The Daily Dump

On this blog we hope to capture the daily doings of the trip - no deep thoughts - no essays, just what we did and some pics.

March 19th, 2015 - Port Douglas, Australia - Day 215

Peter's POV

Tonight is the night that Nathan hits.

I woke up and found everything working, like normal, no signs of trouble yet. We worked for most of the morning until about 12:00 when we went down to the beach for a walk. When we got back to the house we made lunch and hopped in the pool. We spent about 45 minutes in the pool, after we got out we relaxed for a little bit - a pretty standard day for us here in Port Douglas.

After having such a "busy" morning we decided to lay down and read. When we got up we started watching the hurricane updates online. It looked like we would get a little bit of the hurricane at about 5 in the morning, but that it had mostly moved to the north of us.

At about 6:00 PM rain started pouring down. We closed all of the windows and hatches of our little glass house and got comfortable. About 15 minutes later the rain stopped and we opened the windows again. We could tell that we were getting the beginnings of the storm because there would be 30 minute breaks to the rain. We eventually decided to close all of the windows for good.

While we were closing all of the windows I discovered about 500-1000 ants in one of the bedrooms that we were not using. They got in because we left the windows open and there is a branch of a tree that sticks into the window. My dad and I tried to attack the ants with towels but there were so many of them that we couldn't do much - and we did find out the hard way that they BITE! We stuck a towel under the door to the room to lock them in and later my dad sprayed them with insect killer that he found in the kitchen. It was a mass extinction.

After dealing with the ant infestation we watched a movie that Lea has been very excited to see, Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1. After the movie we all got in our beds and prepared for Nathan. None of us expected to sleep much, because we thought the wind and rain would be heavy. As it turns out, we all slept like babies because there was no wind and no rain. Nathan missed us completely as you can see from the picture below.

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March 18th, 2015 - Port Douglas, Australia - Day 214

We woke up this morning and headed right to the computer to see where Nathan was tracking. We were relieved to see he was moving north of us just a bit, but dismayed because he had intensified even more than expected. The storm was now supposed to hit Category 4 (out of 5) further out in the ocean and hit the coast with more intensity. However, as long as it keeps tracking north we should be ok.

The day was clear and sunny and HOT. 90 degrees and 80% humidity with no AC is about as hot as I can remember being. Stacie and I were really sore from a long run and workout yesterday, so we decided to go for a long walk instead of an intense workout. We walked up to town, had a stroll around and then headed back.

We hung around the house most of the day tracking the storm and trip planning. We have finally locked a few things down including our destination in Thailand (Koh Lanta) an island off the coast of Karabi. Peter is working on creating his first app which he is calling The Stash (I will let him tell you what it is). Lea is absolutely CRANKING on school and Stacie is working hard on trip planning and building her website for Solscape.

In the afternoon Stacie and Lea went to town to spend a little alone time and Peter and I jumped into the pool to cool off and have another battle with foam noodles.

Dinner was broiled salmon, rice and asparagus - Peter was THRILLED (kidding). As we were cooking dinner I caught Peter in a thoughtful moment out on the deck.

We then tried streaming a movie, but the internet here is not great, so we ended up heading off to bed for some reading.

Just as we were going to bed I spotted a little friend we have in the house we call Geico. He is a baby gecko and he is so cute. We have a family of geckos in the house that help to keep the bugs down. We love watching them work and Geico is our favorite.

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March 17th, 2015 - Port Douglas, Australia - Day 213

Being in Northern Australia during the Cyclone (hurricane) season has turned out to be a real adventure. We were all up having breakfast this morning when the house manager, Mia, stopped by to make sure we had heard the news about the cyclone. "Ha, of course we had heard the news, the cyclone was nearby by did not make landfall." Captain Obvious (me) said with confidence.

"Uh, no, it went out to sea and is now coming back and is forecasted to hit somewhere very close and as a bigger more intense storm. You guys need to be ready to evacuate if it comes close to Port Douglas". Mia informed me, with just a little bit of concern over which rock I had been living under.

"Oh that cyclone - yeah we are watching it" I said trying to recover. "We are on it".

We were not on it, we had no idea it was coming back or intensifying, so it was a good thing Mia stopped by. Cyclone Nathan has been giving forecasters a hard time by lolly gaging around out in the ocean just doing little twirls because it can't make up its mind what it wants to be. It's like a little kid in a candy store, finger twirling a strand of hair while they are trying to decide on which candy to binge on. We are the pissed off parents who just want them to make up their freaking mind so we can get on with it. I digress...

So now we are full fledged cyclone watchers. Normally I would not want to spoil the suspense of what is happening by posting an update from the future, but because my mother is one of four people who actually read these posts (hello to Jeanne, Abby and Andrew as well) I figured I would let you know how things are tracking in real time. It is now Thursday morning as I write this and Nathan has decided he wants to be a big boy and take out half the coast. However, he has decided to move north of Port Douglas. So as of right now it looks like we are going to have one hell of a storm, but be spared from the real destruction. Nathan is expected to be a Category 4 storm though when it hits, so we are thankful it is moving away from us. Here is the latest updated track map:

So we are not out of the woods yet, but things are looking better for us.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming:

So the rest of the day after Mia's visit was pretty much par for the course. We got in a good workout, worked on our respective projects. Took a nap and then got ready for the evening. Stacie and I were going to head out for a dinner on our own. We have been trying to do this every week while traveling and it has been wonderful. However, this date night had some special significance to it because it was St. Patricks day. You probably know we are not Irish, but St. Patricks day does hold a special place in our hearts. On St. Patricks day in 1995 Stacie and I along with a few of our friends took a trip to San Diego. At this point Stacie and I were just flirtatious friends, not a couple. It was on this trip on the evening of St. Patricks day that we shared our first kiss and became a couple. We have been together ever since without interruption and by some magical stroke of luck we love each other more today than we ever have.

