Her Second white Dress

The 14th of August was Madi's actual birthday, but seeing as we held something very special that night instead is why we celebrated a day early. Madi got baptized by her daddy on her birthday. It was a very wonderful night.

Madi had this dress made by my Mom, she wanted it to twirl.
Madi and her Dad before getting baptized and confirmed
The happy family
Madi and her girlie friends (she was able to invite some great friends with there parents. Not being of the same faith their parents thanked Madi and her parents for inviting them to this amazing night)
Charlette and Madi (there great babysitter)
The Missionaries
Madi wearing her other dress Grandma Cooper made and her pretty Daisy.
Thanks Madi for having your baptism while he could be there, it was so special and great to see you make this great decision. We love you and all the good choices you made and will make.

Mona Vale and a Little Birthday Celebration

On the 13th we headed over to Mona Vale Beach and had a good time in the sand and just taking pictures of the cold water (remember it is winter over there)
Family shotI was worried Claire wouldn't do well on the sand, she cried for a little bit and then wanted to play, though she wouldn't crawl on it. The best part of the beach is the fact that no one can stop me from eating as much sand as I can get my hands on. It was funny to watch her eat as much as she could as fast as she could.
All of Stacy's kids love the beach, Rylee does to and we played and played.
Rylee and Claire playing with the beach toys.
Rylee and I buried each others feet.
digging a hole
Rylee fed the pigeon's her crackers that fell in the sand it was fun to watch her run after them to give it to them. (the pigeon's there are so much cleaner there then here, they are actually white.)
And we watched the surfers catch the waves.


After the Beach we got all cleaned up to celebrate Madi's 8th birthday. She had her own Mickey Mouse shaped cake and we sang to her. Brandon never did give her those birthday spankings she needed. She ran away fast.

After cake she opened presents, pillow cases from Grandma Cooper, (shhh, don't let the other grandkids know:) ).
A way cute Build a bear that was a Kanagaroo, some tinkerbell earrings, clothes and a few other things, but you can not forget THIS::

Her brand new Pink Scooter that she rode for days up and down the hallway.
Happy Birthday Madz. We love ya lots!!! Glad we were there to share it with you.

Days 6, and 7...

took us to The Rocks, Hyde Park, 2 Museums and a VERY Expensive Mall.

Day 6 was Stacy and Kevin's 11th Anniversary, Happy Anniversary again so we headed over to the Rocks, which is an like an Old Town. It was fun to walk through it. We went to The Rocks Discovery Museum, and we found out a little more about Australia. It looked like it use to be a house and it was quite small, but we found this inside:a pinball machine

Then we headed home to watch the kids so the love birds could go out to dinner and a movie

Wednesday we headed over to Hyde Park, walked around a bit and then made our way to the Australian Museum.this is a dinosaur aged Wombat, it is massive
Brandon wants one of these when he dies, they are abarigonal.here is a stuffed Dingo in the kids area. we learned about bones and I rode the bike to see which bones worked as I pedalled, suprisingly more than I thought

had some lunch then had a little snooze






walked around hyde Park some more, it is on two sides of the street. We were in search of the large chess set, but only found the board no pieces, such a bunch of people playing little sets.







Queen Victoria Building The Mall that you walk in and see designer names as stores and 2 shirts on sale for $199.99. So expensive they did not put price tags on there items. That when you know you are high end.

Wisemen's Ferry and the Zoo

After Dera and Mark went to the airport for there long journey home we headed to Wismens Ferry. A place where the ferry crosses cars and stuff to the other side. They had this fun playground and we had a great time playing. Cooper and Madi of course had to build sand castles on the small beach and were not to happy about leaving to eat. Then we had some Fish and Chips (okay so I had a chicken sandwich and some chips(fries) and tried brandon's fish, still don't like it that much.)
The Lookout to Wisemen's Ferry
Rylee havin a great time playing
Madi building a sand castle
Kevin with Madi and Cooper
The corring of the ferrysCooper's sand castle
Playing on the slide
A few days later after a nice relaxing Sunday and people thinking I was Dera and Brandon was Mark without a mustache and growing a few inches we headed to the Taronga Zoo it was massive. We took the Ferry across the Harbour and headed on a lift to the top and made our way down again. It took us all day to do so. On the lift to the top the animals we saw

Brandon really liked this sign thus the picture
The Baby elephant was the big attraction at the zoo
And my new favorite animal the Red Panda, they are so stinkin' cute

That's right this is a Pigeon
Brandon took this amazing picture of trhe mountain goat and the Sydney Opera HouseBrandon is almost as tall as the World's Tallest Baby

I am not sure what all of the animals are named but they had some interesting ones at the zoo. Only in Australia