An Expensive Mistake

We have been back from our WA road trip for almost a week and a half, and we are prepping to go on another trip. This time it will be to Hawaii for a family reunion. 

In the time we have been back, we had to get our passports processed in priority time. Since we booked the Hawaii trip thinking we would be traveling as permanent residents, we forgot about the fact that as soon as we received citizenship, we would need to have valid Australian passports to leave and enter the country. If we had just postponed our ceremony until after the trip, we could have saved hundreds of dollars. The things you don't think about until you become a dual citizen. Anyway, at least we have our passports now and they are good for the next ten years. 

Penelope has been learning a lot of new words and skills in the last few weeks. She is really cheeky and we have to keep a close eye on her. She loves to climb, balance, and jump on precarious structures. Hopefully, she will enjoy Hawaii as much as she enjoyed our Western Australia trip. 

Wild West Photo Dump

Pinnacles

Meeting a quokka on Rottnest Island.

Coral Bay

Hamelin Pool (stromatolites)

Desert lookout

Hamelin Pool (stromatolites)

Nature's Window

Biking Rottnest Island 

Hamelin Pool 

Eagle Bluff 

Walking back from Eagle Bluff 

Pinnacles

Hiking at Nature's Window 

Quokka selfie at Rottnest Island

Pink Lake

WA, Movies, and Citizenship

It has been a busy several weeks here with Michael's parents visiting, and with us all traveling to Western Australia and doing a big roadtrip down the coast. Some of the highlights were Coral Bay, Nature's Window, The Pinnacles, Lancelin Dunes, and Rottnest Island. We had previously visited Coral Bay and Rottnest, but it was nice to see them again and introduce family to them. I'll post some highlight photos in the near future. 

We saw Aladdin in the Rottnest Picture Hall, which was an experience in itself. The movie can't replace the original, but it was fun to see nonetheless. We also brought Penny to see Toy Story 4 this morning. She ran and climbed all over the theater, but it was fine since we saw the 10AM showing with a bunch of other parents and their kids. 

Last, but not least, we attended our official citizenship ceremony and are now officially Australian citizens. This is awesome. However, we realized that we should have tried to postpone our ceremony until after our Hawaii trip next month. Now we are forced to pay special priority passport prices to get our Aussie passports in time. Oops. It was nice that it could be at a time when Michael's parents could attend, at least. 

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi!

Visitors, Anniversary, and Vivid

Penelope is still getting over her fever/congestion from a week ago, and now I'm getting it. Michael's parents are visiting - spending time doing everyday stuff with us like Penny's swim lessons and cooking dinner, and doing a few tourist activities here and there. Michael and I are celebrating our 8th wedding anniversary this week, so it's nice the grandparents can watch Penny while we get to go out. We also saw two friends passing through and enjoyed lots of the interactive displays during Vivid. 

Next week, we will be traveling to the wild west for some adventures. Busy, busy, busy.