The day after we met Collis and Cyan we came into the office and met everyone else. For some reason I didn't get a picture of a single human being. But I did get a picture of a few other things that make the office awesome. Like a pool table...
a bunch of guitars and a cozy spot for jam sessions...
a view like this from the windows...
little army men hiding in the plants...
and tons and tons of treats. I didn't get a picture of the kitchen area where I was introduced to The Tim Tam Slam. And grilled cheese with Vegemite. Barf. They also have a sandwich co-op situation. Basically it's the coolest office on the planet. Everybody was SO awesome - it's like we'd all been life-long friends.
This was at St. Kilda beach, a few train stops from our hotel. Such a gorgeous area - I wish we could have spent more time there.
There were TONS of jelly fish on the beach. I'd never seen one so close before - it was crazy how you could see...well...whatever that blue stuff was. I was holding my hand out to show how big it was.
We did some good people-watching from this boardwalk. I needed a little rest from all of my...
beach glass collecting! I found SO much! It was, by far, the most fun I've ever had looking for it.
Probably my favorite dude we saw.
How does a guy that old get that tough?
They were doing some work on the beach, part of which included blowing sand out of a big pipe - it was cool to watch.
This was the plan for the beach. Isn't that the coolest?
They have a lot of trees that look like Ents.
Church right outside our hotel. There were cool churches all over the place - I had to force myself to stop taking so many pictures.
This was a few days later at Brighton Beach, which was right across the street from our second hotel. After we got settled in we came downstairs in our swimsuits and walked out the front door, only to find that the weather had drastically changed. So we turned around and came right back in, to which the hotel lady just smiled and said, "Welcome to Melbourne." So we put on warmer clothes and headed back out. We sat in this cozy little spot and read for awhile - it was SO nice.
This was the one time on our trip that we rented a car. I don't think I'll ever get used to driving on the left side of a car. And that's as a passenger - I wouldn't last 2 minutes as the driver. This was on our way up to the Dandenong Mountains. I think it was about a 45 minute drive and it was awesome.
It's so disappointing to look back at the pictures because they just don't capture what it looks like, or feels like, or smells like, or sounds like...
This was our first time seeing a kookaburra - we seriously stayed by this one for 10 minutes, taking zillions of pictures from all different angles. They're so cool looking.
This was our first hike, where Lance got to see his first wallaby. I missed it. :(
I loved this row of trees - they had the funniest shape, and looked so cool in a row like that.
There's a cool little town at the top of the mountain with a bunch of fun little shops. We'd had our first meat pie a few days earlier at St. Kilda beach and we'd been excited to try some more. So we were stoked to find a whole restaurant with zillions of meat pies. Lance got a Tandoori Chicken one that was delicious, and I just went for the standard beef. Mmm. I don't know why these aren't popular in the states. They're nothing like those little frozen chicken pot pies that we have.
This was our favorite little park that we went to - I can't remember the name.
You can't really tell from the pictures but the lighting was so beautiful - we wanted to stay there forever.
Turns out the cool lighting at the park was courtesy of the impending rain. Best rainstorm I've ever been a part of. Not the hardest rain, or the longest - just the coolest. Everything was so magical. And it was so convenient because it started raining right as we left the park, and had stopped raining by the time we got to the next place we were going half an hour later.
Again, I took 8 zillion pictures of the cool, misty forest we were driving through - I would tell myself I had plenty, but then we'd turn the corner and it'd be SO amazing that I had to take a few dozen more.
Right as it stopped raining we stopped at this little look-out, and watched the fog just roll right out of there. Another magical moment.
Our next stop was...this place. I'm writing this a year later so all the names of places have been long gone. Anyway, there was a restaurant and some cool gardens and a really cool view of Melbourne that barely shows up in the pictures. :)
This was such a cool hike through the eucalyptus forest. I've watched a few too many murder mysteries because I saw these shoes thrown haphazardly in the bushes and immediately started hunting around for a db (dead body). I didn't find one though.