We went out and had a nice dinner at a restaurant called Salsa. The food was awesome, but the ambiance needs some work, unless you like super bright white lights and wait staff who wants you to vacate the table as quickly as possible. But we still had a great time. And just to top off the night we made a special stop at the GROCERY STORE! We know how to party! We wanted to stock up on some food in case the hurricane did hit.

We were all on edge a little bit as we went to bed, because at that point we did not know where the cyclone was tracking and we were in the blast zone. But all in all it was a special 20th anniversary of becoming Stacie and Pete (and Nathan).

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March 16th, 2015 - Port Douglas, Australia - Day 212

Peter's POV

Today was another awesome day in Port Douglas. I woke up and started working. When Lea got up we decided to go skim boarding. When we got to the beach we found that it was very calm and great for skim boarding. We skim boarded for about 20 minutes, then my parents came down to the beach. We played around in the water for about an hour and headed back up to the house for lunch.

Skim frisbee

Waiting

When we finished lunch I was appointed to clean the pool, because apparently I have nothing to do. When I finished cleaning the pool we all got in and had a battle with the pool noodles. When the battle was over we were all tired and relaxed for a little bit. When we woke up we made dinner and decided to go walk into town to get ice cream. We left a little late and by the time that we were in town it was pitch black. The sun goes down so fast here the light fades in a 20 minute time span. After we got our ice cream we walked back down to the beach to begin our trek back to the house and found it pitch black. Luckily we had a flashlight that we used for looking out for crabs and jellyfish that had washed up on shore. When we got back to the house we went right to bed, another awesome day in Port Douglas.

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March 15th, 2015 - Port Douglas, Australia - Day 211

Peter's POV

Today I woke up to the sun! I finally woke up to the sun shinning through my window. When I got upstairs my parents were planning on going down to the beach so I grabbed my skimboard to join them. When we got to the beach the sun was shinning and the waves we good. We spent about 20 minutes out on the beach until my GoPro fell off my skimboard. Luckily I grabbed it before it could get lost out at sea. We ended up going back inside because we didn't think about putting sunscreen on.

After getting back and working for a little bit we decided to go and work out. We knew that there was a market in town today so we ran down to it. The run was just above 2 miles and we did it in about 20 minutes. When we got to the market we were all super hot and sweaty, we immediately found a shave ice stand. When were done with the market we walked home and hopped into the pool. After we got out of the pool, we had lunch and relaxed for a couple hours. When we got up we made dinner and watched the first 45 minutes of Iron Man before it started skipping.

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March 14th, 2015 - Port Douglas, Australia - Day 210

Peter's POV

The day started off with more rain. I am ready for hurricane Nathan to leave Port Douglas. Today was another day spent inside. We worked for most of the morning then my mom decided to go and work out. After she got back we hopped in the pool to cool off. My dad hurt his toe skim boarding se he as been forced to work out by swimming laps in the pool, today Lea and I joined him because we didn't want to go out and run in the brutal wind that is at the beach.

Swimming laps

Our favourite bird, the Kookaburra

After we got out we had lunch and got right back on the computers. My mom and I have been working to plan last couple months of the trip. We worked in the afternoon planning the trip and after dinner we told my dad and sister what we had figured out. From there we knew what direction the family wanted to go and what else we have to do. Hopefully soon the rain will stop and hurricane Nathan will go away.

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March 13th, 2015 - Port Douglas, Australia - Day 209

Hard to see, but that is major rain

Today was a pretty slow day on the trip. With the cyclone lurking off the coast and depositing almost 20 inches of rain on our little town over the past couple of days, there was not much to do outside. We all took the opportunity to do our own things. Stacie researched the next leg of our trip in Southeast Asia (which we currently do not have planned). Lea caught up on schoolwork, Peter wrote a couple Daily Dumps and is teaching himself Javascript and I worked on the Allowance App that I have been writing for the past several months. I am enjoying learning to code, I think it jives well with my analytical mind.

The other day while I was skim boarding I not only busted my lip open, but I also stubbed my big toe badly. When I wok up this morning it was really swollen and I could not put any weight on it. So while Peter and Stacie went for a run on the beach I swam laps in our little 10 meter pool. I hate swimming for a workout and having to turn around every 6 strokes made the workout even more annoying, so it did not last all that long. I am hoping my toe feels better tomorrow because the run along the beach is really nice.

We wrapped up the day with a nice steak dinner and another great conversation. It is really striking to me how much the conversation around the dinner table has changed on this trip. We used to just rehash the day, but now we discuss interesting things and laugh and have a great time. It is amazing to me that after this much time together we are all still getting along so well and actually have things to say to one another.

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March 12th, 2015 - Port Douglas - Day 208

Peter's POV

My dad's forecast — My dad's forecast

Today was our first day in our house in Port Douglas. I woke up a little bit early due to heavy rain keeping me awake. We worked for a while and after breakfast Lea and I decided to go skim boarding. When we got to the beach the wind was blowing and it was high tide. We were at the beach for about 15 minutes before we decided to head in. After getting back to the house we decided that we still wanted to get wet so we hopped in the pool. Because of the rain and wind last night the pool was dirty so we decided to clean it. The only problem was that we couldn't find a tool to clean it with. We grabbed a couple shovels and googles and discovered that if you pushed at the water with the shovel then you could get the leaves to move to one side of the pool. After about an hour of swimming around the pool pushing leaves with shovels we had a pretty clean pool. We decided that we had our fare share of the pool and hopped out.

