip I took Ej across the street to a local park and in an excited haste trying to get another little kid to follow him down the slide he somehow tripped and instead of going down on his bum he went face forward and hit his face on the edge of the slide giving himself a shiner and bruise on his brow bone. The poor kid looked abused.

That concluded our family holiday and it was so awesome. It was nice that the simplest things were little man's favorite and it was great to have a week of good quality family time with no distractions or extra responsibilities. Ahhhh, it was bliss-kist thinkng about it makes me happy!