Due to the very slow speed of the internet in Cuba I’m not going to post too much from Kevin & Emily’s wedding. Here are a few photos to hold you over until I have a chance to post their slideshow when I return back home next week. They had a beautiful day and couldn’t be more in love!
[gallery size="full" columns="1"]More photos to follow!! 
This week has been one of many firsts…. including our first time surfing. This is us hanging out at Whale Beach after our surfing. This is me paddling out…. man it’s a LOT of work to get out there!!
But boy is it worth it. I managed to catch a few waves and STAND. I assure you, it’s not as easy as it looks! I can hardly lift my arms today.
So very much fun. This is Chris giving it a go. Surfing is really difficult for big tall people. He did managed to catch a couple waves too.
I’m going to try and post some photos of our first fishing trip soon too!
You’ll have to forgive me for the length and delay of this post. I’ve been without internet for the past few days. I’ll try to bring you up to speed on our adventures. On Monday as you can see from my last post we headed into Sydney for the day. This is the ferry that we caught in Manly. It was a really smooth and relaxing ride. Great view of the city as we approached.
This is the Sydney Harbour bridge as we approached on the ferry.
And the opera house in the distance just after we landed.
It’s spring break right now in Sydney and the kids are all out of school, I had to give this kid a dollar and take a photo. He was doing a great job of busking on the dock of the harbour. He made me very lonesome for my musical kids at home. He was playing one of the same songs that Bailey does and he must have been right around her age.
Eileen & Ian on the opera house steps. Then we headed into one of the oldest parts of the city.
And you can see from my previous post that I had a great day roaming around Sydney. On Tuesday morning we headed up to Hunter Valley Wine Region. I got a real kick out of the road signs as we were driving. The first one is pretty obvious – watch for kangaroo’s… it was the wombat sign that threw me off for a minute
Really nice farm land on our drive.
We stopped on the way up at the Wollombi tavern and had hands-down the best hamburger ever! The thing was massive!
It was a great little country pub. We arrived at our cabin and toured a few winery’s the first day. A very yummy and fun thing to do. Here is a shot of our cabin and the amazing rainbow that appeared one evening. Such a beautiful night.
Here’s a shot I took at one of “tasting” stops – this was at the Blue Tounge brewrey. Would you believe they really have lizards here with blue tongues? True story! And as a side note it’s a pretty yummy beer! They give you these paddles with 6 little glasses on to try each of the kinds they brew.
On Thursday morning we were checking out of our cabin and we found these lovely creatures milling about. Kangaroo’s are awful darn cute, especially the babies hiding in their mommies tummy…. but man the stretch marks must be terrible!
This photo of my mother-in-law I took for my parents… check out the size of the flowers on the side of the road… and this one wasn’t the biggest one by any means. Amazing!
Our trip to The Hunter was tons of fun and I’ll do my best tomorrow to blog some more about our surfing and fishing adventures today. It’s been such an awesome vacation! I think I’ve even talked Ian & Eileen into “Trashing the Dress” before we leave.
Yesterday was such a fun day. We drove down to Manly and hoped on the ferry into the city. I had arranged ahead of time to meet up with my cousin Jeff who is attending University here with his fiance Leah. They’ve been dating for a little over 6 years, but just got engaged this past Christmas. We had decided to meet at the Sydney Opera house steps. What we hadn’t counted on is the other thousand people who would be on the opera house steps. So I told Chris to keep an eye out and I headed for a quick trip to the ladies room… funny thing is Leah had the exact same idea so after travelling over 15,000 kilometers we met up in public washroom. Strange but true! We found the boys and Jeff, Leah & myself went for a walk to snap some photos while Chris and the rest of group went exploring around Sydney. It was so neat to see the diversity in the trees and buildings. We had a great chat and ended up after a couple hours back in Jeff & Leah’s neighbourhood. Here are some of my favourite shots….
[gallery size="full" columns="1"]It was great to see them both and we had fun time strolling around the city. I wish them all the best as they finish up their schooling for the next year or so before heading back to Canada!
It was a great weekend! We had so much fun with the wedding and all the festivities. This week we are on to being tourists. Today we are driving down to Manly to take the ferry into Sydney. We want to see all the sites…. AND – I’m also going to take some engagement photos for one of my cousins who here attending teachers college with his fiance. Looking forward to seeing Jeff & Leah! Then tomorrow we are off to the Hunter Valley which is a wine region for a couple of days. Here’s a photo from yesterday out on our deck. I assure you no telephoto lense is needed.. these little guys are very brave.
What a beautiful day… for a beautiful couple to have a wedding – Aussie Style!! I have to admit, going into this I was a bit nervous. We’ve travelled all this way for me to take photos of Eileen & Ian’s wedding, and I really wanted to do a good job for them. I had no clue about locations and basically just left if to them to take me around, and I just winged it. I couldn’t have been happier with the spots they picked. Beautiful is an understatement. Breathtaking hardly even covers it. The Mona Vale Golf Club has the most amazing view. The ceremony was out on the lawn with the ocean in behind, and the guests had the added treat of watching the whales breach in the ocean during their vows. It was amazing!
Immediately after the cermony we headed out for some photos. The rain was moving in and time was a ticking…. check out the beach we went to:
Check out the sky ….. we were quickly on the move to our next spot – the coastline here has tons of beaches – the shots above are at Mona Vale and the ones below are at Newport… I think
And then on to the Yaht Club. Such a cool spot as well.
I fell in love with the wall in the yaht club parking lot! Isn’t it great! Such a great texture! Believe it or not it was drizzling the entire time we were at the yaht club….. we figured a little bit of rain never hurt anyone!
And back to the golf course for the reception.
I was thrilled that we had a chance to sneak out between courses and grab a few shots on the golf course. What an amazing location! What an amazing couple! Ian & Eileen you both know how much Chris & I and the kids love you both!! Our time together is always full of laughs and fun and usually a great bottle of wine and some yummy snacks! We think the world of both of you. We are so happy to have come over to Aus and share and celebrate with you. We wish you many blessings and much happiness!! Big Hugs!! Sandra
For those of you who are looking for a slideshow – you’ll have to wait… my 5 hours of sleep are not up for putting one together today. You’ll have to check back later this week. To all of our family and friends back home – Happy Thanksgiving! We miss you all!
