Farewell USA

Well, our time in the USA has come to an end – as has our entire trip.   We spent an awesome week with our friends the Isom’s at their home in Utah – including Thanksgiving and the kids played in the snow for the first time!   Coming out as one of the highlights of our whole year – thanks Anne & Eric, we look forward to returning the favour when you come to Australia..

We were all very excited as we drove into Las Vegas, as my sister Anne and brother-in-law Alan were there but didn’t know we were coming and so we had great fun surprising them! 

The drive from Las Vegas to LA turned into a 7 hour, bumper to bumper nightmare – thanks to traffic heading home from Thanksgiving.  Hitting the LA freeways at 75 miles an hour in the dark was certainly not something I had planned.

The next 2 weeks consisted of celebrity spotting (ie Katy Perry & Russell Brand!) in Hollywood and attempting to go to as many theme parks as humanly possible!  We managed Universal Studios (which was awesome!), Disneyland, Disney’s California Adventure and then off to San Diego for some nature with Sea World, San Diego Zoo and San Diego Wildlife Park..  Phew!!  You know you’ve done LA when even the kids are saying “Do we have to go back to Disneyland today?”

 All too soon, we were at LAX boarding our flight to Honolulu for our final 6 days of the trip. 

Unfortunately, it rained steadily for the first 2 days we were in Hawaii but we still managed to visit the North Shore, although the surf was hardly huge and Pearl Harbour and wander through the countless stores of Waikiki.

So, this is it..  Tomorrow we’re back with Qantas, bound for Sydney and on to Brisbane.  We leave Christmas Eve morning and arrive Christmas night – our Christmas Day vanishes somewhere over the date line!

Merry Christmas everyone!