US

 This is my beloved Nanna. This is the smile that you will see on her face if you say hello to her. Ethan is a big fan of that smile (and nan)

 We FINALLY made it to the temple in brisbane. it's a full day for us and have to take the kids. Mum came with us to babysit. Yay!!

 July 2 was Mum's birthday. We (being the only family in town) took her out to the botanical gardens near our house. My Mum loves plants and flowers. If you're ever walking/driving anywhere with her, she's looking at the flowers and plants. She'll say "oh, look at that beautiful boganvilia, or something of the like....if we're walking, she'll touch everything like a little girl. She just loves plants. So we thought a picnic in the gardens would suite. We had a really nice time. My mum is one of the people I admire the most. She is incredibly unselfish and even on her birthday did more to help me than I did for her...I just can't catch up with her. She spends most of her day running around doing things for people in the ward, giving them rides, helping them with some odd job etc. What a great person my mother is. I just love her....ANYWAY...back to the blog.

 A friend (who's also American) invited us to her fourth of July celebration. It was great fun...we had hamburgers, sausages (like hot dogs but actual recognizable meat) chips and dip, a stripy cake, jello (except it didn't set in time-my fault) apples and caramel dip...and I think that's it...and of course we had sparklers. Even in the middle of winter here, it was probably as warm as a night in July in the US. It was great fun. The conversations were mostly about how so and so got their residency and such and such about visas....hehe. it was great!

 Since Jeremy's off school for 4 weeks, we took a trip to the Gold Coast and used up our yearly pass to Sea World and Movie world. Mum came with us and we stayed in a hotel overnight. We didn't take too many pics for some reason. The hotel was nice but some ambasadors from Virginia Tech were there and I'm sad to say were not a very nice representation of the university OR the US. I was very embarrassed for them...but hopefully we made a good impression on the people we came in contact with.

 Kylee and Mum eating a warm bowl of soup together. Kyle is never far from nanny when eating soup. Believe it or not, it's pretty cold inside our house...so warm soup is never too far.

 Some out of place pics at the botanical gardens- i just love my kylee girl

 Kylee has a new dress on that nanny made her for winter. We have 1:00 church and had time to spare so we decided to make some cupcakes for her friends in nursery. She is usually right there cooking with me lately and her chef skills are really improving! She loves to try things on her own too. It takes a bit of patience on my part to let her do it, it's usually a lot messier and lot slower than if I were to just do it myself, but I'm raising a child here, not running a race and having a "who's house is the cleanest competition" so who cares? The broom isn't far. The funny thing is, the clock in the kitchen had actually stopped at 11:30 so I thought we had time, but it was really 12:15 and we ended up being late for church. Not so good for the Relief Society president to rock up at church 15 min. late!!! HEHE.
Oh well, I'm not called because I'm punctual- that's for sure!!!!!!!

In the winter, we have about an hour of sun on our backyard. It's perfect for a little picnic in the sun. Kylee's all dressed up as a princess aand decided to have "lots a rella" (mozzarella) cheese in a bowl for lunch. She practically lives on this stuff and even had it for breakfast today.
My new goal is to take pictures of the stuff we do here in Australia and put it on my blog so that all of you can see how BEAUTIFUL life is here so that you'll come to visit us. I'll end with a quote from Kylee to sum it all up.

"It's so nice eating fish and chips in the sun by the seaside"


Any takers???