Australia 2012 Part I

Our first stop upon arrival Down Under was Surfer's Paradise in Queensland.  It's beachy & tropical.  However, it rained a lot (since it's wintertime in Australia) so we had to come up with lots of activities to keep the girls busy.  Fortunately, the monorail (which had a total of 3 stops) was a great time killer.  They thought it was a blast to ride on the monorail above the town so we hopped on and went round and round quite a few times.  Fortunately some of the stops included a carousel and a mall that housed bumper cars, cafes and shopping.  Our niece, Jessica (15), stayed for the week with us and it was so much fun to hang out with her.  She spent lots of quality time with the girls.  We hope she'll visit us after she graduates from high school :).  The park was a fave spot and in the last picture, she is pushing Cass on the "flying fox" (which is actually a bat) ride, which is apparently a very Australian and typical park thing there.  What fun!