I was wide awake by 2 am. Jorja texted me to say she got her sweater! She was so happy! She has wanted her sweater for a long, long time. She sent me this video at about 2:30 in the morning. I love her. I wish I had a picture of her though! Send one Porge!
The hotel where we are staying
Cool stairs that kind of remind me of Mt. Vernon
We could not figure out how to turn the lights on when we first arrived yesterday. Well, you need to put your keys in the light switch. Clever.
Mike's work buddy was supposed to arrive this morning. Yesterday when he was going to the airport he found out his grandma had died. He decided to stay. Mike's a little nervous about doing the lab by himself. His buddy texted him this morning and said his grandpa just died. Wow. That's crazy.
Mike signed us up for an all day tour of the Blue Mountains. We got up at 7:00 to get breakfast, although I had been up and reading for hours. We went to the restaurant and found out it didn't open until 8:00. Our tour guide was picking us up at 8:30, so we went on a walk and found a McDonalds. I left my jacket in our room, so we hurried up to get it. I checked my messages to see if I had any from the kids. We don't have cell service, but we can contact them whenever we have WiFi. There was a super sad message from Jorja. I tried FaceTiming her. She was in the car with Hailey. They were going to Michaels to get stuff for their psychology masks. She didn't want to talk about it in that setting. Our guide called from the lobby. I had to go. My heart was breaking for her. I was sick to my stomach most of the day. Praying and praying that she would be at peace. Praying that she will still be able to trust people. Praying that this experience wouldn't harden her and make her bitter. I love my pure, innocent Jorja. I wish I could be there for her right now; since I can't be, I'm glad she is with Hailey.
Back to our adventure. We stopped at a park for a bit and watched a little league cricket match. That is not why we stopped, but it is what Mike and I did. I have no idea what is going on in that game.
Today was a rainy, misty day. The problem was we couldn't see any of our sites. The guide said that less than 1% of the days are like this. I guess we just got lucky. Our first stop was Lincoln's Rock.
We couldn't see anything, but it was obvious the drop off was hundreds of feet. This place reminded me a lot of the top of Stone Mountain. Except higher. And no guard rail. I was so glad my kids weren't there. I would have been a wreck!
Mike ~ no way he would be standing that close to the edge if the mist wasn't there!
It looked like the end of the world.
I climbed down below for a bit.
Stephanie ~ at a safe distance
This girl was NUTS! I am so glad she didn't die! I was super scared for her.
Hmmmm Jorja. Who is NC?
I think the next place we went was Wentworth Falls. Our guide kept changing things because of the weather. Look how cool the bathrooms are here.
This place reminded me of the hike we went on with Brett, Rachel and Maysen in Japan. Maysen kept looking for all the places dragons could live. That is what I did this time. Dragons should live here. That would be awesome! Well, if they were nice dragons.
Mike & Stephanie
Mike
How cool is this pathway?
Those little antenna like things unroll into leaves.
Mike
Mike
The one spot where we could kind of make out a waterfall.
Mike ~ this freaked me out too.
It is a lot higher than it looks. When did Mike stop being afraid of heights?
Stephanie
We had about an hour to have lunch and look around at random stores.
I thought this was funny. Haberdashery.
This made me think of Preston. Didn't buy it.
We couldn't do it. Didn't order the kangaroo burger.
The restaurant had WiFi. I was able to get more texts from Jorja. Things were just getting worse for her. I tried to FaceTime her. She was in the middle of painting her psychology mask, so she couldn't really talk to me. Mike FaceTimed the boys. They were downstairs watching The Twilight Zone (oh boy!) and eating popcorn. We put the two phones together so they could talk to each other. Reminded me of Jorja and Weston up at the cabin. Anyway, it got too hard to hear and that is the last contact I had with Jorja today. I'm feeling incredibly anxious.
Mike and I went in a toy store, a dessert store and a grocery store. We came away with a picture of a cricket board game, an eclair, a lemon tart, noodles we can microwave and a water bottle.
Mike thought this was hilarious.
Our next stop was Scenic World. There is a cool rock formation called The Three Sisters. Too bad we couldn't see them at all. We did get to ride the worlds steepest inclined railway. That was pretty fun. This area used to be a coal mine. An older version of the rail cart looked like this.
Ours were much safer.
We chose cliffhanger
Stephanie & Mike
Stephanie
Stephanie again
We got to walk around the rainforest for a bit. That was great. Didn't see any frogs though.
We took a tram up. The cables disappear into the sky.
We also rode the cable car back down and up before we had to leave. The cable car was much better than the tram. Mike found a penny machine to get pennies for Jorja and Preston.
Stephanie
We had a long drive back to Sydney. I sat up front with the bus driver and talked to him. He drove us to an area that had a lot of kangaroos. This is not a good picture, there were hundreds of them; but they were far away like that one is.
Where the 2000 Olympics was held
We were dropped off at the harbor and given a card so we could ride the ferry. Once we were on the ferry I discovered they had free WiFi. It was about midnight Utah time. No messages from Jorja, but there were a TON of messages on the Slack app that Mike set up. By a ton I mean over 200 messages. Mike and I laughed as we read through the messages and saw Maysen, Stockton and Preston joking around with each other. Jorja hasn't signed in yet, but the other kids already had made custom avatars for themselves, created custom emojis, and programmed bots to respond to the conversation. We were glad to see them enjoying chatting with each other.
Mike and I found a place to eat called City Extra. I ordered crepes in honor of Maysen and the dragon day. Mike ordered lasagna. We are tired. Mike thought my lap top had been charging all day. He forgot that when we take the key out of the weird key holder, all the power stops working. I didn't notice my battery was about to die. It shut down while I was working on this paragraph. NO!!!! Luckily it had recently saved, but it was a little tense while we were waiting for the computer to turn on. I am tired. Glad I didn't have to redo this entry!
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