Desert and Mountain

We Spent an evening up in the mountains, and then a couple of days in the desert.

They call this peak the three sister, can you make out the three points, again another story about yada yada yada...

I picture out the gondola, I guess most of the picture is covered with a reflection off the glass, oh well it was still a nice pic.

This was their version of the Grand Canyon. It wasn't quite as large but it was still pretty amazing. One of the striking differences is their canyon has many more trees then the Grand Canyon.

Dave of course needs to climb things.

We had a nice dinner at the hotel in the mountains.

There is a nice red dirt desert in the middle of the continent.

How cute is this girl!

Here is another picture of Ayers Rock as the sun is coming up. It was early but we had some coffee so we were OK, it really was a lovely scene and surely worth getting up for.

Lots of animals and plants

While in Australia we went to several wildlife preserves. They have some really incredible animals there.

Here is a lizard a lot like the one I used to have as a pet.

Koalas just hanging out.

We were allowed to feed the wallabies

And what do you have for me???

This guy is just relaxing pretty good.

This was a wierd looking bird.

This was the state flower of New South Wales, they told us all about it but you know how much of that kind of stuff sticks...

They had some really nice plants.

There were Eucalyptus trees all over the place.

Sydney was so much fun

Our first stop on the trip was Sydney. I have to say it was a really long flight. 7.5 hrs to Dubai, 6 hrs in Dubai, 6.5 hrs to Bankok, 1.5 hrs in Bankok, 7hrs to Sydney. By the time we got there we really didn't care about much except sleep. We left Lagos 4:40 PM Sunday and got to our hotel about 10 AM Tuesday. We go to check in and the lady at the dest told us that our room wouldn't be ready until 3 PM, boo on the Grace Hotel in Sydney. Once we finally had an evening to sleep we were ready to see the town.

We took a lunch cruise that sailed around the harbor. It seems like everwhere we go we find a way to get on a boat somehow, but it was really cool to see the harbor and all the fancy houses around. It was pretty cloudy that day but this photo of the bride and the opera house turned out pretty good

We had to get a shot next to the really big sign.

hey we can pretend that we were on the real world (are we the only dorks that watched this show, I don't know but we really like it)



A nice view from the Sydney Tower. I like to be really high above things.



We did the bride climb, it was cool. We weren't allowed to bring our camera on the climb becasue we were directly over traffic and cameras could very easily fall and hit oncoming traffic. they could just make sure you have it on a strap but then they would be able to sell thier own pictures to anyone (they wanted like 60 bucks for 2 photos, we didn't buy the pictures we just have the good memories)

If Eric was on the trip with me this sign would be hanging in my living room right now

Suzanne fell in love on the trip (can you make out the sign four floors of shoes)

We stopped at a little diner by the beach. They had a pretty good breakfast.

I got some tea while I was there because they drink tea there so why not. After a while we started to get used to drinking tea, but I think now back in Nigeria we'll be back to coffee

You can't say you've been to Sydney without a picture of the Opera house in the background. We got a bunch from many different angles

More than one city in Australia

Sorry Becky, I just couldn't help it (I just had to rip off your blog name.)

We actually went to three cities in Australia. We definitely saved the best for last. Our last stop was Cairns, and one of the days there we went up to Port Douglas and took a boat out to the Great Barrier Reef. This really was one of the coolest things ever



Here is me, ready to jump in the water. The water wasn't really that cold but the wet suit was cool!



Look at Suzanne with her pink flippers.



We got some really amazing shots underwater. We almost didn't rent the underwater camera but now we are really glad that we did.




There were so many different types of fish and coral, just really cool.



Here is proof that Suzanne did actually get in the water. She actually got pretty good at the snorkeling.



I really like the striking difference of the fish with the coral as the background



Some of the pictures almost look like fake desktop background pictures



Some more really cool coral, there may be a fish or two hiding in the mix



Hey look that's me



We were able to get one of the other snorkelers to take our picture together, I think this one turned out pretty good

Back in Dubai ( some Australia pictures)

We are on our way back to Lagos. In Dubai at the moment. I thought I'd put up a couple of pictures while waiting for our flight.



This was probably the prettiest picture of the trip. It was sunrise at Uluru Ayers Rock in the middle of Australia. We got up really early to see the sun come up over the rock. See next Picture.



Here is the Rock. The Aboriginal people have lots of history and beliefs around the Rock



Here is us on a lunch cruise with the Sydney Harbor bridge and the Opera house in the background.



This was a picture from one of the wildlife preserves. We thought it was a cute picture of a Wallaby family. Can you see the little baby in the pouch?



Here is a shot of us getting ready for our snorkeling. We tried to sign up for the scuba diving but with her asthma and my collapsed lung (from 5 years ago) we were rejected, but we still got some really cool pictures underwater.



A picture of some fish and coral in the Great Barrier Reef. I really think we got to see just as much snorkeling as we would have scuba diving we just couldn't stay underwater as long. Here are just some sample pictures of our trip, more to come later.

Blogging from Dubai

So we started our journey to Australia, and our first stop was Dubai. We found a Starbucks with wi-fi so we took a couple of pictures and thought we would share.

Suzanne was excited that there was TP in the bathrooms here because there was none in the airport in Nigeria.


We are going to go find a Burger King and get some food. There are stores and all sorts of good stuff here.

We have 6 hours here then off to Sydney. Our plane to Sydney stops in Bangkok and then after Sydney goes on to New Zealand (maybe we should just stay on the plane and go see New Zealand)

We tried to use Skype to call people but it wouldn't call cell phones.

This past couple of weeks have been quite interesting and stressful leading up to our trip. Suzanne did all of her class stuff early so that she wouldn't have to do it while on our trip. Then we got the professor to open the test early so that she could get that finished as well. So she started the test and 5 minutes into the test her new laptop decided that it didn't want to work anymore. So we spent the next two days tying to figure out what went wrong and best we can figure is that the hard drive simply went bad. Therefore the past two days leading up to our trip have been emailing her school to allow retakes and re-downloading her school classes and redoing all of her assignments. But luckily we have my computer and we were able to get it all done and taken care of so that we can enjoy our trip.

Have fun and we will see you all later,

D & S

Nigerian Culture Day at the American School

Since school started I have been doing some substituting at the American International School (AIS) in Lagos. Last week and this week I subbed for the art teacher. All of the projects that we did were put on display on Friday, which was the annual Nigerian Culture Day. Everyone wore traditional clothes and there were all sorts of special events throughout the day.


Opening ceremony of Culture Day with horses.



A few of the kids dressed up.

The closing ceremony was held in the courtyard

Some Jr. High kids in the art room

There was a mini market set up on the tennis courts that the kids and teachers could shop at. Luckily for Dave I only had about 1000 naira on me, (about $10).

For the closing ceremony a traditional wedding ceremony was recreated.

One of the murals that the kids worked on.

This is Andrew, the art Teaching Assistant. He is a Nigerian artist and painted the mural he is standing beside. He is making Dave and I an original piece of art for our living room when we come back to Texas.

A few of the moms in native dress. Lots of parents came to the event.