Hi friends!  How was your weekend?  I hope you had an enjoyable one!  Can’t say that I did anything too exciting here besides lots of laundry! 🙂  Because no one wants to hear how gray and cold it is in NYC, I thought I would share a little recap from my first week in Australia!  On our second full day there we flew from Sydney to Queensland to visit the Whitsunday Islands.  The Hubs and I had stayed there a few years ago and we thought it would be fun to go back with our parents (both sets!).  The day we arrived in Sydney was overcast and rainy so we were happy to land in Queensland where the sun shined down on us as if welcoming us to our vacation.  A short ferry ride to the island from the airport begged to be photographed!  Warning: PHOTO BOMB AHEAD! 

Ahhhh sun, turquoise water…paradise!

This is the island where we stayed. 

Appropriately named Daydream Island! 😉

Although I had a full week of water sports planned, the weather had a different idea.  Because we were in the middle of the ocean we were subject to some pretty strong tradewinds that prevented us from doing any kayaking, catamaraning or SUPping.  Boo!  Oh well, we made the most of it!

We actually had a pretty great view from our room.

Our balcony did, however, attract some visitors!

Cheeky cockatoo!

There were actually quite a few animals on this island, including these little guys . . . 

Kangaroos!  They were everywhere!

Apparently kangaroos really do box!

There was also a living reef on the island and we got to see so many cool marine animals like stingrays & sharks.

And of course there were Nemo fish everywhere!  Gotta love these little guys!

I’ll never get tired of that view! Oh and because the wind prevented us from participating in most of the water sports, we decided to get a little creative by taking out these mini boats to cruise around to the nearby islands and do some snorkeling.

We also went jet skiing, which was pretty adrenaline inducing, especially given the waves created by the wind!  I shot this video with my GoPro so you can get an idea!

If you aren’t completely satisfied with this total photo bomb, you can check out my Google+ album I made for this portion of my trip! 

Readers, do you have any vacations planned to escape the winter cold?  Have you ever been jetskiing?  Have you ever seen a kangaroo in person?  Ever been swimming with sharks or stingrays?  Would you like to do any of these things?