Our Visit in Perth

I've been a little slow getting the Australia visit post completed, but here it is at last along with the Northern Utah and Mother's Day trip which is on the blog now also, with pictures. As opposed to the trip over, described on a separate post, the return trip was very smooth. We made all of our flights as planned and enjoyed business class on the long one from Sydney to LA. But once home, the trial sets in trying to adjust our body clock back to our time zone. Going over it is never a problem and I haven't figured that out yet.

Grandpa,Emma,Pete,Logan,Lauren,Liz,Breanne,Nannie

Logan,Nannie,Lauren,Emma,Grandpa,Breanne

Liz & Logan

Logan


Breanne, Emma, Lauren. Yes, that is the doll house in the background that I made and that Nannie, Liz, and Nannie great decorated on our trip over last year before Logan was born.




Pete and his new "buggy", Aussie for golf cart

We got up Friday morning bright eyed, refreshed, and ready to go. Pete had put in a sport court in the past year and since the girls had stayed home from school, Grandpa, Emma, and Lauren went out to shoot some hoops. The court and backboard are really nice and fun to play on. By the time I return, I expect Emma will be able to take me one on one. Pete and I tried a one on one and the only thing I can say about it was I survived. He was really nice to his father-in-law, but I still felt ancient. The Achilles held up just fine which is a good thing. That night Pete and Liz took the family to the Vines Resort for dinner. That is a very upscale place that serves an outstanding buffet and dinner was great.


Saturday their ward had a pot luck dinner and activity night that we went to and had a chance to talk with a lot of the members that we are getting to know fairly well after so many visits. After church Sunday, Carl and Valerie Winters invited all of us over for crepes along with Russ and Joy Hembrough and their son, another family in the ward. It is so enjoyable to be with a group like that and the conversation is wonderful if for nothing else than the accent...love it.


The rest of the visit seemed like a succesion of projects that Cindy and Liz had embarked on, the primary ones centered around Logan's room that they completely repainted and purchased furniture for from Ikea. Pete told me Ikea was the largest store in the southern hemisphere and after accompanying Liz and Cindy on the first trip, I'm a believer. Of course, the stuff they purchased had to be put together, which gave me something to do and I really enjoyed it. It wasn't the usual pressboard type stuff, but made with real pine boards and very well engineered. Then came a minor challenge on Friday when Cindy approached me and said they needed a valance made for the room's window, oh, and Carl Winter is off work today and willing to let you use his wood shop to do it. I really enjoy working with Carl, he is the one I worked with in putting the doll house together. Great guy and a very skilled wood worker and you'd love the stand-alone shop he has behind his house. After a trip to Bunnings (Aussie Home Depot) for materials, it was over to Carl's house and an enjoyable couple of hours putting a valance together. It came out pretty good and Cindy and Liz then covered it with material they had purchased while it was being made and I hung it Saturday morning. It really looked good.


Got ahead of myself a little. Pete and I played golf at the Vines on Wednesday, an absolutely beautiful day, temp in the low 70's and sunny. I even managed to play well on a couple of holes, but you could not have ordered a better day for golf. They had some type of tournament going and Pete and a couple of older gentlemen from Japan competed in it and I just played along for the fun of it. If I'd had an established handicap and played a little better, I'd have been right with them though.


Along with several trips to the mall and seeing the latest Indiana Jones movie in the afternoon on the day it was released, we managed to stay pretty busy and have time to relax and read while the girls were in school. It rained after Wednesday until we left, off and on, and got a little cooler, so I didn't get back to the basketball court with Emma and Lauren, something I was a little disappointed in missing. But Nannie got the girls involved in making banana and zucchini bread and we all enjoyed the results of that project.


Before we went to the airport Saturday night to catch the red-eye to Sydney, we treated the girls to a stop at McDonald's in Ellenbrook. The kids loved the play area and the treat. Our flight left at 15 minutes after midnight and when Liz dropped us off around 10 PM, she and her mother had a hard time with the parting. They had been so close and involved the time we were there, it had been a wonderful visit which made it all the harder to say goodbye.


We arrived in Sydney around 6:15 AM and had to wait for the LA flight that left at 1:45 PM. We arrived in LA 30 minutes early, cleared customs and went back through security in the domestic terminal 7 and were waiting for our flight to St George by 10:30 AM. At 2:30 PM, we were on board and headed on the last leg home. We got into the house at 5:30 PM, exhausted, but very thankful for the opportunity we had to visit all of our children and grandchildren during the month.