{the wonders of the beach}

One of my most favourite things about our holiday was the time we spent on the beach! I loved playing the in the sand, building castles, taking photo's, watching the children play and just being with my wonderful family! Here are some of my special moments I'd like to share with you!












Smiles The Torrents's

Flying High

It's not every day you get to see your friend do his "job" jumping out of an airplanes!! So when we were told that there was an OPEN day at Andrew's work.... the Army in Nowra, we jumped (he he he!) at the chance to see him do what he does almost EVERY day!
We were shown how the riggers pack the "chutes" as they're called, asked questions, felt just how HUGELY heavy the packs actually are, see the "boys" in their FULL ARMY gear, like if they were jumping into war (to the point the men can hardly stand, at least for long period's of time that is!) It was soooo interesting and then at the end of all that we walked to their "drop zone" and waited for Andrew and his mates to jump and land in front of us!

The plane had to fly around a little while waiting to see if the wind was right, then soon after we saw 4 little dots falling from the sky.....

Here is Andrew, now with the flag released and coming in for landing

A little closer

And TOUCH DOWN!

It was soooo funny after, the Army guys were all talking about the land and how there was a huge amount of turbulance just before hitting the ground. So much so that they nearly didn't land "on their feet" Apparently if you "take a knee" you can get a bit of slack!! Remember ladies and gents these are tough guys, and they need to look and act tough too!!! :)

We had such a great time and loved seeing first hand what these amazing riggers do! Thanks Andrew for showing us around, it was awesome!
Smiles The Torrents's

p.s Happy Father's Day Andrew, all the best for the next 6 weeks to you and your lovely family! May the time FLY by and you all be in each others company safe and sound and soon!

Dreams do come true!

One of the main things we were all looking forward to was our trip to the wonderful, FAMOUS Australia Zoo!!! We were able to time our trip with Bindi's 13th Birthday! YAY! It's actually Hannah who has been a BIG fan of Bindi's for YEARS!!!!

I mean in her little world she would love to be able to hang out with her, have lunch, have a sleep over so on and so forth! So when she actually got to meet her and hug her and talk to her about Tassie, it was one of the most amazing experiences in her life! (and ours too!)

We had waited for over an hour in the line at the Pink carpet and once the moment had passed Allan, Hannah and Myself just broke down crying! The emotion was sooo intense and overwhelming it was AWESOME!!!!! Her dream can true!!!!! YAY!

So then it was about enjoying the festivities of the day! We sang Happy Birthday to Bindi and even got to have some of her cake, we saw her feed a crocodile for the first time and loved the Grease Show they had in the Croc-o-seum




One of my best bits was the bird display & also the feeding of the elephants! This was soooo fun!
We will definately be going back one year, it was truly the best day!!!!

Smiles The Torrents's

What a lot of FUN

It's been sooo cool living in the "great outdoors" checking out the different caravan parks and their facilities!! It's now the children's new job, well Hannah does it best when she runs and checks them out and then reports back to me. In the report she says how many toilets there are and how many showers! It's fun and I love then checking it out with her once we've set up! At Tin Can Bay she was most excited when reporting that there was a BATH!!

So that night it was splashing and laughing and playing together! I love them all sooo much!
Smiles The Torrents's

All packed up

It was quite an effort to pack all our belongings for our holiday. We really didn't know how much to bring the fact that we were buying our camp-a-van in Brisbane. Pots and pans, bedding, clothes, pantry items, bikes, tools, chairs, table..... etc etc!!! Allan left Tassie with our car full of things and then the children and I had the rest of our stuff, toys and clothes and the like.
Well with a "Allan" speciality tarp cover this is what our car looked like before heading to get our caravan!

Our little peas in a very squishy, squashy pod!

I had our Thermo Mix on my lap! Yes we even brought that!!!
It's great for camping!

Thankfully we only had to travel like this for just over an hour!! The children did sooo well, their legs were very, nearly up to their armpits and Esther and Sophia couldn't even see each other for things piled high!! It sure was a drive to remember!!! Once at our new van we all un-folded and headed for Landsborough.
More on our adventure soon.....
Smiles The Torrents's

Such a lovely place

We had the most wonderful time with our dear friends the Jordan's! They just recently moved to Brisbane and so we were able to check out their new home and have a good old catch up!!!

Zeke LOVES Mr Jordan's "old" space Lego!

The children especially had a fabulous time playing outside in the warm of the QLD sun with all of Emma and Luke's cool toys!!!

Sophia in the Little Red Car! It was all about taking turns with this one,
everyone wanted a go!

Esther's first time with sand... and liking it!!
Before this trip she would wiggle and squirm when anywhere near sand
but with this little sand table set up she actually grew to LOVE IT!!
It was wonderful to watch her change her thoughts about it all!

Sending HUGE hugs to you lovely Jordan family..... we miss you!!!
Smiles The Torrents's

And we're OFF

waiting at the Launceston airport for our plane

WOW what a week it has been!!!! I can't even begin to say how much fun we are having on our holiday, it really is like summer over in QLD! I love it!!! So I thought I'd start at the beginning and show you our take off....

Zeke climbing the plane stairs

the children and I said goodbye to Allan on Tuesday as he left to go on the boat and we flew over the next day! I packed for the children some wonderful little "plane" bags which had a toy, pad, markers, plasticine and a lolly pop! THey LOVED them when I gave it to them all once taken off!
On the other side of the 2 1/2 hrs we landed safely in Brisbane where the wonderful Philip met us and we caught a taxi to the Jordan's!!! We all had a great time of catching up before hitting the hay!

Esther was sooo excited, she kept saying "plane! Plane! Plane!"

I'll be back again soon with some more holiday stories to tell!!
Until then,
Smiles The Torrents's