Pictures

I am having problems getting all my photos on here because I have so many on the camera! It is really confusing the computer, so I have to figure out something else to do...working on the problem!

Flight Home

Starting the trip..

About 10 hours in and really mad at the loud drunk guys sitting in front of me..

Today is the long journey home. I am now sitting on an airplane headed for Charlotte, N.C. as I write this. We flew 2 hours from Cairns to Brisbane, 12 hours from Brisbane to Los Angeles, and are now are in a 3 and a half hour flight from Los Angeles to Charlotte. From Charlotte we will hop onto a short 15 minute flight to Columbia. That makes for a very, very long day. We will be so glad to get home home and see our baby girls Bella, Dora, and Willow!

The Great Barrier Reef

The boat SilverSonic behind us is the one we took out on the reef.

Bryon flipper fitting

ok who's ready to go snorkeling now?

suited up

Part of my lunch...squid! It is really actually good! Go to any chinese buffet and you will find it :0)

The light turquois area under the water is the sand...the dark blue is really deep and the medium tannish blue color is the actual coral under the surface.

Best seat in the house on the ride home. The front deck!

Today we woke up early and met in the lobby with a few other couples to go snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef. We took the Quicksilver Tour line out there and had a blast! When we returned to the hotel, we took a quick shower and decided to walk to the Beach Shack Bar for dinner. We had a pizza and salad that was soooo good! We walked back to the hotel and packed for the 3:00 a.m. departure to the airport. Should we have to pay for a whole night if we only stay in the room half of it? :0)

Flight to Port Douglass

We headed to the airport this morning and flew up to Port Douglass. This is a very small town and has not been commercialized. It has no stop lights, or chain type restaurants and is very laid back. We stayed in the Sea Temple Resort and our room was great! Better in some ways than the Shangri-la we stayed in while in Sydney. The room was a lot smaller, and you had to walk all the way around the complex to get to our room and it was a very large complex…we got a lot of walking in :0) But, the pool area was awesome. We ate dinner at the Salsa bar which is a local favorite. The food there was great!

Shopping-Superbowl-Black Tie Gala

Today we woke up and had breakfast in the hotel. We walked with Nima Hiyati and Angela and Bo Orr over to the Sydney Opera House. We took lots of photos on the outside, and looked around the inside lobby. We decided not to pay the forty dollars per person to enter the tour that took an hour and a half. We decided to take a taxi back to the market area which is beside China Town. We were very disappointed when we got there and saw that it was only open Fri, Sat, Sun, and Monday! We were really looking forward to shopping there and finish up getting gifts for those at home. We walked down George Street back towards the hotel and popped into the Three Wise Monkeys Pub. We watched the Super Bowl there for a while, while we ate lunch. After eating, we looked in some various shops. We walked past the hotel a little bit, and found a gem shop. Bryon bought me a light opal necklace for Valentines Day there! We headed back up to the hotel to get ready for the final night Black Tie Gala. The guys had to be in the lobby by 5:00, and the girls by 5:30. It was really fun getting all dressed up! Federated rented out the Sydney Town Hall for the night, one of the oldest buildings in the town. At one point, it was the tallest in Sydney. Now, it is nestled down between all the skyscrapers. They also had a band, but we did not stay very long for that. We were so tired and had to go back to the hotel and pack for the 5:30 luggage pick-up the next morning..