W.O.W - Women of the Wildnerness!

God has blessed me with some absolutely sweet ladies that I met through the American Women's Club in Perth.  They have taken me under their wing and have truly been an answer to my prayer for friends here.  One of the ladies, Nancie, is even more of an adventurer than me and she LOVES to go exploring...she came up with the WOW group that goes on a hike/excursion during the week and today she took us to the Serpentine Falls.  We had a blast hiking through the brush, across flowing waters in a beautiful "valley" that was nearly untouched!  And to top it all off, we had a picnic lunch where we were joined by some very friendly and furry guests! 

The falls!  The water rushed down into a huge natural pool of water.

The brushy hillside surrounding us.

We would've gone swimming but the water was a tad too CHILLY!

The WOW ladies - look at that teamwork!

We hiked up the mountain right next to the falls...this is looking down!

And this is what we found just on the other side at the top of the falls!

Looking back at what we just hiked up.

So peaceful and serene! 

We took extra special care (banging sticks on the ground) to make sure the snakes knew to stay away!

I could've stayed on this warm rock all day!  Just give me a good book and I'm in heaven!

We were playing a fun game of dominos when I noticed something hopping towards us....

Kangaroo friends!!!!  They were hungry and we just so happened to have some delicious peanuts to feed them!!

Isn't he precious?!

Eat up, little one!

TWO kangaroos to feed!!  They were so friendly!

I was having WAY too much fun!

Mom and Joey after stopping by for some peanuts!!!

Santa Claus is coming to...Perth!

You better watch out, you better not cry or else Santa won't turn on the Christmas lights in Perth!  I made T take me downtown on friday night for a date to see Santa and the Lord Mayor of Perth officially turn on the lights!  Since they completely skip over Thanksgiving here, they've already jumped straight into Christmas and the decorations are up all over the city.  The turning on of the lights was quite a celebration complete with a huge stage for dances, carol singers, magicians and of course...SANTA! 

It's not quite what you'd see in Rockefeller plaza...but it's perfect for Perth!

Look at how many people turned up to see Santa!  And notice how cute the post office looks decorated for Christmas!

He made it!  I wonder if his reindeer get him to Perth faster than Emirates or Qantas??

Let there be light!!

Very festive!  I love Christmas time!  Especially because my family will be here to see all of this in 4 weeks!!!!

They're very "green" here in Australia, and I think that all of the lights they use are solar powered!  

Ghostbusters!

Last week Tyson, James and I decided to brave out the Fremantle Prison "torchlight" tour. (A torch being a flashlight!) The prison started back in the 1800's to hold convicts exported from England (those convicts actually had to build the prison with their own hands our of the limestone in the area) - and then it became a prison just for criminals from Western Australia where it housed several infamously scary and bad people!  According to our tour guide, this prison is one of the most haunted buildings in WA and they constantly have reports of "funny" or "weird" things showing up in pictures...we decided to act as ghostbusters and check it out.  While we didn't see any supernatural beings in these pictures, we did see several creepy rooms inside of the prison!

   

Enter if you dare! 

Yikes!  Maybe we did see a ghost after all?!

The main cell block

Ready to hunt for ghosts

Inside the cell block

They nearly made everyone pee their pants when someone screamed as loud as they could and then threw this dummy over the railing, landing just above our heads! (the tour guide had just told us about how they put those "suicide nets" up to prevent inmates from jumping to their death!) They had several "acts" like that along the way to make the tour more scary.

The kitchen.  I don't think they made very yummy meals here at all.

Future CSI.

One of the solitary confinement cells.

The gullows!  

One of the aboriginal inmates was allowed to paint in his cell as a form of "therapy" - this painting was amazing.  I hoped the therapy worked!

More cells.  I'm so glad we're not prisoners!

Meatball Mania

Our sweet friends Pete & Alison invited us over for dinner last night.  We had heard a rumor that Pete was quite the chef, so we were very excited at the chance to try his culinary masterpieces!  I'll say this much...he does not mess around when it comes to food!  He made us a TON (I'm not kidding when I say that...you should see how much food we had!) of delicious meatballs and pasta from scratch!!  We could hardly move at the end of the night and we absolutely concur that Pete is a master chef!  We also met another couple that recently got married and moved here from Cairo, Egypt - they were incredibly nice and have already said that they'll be hosting dinner at their house next!  Yum-O!

 

The serious Chef and his meatball masterpiece!

I couldn't wait to dig in!!

Alison and James

Can you say YUM?!

The hungry group ready for some great Italiano!

In Australia they call this month "Movember" because all of the men (well, most of them) grow out their mustaches (Mo's) to support and raise money for men's prostate health awareness.  These gents have been growing their mo's for 12 days now...I'd say Pete is definitely in the lead. 

Searching for dolphins in Mandurah!

On Saturday Tyson, James and I drove down to Mandurah (a small city on the coast about an hour south of Perth) for the day.  Mandurah is known for it's canal system that spans off of the Indian ocean - they've built absolutely gorgeous and MASSIVE homes right on the banks of the canals.  Mandurah is also known for it's friendly dolphin visitors in the canals and as you can imagine, I was more than ready to see Flipper!  We went on a boat cruise of the canals which was a great boost of motivation as we stared at the million dollar homes wondering...what do these people do for a living?!!  The cruise company couldn't guarantee that we'd see dolphins, but they said we'd be "extremely unlucky" not to.  Apparently, lady luck was on our side because we ended up seeing 3 beautiful dolphins swimming their way out to sea!  Amazing!  I'm so sorry to say that we didn't get any pictures of them...it's quite hard to time it when they're moving so fast in and out of the water.  We did make yet another memory that will last forever!

My boys ready to go cruisin' and find Flipper!

The boardwalk in Mandurah that our cruise left from.

Mandurah's boat marina

Dolphin Quay...a fun boardwalk with all kinds of shops/restaurants.

The start of the ridiculously beautiful parade of homes!

Maybe one day...

Wow!  Can you imagine sitting in your living room, looking out of those huge windows and watching dolphins swim by?!

We still hadn't seen the dolphins yet...but we were happy just looking at all the different houses!

Stunning!

Heading to a fish 'n' chips lunch at Dolphin Quay

They don't mess around with their fish 'n' chips here!  Look at all that food!!  Crikey!

On our way back to Perth we did some exploring and this is what we found...

I love being an adventurer in Australia! :)