I never wrote about out trip to Iowa last August. Hannah and Zach were both born there but we moved back to Utah while they were little. We wanted to take them back and show them the sights of their birth place.

One of our favorite places to go in Iowa was the Amana Colonies. They have wonderful restaurants with tons of food.















This is typical midwest farm land. Hannah commented that she really liked it. I told her that it's because she has it in her blood.

We spent a few days in Nauvoo as well.

Hannah

We had a big milestone at our house this past month. Hannah got her braces off. After a little more than 2 years the hard work has paid off. She now has perfect teeth, according to Dr. Hoggan, her orthodontist. Here are some before and after pictures to prove it.

New Moon

Last night, Mom and I went to go see New Moon. Yupp it was amazingggggg(: I am a huge Jacob fan, so this movie was the best. Taylor Lautner is soooo gorgeous(: almost as gorgeous as Zac Efron, and that's saying a lot. Everyone needs to see this!!(:

The long awaited trip to Australia finally came. Our very long day started on June 24 at 1:00 p.m. as we arrived at the Salt Lake airport to begin our adventure. We left SLC at 2:45, arrived in LA at 3:40 (LA time) and then left LA at 10:30 p.m. After a 15 hour flight on the Airbus 380 -

the double decker - we landed at 6:30 Friday morning (Sydney time).

We were greeted by Shirley and her family. We were exhausted but happy to see them and Sydney. This was our first view of the Sydney Bridge. The bridge is the dividng line between the Sydney North and Sydney South missions. We, of course, headed north.

I actually drove while we were there. Here is the picture to prove it. I felt like I had to learn to drive all over again. It's difficult to get used to the other side of the road as well as the other side of the car.

This great house was in Cattai National Park. I saw it and thought, "Man from Snowy River." The highlight of this park, though, was the kangaroos. They run wild. They are all over and so fun to watch.

Hannah and Emma with their new UGG boots.

Me and my sister, Shirley.

Dave and Zach at the train station.

The Sydney Aquarium. My prefered way to see sharks.

Hyde Park. Aren't those cool trees?

The view of Sydney from our hotel room during the day..

and at night. Beautiful!

This is a building at Manly Beach. We took a picture of this building because those first floor windows is a dental office. It reminded us of the dental office in "Finding Nemo." We're sure this was their inspiration for the movie.

These pictures show our day in downtown Sydney doing tourist stuff: the opera house and the botanical gardens.

We visited the Blue Mountains. The Eucalyptus trees emit a bluish hue that makes the mountains look blue, hence the name. There is a hike called the 1,000 stairs. Dave, Zach and I took that hike, down the stairs first and then back up. We got a work out.

We spent a lot of time in the car.

This was a city called Terrigal. It was a little cold there, it was winter afterall. We ate fish and chips and then fed the leftovers to the pelicans and seagulls.

Sorry my pictures all over the place. I haven't perfected blogging yet. Maybe someone can help me!

We visited a zoo-like park called Koala Park. There we saw and pet wallabies as well as koalas. They really are as soft as they look. We also saw kookaburras. Come on, sing everybody: "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, merry, merry, king of the bush is he......"

Carribean Cruise

The first week of February Dave and I went on a cruise to the western carribean. It was a dental thing, or so they say. The dentists on board did just enough CE classes to call it a business expense. We visited Belize, Costa Maya, and Cozumel. The ship we were on was Royal Carribean's largest ship, Independence of the Seas. It was a great ship with so much to do. We didn't take the kids this time because of school. I know my kids are spoiled when Zach told me how unfair it was we were going on a cruise because he had only been on 3 and this was to be our 5th.

The ship!

Big ship!!

This part made us miss the kids. We wished they were with us so they could play in the H2O Zone.

Ice Cream any time we wanted it. They had strawberry frozen yogurt. I could justify eating that.

I was too chicken to try this, the Flowrider.

It was beautiful.

Death Valley

Ok so my mom has been bugging me and bugging me about blogging because I guess I'm like a better blogger or something so I'm finally blogging.

This Christmas break, we took the RV to Death Valley, California. Tons of people have said "What's down there?" Well there's dirt, rock, and salt. Just kidding it really is pretty. We took some hikes (I though they were hikes but my mom called them strolls...) and saw all of it. We also went to the lowest point on this side of the world. (The reason there is a picture of a mountain is because there is a little 'Sea Level' sign way up there.)

We also celebrated New Year's there. Look at our tiny party. It was just me and mom because Zach was mad about something and dad was tired. So me and mom had a little party on the little table in the RV. Ahh memories :) We only made it until about 11 because the battery was drained because of all the movie watching. But it was midnight in Utah so it worked.

In Death Valley, they have this huge house called Scottie's Castle. I would write about the history and everything but I don't really feel like it. Just google it if you're that interested. The house was way cool and so pretty. It was way fun to walk through. (Sorry, no flash is allowed in the castle so we don't have that many pictures of the inside.)

Overall it was a good trip and lots of memories were made. :D