pics at home

Henry loves his cowboy boots

Having his bottle in the shoe box

Very happy little man snuggled in with bottle & a cracker.

Driving grandpa's boat

Playing fetch with Jones

Sea lions

hanging out in his Tonka truck

Oh, how he loves the bellows!

He likes to imitate it blowing air.

Poor Jones. Henry insisted on being on or touching him at all times while he was at our house.

It made Henry so happy to pet Jones while he had his bottle.

Henry looks so smart in his 3D glasses

Yes, that is snow in the background

Uncle Doug got a new toilet, so Henry decided to test it out.

Must have rainboots on while eating meals.

So cute! Henry loves his blanket.

Here are some pictures of the last month or so up here on the island. Nothing much new. Henry is growing up so fast. He runs now & loves to go outside when the weather permits. It's been pretty nice up here recently. We have been to the mainland a few times recently & have had  a lot of fun. Hope to see more of you soon. We welcome visitors anytime. Maybe when it gets warmer we can convince some of you to stay with us a few days.

Just so you know, the dog in the pictures is Jones. He belongs to our good friends Kevin & Katina & we had the pleasure of keeping him for about 10 days while they were out of town. Henry misses him so much & his first word in the morning  is still doggen (dog)

Goodbye Australia! We miss you!!

The video above is us saying goodbye to our home in Australia. The drive down our driveway is worth watching. I think it takes between 3 & 4 minutes to get down it.

Goodbye house!

Goodbye Mr. Skink.

Ben's shirts all looked like this by the time we left. we don't really know how to explain it...it just happened.

Goodbye to our awesome friends!!

 These are Henry's best Aussie mates..from left: Georgie, Henry, Jack, & Chloe.he had such a good time with them!

I love the assortment of coats & hats here. it just says Australia to me! notice no one in the pic is wearing clothes...so humid!

how much can you fit into the trunk of a car?

Here's a close up.Thank you to Holden for making such an enormous boot (trunk) We had to organize it well, so we could find everything we needed for camping and traveling. This is everything we brought to Australia plus what we acquired while there....we probably could have left the dive gear at home.

Yes, even the tent fit in there!...and all the bedding in it.

We owe a HUGE thank you to Aunt Cy’s friend Janice for restoring our Australia pictures to our camera! As you read in an earlier post, we accidentally deleted a huge portion of our trip pictures while on a hike. I don’t know how she did it, but we are extremely grateful & could not be happier!!

As a result we are now going to post a huge number of pictures & since they were all taken at different times, and have different stories behind them I will place them in separate blog posts to make it easier to follow what’s happening in them.

We really hope you enjoy looking at them & we will be posting again soon to keep you updated on what we have been up to since arriving in the states & to fill you in on what the little man is doing these days. We’ve had a busy two months!!!



Don’t forget to read the next few posts after this one!! There are 4 total!!!



Love, Kristen, Ben, & Henry Ranger!



Thank you again Janice!!!!

FUN & THE AUSTRALIA ZOO!!!

Handsome Henry at the playground

I've never seen a better looking PIRATE!

Riding a manta ray

Checking out the surf with dad!

Ben is at HOME!

I love this surf sign

Always looking at the surf...this is where the dolphin nudged me, just out to the left of the rocks.

Bush turkey!

If you look above the hat you can see a HUGE walking stick. This was at our campground in Byron Bay.

Croc show!

The Irwin Family

I absolutely LOVE this one!!!

Henry & I feeding the Kangaroos!!I had SOOOO much fun!!!

I wish my eyes weren't shut, but this is the only pic we have of me with the Koalas. This was actually the last picture we were able to take at the zoo, because the battery died on the camera. Oops. you could walk right up to any Koala in the zoo & pet it if it was low enough. She was having a nap!

On the road & a look at the flooding

Here are some funny signs & things we encountered on our travels through Australia. It's funny what you find on signs there that I'm not sure you could get away with here... We found the one above while waiting in flood traffic.

A horse in a ute to advertise a transportation company...

DON'T BE A TOSSER!

Look closely at the bottom of the van...how do you get a license for that?

Henry finds fun new ways to occupy himself during road trips, such as emptying the diaper bag & tossing diapers all over the back seat & himself.

I don't knwo how he sleeps like this. He fell asleep protesting as usual & just passed out mid arm raising..

So cute in daddy's hat!

Awesome view from the road. We encountered lots of amazing scenery on our drive.

This was a little bit of the flooding as we were just starting our trip. This was one of the worst hit areas & just a few hours after we got through this whole town was under water. Yikes!!!

This was the road we took near the town of Risk. We arrived just a day after the whole thing was under water.

You can see where debris was washed up over the bridge.

Lovely weather for sight seeing! If you enlarge this one you can see Henry holding his hood up to block the wind.



Hope you are enjoying the pictures, It's been a long time coming, so there are a lot to go through. More to come in a few minutes on the next entry.

Lighthouse hike Byron Bay

The dotted line is the hike we were on in these pictures. We went all the way around several times. We started & ended at Wategos Bay & started out by heading up to the lighthouse. We LOVED this hike & I wish I lived in Byron Bay, if not for the surf & awesome weather, just for this hike alone! It is quite a long hike & not for people looking for an easy walk. It's really hard in some places & steep! Totally worth it.These pictures make me want to go hike it again right now.

Lighthouse at the top

Soooo HOT & HUMID!!! We reached the top at the lighthouse & my face was so red from sweating so much. I don't know if we could have made it that day without the wind.

nice view

Another great view. Every hill you climbed rewarded you with another amazing view.

Ben & Henry checking on the surf below

finally going down hill

Most of this trail is either straight up or down..not much in between

happy picture!

we surfed here a few times. Wategos bay

SOOOO WINDY!!!

Way over in the distance you can see the "pilots only" take off point for the hang gliders near the top of the closest peak.

Here it is. This is funny. You just walk up on this random "runway" off a cliff. There is a gate that you could just walk around if you wanted to, but hopefully you wouldn't, because it's a serious drop off the other side as you can see in the picture above.