The Big Post

Well our month long adventure has come to an end and now we are all back at home staring at piles of laundry and an empty fridge. I want to share all of our fun and the 100s of pictures but I'm going to have to do it in pieces because I also need sleep. A fourteen hour time difference is hard on kids (and me).
We set out for Australia a month ago and were nearly stymied at the first airport because of this goof:

Who put her passport in her backpack and we didn't find it until the very last possible second to make the plane. We met Aunt Paige at airport #2 who helped out with the long (16 hours!) flight:

Traveling is exhausting but the kids did great and were able to sleep on the planes (and in the airports):

Australia was beautiful and amazing and I think I left a piece of me there. We traveled throughout North Queensland and stayed in breathtaking places such as Magnetic Island: 

the outback (at an historic gold mine):

and the Daintree Rainforest, a world heritage site:

 

We had quite a few wildlife sightings, some a little too close!

Fruit bat at bat rehab center:

~5 meter scrub python on neighbors roof:

 Wallaby:

And our adventures were unbelievable. SCUBA diving at the Great Barrier Reef, night canoeing with tree kangaroo spotting, night hikes to look for the elusive cassowary, hikes to waterfalls, and soaring 43 meters above the rainforest in the bucket of a crane. I'm hoping to document each of these later, more details to come, but here is a cute one with C in the canoe way past her bedtime.

 Why Australia for a month? Eric led a study abroad class again and we joined him this time. Just another tough day at work: 

Can you believe he gets paid for this?