I'm not used to big trees, so I was in heaven here - they're EVERYwhere. Cool mossy ones that make you want to build a tree house in them.
And hollow ones.
Lance is usually too impatient to do the self-timer on the camera, but he agreed to hold still for a few seconds. I really wish I hadn't waited a year to write things down because something got us laughing SO hard right after this one - I wish I could remember what it was.
Lance got a leech, which we thought was pretty exciting. But kind of scary. If my pants are tucked into my socks in any subsequent pictures, you'll know why. Anyway, he tried to pull it off and it was amazing how strong that little sucker was - it took a few tries.
All day in the forests we'd been hearing the screeching of all the crazy birds. We'd get excited if one would fly close to us - they're so exotic-looking. So on our way back down the mountain we stopped at this little park area. We got out of the car to find dozens of the different birds just wandering around.
And this is why. This little girl was feeding them muffins. I couldn't believe that she wasn't freaking out with so many birds on her! Her sweet mom saw how excited we were and gave us some muffin to feed them.
Lance bravely volunteered to go first.
Brave isn't really the first word I would think of to describe myself with the birds. More like screeching and squealing.
They were SUPER heavy, and their giant claws were sharp! I didn't get a picture, but I had a few bloody scratches afterward. Totally worth the battle wounds though - it was such a cool experience.
We didn't get a picture, but at one point I had like 5 or 6 birds on me - they were going crazy and it was kind of scary.
The next day we drove to Phillip Island with Collis and Cyan. It was a 2-hour drive but it flew by - I don't think we stopped yapping the entire time. The more I get to know Collis the more he reminds me of Lance - they're SO alike. And Cyan is just the best. We're so sad that they live so far away. Our first stop was at this cool wildlife park. It was kind of like a zoo only the animals were in big, huge, open areas. Some of them were fenced in, like this wombat, but lots of them were just roaming around.
Luckily this cassowary was behind a fence - it was honestly one of the scariest animals ever. I don't know how Lance dared to let it eat out of his hand.
This is what his feet look like. Yikes.
This was my first time feeding a wallaby - it was such a weird feeling to have them come gobble stuff out of my hand.
The kangaroos were my favorite. They're so funny to watch.
They leave disgusting kangaroo spit all over your hand - it's so gross! But I would've been happy to sit there and feed them all day - SO cool.
I loved the funny faces of the different animals...
The koalas were funny - they kind of seemed stoned all the time. Apparently there's something in the eucalyptus leaves that makes them super sleepy.
Those are a bunch of dead chicks - I can't remember which one it was, but one of the animals eats them.
These look like bats, but they're flying foxes. They're huge! And love apples.
Cyan told us that there's a specific bird that loves blue stuff - any blue stuff - and just flies around gathering it. We totally thought she was trying to pull a fast one on us, but then she showed us the blue stuff! We were laughing so hard.
I wish the pictures showed how beautiful it was there - I felt like we were in Ireland (minus the kangaroos) or Scotland. Or The Shire.
Nastiest creature I've ever laid eyes on (Tasmanian Devil). I wish I would've gotten some video of it hissing and snarling. Gross. Makes me cringe just thinking about it.
After the wild animal park we went to go see the penguins. Cameras weren't allowed so the next few pictures are from Google.
Every night thousands and thousands of penguins come ashore for the night. Most people walk down this boardwalk and watch them from these seats. But we got a special package where we got to go with a group of 10 people to a special part of the island. They gave us night vision goggles (which was SO cool) and we got to go right down on the beach where they'd walk right past us. But before they got there there was lightning super far away, so they made us leave. Sad. So we ended up with everybody else but it was still SO cool.
There were constant waves of penguins - it was so cool to watch them come out of the water. They float on their stomachs so you can't seem them until they stand up when they hit the shore.
They walk along the boardwalk to their little nests - apparently they come back to the same one every night. Anyway, it was one of the coolest experiences ever. We didn't even know there were penguins in Australia, so we were pretty stoked to get to hang out with them.
