In late March, Alexis finished her first term of prep at school. It was time for school holidays and she was ready for her two week break. The beginning of the holidays was celebrated with Easter weekend.

For Easter this year, we visited Werribee Park where the kids participated in a massive Easter egg hunt.    It was more of a race to gather as many eggs as you could rather than a hunt, but great fun nonetheless! And the chocolate eggs were delicious, I think the Cadbury chocolate is better here in Australia!

The kids had a good time. They even posed for a picture with the Easter bunny, a first!

In Torquay, Easter weekend is more than just chocolate eggs and Easter bunnies, it is the time of year for the Rip Curl Pro. This surfing competition is world renown and surfers from all over come to compete to be the one to ring the bell. Being a ‘local’, it was important that we made it out to Bells Beach to watch this epic event.

We enjoyed watching some of the most talented surfers around like Kelly Slater, Matt Wilkinson and Jordy Smith, just to name a few.   The kids enjoyed watching the surfers but quickly lost interest and played in the tide pools and the sand instead.

During first week of school holidays, we ventured into Melbourne for the day and spent some time at the Melbourne Zoo.

We got up close to the adorable lemurs.

The butterfly house was Alexis’ favourite. She stood very still for a long time, waiting for the butterflies to land on her.

Reid’s favourite was the penguins and the lions.

Mommy’s favourite was eating lunch with the giraffes and the zebras.

Even though Daddy was not with us because he was working, we took a picture of his favourite too…the hippos.

The Keeper Kids area was a highlight for Alexis and Reid. They were able to experience what it might be like to be a zoo keeper, a researcher, a veterinarian and a grounds keeper.

The Melbourne Zoo promotes the conservation of animals and did an excellent job educating us on how we can help fight extinction and care for our environment. We had a great day at the zoo.

On a Sunday afternoon, we drove along the Great Ocean Road to the seaside town of Lorne where the foreshore became a picturesque platform for dozens of sculptures to be admired and explored. The Lorne Sculpture Biennale is an art event consisting of about 100 sculptures lining the foreshore. It is expected that these sculptures will be viewed by 70,000+ people over the 23 days that they are on display.

To finish off the holidays, we spent the night in Melbourne and enjoyed the city on a cool and rainy day.

To escape the rain, we decided to go up the Eureka Skydeck to the 88th floor. Despite the weather, the view was breathtaking and we were able to locate some of Melbourne’s key landmarks through the viewfinders. We were daring enough to walk on ‘The Edge’ which is a glass cube that projects 3 metres out of the building and 300 metres above the ground! Alexis and Reid had no fear, they lay face down on the glass floor and admired the tiny taxis and trams below.

It has been 6 months since we arrived in Australia and it’s finally time for Alexis to start school. She has been out of school since the end of junior kindergarten, which was 7 months ago. She has enjoyed her extra long summer holidays being at home with Mommy and Reid.

  
  
We have enjoyed endless days at the beach, playing in the sand with friends, bike rides, playing school and bubbacinos at the café.

  

But the day finally arrived…the first day of school…January 29, 2016.

Alexis was very excited to start a new school and wear a school uniform for the first time. There were no tears and almost no hesitation to join her new classmates. For Reid, it was very different. He was the one that had tears and trouble letting Alexis go. He would miss his best playmate and friend dearly as he stayed home with Mommy.

 

In early January, three very special visitors came to visit us in Torquay. Oma, Opa and Auntie Allison made the 30 hour journey to the other side of the world to spend some time in Australia with us. Alexis and Reid (mostly Alexis) had been counting down the weeks and then days since they told us they were coming back in November. They made signs and decorated the driveway with chalk for the long awaited arrival.

Oma, Opa and Auntie Allison spent just over two weeks with us and we made sure to fill every day with as many Aussie experiences as possible. We started with a tour of Torquay, which only took a day due to its size. The next day, we drove down the much anticipated Great Ocean Road, stopping at the Twelve Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge, the Arch and the London Bridge. We had a perfect day for touring and taking pictures.