My parents went on a run while we worked. After lunch we decided to relax for a little bit. After waking up I decided to go try to skimboard again. When I was walking to the beach I was happy, it wasn't raining and the wind didn't seem to be bad. When I got out to the beach I found that the wind was very bad, I ended up only being able to run one direction because every time I would drop the board it would fly up and behind me. I skim boarded for about a half an hour then decided that I would head in only to find my dad walking out to the beach to skim board with me. I turned around and we stayed on the beach skim boarding for about another 45 minutes. At one point I turned around after a run and looked back to see my dad and found him spitting blood out of his mouth. It turn out he had turned around with his skim board chest high right as the wind gusted and the board smacked him right in the mouth. He said he was fine and we kept boarding.

After we got back dried off and discovered that my computer wouldn't turn on. We still don't know what happened but my computer is working fine now but it would not start for about 3 hours.

We had a good dinner of fresh shrimp and pasta and then watched Night at The Museum 2. Even though there is a hurricane just off our coast, it was a great day.

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March 11th, 2015 - Port Douglas, Australia - Day 207

Peter's POV

Today we move to our house. The morning was very similar to the day before, my parents went to get coffee while my sister and I slept.

The walk along the beach to Port Douglas

The storm is coming - Cyclone Nathan!

With the storm comes the Jellyfish

The beach vibe

When they got back it was raining so my dad drove us to a cafe to get, more french toast! This french toast was different because it had Nutella in the middle of the two pieces of french toast. I usually love Nutella in everything but in this case it was just too strong.

After we got back to the hotel we packed up and worked a little bit. Then left to get groceries and lunch. When we were done with all of the grocery shopping and lunch it was 2:30, time to move into our new house. The house was awesome, very unique and cool. We are very close to the beach and it has a pool. We were all very happy with all of our rooms.

Happy in our new house

Right when we got unpacked I went for a skimboard. After I got back we made dinner and Lea wanted to go out for a skimboard before the sun went down, so we all went. It ended up being a skimboard in pitch black, except for my mom using a flashlight for us to see. When we got back we watched Night at the Museum to wrap up an awesome day.

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March 10th - Port Douglas - Day 206

Peter's POV

The pool at the Sheraton

Today was our first full day in paradise. I woke up to the noise of my parents trying to stick a note under a door, fortunately I was able to go back to sleep. About 7 I actually woke up, my parents were walking back from coffee and Lea and I were going to go and meet them. When we were out of the room, Lea turned to me and said "you have the key, right?" I didn't have the key. We walked up to the front desk and asked the person working at the front desk if we could have another key. She directed us to another man and he said that because we didn't have an ID in our room he would have to call security. When we got to the room our parents were back and Lea went to go and see if the patio door was unlocked, it was. We grabbed our key and after about 10 minutes of waiting for the security guard, who never showed, went to get breakfast.

We walked along the beach down into town. The beach is massive, it was about a 20 minute walk into town and the hotel was a little less than half way in between the town and the other end of the beach. When we got to the breakfast place I ordered a plate of french toast, which must be popular in Australia because it is on every breakfast menu and I can not stop myself from getting it. The french toast was great, instead of making the french toast out of a loaf of stale hard bread this place made it out of a thinner softer bread.

Ever since I saw the beach I have been looking for skim boards, which are boards that you can ride on about a quarter of an inch of water. They look perfect for this beach. We walked around the town for a little bit and we found 2 skim boards in the first shop that we went into. We ended up getting them, and instead of walking on the beach back to the hotel Lea and I were skim boarding.

When we got back to the hotel, Lea and I went for a swim, then a skimboard. While my parents worked, when Lea and I finally stopped for long enough to realize that we were hungry it was 1:00. We ate then relaxed for a bit. When we woke up my parents decided that we would order pizza from Dominos for dinner because no one felt like going out. We watched the Imitation Game while we were eating and loved it. Great first day in Port Douglas.

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March 9th, 2015 - Real Travel Day - Day 205

Peter's POV

Our house in Sydney

Today is the real travel day. If you have not read the blog post from the 8th then you should read it because the rest of this post will not make sense if you don't.

I woke up and walked over to Cafe on Johnston for my usual french toast and bacon. When we got back home we found Lea making breakfast as usual. We packed up and hurried out the door around 10, grabbed a cab and headed to the airport.

When we got to the airport we made our way to the Virgin desk, again. When we got all checked in and past security we had about about 2 hours to burn in the airport. We spent the beginning of the two hours shopping at the Sunglass Hut looking for a pair for my dad. He found a pair of very cool Ray Bans. After the shopping was over we walked around and found a seat. We spent the next hour on our computers waiting then went and got some lunch. I got a turkish wrap and my sister, dad, and mom got Subway. After lunch we got something that we haven't had since Boise, KRISPY KREME! When we got to our gate we waited for a while then boarded the plane.

The flight was very cool, for some of it we were flying along the coast and for a little bit of the flight you could see the great barrier reef. When we landed we grabbed a car and drove for an hour from Cairns along the coast to Port Douglas. We are staying at a hotel for the first two days of the visit because our house was booked. When we got to the hotel Lea and I were excited because they had a big pool and a it was on the beach. My parents were not so thrilled, the hotel was very old and out dated, but it would work for two days.

Lea and I went for a swim while my parents got an appetiser at the bar, then we all went to go get dinner. When we got back to the hotel we were all wiped and fell into bed.

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March 8th, 2015 - Sydney, Australia - Day 204

Today was moving day, or so we thought. We got up at a reasonable time, had a cup of coffee and once the kids were awake we headed down to the Cafe on Johnston for our last family breakfast at our favorite coffee shop.

Lea had not been awake for any of our previous visits and so Suzanne had not met her yet. We insisted she make it for this visit and she agreed. So we strolled in to a reception as regulars. Suzanne really has a way of making everyone feeling special.