We flew into Sydney and took the train to Circular Quay. The last ferry of the night to Manly was leaving right as we got off the train, but we ran and they let us jump on - it was like in the movies. It was cool to see the city all lit up.
Our hotel was a block from Manly beach (Lance is making a Manly gang sign). Manly is the coolest city ever.
This kind of car was everywhere - we thought they were funny.
We hiked all through Royal National Park for a few hours. There were some amazing views.
I can't remember what kind of animal this was, but you can kind of see its white head.
This is looking back towards Manly.
The picture doesn't really show it, but there were some giant, steep cliffs. Lance gets nervous when I get too close to the edge.
We thought Bandicoot was just Crash's last name - we didn't realize it's an actual animal.
Manly is a pretty small little city, but it's so cool. This is the little downtown area.
This is on the ferry heading back to Circular Quay.
I took way too many pictures of the Sydney Opera House. It's such a cool building.
We couldn't stop laughing at these prehistoric-looking birds that were wandering around downtown Sydney. They were so weird looking!
Harbor Bridge. We were going to walk it, but...well...look how long it is! It's huge!
We spent a couple of hours walking through the Royal Botanical Gardens, which is right next to the opera house.
Random castle in the park. I think it was something government-y.
There are so many cool trees in Australia - we couldn't get enough of them.
I don't really understand what that is that I'm climbing on. It's like the tree's roots grew up out of the ground and connected back up with the trees branches. Nuts.
This Aboriginal looking guy was playing the didgeridoo, but all techno-style. Awesome. But not really.
Pirate ship. I think it took people on tours of the harbor.
We took a 2-hour train ride to the Blue Mountains. SO gorgeous!! I wish we had a better camera! And that I knew how to use it. And that it was tiny and could fit in my purse.
It started getting foggy just as we were about to get to The Three Sisters.
The fog was so bad by the time we got there that we couldn't really see anything.
This is back at Manly Beach, but the other direction from where we went the day before. Most of the beaches had little pools right on the beach. Another thing we need to copy in the states.
There were tiny little crabs everywhere. We had fun watching them crawl around.
The day after we met Collis and Cyan we came into the office and met everyone else. For some reason I didn't get a picture of a single human being. But I did get a picture of a few other things that make the office awesome. Like a pool table...
a bunch of guitars and a cozy spot for jam sessions...
a view like this from the windows...
little army men hiding in the plants...
and tons and tons of treats. I didn't get a picture of the kitchen area where I was introduced to The Tim Tam Slam. And grilled cheese with Vegemite. Barf. They also have a sandwich co-op situation. Basically it's the coolest office on the planet. Everybody was SO awesome - it's like we'd all been life-long friends. 
This was at St. Kilda beach, a few train stops from our hotel. Such a gorgeous area - I wish we could have spent more time there.
There were TONS of jelly fish on the beach. I'd never seen one so close before - it was crazy how you could see...well...whatever that blue stuff was. I was holding my hand out to show how big it was.
We did some good people-watching from this boardwalk. I needed a little rest from all of my...
beach glass collecting! I found SO much! It was, by far, the most fun I've ever had looking for it.
Probably my favorite dude we saw.
How does a guy that old get that tough?
They were doing some work on the beach, part of which included blowing sand out of a big pipe - it was cool to watch.
This was the plan for the beach. Isn't that the coolest?
They have a lot of trees that look like Ents.
Church right outside our hotel. There were cool churches all over the place - I had to force myself to stop taking so many pictures.
This was a few days later at Brighton Beach, which was right across the street from our second hotel. After we got settled in we came downstairs in our swimsuits and walked out the front door, only to find that the weather had drastically changed. So we turned around and came right back in, to which the hotel lady just smiled and said, "Welcome to Melbourne." So we put on warmer clothes and headed back out. We sat in this cozy little spot and read for awhile - it was SO nice.
This was the one time on our trip that we rented a car. I don't think I'll ever get used to driving on the left side of a car. And that's as a passenger - I wouldn't last 2 minutes as the driver. This was on our way up to the Dandenong Mountains. I think it was about a 45 minute drive and it was awesome.