We stopped in Warrnambool for a couple of nights to enjoy Flagstaff Hill and learn more about the Shipwreck Coast. Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village is a typical coastal village of the late 1800s. We explored the Sailmaker’s shop, the Dressmaker’s shop, the doctor’s house, the bank, the church, the lighthouse and the farm. It gave us a glimpse into what life was like along the Shipwreck Coast during a time when the Southern Ocean was the main passage way for ships to reach new settlements.

Experiencing what life was like for those living in a coastal town in the late 1800s was fun. At night we walked through the village by lantern and watched a light and sound show that relived the tragedy of the Loch Ard shipwreck. We heard the touching story of the only two survivors of the wreck, Tom and Eva.

The village is also home to the Maremma dogs, Eudy and Tula, when they are not working on Middle Island. Meeting Eudy and Tula, seven year-old sister Maremma dogs, was the highlight of the day for Alexis and Reid.

These Maremmas guard the local penguin colony who are living on Middle Island. These dogs protect the Little Penguin fledglings from foxes during the October-April breeding season. Under the protection of Eudy and Tula, the number of Little Penguins has grown from just 10 in 2005 to 180 recently.

The last stop in Warrnambool before we made our way back to Torquay, was Logan’s Beach. Almost every year in the winter months, female Southern Right whales return to Logans Beach to calve. It  makes for an excellent viewing area during that time.  There were no whale sightings while we were there due to the time of year but we enjoyed the deserted beach. Oma and Alexis enjoyed running from the waves.

We continued our journey along the Great Ocean Road the next day, starting with Aireys Inlet. The Split Point Lighthouse at Aireys Inlet is the main attraction there. It was built in 1891 to guide ships through the eye of the needle, the Bass Strait, between Tasmania and Victoria towards Port Phillip Bay and onto Melbourne. Oma, Opa, Allison and Alexis climbed the 136 steps to the top and enjoyed 360 degree coastal views. Reid was too young to go up so we stayed at the bottom and waited to see the others emerge out the top of the lighthouse.

Views from the top…Can you spot Reid and Mommy?

We continued on down the Great Ocean Road until we reached Wye River. This area was devastated by forest fires over the Christmas holidays. We saw homes and a lot of forest that was burnt. We also saw helicopters getting ocean water and dumping it on the surrounding area. We stopped here for lunch and dipped our feet in the ocean. Opa and Alexis tried to beat the waves.

A bit wet and sandy, we headed back to Torquay with a stop in Lorne first. Lorne is a lovely seaside town with a unique environment where beach meets rainforest. The mountains surrounding Lorne create a spectacular view of the Great Ocean Road as well as plenty of fantastic walking trails. We stopped at Teddy’s Lookout in Lorne to appreciate the view from up in the hills. We also stopped here for our daily dose of ice cream.

Our final stop on the Great Ocean Road was the Anglesea Golf Course where we saw kangeroos living at the 18th hole.

Before Oma, Opa and Auntie Allison went home, we wanted to show them Aussie wildlife. Ballarat Wildlife Centre seemed to be an excellent place to do that as you can get up close and personal with many of the animals there.

Alexis and Reid loved feeding the kangaroos and Alexis wanted to take one home with us as a pet. We followed an emu who was taking a leisurely stroll and Allison, Alexis and Reid all pet a poison snake. We had an eventful day meeting many Aussie animals in Ballarat.

We spent a day on a boat at Queenscliff to look for dolphins and seals. Unfortunately, we did not see any dolphins. However, the seals were playful but very smelly.

A trip to Australia, especially Torquay, would not be complete without going out for a surf. Opa and Shane took a surf lesson while the rest of us enjoyed the beach for the day. It proved to be more difficult than it looks (and it looks hard).

We had a fantastic time with Oma, Opa and Auntie Allison. Dancing, singing, eating ice cream, doing hair, feeding ducks, playing bat and ball and sightseeing made for a fantastic holiday together.

One of our last meals together before Oma, Opa and Auntie Allison went back home to Canada was a bbq at the park with a beautiful view of the ocean.

We were so excited to have these three special visitors and we had such a good time, it was hard to say goodbye and see them go.