Bunny & Paw Visit Part 3

It's with an immeasurably heavy heart that I make this last post about my parents' visit in October. Just this week I learned that my dad has passed away back in Texas.  I am still in shock and mourning my family's loss.  I'm not completely ready to share my thoughts and feelings in a blog post (I may not ever be), so I'll stick to the order of events and enjoy reliving the memories we shared.

For our last week together we took it easy, going to parks and doing some fun things around town.  Bunny and I took the kids (and a friend) to Roma Street Parklands for a play on a nice sunny day and later in the week we visited New Farm Park and the Brisbane Powerhouse as well as Fortitude Valley for some gallery hopping.

we counted 26 water dragons while we were walking in the parklands.

caden & his buddy jack.

dad in front of one of the huge New Farm Park strangler figs.

New Farm park is known for it's springtime display of Jacaranda trees with their beautiful, bright purple flowers.

In front of the Brisbane Powerhouse; literally the old powerhouse to the city of Brisbane, which has been turned into a cultural center with live performances, art exhibits and other fun things to do.

On Tuesday we went to Milton to meet Graeme Base, an Australian children's author who writes the most precious books with decadent illustrations. He just released a new book called "The Legend of the Golden Snail", which has quickly become one of our favorites along with "Uno's Garden", "Animalia", and "Jungle Drums".

On Saturday, for all of our birthdays (mine is 10.23, Bunny's is 11.10 and Paw's is 11.23) we scheduled the whale watching trip that was supposed to take place while we were in Noosa a few weeks prior.  The weather was perfect with blue skies, moderate temperatures and calm seas.  We set out from Mooloolaba on Steve's Whale One by the Australia Zoo and started looking for some whales.

It took what seemed like forever to spot any, but finally we came upon a pod of three that we watched for a long time. Before the day was over we had seen dolphins, sea turtles and three separate pods of humpback whales.

Poor Cory and Marin were seasick almost the entire trip (even with calm seas and motion sickness medicine), so they didn't get to see as much as the rest of us did. This was them the majority of the day:

Hallie crashed for a little while too.

Caden, on the other hand, had nothing short of a blast the entire time.  Here he is doing his own "I'm king of the world" thing at the front of the boat.

The whales we found weren't very active at first, only breeching to get some air before their 5-10 minute dives under the water.  But...just as the captain was telling us over the PA that it was time to head home, they gave us a spectacular show of how playful and magnificent they can be.  I've put their little show into a time lapse program to try and better show how exciting it was. Even then, it's still hard to explain how great it feels to be right on the water within meters of these huge mammals.

Once back in Mooloolaba, we weren't quite ready to head home so we walked to the Esplanade to check out the beach.  All I can say is that it looked like something off of a postcard for Australia, with the blue skies, blue water, hundreds of beach-goers and the red and yellow of the lifeguards.

We played at the park and walked along the beach to the rocks, where we enjoyed a nice little low-tide treasure hunt. Then we headed across the street for dinner, drinks and ice cream.  Before we left Mooloolaba, the sun had set and twilight was upon us.  Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of the full, harvest moon rising over the ocean that evening.  It was breathtaking and larger than life.  What an amazing day we had together!

We only had one day left with B&P after whale watching, and it was mostly spent packing them up.  On Monday morning the taxi arrived to take them to the airport and we all put on our best sad face for the camera.

I had no idea that this would be the last time I would ever see my dad again.  Who ever really knows that when they lose a friend or a family member.  For some reason the frozen-ness and finality of those last few moments together always strikes me speechless when I go back through my memories. What would I have said; how would I have acted; how long would we have hugged; had we known. But,  I will always give praise to God that He gave us this final visit and time with each other.

David Ryan 11.23.42 to 12.4.10

May your soul rest in eternal peace.