We made it!

We've made it to Aussie Land! We left on March 8th for San Francisco and spent a night there before taking the long flight to Sydney. San Francisco was a blast by itself too - we spent some quality time at the Embassy Suites there, eating, resting, splashing in the pool, enjoying the free happy hour and free breakfast. Then saw some good friends, Heather and Christina, the second day - we had a great time getting lunch, catching up while Ella napped.

Our flight for Sydney left San Francisco at 11:00 PM so Ella had a late nap and then we left for the adventure across the Pacific. Overall, the flight went really, really well. The flight wasn't very full, so we had an extra free seat for Ella (yay!!). The only hiccup in the flight was that we had to sit on the tarmac for an hour and a half extra because of a few complications. So, overall, we were on that plane for 16 hours! Ella's night-time sleep ended up only being about 6 hours long, and then she had a few naps as well. Grace and mercy accompanied us on that flight!

We arrived in Sydney at 9:00 AM and were greeted warmly by Karen. What a wonderful family we are staying with! Karen and Jonathan have three kids: Taylor (15), Kit (13), and Bailey (10). I'm not sure I'm spelling Bailey's name correctly, I'll just call her "ella's-new-best-friend". She loves Ella, and Ella loves her! And they have a sweet dog named Max that is also Ella's favorite new toy.

We pushed through the tiredness on the first day and got to drive through the city a bit, picked up Bailey at school, got a coffee, took Ella to the park, and met some friends of the Stevens that evening. Jason, Ella, and I crashed about 7:30 PM, and slept until morning now feeling bright eyed and cheery. Good news is that we are all three completely on Aussie time now - no jet lag! Hooray!

Today we walked up the hill to a series of stores/shops and got coffee - Jason even got a cappuchino! I had one of the best lattes ever. This is a coffee city. They seem to pride themselves on their coffee, and they should...it's really good. And we bought several croissants and some breakfast quiches as well. It's warm here - shorts and tank tops and you still feel warm. It feels really good. And Ella, our little sweater, has had sweat soaked hair for 2 days straight....she gets that from the Hennigers.

It's fun to be in a new place, with totally different trees, totally different sounding birds in the trees, street signs and sayings that are unique. They call the pharmacist the "chemist", they say "mate" instead of friend, they call arugala "rocket", they drive on the opposite side of the road, and in the opposite side of the car. These tiny differences are fun.

I'll have to upload pictures another time soon. We are headed to the beach for a swim after Ella wakes up from her nap.

Karen just brought me a warm home-made muffin. :) She is amazing!