We had a great breakfast and said our good-bye’s to COJ and Suzanne. Once we were back at the apartment we hustled to get packed up and were out the door at 10:00. We decided to head to the airport even though our flight was not until 2:00 and the cab ride would only take 25 minutes. We made it there quickly and strolled over to check in without a care in the world. We were three and a half hours early, or so we thought.

When we got up to the agent I handed over our passports and waited for her to pull up our reservation. She looked up at me and asked “your final destination is Cairns?”.

“Yep” I replied, starting to get a little worried.

“Are you having trouble finding the reservation?” I asked.

“No, the system is just acting up a little bit.” she replied. This calmed me down - those crazy computers, always making things difficult. But just for kicks I thought I would pull up the reservation on my phone. It took me a few seconds to find it and then BOOM - wrong day. Our flight was not booked until tomorrow. Then I really started to panic. We would not have a place to stay for the night. So I pulled up our AirBnB reservation and BOOM - there is was plain as day - we were not supposed to leave until tomorrow. In fact everything was booked perfectly, we had just shown up to the airport a day early. I sheepishly said “oops, we are here a day early”. The agent was nice and did not make me feel too stupid. Stacie cracked up, she thought it was the funniest thing ever, the kids were not amused. They were excited about getting to Port Douglas and another day walking around Sydney was not their idea of a nice ad hoc itinerary change. However, Stacie set the tone and soon we were all laughing about our mistake. The funny thing is we all knew our stay in Sydney was 5 nights, but somewhere along the way we had convinced ourselves we were leaving Sunday instead of Monday. On this trip we have all lost our sense of time. We frequently ask each other what day of the week it is, we almost never know the date, and usually have very little idea what time it is. However, we have never been confused about our days of travel. I guess we really have hit the phase where we are so mellow we don’t take anything too seriously.

We made it back to the house and threw our packed bags back in our rooms. The kids needed a little time to decompress after the change, so they went to their rooms. Stacie and I sat in the lounge and planned the day. Yesterday we were kicking ourselves that we had not made it to Manly Beach. We figured serendipity really wanted us to go there, so we decided to make Manly our destination for the day.

After about an hour’s rest we rustled up the kids and headed back to the bus. We made our way down to Circular Quay and quickly found the ferry to Manly. The ferry ride over nice and we were treated to a beautiful view of how Sydney spends their Sunday afternoons - sailing. Boats were everywhere in the harbor. Everything from small schooners to Americas Cup contenders.

We got off the boat and wandered through the town. Manly is a really cute little beach town with tons of really cool restaurants and boutiques.

We strolled through the town ducking in and out of shops looking for sunglasses for Lea and I. After trying on about a hundred pairs we found Lea something she loved. All geared up with new shades we headed down to the beach.

We played some frisbee and the kids stuck their toes in the water. After an hour or so on the beach we were all getting hungry so we strolled back down the beach and found a cool restaurant with a view of the water. We had a nice meal and another good conversation, excited about our upcoming stay in Port Douglas. We are going to really try to get into the beach vibe up there and Manly had been a great intro.

We made it back to the house with another ferry and bus trip and hit the sack pretty early because we knew we had a REAL travel day tomorrow.

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March 7th, 2015 - Sydney, Australia - Day 203

Peter's POV

Today was our last full day in Sydney. When I woke up we headed over to Cafe on Johnston and had our usual food and coffee. When we got back to the house Lea was awake and having breakfast. When everyone was done eating we decided to what was described as the best market in Sydney. The market was like the Boise farmers market, but stuffed into the backyard of a school. We fought our way through the crowd, managing to see all of the vendors before leaving, if we had gone a little later in the day it would have been better because the food looked amazing. When we got back to the apartment we were all very tired so we decided to delay our outing and get some sleep.

When we woke up we decided to go to see the Royal Botanical Gardens. When we got down to the gardens we were very impressed, it is almost like a big park with gardens in it.

We walked around the gardens for about 30 minutes then went to go and find a place for an early dinner. We found a place on our phones and started walking there.

At this point I was very hungry, we had a very weird lunch. We ate a quick small snack because we thought we were going out again but then we decided to stay home and I had another bigger lunch, but still nothing substantial. We decided to find a place for dinner and my parents wanted seafood. We found a place that looked good and was about a 20 min walk away.

Cool tunnel on the way to the seafood resturant

When we got to the fish place we couldn't find anything that we liked on the menu so we walked down the street to a really loud pub. I was hungry and grumpy and the place did not look fun so we left. After that we walked around trying to find a place to eat for about an hour and we finally found a Mexican restaurant to eat at - we were all really frustrated at this point.

We ordered an appetiser but when it came we knew that we couldn't eat at this place. The plate was tiny and SO EXPENSIVE. We grabbed our check and ran out the door and to the bus stop. At this point we had given up and were heading home to eat at the pizza place next to our house. When we got the pizzas we opened them up to find one meat lovers and one pizza with a bunch of vegetables on it. They had gotten Lea's order wrong, it was good that they got Lea's pizza wrong instead of mine because I would have flipped out, but she just ate it. Our last day was good one, other than not finding a place to eat. On to Port Douglas.

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March 6th, 2015 - Sydney, Australia - Day 202

Our first day in Sydney was a long one and given that we only have 5 days here to explore a big city we knew we were in for another big day today. Stacie and I woke up early again, had our coffee at home and then went to Cafe on Johnston once it opened at 6:30. The kids never showed up so had a quiet breakfast and headed back to the apartment.