It's so disappointing to look back at the pictures because they just don't capture what it looks like, or feels like, or smells like, or sounds like...
This was our first time seeing a kookaburra - we seriously stayed by this one for 10 minutes, taking zillions of pictures from all different angles. They're so cool looking.
This was our first hike, where Lance got to see his first wallaby. I missed it. :(
I loved this row of trees - they had the funniest shape, and looked so cool in a row like that.
There's a cool little town at the top of the mountain with a bunch of fun little shops. We'd had our first meat pie a few days earlier at St. Kilda beach and we'd been excited to try some more. So we were stoked to find a whole restaurant with zillions of meat pies. Lance got a Tandoori Chicken one that was delicious, and I just went for the standard beef. Mmm. I don't know why these aren't popular in the states. They're nothing like those little frozen chicken pot pies that we have.
This was our favorite little park that we went to - I can't remember the name.
You can't really tell from the pictures but the lighting was so beautiful - we wanted to stay there forever.
Turns out the cool lighting at the park was courtesy of the impending rain. Best rainstorm I've ever been a part of. Not the hardest rain, or the longest - just the coolest. Everything was so magical. And it was so convenient because it started raining right as we left the park, and had stopped raining by the time we got to the next place we were going half an hour later.
Again, I took 8 zillion pictures of the cool, misty forest we were driving through - I would tell myself I had plenty, but then we'd turn the corner and it'd be SO amazing that I had to take a few dozen more.
Right as it stopped raining we stopped at this little look-out, and watched the fog just roll right out of there. Another magical moment.
Our next stop was...this place. I'm writing this a year later so all the names of places have been long gone. Anyway, there was a restaurant and some cool gardens and a really cool view of Melbourne that barely shows up in the pictures. :)
This was such a cool hike through the eucalyptus forest. I've watched a few too many murder mysteries because I saw these shoes thrown haphazardly in the bushes and immediately started hunting around for a db (dead body). I didn't find one though.
I'm not used to big trees, so I was in heaven here - they're EVERYwhere. Cool mossy ones that make you want to build a tree house in them.
And hollow ones.
Lance is usually too impatient to do the self-timer on the camera, but he agreed to hold still for a few seconds. I really wish I hadn't waited a year to write things down because something got us laughing SO hard right after this one - I wish I could remember what it was.
Lance got a leech, which we thought was pretty exciting. But kind of scary. If my pants are tucked into my socks in any subsequent pictures, you'll know why. Anyway, he tried to pull it off and it was amazing how strong that little sucker was - it took a few tries.
All day in the forests we'd been hearing the screeching of all the crazy birds. We'd get excited if one would fly close to us - they're so exotic-looking. So on our way back down the mountain we stopped at this little park area. We got out of the car to find dozens of the different birds just wandering around.
And this is why. This little girl was feeding them muffins. I couldn't believe that she wasn't freaking out with so many birds on her! Her sweet mom saw how excited we were and gave us some muffin to feed them.
Lance bravely volunteered to go first.
Brave isn't really the first word I would think of to describe myself with the birds. More like screeching and squealing.
They were SUPER heavy, and their giant claws were sharp! I didn't get a picture, but I had a few bloody scratches afterward. Totally worth the battle wounds though - it was such a cool experience.
We didn't get a picture, but at one point I had like 5 or 6 birds on me - they were going crazy and it was kind of scary.
The next day we drove to Phillip Island with Collis and Cyan. It was a 2-hour drive but it flew by - I don't think we stopped yapping the entire time. The more I get to know Collis the more he reminds me of Lance - they're SO alike. And Cyan is just the best. We're so sad that they live so far away. Our first stop was at this cool wildlife park. It was kind of like a zoo only the animals were in big, huge, open areas. Some of them were fenced in, like this wombat, but lots of them were just roaming around.
Luckily this cassowary was behind a fence - it was honestly one of the scariest animals ever. I don't know how Lance dared to let it eat out of his hand.
This is what his feet look like. Yikes.
