Happy Birthday, America!

 The Embassy looked awesome tonight for the 4th of July party.

 Patriotic star hair-dos.

 Bugs from Questacon.

 The kids had so much fun at the bouncy house...

 batting cages...

 and this velcro wall bouncy thing.  Spencer and I did it, and it was so fun.

 I think that's me; Spencer took the picture.  You had to jump as high as you could and stick your body to the wall trying to get 40 points.  I touched the 30-point line, but that's about it. Not so easy to jump and stick your body to a wall with a velcro suit.

 James is the cub scout on the right helping with the flag ceremony for when Ambassador Berry spoke.

 We had so much fun and there was so much food!  Hot dogs, hamburgers, hot chocolate, chicken fingers, cup cakes, etc.  And what is the 4th of July without fireworks?

Last year we were on vacation at the Great Barrier Reef on the 4th of July so this is our first 4th of July at the embassy.  We will never forget the 4th of July where we were in coats and it was dark at 5:00 pm.  There ain't no doubt we love this land!

Green Island

 Kind of a non-traditional 4th of July for us. Instead of celebrating the red, white and blue, we spent the day on Green Island.  We brought the girls with us this time, and the 45 minute boat ride to Green Island convinced us we made a great decision leaving them home yesterday :).

 When we got to Green Island the girls were all about going to the beach.

 Green Island is awesome. It is very small, but there is a hotel/resort, shopping, swimming pool, food court, small aquarium with a crocodile, rain forest walk, and awesome beach.

 A boardwalk through the rain forest.

 This weekend it is the ukelele festival so people were strumming away on their ukes at the tables.

 A highlight of our time on Green Island was our glass bottom boat ride.

 We saw so many cool things:  green sea turtles, giant clams, Nemo, tons of beautiful coral and heaps of fish.

 Giant sea clam (kind of hard to see)

 These fish get a free meal from the boat so they are very good about hanging out with us.

 After the boat ride, the girls finally got to hit the beach.

 James and Doug went off on another boat ride to go snorkeling further out where you can see more stuff.

 Our fun adventures ended in the swimming pool to get all the sand off.

 We had a beautiful day and a great time.  Happy Birthday, America!!  We didn't forget about you; we are so proud to be Americans!