Once the kids were up and had eaten we packed up and headed to the bus to go downtown. Our plan was to run a couple of errands (Stacie needed a new watch battery) and then head down to an area called The Rocks for a market and some lunch. We completed the errands pretty quickly and then made our way towards The Rocks. The walk ended up being about 25 minutes to get down there and by the time we arrived at Wok On Inn, our lunch spot, we were all famished. We ordered our noodles and took a seat in the open air courtyard. It was another beautiful day in Sydney and when our food arrived we dug in - it was delicious.

Our lunch spot - complete with musical entertainment

Once lunch was over we strolled through the market. The rocks is a very cool old warehouse district right next to the harbor.

Stacie and Lea found a vendor who takes Eucaliptus leaves and pours gold over them to make jewelry. The results are really cool and they decided to buy them to remember Australia by.

The market was small and mostly food, so we kept moving down towards the harbor. The kids spotted an ice cream shop so we had to stop for a cone.

We then walked over to the opera house. We stopped along the way to get a picture in front of the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

We walked over to the Opera House to have a look. The place is really very cool and there were lots of people sitting around the base of the house because they have free WiFi. The kids were beat from walking so much so they decided to lay down for a little nap.

We read some interesting facts and strolled around taking in the views. Once we got close to the roof we could see it was actually made of ceramic tile - I was totally surprised. Not only had I never heard of tile being used for a roof, but certainly not for one of the most famous roofs in the world. Some things you just have to see with your own eyes, which is one of the major reasons we are on this trip.

One other note - if you ever need to go to the bathroom and you are in Sydney harbor go to the Opera House. The bathrooms there are the coolest public bathrooms I have ever been to. Talk about a useless piece of information.

Once we had finished with the Opera House we were cooked, but Lea is on a mission to find some new sunglasses, so we headed back to George Street to see what we could find. After a while of looking we gave up and headed home. We were all really beat by this point so we laid down for a quick nap.

Afterwards we had a nice eat in pasta meal and a great conversation about the experiences we have been having on the trip. Our dinner conversations have gotten better and better as the trip progresses and are now something I really look forward to.

By the time we were done with dinner it was almost 9:00, in other words bed time, tomorrow would be another big day.

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March 5th, 2015 - Sydney, Australia - Day 201

I cannot believe we have been on the road for over 200 days. This trip has been way more than expected and the fact that we still have 80 days or so left is at the same time exciting and scary. Stacie and I are talking about home and what we want life to be like more and more and this morning was no different.

We woke up around 4:30 in the morning because we had gained two hours by traveling to Sydney, so our internal clocks thought it was 6:30. We made some coffee, did a little planning and then walked down the street about 100 feet to the Cafe on Johnston. Our AirBnB host recommended it as the best coffee in town, and he was right. When we walked in we were greeted by a woman we came to find out is the owner - Suzanne. She was so warm and welcoming and made us feel right at home. Her passion for her business was infectious, and in a couple of minutes talking to her you could tell she was living her dream and loving life. It is so fun and inspiring to meet people like this who have jumped off the cliff and found their parachute did in fact open.

We ordered two black coffees and a muffin to split and had a nice long conversation about home and the changes we want to make when we get back. Then Peter showed up and ordered a nice big plate of French Toast, which was amazing. We wrapped up, paid and headed back home to find Lea digging into a bowl of cereal.

We finished up a few things and then got ready for the day. We planned on doing a hike our host had recommended from Coogee Beach to Bondi Beach. It takes you along the cliffs between 6 different beaches and is about 4 miles long. We loaded up onto the bus and were off. The bus ride was about 45 minutes long to get out to Coogee Beach, but it was worth it. The little town and the beach were perfect. It is incredible to have a beach like this right in a major city. The people in the area (and really everywhere in Australia) are the most friendly I have ever met. Everyone goes out of their way to help you and they are all really interested in your story. It is an amazing place.

By the time we made it to the beach we were all starving, so we split up and all got what we wanted from a line of takeaway restaurants right next to the beach. Stacie and Lea got smoothies, I got Indian and Peter got some Turkish food. As a side note - Peter has gone from a picky eater to probably the most adventurous eater we have. He is up for trying almost anything and usually finds that he likes it. We took our food to a shaded picnic table at the beach. and had a nice picnic.

The view from our lunch spot

Once we were done with lunch we started our walk to Bondi beach. The wind had really kicked up and made the walk a little less pleasant than we would have liked, but it was still very pretty.

A beach this pretty in the city?

We walked up the coast from beach to beach enjoying the views out to sea. The views inland were not nearly as nice. This area must have developed in the 60's and 70's because the architecture is blocky and kind of ugly. Most of the homes and apartment buildings have not been renovated so we found it better to look out to the ocean rather than at the houses.

Sydney or Hawaii?

We finished the walk at the world famous Bondi beach.

Bondi Beach

By that point we were all hot and a little tired, but Peter was in need of some new shoes so we headed to a mall to find a Vans shop. Peter has worn the same pair of Vans every day since we left. For a $40 pair of shoes, they held up amazingly well. We found a mall pretty easily and Peter found his new shoes easily. We had a few other errands to run so we wandered around for a couple hours. The girls even found a Target - they were in heaven!

Once we were done at the mall we headed back to the house, took a quick shower and walked a couple hundred yards down the street to Made In Italy for a pizza. By the time we were done with dinner we were all wiped, so we wrapped up the day. Sydney is another big, but the people and the beaches make it a pretty special place.

Peter's POV

Today was our first of five days in Sydney. I woke up to my sister asleep and no one else in the house. I walked out the door and down the street to Cafe on Johnston, my parents were sitting looking at a laptop. I ordered a french toast and it was delicious. After getting breakfast we got some work done and relaxed for a little bit. We decided to do a walk from Cooge Beach to Bondi Beach, it took about 30 minutes on the bus to get down to Cooge Beach. When we got there we were amazed, the beach was so cool. The water was clear and the sand was white, we got some lunch and ate it in the shade right before starting the walk.

