Fun with some Americans and some Whales! by Suzanne

We had a great weekend!  There is a girl I knew in high school, we were cheerleaders together our senior year.  We recently connected on Facebook, and I had been following her family's move to Australia!  Her company brought them down here for 3 years from Kansas City, and they have been here almost 2 years.  She was the first person I e-mailed when we found out we were coming down! They live right along the beach, about an hour and 20 minute train ride south of Sydney.  We had been trying to find a good time to get together and this past Saturday was our chance.  We left our hotel early to catch the train to Thirroul, the larger train station close to the Duckworths.  (Andrea Reeves Duckworth and her husband, Mike, and their two kids, Lainie and Keaton.)  They picked us up in their car at the train station, and she looks exactly like she did in high school!  It was wonderful to see some Americans and get to hang out at a real house!  :)  We quickly all changed to go to the beach.  We walked there from their house, a couple blocks away.  It is quite mountainous down by Austinmer, their town.  Just gorgeous!  The beach is directly across the street from their son's public elementary school.  The water is still very cold, but the kids all enjoyed it and got in.  The waves were really big, larger than I expected them to be.  They had these cool ocean pools, just areas where they have set rocks in a large area to sort of keep the largest waves out.  It makes it safer for people to swim who want to stay away from the large waves.

Elise loved playing with Lainie all day!

The walk down to the beach.

Brady  is in the ocean pool here.

Our group!

Brady and Keaton dug a deep hole in the sand.

This is as close to surfing as Elise got!

Ethan and Luke tried some boogie boarding on the waves.  They had some falls...as well as some success.  They had a great time!

That would be Ethan's leg being thrown around in a wave...

Cool shot of Ethan!

After the beach we went back to the Duckworths house and hung out on their deck, then had a BBQ for dinner.  The kids enjoyed getting to shoot baskets, play in their yard, play xbox, and Elise even got to play with Lainie's American Girl Doll stuff.  What a great break from our hotel in the city!  They hosted an amazing dinner and were just so much fun.  It was by far the best conversation I've had since coming here!  (besides Ethan, of course.)

Andrea and I on her deck.  What a view!

The four of us eating dinner.

We have been invited back again and would love to see their wonderful family again soon!  We took the train home that evening and everyone was exhausted after such a full day.  Thanks to the Duckworths for an amazing day!

Sunday morning we got up and headed to Circular Quay to catch a whale watching boat.  It was a fairly hazy day but that didn't keep us from finding some humpback whales to follow.  They were not far outside of the harbor, and we just followed them along the coast.  They head south for the summer, away from the warm water.  Ethan, my resident photographer, caught some great shots, especially of the one and only time a whale jumped out of the water for us!  

 

What a cool shot!

Pulling back into Darling Harbour after the tour.

You can see the calf swimming right beside the mom whale...

Another shot of the jump!

We ended the weekend by meeting Ethan's boss down here for drinks at Darling Harbour.  She has been wonderful and we had a great time with her as well.  Quite a full weekend, as usual!  We take advantage of the time that Ethan is not at work.  We are about 1/3 of the way through our time here.  I have to try and just take it all in, and enjoy every moment that we get in this beautiful country.  This is the chance of a lifetime for us and I do thank God for this gift every day.  Until next time!