Brighton Beach

We had a few days of amazing weather this week, so the boys and I packed a picnic lunch and hopped on a train and went back out to Brighton Beach to further explore the rocks, tide pools, and beach huts.

More photos here.

Last outing with Maca/Jeremiah's Birthday

On Saturday we rented a van for our third and final drive. We ended up checking out Brighton Beach(more on that later) and Werribee Open Range Zoo. We'd never been to a zoo like this and it was great!

More photos here.

Royal Botanic Gardens

On Friday we spent the afternoon with Maca at the Royal Botanic Gardens exploring the areas that bloom in winter. Isaac really loved it there and was our official family photographer for the day with my phone.

More photos here.

Love Never Dies

On Thursday, Jeremiah and I took advantage of having a babysitter and went to see Love Never Dies, the sequel to Phantom of the Opera. It opened to very mixed reviews in London, shut down for re-writes, then reopened and the Broadway opening has been indefinitely put off. Suffice to say that our expectations were quite low, and perhaps that worked in our favor, but we really enjoyed it. The music was good, with little touches of familiar Phantom music throughout along with spectacular costumes and sets.

Back to the city

Even though we would have been happy to stay in the countryside, we headed back to the city Tuesday after these cockatoos posed so nicely for me.

On the way home we stopped by Yarra Valley Dairy for a cheese platter lunch which turned out to be completely incredible. We bought a few varieties to bring home and spent the next week trying to maintain a reasonable rate of consumption of our goods.

That night Anne and I headed out to Rock of Ages, a hilarious musical using music from 80's hair bands.

More photos here.

Healesville Sanctuary

We returned to Healesville Sanctuary and again took advantage of their Magic Moments program, which we had done on our last trip with kangaroos. This time we got time up close with the koalas and the dingoes. Both were really great experiences, but it was the koalas that really stole our hearts.

More photos here.

I think for Isaac the highlight of this entire trip might be the moment in the photo below. Our hosts had told us that the parrots would eat our of your hands and Isaac had gotten them to do so before we left for the animal sanctuary and was thrilled. That afternoon when we got back he spent a lot of time out on the porch near the bird feeder and became buddies with this parrot who eventually hopped right onto his hands to eat. Isaac could hardly contain his excitement!

Return to Healesville

You may recall that the weekend after we arrived in AUS we took the tram, train, then bus to get out to the Healesville Sanctuary to pet kangaroos for Isaac's birthday. On the bus we had driven through a beautiful area with lots of vineyards and rolling hills that we wanted to return to before we left. Anne's visit was the perfect time to go and we stayed at the most beautiful rental property, The White House. It was especially perfect for our family since it is a working farm and they welcomed the boys to help with chores and visit the animals. And animals there were! The day we arrived we saw kookaburras, cockatoos, parrots, kangaroos(finally!), horses, alpacas, goats, and miniature horses. It rained most of the weekend, and we got sooo muddy, but we were having so much that we hardly noticed.

More photos here.