Walking along the coast

The walk we very cool but very windy, you are walking on the coast the whole time so you are very exposed to the wind. When we finished the walk we figured that we would go shopping for some new clothes and shoes that we needed. We hopped on a bus that was headed toward the city, about half way through the drive we saw a mall that was right next to a bus stop. We hopped off and walked into the mall to see what stores they had. The mall was big and they had Vans which was the store we were trying to get to, they even had a Target.

Cooge Beach

Bondi Beach

I actually don't know how long we shopped for but we got out around 5 and we all exhausted and we still had to find our way home. The Sydney transportation system does not include a lot of underground trains like New York or London, so it is mostly buses. We didn't end up getting home until about 6, we we tired, hungry and sweaty so we decided to go out for dinner. We walked to a Italian restaurant a block away, and got a couple pizzas and some delicious gelato. Great first day in Sydney.

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March 4th, 2015 - Travel Day - Day 200

Peter's POV

Today is a sad day. Today we leave New Zealand. We all woke up around the same time and got to work like it was a normal day. After working for a little bit we went to go on our famous hike up the Queenstown hill. About half way up the hill there is a big field of cairns, we decided that we would make one because we did this hike so much.

When we finished we continued up the hill for the last time. When we got to the bottom it was game on, non of us had started packing yet except for Lea. We busted through the packing and said goodbye to Queenstown. We left to go grab some lunch at the best restaurant in Queenstown, Taco Medic, sadly we didn't get to eat there because the food truck is only open for dinner and late night. We ran home, grabbed our bags, and hopped into the car to drive to the airport, because we didn't have a lot of time we decided to go and grab something quick right by the airport.

At the airport

We ended up eating at Pita Pit, a company out of Idaho, the food was surprisingly great! We dropped our car off and walked to the airport scarfing down our food. When we got to the baggage drop off counter we were informed that our tickets didn't include bags. We managed to get them to take our bags for a little bit more money, luckily our tickets were cheap.

We got through security fine and ended up talking to a family from Sri Lanka that were on the way to Sydney to see the cricket world cup. We got on the plane and discovered no one was sitting in the middle seat in between me and my sister. The flight was enjoyable, we watched movies and there was plenty of space.

The jaw dropping flight in

When we got to our apartment we were very happy, it is beautiful, we walked down the street and grabbed some takeaway for dinner in all we had a great day.

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March 3rd, 2015 - Queenstown, New Zealand - 199

Lea’s POV

Today was a very interesting day! Ever since the boy’s bungee adventure last week, my mom has been considering going. I tried to talk my mom out of it, because if she went then I would feel enormous pressure to go. The night before they had decided that she was going with an open slot for either me or Peter. When I went to bed that night all that was going through my head was "I am going to do this!" The next morning I had decided that I wouldn't go, wait no I would, wait no I won’t, which lasted all morning. The morning started early to get ready for the trail ride I had booked a few days ago. Everyone was really nervous except for me. When we got there we saw many beautiful appaloosas waiting in a line.

The horses had very cool names like Dawn, Arizona, and Prickles. We got our helmets on and waited for her to get the horses picked out for the rider.

My horse was named Frosty, and she was a big eater. At every opportunity she would stop and eat grass, which was against the rules. Our 2-hour trek was very pretty; the horses were very well behaved, and I enjoyed seeing all the sheep in the fields. Frosty had a bit of a stubborn streak and would not always listen to me.

I was able to forget about was going to happen that afternoon while we were riding, but once we stopped for photos, it hit me and I started to freak out! What made me relax was that fact that we had a long time until the jump. The plan was to go home, eat lunch and then we would go bungee jumping (or so I thought.) We got back to the stables, thanked the people, and went on our way. We drove for a little bit, then my dad asked the family, “left for bungee jumping or right for home?”. I immediately take out my ear bud to listen. After hesitating for half a second, my mom says “left”. It turned out that I was wrong and we were bungee jumping now. I freaked out; I mean who wouldn’t, your about jump off a bridge and the only thing that is keeping you from plunging into the cold water to your death are little rubber bands. At the time I was listening to a pump up song so I stupidly said, “Okay, let’s do a tandem jump.” My mom and Peter turned to look at me with an expression like I had just said that I have 45 billion dollars in the bank and they could have it, and then they started giving me high-fives and saying good job and wow! I just wanted to listen to my music. I was pretty calm until the bridge came into view. I took deep breaths and felt better until Peter patted me on the back to say good luck. I know he was trying to help, but all I heard was “ha ha you’re going to die!!”

Checking in and getting ready was hard; my hands were shaking so badly I had trouble taking my necklace off. Part of checking in is getting a jump number written on your hand, and when the woman grabbed my hand and declared me no. 56, I knew there was no turning back. We said goodbye to the boys for what I thought would be the last time.

We look fine in this picture but I am secretly planning my escape.

We walked onto the bridge and I freaked out again, because we were the only ones in line...where were the other 55 people?? We quickly made our way down to the platform to get harness on by a very nice man who really tried to calm my nerves. Usually when I am nervous or I’m fighting my fears I get mad, like REALLY mad, but this time I was calm! I usually get very nervous about talking to new people, but this time I was talking more than my shaking mom next to me. I tried to give her a hug and reassure her but that didn't seem to be helping because you could tell she was still nervous. My body was screaming “DON’T. DO. IT”, but what kept me up there was the fact that all of my friends had told be that they would kill to have the experience of bungee jumping. I didn’t want to leave Queenstown full of regrets; I wanted to leave Queenstown with a free tee shirt. “Alright you guys are ready” the funny man said, but all I kept thinking was “NO, we aren’t... I think you missed a strap, or a hundred.” I was seriously considering taking off some of the straps, but facing my fears I walked (more like hopped) over to the platform my mom’s approach was to not look down, but my approach was, well to be honest I didn’t have an approach but I did look down.

