Halloween 2009

Sadly for us, Katie spent Halloween with her mom again this year.  So in the spirit of Halloween, we carved pumpkins the weekend before Halloween and then got a costume for the dog...

Fall 2009

Sadly, Fall didn't bring us cool weather like we had hoped (we still a few days over 100 in November), so we were still able to do lots of fun outdoor activities.

Katie has been doing so well in her new school - she's only missed 3 words in 10 weeks of spelling quizzes.  She soaks up new information like a Sham-WOW and ends up teaching us new things all the time.  Her math homework the other day even forced Whit to double check the answer on-line (eeek!).  She's made gobs of new friends and really seems to enjoy school.

Here's a few snapshots of Fall in Arizona...

Western Australia - 2009

So after we left Melbourne, we flew directly to Perth.  From Perth, we caught another flight 2 hours north to Karratha.  Once in Karratha, we met up with the rest of the wedding guests and the wedding party.  We spent 2 nights in Port Samson and did some coastal exploring.

Next we headed inland to Karijini National Park.  The wedding was absolutley beautiful and the Karijini Eco-Resort was one of the more fabulous experiences of our trip.  Everything was wonderful, beautiful and the experience as a whole was really great.

After 2 nights at the Karijini National Park, we headed back to the coast to spend our remaining days in Exmouth, WA. While in Exmouth, we seized the opportunity to soak up some sun at the beach, swim with the wildlife and explore the western tip of the continent.  On our last full day in Australia, we decided to go Deep Sea Fishing with a few other members of the wedding group.  Neither of us had ever done this before and it was a great time!!  We were able to keep everything that we caught and had quite the feast that evening.

Despite our FABULOUS trip, our journey home was more terrible than we ever imagined it could be.  From start to finish, we travelled for 50+ hours, beginning in Exmouth and ending in our garage. Whitney was sick with a fever and cough, Scott was squished in coach and unable to sleep on any flight, our main flight from Sydney to Los Angeles was delayed, bags were damaged and/or lost and connecting flights were missed.  But man, were we thankful to get home.

Below is a chronological slideshow of our photos: