What a crew!

neighbors

This was our neighbor at the farm. At first we were a little hesitant and put off by being 10 ft from it's enclosed pasture, you can imagine all the unpleasantries that may come with such a beast! But we learned quickly that it was not too bad at all. W really never noticed it was there. Apperantly, it's the family pet along with it's daughter that shares the same enclosure. I would think the last thing you need on a farm is a pet cow, much less 2!! But, who am I to judge?!

Each morning at 8:30 they made a mad dash out the door for their morning ride on the pony. He had to be coaxed a little when Ryan got on!

The boys loved feeding the animals, and got 2 buckets of food each day to feed whenever they wanted. They're favorite animals to feed were the kangaroos and the big Clydesdale, who's name was Stormy.

So I am going a little out of order by putting this picture up right now, as I have som much from Australia, Easter and Ryan's b'day left. BUT....... This was way too cute to wait! This was just the other day as we went for a morning walk. We have been taking lots of walks because she now enjoys the stroller, before she would just scream, now she talks to the trees and anything that will listen. Isn't she cuuuute!?!

The Story of the Donkey's Cross

"Everyone knows that the little gray donkey carries a cross on his back. Most people don't know the legend of the donkey's cross. The Story is told that the little donkey that had been Jesus' mount on Palm Sunday, came to the hill of Calvary. Seeing the tragic event occurring there he wished with all his heart he had been able to carry the cross for Jesus as he was the proper one to carry heavy burdens. The donkey turned his back on the sight, but he could not leave because he wished to stay until all was over because of his love for Jesus. In reward for the loyal and humble love of the little donkey the Lord caused the shadow of the cross to fall across his back and left it there for the donkey to carry forevermore as a sign that the love of God, no matter how humble carries a reward for all to see."

This is one of the stories I found online regarding the donkey's stripe. I had never heard of this before until Tracy told me about it when I asked about the cross pattern on one of the donkeys' back. God is so amazing, putting so many analogies throught his creation. Thanks God!

Holy Cow!

This is "Crazy". He is a cow on the loose, litteraly. When they recieved the cows a few years ago, they tried to herd them all, but this one outsmarted the farmer! For 3 years now they have been trying to catch Crazy. He is now so big, even if they did catch him, he would just jump right over the fence. This picture obviously doesn't do his size any justice. I have never seen a cow so big!

This is "Gumboots" the orphan joey we all grew to adore. He was only a few months old, and is sweet as can be. He was friendly, gentle and not the least bit afraid of the children. Definately gramma's favorite! If you got down close enough, he would lick your cheek. Ethan loved that, he was always trying to get a kiss from Gumboots.

Sunflowers Farm

Next we drove another hour south down to Margaret River. This region is famous for it's many wineries. But with 4 kiddos you can imagine that visiting a winery isn't very high on the "must do" list. They were beautiful though, I must say.

Instead we did a Farm stay". I had never done this before and was excited with anticipation of what it might be like.

We had a great little 2 bedroom unit, with all the facilities needed. The children received 2 buckets of food each day to hand feed the animals, this was their favorite activity, next to holding the baby chicks. We had free reign of the farm, collected eggs, bottle fed a joey, had tractor rides and pony rides. We even watched them unload 300 pregnant ewes from a 3 tiered truck, that was really cool!

The Ericksons drove to see us the next day which the kids absolutely loved! Ryan, Aaron and Ethan were outside from 8am that morning until 4:30 pm! They even had lunch outside.

For me, this was the highlight of our vacation, just loving nature and the cooler weather, and enjoying it with close friends and family . The only bummer of it all was that Steve was quite sick for most of this part of the holiday. He and Caitlyn stayed snug and warm by the fire most of the time.

Out of the mouthes of babes

I had to interupt my Australia blogging to tell you about our dinner conversation tonight. Well, it wasn't really a conversation, but more like them complaining and me talking through my teeth to stay sane. I made Lentil Soup, okay, so it's not every kids favorite, I know. But they are used to me bringing out new things and we just had it with Gramma the other night, it wasn't bad to them then. Tonight they were complaining it was "too spiiiicyyyyy". Well, I don't have much sympathy because they chow down the salsa at an alarming rate when we go to our favorite mexican restaraunt, and it's so spicy it makes my eyes water! They also kept asking about the different ingredients that were in it, "what's this one" or "I don't like this thing"(said in a very whiney voice). And Ethan, our precious 3rd born who is known for his amazing ability to out-whine anybody, just keeps saying "i'm fuuuuuuullll". This went on for 30 minutes, with comments from all 3 of them at any given point. I had had it up to here (very high if you can't tell). Finally it was done, dinner was over, with Ethan in tears because he wanted to be done, but hadn't figured out yet that the whining was getting him nowhere. I finally clued him in and he gets down from the table to get ready for bed. But the best part of it all was when he said "any desert?"

Grampa finally decided to take charge and show them the right way to do it. Go Grampa!!! I couldn't let grampa be the only adult jumping from a super high platform and haveing all the kids gauking at him, so I decided to jump too! It was so much fun, although my fingers ached from gripping the rope for fear of losing my life! Steve joined in because it just looked like so much fun and he couldn't give up the challenge, despite having bad case of brochitis.

Oh to be a kid again.

This is the Tarzan rope. The kids thought it was really cool and all tried to jump from it. It was funny to watch because they all climbed up and leapt without hesitation, to just land flat in the sand, time after time. We kept explaining that if they just sit on the ball they would swing, but they couldn't get the hang of it right away.

This was so much fun, and check out the view!

Next stop.......

To Busselton to see the Erickson's!!! Tracy and Dave decided to take a holiday in Perth on spring break as well so we decided we would try and meet up with them sometime during the holiday. Turns out they were staying half way between Rockingham and Margaret River, our 2nd stop. So, we enjoyed the afternoon with them at their place. They stayed in this really cool campground, that also had cabins. This was owned by a man with several children, all of which were boys. He deisgned a bunch of boyish playground areas that our children loved, even the adults got into it.

God blessed us with that time.

What a life!