Mama's face :)

On the platform, we were supposed to be smiling at the cameras. I guess mama didn't get the memo.

They tell you to look at the cameras and smile and wave my eyes were pleading for help. After the camera waving, my mom said, “okay 1..” , but the guy stopped her and told her to wait, and then he said “alright it’s your time to shine!” All I was thinking of was the song they were playing in the background, which was “Stand By Me”, then he said “1….2….3” The feeling is indescribable! My legs just took over and jumped! I told my mom when the boys were jumping that if I was to do this I would want to be graceful and do a swan dive or something, but when I actually did do it it wasn’t like that at all. I jumped when you are supposed to dive which made it 100% harder for us. It got my stomach so badly and I couldn’t even open my eyes! Then you feel the blood rush to your head. The worst feeling for me was the beginning, because you feel like there is no way that the rope will catch you. Then after we were untied we went to go get our free t-shirts. My mom and I bought cute matching t-shirts, too. When we finally left you could feel so much adrenaline surging through your whole body, and then we got tired. When we got home we ate lunch and decided it was time to take a much needed nap. Then we went out to dinner at The Find. We sat down and met the very nice waitress from Georgia. We had amazing food and then went home and watched a new episode of Elementary.

Mama’s/ Stacies POV

I don’t remember much about the drive to the bungee bridge other than the moment Pete asked if he should take a left (bungee) or right (home). At that point I was committed to jumping so telling him to go left was instinctual. Lea on the other hand was venomous in the backseat, and her rage was palpable. After a few minutes, she calmed down and announced to us that she was going to jump with me, and then I started to panic! I started worrying about her...the what if’s started coming...what if she starts yelling at me up there?....what if she passes out?..what if she has a horrible experience and the whole thing backfires??

Fast forward to our minutes prior to jump: she was the brave one; chatting with the boys on the bridge and I couldn’t even speak! I couldn’t stop my legs from shaking! I kept thinking that no matter what, I had to jump...no hesitating. If I hesitated things would not happen. This comes from a cliff jumping experience where it took me 20 minutes to jump 30 feet. The boys were so annoyed, so I knew I COULD NOT hesitate. And we didn’t!

It was not like I’d pictured though. In my mind, our tandem jump was a beautiful swan dive, with each of us having one arm out and the other around the other’s back; eyes wide open, taking it all in (right way). Our jump...stepped off the ledge with a slight push from our bungee guide, all arms clutching the other body (actually Lea’s right hand had a firm grip on my hair), and our eyes sealed! Everyone watching yelled out, “OHH!”.

I finally opened my eyes when I felt the pull of the bungee. All the awesome views were...upside down, beautiful, but upside down. Obviously that was suppose to be the best part! But what turned out being the best part was hearing Lea say she felt empowered! And I felt empowered! LEA jumped 140 feet. This is the girl that wanted nothing to do with jumping off a ledge over 10’ on the river last year! I’m so proud! They say once you bungee off the bridge there’s nothing you can’t do, and I believe it! We’ve proved that we can do ANYTHING!

Completed

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March 2rd, 2015 - Queenstown, New Zealand - Day 198

Peter's POV

Today was another rainy day. The weather in the morning was supposed to be good so my parents and my sister went for a walk up the mountain. I am finding myself watching them leave the house to go on hikes a little more often than usual. Maybe it is because it is summer for me, but I really don't know. After they got back we all got ready to go play the championship of the ongoing Queenstown frisbee golf cup. We decided that a 15 stroke lead for the kids was about right for an even match. When we got up to the first tee the wind was ripping off of the lake and it made for a very hard couple of holes. After two holes we had lost 7 strokes....so much for an even match.

The game is on

On the tee box of hole three the wind died down and we decided to start the game over. We ended up coming out of the gate strong, only losing 2 strokes in the fourth hole and making up one of those strokes on the fifth. On the sixth hole we almost won! My dad's shot started out looking great, seeming to arc right around the tree and it would have if it weren't for the wind. The wind grabbed it and shoved it into the tree, the frisbee stuck like the branches were covered in glue.

I immediately ran over to the base of the tree and started body checking it trying to get the frisbee out. After about a minute of staring at the tree trying to make it drop the frisbee with our minds, my dad said "Peter, go get it." I was immediately excited and started to climb up the tree, I ended up cutting my arm on something and figured that a branch was going to snap so I dropped down. My dad jumped up and started climbing it. We directed him to the frisbee and he got it.

Resuming the game after the rain delay

We made it to hole 12 before we had to delay the game due to weather. We saw a big rain cloud drenching the lake and turned around to sprint back to the car. When we got back to the apartment we chilled out and worked while it rained. After dinner we decided to finish the game, the kids ended up winning the championship. All in all it was a great day.

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March 1st, 2015 - Queenstown, New Zealand - Day 197

Today was a big travel day for us. Not to another checkpoint on the trip, but rather a day trip to Milford Sound, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a place Rudyard Kipling called the 8th wonder of the world. We had researched the drive and people said it would take between 3.5 and 5 hours depending on traffic and how much we stopped to gawk at the incredible scenery.

We headed out at 8:00, filled up the car and hit the road. The scenery was indeed beautiful, but because we have been driving around here for three weeks (and live in Idaho where the scenery is pretty darn good as well) we were more focused on getting there than stopping at every pullout. Stacie and I had an amazing conversation about what we wanted life to be like when we get home which made the time fly by. We stopped in a little town called Te Anau to refill and the kids got Subway - it was our first fast food stop of the entire trip - 197 days without a chain meal, that is pretty good!.

