Erin's favourite things she has done on the trip so far

• Rolling in a big plastic ball!
• Going to a school where they wear uniforms.
• Making lots of friends.
• Being thrown around by the waves in Hawaii.
• Surfing in Hawaii.
• Having my first sleepover in Australia
• Having a big park and playground right behind our house.
• Going trick or treating in Australia.
• Going to the school fete.  A big huge fair fundraiser that was way too much fun!
• Eating the best ice cream in the world at an awesome beach, Moolooloobau.
• Getting buried  in sand up to my neck in Hawaii.
• Meeting the Irwin family at the Australia Zoo.
  
• Knitting my own sock monkey
  
• Visiting the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum.
  

Andrew's blog

This is me in hollywood and then we went to Hawaii for 10 days now we are in Australia.                           
I am in a really nice school but its a hard school.  Tonite we had fire works and a big fair at school.  It was so much fun.
Halloween is tomorrow and am so excited for it. I miss everyone in Regina.

Liam's thoughts on our trip

From the day i left, i knew i would miss out on a lot of things. Such as the releases of MW3 and BF3, now, i can only get those things in a year from when they came out. I miss Stanley and all my friends and family. Hawaii was one of the best places ever, then Australia, its beaches aren't very nice. There's a lot of dangers and poisonous things out there. All the sports are cool here, i like the school and everything. But to be honest, i don't really want to go on this trip. It's a cool experience and all, but i just don't find it to be an interest or an experience to me. I would just wanna move to B.C. and work on the new house, not have to miss out on great things. It's great to travel to great places but i just feel very very homesick. I wanna go back to Canada.

Newport - Canal living. What an intro to Aus living!

Yes .It's on!! The weather warming up , humidity rising so we know what's a comin in January and February. Now we've been in Redcliffe 4 weeks and beginning to feel a little more at home. We went to the city centre to the botanical gardens on Saturday. Andrew was bitten by a small ant that was a little poisonous and complained for about 2 hours of the pain. Welcome to Australia mate. I can hear Crocodile Dundee saying....... "That's not an ant...This is an ant!!"

We have been thoroughly spoilt in our place of accommodation and we are very appreciative of  how we have been looked after. Our current place has 8 bedrooms and is just gorgeous. It is still a place that boggles the mind for luxury. We will be in a much smaller place for the remainder of our stay from this weekend onwards. I am starting work a little later than planned but the extra time off has been very much welcomed.We went to the Australia Zoo made famous by Steve Austin. His beautiful wife and children are doing a magnificent job of keeping the zoo going and we were very lucky to meet them

We have bought ourselves a used car . The children have had an excellent time starting out at the school and have made instant friends. Liam is learning about footy and rugby. Will keep you updated with more anecdotes as the children will be posting some things soon.

Australia - This is no small country!!

Onto the airplane in Hawaii and after a nice flight where they actually fed you without having to pay extra, we landed in Sydney Australia about 10 hours later.  Of course, crossing the International Time Line we left on Tuesday lunch and arrived Wednesday evening.  Other than trying to find a taxi large enough to fit all of our luggage, we quickly arrived at our hotel for the night.  Paul had booked us at the Holiday Inn in the Rocks.  I didn't know where we were but when I woke up the next morning and went for a 6:30 a.m. stroll by myself, I soon found out we were across the street from the harbour.  That was an hour in time that was pure magic.   Climbing up the stairs from the street, looking out to see the opera house (no - not the oprah house, the opera house!) across the harbour was just the cat's meow!!  I was pretty much alone as I walked down the harbour, the odd jogger and some staff sweeping up preparing for the day.  I wandered from one side, across the ferry arrival/departures and over to the opera house and stared up in amazement, feeling like Dorey and Nemo's Dad when they came to Nemo's rescue in the harbour!  By the time I walked back to the other side, it was already bustling with people.
I think Liam felt we had starved him in Hawaii so lucky for us, the hotel had a brunch that was free for kids.  We got our money's worth that morning!  Liam went back for at  5 or 6 helpings, at least 20 pieces of bacon, and anything else he could fit on his plate.  Erin and Andrew followed suit.  Our bare minimum plan was to drive from Sydney to Brisbane to get the lay of the land so Paul picked up a rental car and we headed out (of course after dropping a few suitcases off at the bus depot as there was no way any one car would hold all of our luggage and 5 of us!).  I had thought until that moment that Australia was this cute little country with cute animals, most of them poisonous, but cute nontheless.  Wrong on the little country part.  Sydney and Brisbane look relatively close together on the map, but they are not!  We drove about six hours.  Having no idea and no plan, we pulled into one of the places on the map that was outlined in thicker black than the others which gave us hope for more than one motel in the area.  We ended up in Port Macquarrie. It was dark and we couldn't see much.  Most hotels appeared to be full but we ended up in a very lovely place that fit all of us.  That's always a bonus when you travel in numbers greater than 4.  We had a nice sleep and a great swim the next morning, and of course, another huge breakfast for Liam to put him in a good space!   We hit the freeway which turned out to be a very slow freeway for about 5 hours.  With a name like the M1, one would think more than two lanes, but not so.  It was a long 2nd day of traveling but we pulled into our new city of Redcliffe, Queensland that evening.  Just about 20 minutes north of Brisbane, it is a very pretty seaside city.  Paul's clinic was setting us up for the 1st month for living.  The realtor met us at the house and we were blown away by how stunning it was.  The house backed on to a canal where all the people in the neighbourhood park their rather large boats!  The kids ran around and around because we hadn't seen that much space in a long time!  Oh my but we all slept well that night after a long day on the road.  It was great arriving to our new Regina for the next 6 months.  It's wonderful to think that we have connected to a new part of the world feeding a new sense of connection into our family.  I can't wait for Charlotte to come and and join us.  She is part of this connection at all times - I just want her to be here and see it all!  Cheers to Redcliffe!

