Whale watching at Flinders Bay

We had a great weekend away- south of perth about 3 hours. We went whale watching...the bad news is the prairie people didn't fare well in the swells. Haven was the worst and spewed a good amount...The rest of us just felt nauseaus. We saw 4 humpback whales and a great southern or two. They were playful around the boat. As you can see it was tough to get a good picture of them- The ones we saw are said to be approx 13 meters long and weigh about a tonne per meter...big fellas... it was very cool. We stayed at a lovely secluded place called Hamelin bay in a beachside cabin. The kidlins had a blast frolicking in the waves.

Happy Canada Day!

We had a Canada Day BBQ with about 30 guests. Johnny slow cooked ribs on the bbq (this is where I am supposed to mention that they were much better than J Vaughans and KCs and Mikes...) It was great fun other than a 3 year old with a broken ankle from adventures on the trampoline. Lots of Aussies in attendance and a handful of canadians. A work colleague of johns brought a stuffed seal and a club...very amusing. We struggled to come up with "canadian" food so went with burgers, ribs, corona and sangria...

AQWA

Today we decided to head to the Aquatic Center. It is a fun place to visit. The kids get to touch Fiddler Rays, starfish and some strange spikey looking sea creatures...there are also varioius fish desperately trying to escape the molestations. My favorite part of AQWA is the "deadly creatures" exhibit- which goes into detail explaining how quickly the blue ring octopus, stonefish,lionfish, box jellyfish and a plethora of other enticing creatures can kill or permanently injure you...yeeks! There is also an amazing, gigantic tunnel you go through with a school of nurse sharks, lagerhead turtles, gigantic manta rays etc that swim all around and over top of you...

Can you believe it?

Our beautiful neice Jazzy had her grade nine graduation- she is a brilliant and lovely girl who will do great things- We wish we could have been there for the big day!!!

Siblings

Fall Skinny dip

John is gone for a week to the glamorous off-shore rig where he gets to work endless hours and be continually sea sick. I guess the sea is particularly rough right now...Oh yeah it is not john doing the skinny dipping(as far as i know) - it is bronson and Haven. On that note John says that on the rig there are sharks continually circling around. They did some kind of rescue simulation where they threw something into the water (raw meat?) and timed how long it would take to get a rescue raft out and the sharks were after the bait in 30 seconds and it took 2 minutes for the rescue raft to reach the target- not great information to have...On that note the kids and i decided to go to the beach on saturday afternoon just to play in the sand and it was so gorgeous out that they wanted to swim...a gorgeous day.

Out and About in Perth

The kids love the Perth Zoo- It is beautiful and is very conservation/rehabilitation oriented so you feel good supporting it. Bronto and Haven are here with their favorite Perth friends Zac and Saira...