We made our way for another 100 kilometers or so and were making great time. We thought the drive was pretty, but were wondering what people were raving about, it was not all that much different than the rest of NZ. Then we descended into a valley and the world changed. The clouds clung to the mountaintops, a rain forrest emerged and water was everywhere. It was like we had gone through the looking glass into another world. We instantly changed our mindset and stopped at the first pullout to take some pictures.

The first waterfall we stopped at

There gawked at our surroundings. The blue river cascading through massive boulders, the huge waterfall cascading into a green pool, and the dozens of ribbon waterfalls tumbling down the granite cliffs made for a scene like nothing I have ever witnessed with my own eyes.

We jumped back into the car and ooohh'd and ahhhh'd around every corner as if we were at a Fourth of July fireworks show. Then we came to a one way tunnel where we had to wait at a light. I got out and too some more pictures of our surroundings.

These pictures above are not anything special - literally every wall of the canyon looked like this, it was surreal.

Then it was our turn to head through the tunnel - which was surreal as well. This was no highly engineered tunnel, it was blasted through the mountain in a haphazard way and angled straight down at about a 10% grade. The walls were rough and jagged and there were tiny little string lights along the side. It reminded me of something that would have been made 100 years ago.

It took about 2 minutes to make it through the tunnel and then we were back into waterfall land. Everywhere we turned there was water tumbling down the cliffs. 20 minutes later we pulled into Milford Sound. The "town" is really just a restaurant and dock for the half dozen tourist ships which take about 550,000 passengers a year out for 2 hour cruises on the Fjord.

We went into the restaurant to make a booking on Cruise Milford and grabbed a couple of things to eat. We needed to hurry over to the dock to make our cruise time so we got our stuff together and started the 10 minute walk over. The beauty of this place is literally staggering. I would imagine Alaska looking like this, but not many other places in the world.

We made it to our boat with a couple minutes to spare. We chose a smaller boat based on some Trip Advisor reviews that told us they would get closer to some of the main attractions.

We boarded quickly and got comfortable on the boat. There were only about a dozen other passengers so it was quite roomy. We ate our lunch while they prepared us for departure and within seconds of heading out were greeted with our first up lose waterfall.

While most of the waterfalls we had seen were ribbons caused by the rain, this one was a giant. As it turns out, there are only two year round waterfalls in this area, the rest are caused by rain. Good thing they get 280 inches of rain per year.

We cruised up the fjord and our captian / guide gave us a tour of the area and filled us with fun facts like the fact that these fern trees can get up to 45 feet tall!

We edged our nose right up to these teenagers taking a nap on the rocks.

Cruised under Mitre Peak, which at 5551 feet is the second largest peak rising directly out of the ocean in the world.

Lea even pretended to be Rose from Titanic, but Peter had no interest in standing behind her and taking on the role of Jack!

We put the nose of the boat right underneath this waterfall.

And just enjoyed the scenery everywhere we looked. I ended up taking over 300 pictures in 1:30 minutes, which is funny because I was just telling Stacie how good I was getting at only taking really compelling pictures rather than shooting everything. So much for that theory.

Then after an hour and a half we were back to port.

As opposed to out trip on the TSS Earnslaw, we throughly enjoyed this cruise. We loaded back into the car for the trip home. On our way back up the valley we had reached the point of waterfall overload and made no more stops until we were forced to by the traffic light at the tunnel. Here we found this parrot, which is a Kea, the worlds only alpine Parrot. They are notorious for being highly destructive and eating windshield wiper blades. This guy wanted some food, but we had been warned to keep our distance.

The trip back was uneventful and quite a bit quicker than the trip out since we did not need to make any stops. We actually made it back in 3:25, which was a big relief to me. 7:30 driving on the wrong side of the road through the mountains makes for a long day, but I am so glad we made the effort. None of us will forget Milford Sound anytime soon.

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February 28th - Queenstown, New Zealand - Day 196

BORING ALERT! If you do not want to be bored please stop reading this post right now. I am writing it only because we have made a commitment to write everyday.

We woke up this morning to a big rainstorm and a forecast for rain all day. I remarked to Stacie how unusual it was to be stuck inside because of the weather. We have been so fortunate on this trip to have incredible weather nearly every day. There were showers in Apt and in Burford, but not nearly as many as we had prepared for. Ireland was sunny literally every day. Even Chamonix where we expected to have terrible weather, was wonderful for the most part, so a rainy day in NZ was almost a welcome change.

We all sat around working on various projects for nearly the entire morning and then the rain slowed down a bit and a rainbow appeared out over the lake.

We were all getting a little restless so Stacie, Peter and I went to do the Queenstown Hill Hike and Lea went for a run.

When we got back we showered and made some dinner. We had been inside so much during the day that we decided to try to get out after dinner. Typically we would just walk into town and stroll around, but nobody was into that so we drove out to Sunshine Bay (about 5 mins) and played frisbee and skipped rocks into the water. Peter was the rock skipping champion, however, Lea was the overall champion of the evening. While we were playing Frisbee Peter launched a few throws into the lake. Lea was always there to go into the freezing cold water and save the day. Most of the time this simply called for ankle to calf deep submersion, however, one time Peter really let one go and Lea had to go in all the way to her waist! She did it and saved our precious frisbee, all with a big smile on her face.

Lea recovering an errant throw

Sunshine Bay is beautiful and the evening was peaceful and felt clean after the days rain. It was a great way to get out of the house and have a different kind of evening.

When we made it back to the house we were treated to another stunning Queenstown Sunset. The sheer number of beautiful sunrises and sunsets here is like no place I have ever been. It seems to happen every day.

Ho Hum....another amazing sunset

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