Taronga Zoo

I first want to say the Sydney Zoo is an amazing zoo!!! If you ever make it over here it is a must! We spent the entire day there and had wonderful time. There is so much to see and the animals were all out and very active.

View from the zoo

The tiger and her baby cubs! It was a huge attraction here. You see one of the babes under the table on the bottom left.

Overlooking the harbor

Yay Koalas!!!! They are so cute sleeping in the trees.

Giraffes

Kangaroos lounging!

Meerkats just hanging out

The gorillas - they were fighting over food and it was so entertaining!

First Day in Sydney

Yesterday was our first day in Sydney. We took the ferry into the harbor. It started out as a bit of a rainy day but cleared up beautifully.

Here are some pictures.

The ferry from our balcony. We took the next one!

The opera house and Harbor Bridge from the Royal botanical gardens.

Opera House from the ferry.

Us in the botanical gardens.

Jeff at lunch with the newspaper of the day! See the bridge in the back?

It is Monday here today, and Jeff does not have to go to work until tomorrow. We are off to the Zoo to meet some kangaroos and Koala bears!!

Traveling Fools

Good morning!

So I have to admit, after a long time traveling , I went to bed last night at 8:30! It was amazing!

Here are some photos from the plane ride.

Complimentary champagne.

Funny story - the flight attendant who took this photo kept coming by and talking to us and finally asked - are you two on your honeymoon? I love it! No but we are having a blast!

Jeff in his complimentary Qantas PJ's!

Welcome to Sydney!

And our ride!

I will post later about the room and our day today. We are going to take the ferry into Sydney and explore around there!

Ash

Um so we might be here a while....

So literally minutes after posting my last post, I walked into the living room to see Jeff watching CNN.

The topic - Quantas grounding its entire fleet because of union disputes! Thank God we came in this morning and not tomorrow morning otherwise we would have been stuck in LA.

So since there is no end in sight to the grounding, we may be here a while! But that was mostly planned anyway!
Crazy...
Ash

We are here!

So after a 3 hour trip to LA and 15 hour trip to Sydney, we are here!

Business class on Quantas is TOTALLY worth the money. Each person gets there own little pod that lies completely flat to sleep. We were also met with champagne on the flight. You also get your own set of PJ's that have a kangaroo on them!

I will post more pictures when I figure out how to get them off my phone with out having wireless and therefore my icloud.

We landed at 7:30 am Sat morning here so we had to stay up.

After we got showered and changed, we explored our suburb of Parramatta. It is a great little town and our room overlooks the river. We found our grocery store, the main mall area, the pharmacy(because some things aren't at the grocery stores here) and a few other fun things.

It is only 5 pm here ( 1 am Dallas time) and we are exhausted!

Talk to you soon!!
Ash and Jeff

Admirals club!

Ok so I think I have died and gone to traveling heaven! Because we are traveling business to Sydney, we get use of the admirals club! A girl could really get use to this!

Packing up

So I must confess - I have a dirty little secret to tell some of you. It might even shock you. But here it is - I am a procrastinator....

Ok I feel much better with that off my chest. In case you don't believe me, I have proof!

As a reminder - we leave in 2 days, less than that if you count the hours!

Hubby's 2 bags all packed and even has the carry on full and clothes set out!

Here is my lonely suitcase with the other empty bag behind it.

To point out, the swimsuits are next to the bag!

I better get moving!

We have a flight!

After a long few weeks of talking with HR - we finally have a flight booked!

It is now official that we are heading to Australia.

Our one way tickets are book and we leave next Thursday the 27th!

I cannot wait to see Kangaroos, Koala Bears and a summer Christmas!

G-Day Mate!

Ash

Photo courtesy of sydney-australia.biz

Our new Home away from home

We have now learned where we will be staying in Australia. We will be in a town called Parramatta 15 miles outside of Sydney.

Here is a link to the city http://www.discoverparramatta.com/home

There is a great shopping district, a good mix of food from around the world and we can even take a ferry into Sydney Harbor (like in Grey's Anatomy!).

Still no flights but they should come soon - hopefully!

More to come!

ASH

A few weeks away

Less than two weeks ago J was asked at work to head up a temporary project in Australia. I promptly got the phone call with him in thinking mode stating they want us to go to Australia - we need to talk about this and decide, by tomorrow!

With just a little thought - we said yes. I am out of work and it is only 4 months so it was easy! The only details we had to work out was what to do with this little guy -

With grandma and grandpa watching him - we are off!

We still do not have a flight, place to stay or a car but he is supposed to report to his first day in the office Nov 1. This date is rather close and we have a lot to do!

Hope to get it all done!