This was my first time feeding a wallaby - it was such a weird feeling to have them come gobble stuff out of my hand.
The kangaroos were my favorite. They're so funny to watch.
They leave disgusting kangaroo spit all over your hand - it's so gross! But I would've been happy to sit there and feed them all day - SO cool.
I loved the funny faces of the different animals...
The koalas were funny - they kind of seemed stoned all the time. Apparently there's something in the eucalyptus leaves that makes them super sleepy.
Those are a bunch of dead chicks - I can't remember which one it was, but one of the animals eats them.
These look like bats, but they're flying foxes. They're huge! And love apples.
Cyan told us that there's a specific bird that loves blue stuff - any blue stuff - and just flies around gathering it. We totally thought she was trying to pull a fast one on us, but then she showed us the blue stuff! We were laughing so hard.
I wish the pictures showed how beautiful it was there - I felt like we were in Ireland (minus the kangaroos) or Scotland. Or The Shire.
Nastiest creature I've ever laid eyes on (Tasmanian Devil). I wish I would've gotten some video of it hissing and snarling. Gross. Makes me cringe just thinking about it.
After the wild animal park we went to go see the penguins. Cameras weren't allowed so the next few pictures are from Google.
Every night thousands and thousands of penguins come ashore for the night. Most people walk down this boardwalk and watch them from these seats. But we got a special package where we got to go with a group of 10 people to a special part of the island. They gave us night vision goggles (which was SO cool) and we got to go right down on the beach where they'd walk right past us. But before they got there there was lightning super far away, so they made us leave. Sad. So we ended up with everybody else but it was still SO cool.
There were constant waves of penguins - it was so cool to watch them come out of the water. They float on their stomachs so you can't seem them until they stand up when they hit the shore.
They walk along the boardwalk to their little nests - apparently they come back to the same one every night. Anyway, it was one of the coolest experiences ever. We didn't even know there were penguins in Australia, so we were pretty stoked to get to hang out with them.
We flew into Sydney and took the train to Circular Quay. The last ferry of the night to Manly was leaving right as we got off the train, but we ran and they let us jump on - it was like in the movies. It was cool to see the city all lit up.
Our hotel was a block from Manly beach (Lance is making a Manly gang sign). Manly is the coolest city ever.
This kind of car was everywhere - we thought they were funny.
We hiked all through Royal National Park for a few hours. There were some amazing views.
I can't remember what kind of animal this was, but you can kind of see its white head.
This is looking back towards Manly.
The picture doesn't really show it, but there were some giant, steep cliffs. Lance gets nervous when I get too close to the edge.
We thought Bandicoot was just Crash's last name - we didn't realize it's an actual animal.
Manly is a pretty small little city, but it's so cool. This is the little downtown area.
This is on the ferry heading back to Circular Quay.
I took way too many pictures of the Sydney Opera House. It's such a cool building.
We couldn't stop laughing at these prehistoric-looking birds that were wandering around downtown Sydney. They were so weird looking!
Harbor Bridge. We were going to walk it, but...well...look how long it is! It's huge!
We spent a couple of hours walking through the Royal Botanical Gardens, which is right next to the opera house.
Random castle in the park. I think it was something government-y.
There are so many cool trees in Australia - we couldn't get enough of them.
I don't really understand what that is that I'm climbing on. It's like the tree's roots grew up out of the ground and connected back up with the trees branches. Nuts.
This Aboriginal looking guy was playing the didgeridoo, but all techno-style. Awesome. But not really.
Pirate ship. I think it took people on tours of the harbor.
We took a 2-hour train ride to the Blue Mountains. SO gorgeous!! I wish we had a better camera! And that I knew how to use it. And that it was tiny and could fit in my purse.
It started getting foggy just as we were about to get to The Three Sisters.
The fog was so bad by the time we got there that we couldn't really see anything.
This is back at Manly Beach, but the other direction from where we went the day before. Most of the beaches had little pools right on the beach. Another thing we need to copy in the states.
There were tiny little crabs everywhere. We had fun watching them crawl around.
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