Hawaii

Hawaii . Arrival in Honolulu ....As we got off the plane the sweet warm air of Hawaii greeted us. Then the huge Banyan tree in the courtyard with the ever arching reach of it's canopy embraced us in a welcome as we deplaned .
That's one thing I felt the whole time in Hawaii, a feeling of being looked after and nurtured.No wonder Elvis Presley enjoyed the islands so much. The first morning we awoke early uncharacteristically for us but thanks to jetlag and headed down to the beach a couple of blocks from the apartment. Waikiki Beach is quite different early in the day compared to the wall to wall sunbathers of late morning. The kids were eager to snorkel and see fish and immediately plunged into the warm seawater.

Coral rocks,tropical fish and playful currents next to the sea wall provided entertainment.For the remainder of our stay we routinely went to the beach for a few hours and then back to the apartment and then back to the beach. The children graduated from sand castle building to boogie boarding though were frustrated by the paucity of suitable waves. Once we discovered the groin all that changed and that's where we headed to get our thrills. There was this little dog who surfed like a pro who was hilarious. One day we hired a car and drove to The North Shore, famous for those gigantic waves that Hawaii 5-0 showed us. Erin and Andrew got a free ride on a board and experienced the thrill of surfing and were hooked. Then do you know what? We went to this Turtle beach and saw so many turtles. The water was knee deep and they were all around us...Awesome!!!

The shrimp (aka prawns) served out of the back of an old bus were delicious. The Honolulu Zoo was excellent and the Aquarium small and very personal. I found it most charming and very informative. Here is the link to our video

http://vimeo.com/29274929

How did we make it out of Regina alive????

Wow!  I can't believe it has been one month and 4 days since we hopped on the plane in Regina and headed towards Australia via L.A. and Hawaii, knowing that as we stepped onto the plane, we still had at least a week's worth of work to do in Regina still before leaving for a one year period.  I can't quite believe what we attempted to accomplish in a three week period before leaving. Starting with August 14th, we managed to:
-decide to rent out our house rather than sell it.  Found a renter in 2 days.  They wanted to move in on August 31.  We realized we had two weeks to move!
-drove to Swift Current and helped Charlotte buy a car
-decided to buy a house rather than having Charlotte rent an apartment.  Bought one on August 21st.
-pack pack pack pack pack pack pack pack pack pack pack panic pack pack panic panic panic
-Moved all big furniture out on August 28th. Stored it all around Regina.  Hoping all of our hiding spots will be unfounded until we get back.
-Move some furniture into Charlotte's new house.  Realize that we are landlords and have no idea how to get tenants.  Buy furniture for bedrooms.
-All of us are still sleeping on the floors of our house trying to clear everything out and find storage space to squish things into.  All of those things that I convinced Andrea I needed to keep when she helped me pack, I was suddenly throwing them away or giving them away or closing my eyes and pretending I didn't know it existed.
-August 31, Day from hell.  We were literally throwing things out our door onto the lawn while the new tenants were standing in the driveway waiting for their moving truck to come.  It was on this day that I knew for sure, we had no idea what we were doing!!!  We had boxes and bags and garbage and recycle and  more boxes all over the grass and up along side the house.  Paul would go one way with a load of stuff in his car, and I went off to the dump and re-cycle, and we would meet again and do it all over again.  By that evening, we were officially homeless.  Thank goodness for Mom and Dads who never tell us if they are tired of their kids staying for ridiculous periods of time.
-Still didn't have our plane tickets yet.  Paul worked on that, and we both commuted from Moose Jaw to Regina to get Charlotte's house in order, moving furniture, stuffing storage into every nook and cranny we could find.  Building furniture, cleaning and emptying boxes and finding tenants and still not sure when we are leaving, but we are pretty sure it will be in the next week!
-Paul still working with the fine folks of Australia to get a working VISA, and the very least, approval of his application.  It has been 9 months since he received a contract, and we still don't know what is going on.  (I'm writing this on the 12th of October, and we still don't know - he was just approved and we still don't know when he starts work!!).  
-Paul has the tickets!  We are leaving on the 8th of September.  Still traelling to Regina everyday to get the house in order, help Charlotte find her classes and get her books and pay her tuition.   Still trying to get my head around being without Charlotte for such a long period of time.
We leave.
In one piece.
The only child left behind is the one who was planning on staying behind.
We made it as far as LA and we collapsed in a tiny hotel room for the night, woke up and saw the sights of LA for a couple of hours.  I was still numb.  No clue where I was or how I got there.  Once we hopped on the plane to Hawaii, I knew the possibility of catching up to my body was possible.  I do believe this trip that Paul has dreamed of for 10 years and we have been preparing for for 2 years, is here!  Let's get this party started!!!