It's Chloe's birthday today, and the kids were all up early so that we could decorate the house to surprise Chloe. The adults were all having a bit of a sleep in, so of course the children all join us in bed. Willow and I had blown up some balloons to decorate the living area and table for breakfast for Chloe but we had to do it in our room, so as not to wake up the adults. Theo loved the balloons, so they had one and were playing with it with him in bed. He would get so excited... Would hate to have seen how he would have reacted if one had burst...
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| a bit of fun with the balloon... |
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| Willow and Max find my phone more entertaining... |
Once we heard the adults stirring, we knew that we could take the balloons and streamers out and start our decorating...
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| Even the breakfast table got decorated... |
The boys were busy cooking a birthday breakfast for her... (with a little help from their wives)
Chloe arrived out for breakfast, were she got to open her gifts....
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| Opening her birthday gifts. |
One of the gifts that Chloe wanted for her birthday, was for us all to do something special together for the day, so as a family we all decided to go to Sea Life at Mooloolabah and as a special gift to Chloe, we all put in and paid for a swim with the seals for her....
Unfortunately, Colin had to miss the outing as he was summoned back to Brissie for an urgent work meeting, which meant that he had to be gone for the morning...
I don;t think Chloe knew what to expect with regards to the swim with the seals, part of her was a little excited, and another part of her was a little nervous... We were all going to be there to witness it. Underwater World didn't open until 10am, so by 9.30am we were all ready to set off on our adventure...
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| Arriving at Sea Life.. |
Once inside, we headed straight to the touch tanks, where the kids were able to feel the different star fish and sea urchins and cucumbers...
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| Theo was fascinated by the different fish swimming around the tanks... |
All the children were fascinated with the magnified bubble you were able to put your head up inside of and so they all had turns checking out the sea life in the big tanks...
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| Willow |
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| Max pops his head up... |
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| Even Theo managed to pop his head up into the tank... |
We continued to walk around, checking out the different tank. It was all very fascinating and interesting...
We then weaved our way through the underwater tunnel and watched the huge fish and sharks swimming overhead. This was quite fascinating for the children..
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| My girls |
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| My gorgeous kids |
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| Family photo... |
By the time we had walked through the time, it was time to head to the seal show. Once it was over, it is then time for Chloe to swim with the seals....
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| Time for the seal show.... |
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| cuddles with Moppy |
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| What a blessing these little cherubs are... |
The seal show was quite interesting and you really were able to get a good view of the seals as they went through their routines.
After the seal show, we had about half an hour to wait until Chloe was to be collected to go and swim with the seals. By now it was after lunch time, and Dan was hungry, so it was ice-creams all round whilst we waited. Willow and Max found the cutest cuddly soft toys of seals...they would have loved to have got one, but Sarah is over all the stuffed toys they have at home already... so it was a NO...
Once they came and got Chloe, we still had to wait a further 20 minutes or more, whilst she went and changed into the wet suit and went through an induction of what she could and couldn't do in the pool with the seals...
Chloe was very fortunate that she had the seals all to herself... They informed us that normally they have at least five people swimming with them each day, but today she was the only taker.
They take photos of you swimming with them, and part of the deal was that she would get a couple of photos of swimming with the seals... A great memento of the special event.
After she got dressed and joined us, we took the children for a quick play in the little playground whilst we waited for her photos to be processed.
Dan and Chloe got to choose the photos they wanted to get printed...
Whilst we waited for them, we checked out the last couple of displays...
We were all feeling a little hungry once we left Sea Life. It was after 4pm, and we hadn't had lunch, so decided to have a late lunch early dinner down on the beachfront at Mooloolabah Spit. There is an awesome fish and chip shop there that does the most amazing, salt and pepper calmari, so we went and ordered a feast for us all to share. After our feed, Pete and Maria decided to go for a dip in the ocean, ( they can't get enough of the beach here) The weather is perfect for swimming, not like it is in Denmark...
Dan and Chloe took the kids to the playground for a play until Pete and Maria came back...
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| Lunch in the park.... |
By the time we drove way back down to the other end of the coast, it was after 6pm. It had been a big day out for all the children, but a great day, and we all had a wonderful time.. There was no way we were going to get them to bed without Chloe blowing out the candles on her birthday cake, so whilst we gave the older two children a bath and got them ready for bed, Maria fed Theo. Colin was also back by now, so Steve and I organised Chloe's birthday cake, and the children were very happy to be be there for the blowing out of the candles...
We finished our evening off by playing cards... 5 Crowns was the game of choice for this evening..
Great way to end a special birthday.
Tomorrow we plan to have a bit more of a chilled out day, since it is our last full day on the coast...
We also have a few visitors coming to visit. My friend Barb and her husband John are coming for lunch. Sarah's brother in law is coming to go surfing with her and my sister Lea... The kids are happy to spend time in the pool and go down to the beach.
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