G'Day Mates!!!

Hello from Sydney!!! We wanted to let you all know that we made it to Sydney. We had a busy and very fun week. Of course it was very hard to say goodbye to family and friends. We feel like we have cried enough this past week to last us a year (and of course we still get teary). We packed our van and I mean PACKED it full and headed out on Wednesday morning. My parents drove with us which was a lot of fun and it gave us some extra time with them. We drove to Las Vegas that day, tried to walk around the strip but learned that they would be closing it soon for all of the New Year's Eve parties going on. They told us that unless we wanted to spend the night there we had about 15 minutes to get out of there. We hurried out, stopped at Circus Circus for dinner. (It was tradition of in my family to go there whenever we would drive through Vegas on our way to California.) We stayed at Jared's aunt Wendy's house. She lives there in Vegas out by the temple. We had a fun time spending New Year's Eve with them and a bunch of Jared's cousins. We watched a movie, ate lot of good food and got in the hot tub.
In the morning we headed for California. A lot of places were closed for the New Year, but we stayed in Anaheim across the street from Disneyland so the whole atmosphere was a lot of fun. My parents took the kids so that Jared and I could go out one last time before all of the craziness of the move kicked in high gear. We walked down to Downtown Disney and walked around looking at all of the fun Christmas lights and listened to all the great bands and musicians that were out playing. We went to dinner at a fun pizza place.
The next morning was full speed ahead. We got up early and headed to Disneyland, getting there before it opened. I should have had the video camera zoomed in on their little faces when we walked in the gates. It was priceless. We have had a Disneyland jar in our kitchen for, oh geez, I don't know like 2 years. The kids would stick change in there and we would put an occasional dollar bill in there. We filled the jar but I am pretty sure the grand total only came to about $21 or something and a $100 dollar bill from some friends who snuck it in while visiting(thanks M&S). They were so proud of themselves for filling the jar. We had planned on going to Disneyland sometime, but this happened to work out perfectly. My parents were sweet and surprised us by treating us to Disneyland. It was really neat for the kids and us to spend it with them.
We had a great time on all of the rides. We ran into Emily and her husband Ricky and their 5 children at the nemo ride.. They were friends from college. Rex loves pirates but was a little disturbed by the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. He kept asking if things and people were real. Alivia and I waiting in line for ever to meet Mulan, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. They look so real that you start actually believing in them. :) It was pretty chilly that day and Rex was wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt under his jacket. He wouldn't let me zip his jacket because he wanted to leave it open in case we ran into Mickey. He wanted Mickey to see that he was wearing his shirt. We watched the parade and the kids were waving their little hearts out at all of the characters. The kids got some Disney Bucks from Santa (Thanks G&G Finch:). It was a very fun day and very memorable.
We left the park around 6:30 and headed for the hotel to get things packed up and ready to head to the airport. We had to stop at Walmart and get some straps for the huge boxes. Jared and my dad went in while the rest of us stayed in the car. Somehow the car got locked and when my dad came back to get in the alarm was blaring! So loud! It kept going and going. We laughed and sat there until it stopped. A minute later it started again. It beeped and beeped and beeped.. We laughed and laughed and Rex had his hands over his ears crying. A Walmart employee came out and asked if we were ok and said that his Manager was wondering what all the noise was about. Haha!
We headed for LAX and loaded up 4 carts full of luggage. We got some great stares as we hauled it all up to the check in. Thanks goodness my parents were there. The Qantas employees were so nice and helpful. We check in 11 bags/boxes (big luggage) and 7 carry ons plus 3 car seats. Insane!We said our teary goodbye and headed off with all our luggage and 3 SUPER tired kids. We made it through security and down to our gate. Then we had to take a bus to our plane. We were greeted with hello sugar and g'day mate by the pilot and his Aussie accent. The flight went well, better then we thought. We took off at 12:15 in the morning and the kids conked out for the first 7 hours. Yay!!! The last 4 hours were rough, everyone was restless but we made it. We landed in Sydney on Sunday morning (completely missed Saturday) at about 10am.
New adventure.....getting all the bags to customs and eventually to a car. Oh boy! A very nice airport employee took one look at us realizing that we only had two adults and way too much stuff and got us some help. The line for immigration and customs was about 200 people long. We waited and waited and finally made it through. They luckily let us keep our fruit snacks because they don't have real fruit in them...just a lot of sugar...great:). We made our way to the car rental area. Talk about people starring at you! It was hilarious! We finally found a rental company that had a car large enough for us. We got it and took half of the stuff out to the van. We laughed so hard when we saw the van. It was a HUGE 17 passenger van. The kids begged and begged us to keep it. They sat clear in the back and loved it. I drove it out of the parking lot to meet Jared at the curb with the rest of the stuff. I ran over 3 curbs and got stuck in a parking lot with all the taxis but I made it. It will take some getting used to driving on the other side of the car and the other side of the road.
We drove to the place that we are staying for the week. I looked back at our 3 babies in the back and had a good little cry. I felt overwhelmed, excited, nervous, lucky and super tired! We are excited to be here, but it is always hard to leave what is comfortable and family and home. Jared knows that I will have a few good cries and then I will be fine. I just have to take it day by day. The Australians have been nothing but kind and helpful so far. We got to our temporary housing and hauled all of our stuff up two flights of stairs (no lift or elevator). It reminded me of when I was in England for a study abroad. Our flat was on the 10th floor...now that was quite the haul. It is summer here so we changed into our flip flops and shorts and put our coats away. Winter to summer is pretty great.
oh...so, we decided to venture out for a bit to see some of the area but more importantly to keep us all awake a little longer. We went over to Ikea and ate dinner and then over to the grocery store to buy nappies (diapers) and stuff for breakfast. We stood in front of the milk for awhile trying to figure out what was what. After the store we went to a park that was by a beautiful harbor. The kids played and played. We headed home about 7:00 and got everyone ready for bed. We had a prayer together and after the prayer Alivia had tears in her eyes. It was really sweet. I think it is all a little overwhelming for all of us, but we know that great things are ahead.
I fell asleep typing this last night. So day #2 in Sydney! We were all up by 5:30am. We are heading into Sydney today and to immigration to get our visa all settled. So I am sure we will have more adventures to write about. I will try and get some pictures uploaded too. Thanks again to everyone for your sweet notes and phone calls before we left.