Dagan's Birthday

Saturday, July 20, 2103

Happy Birthday Dagan!

Dagan got an "not birthday" cupcake.

Madeline & Sydney

We arrived at Bob and Vero's last night.  We had dinner, Madeline's cupcakes, and played some sheepshead.

Piece of the moon

Peter & Dagan working at a station.

Sydney wearing a space suit

Sydney & Madeline with a radio dish
in the background.

Today, we got up, had breakfast, skyped with our Wisconsin cousins and Grandma Pat.  Then we headed out to the Space Centre.  It was really interesting.  It is one of three in the whole world.  It is managed in Australia on NASA's behalf.  They study deep space.  They had models of the Mars Exploration Rover on display, a piece of the moon, tons of interesting information, lots of interactive stations, and huge radio dishes.

Dagan at our picnic.

Climbing rocks on our
bush walk.

Dagan, Peter, Madeline & Sydney

Off to find the platypus

Afterwards, we headed to the visitor centre at Tidbinbilla.  We looked at the exhibits before having our picnic lunch outside under the canopy because it was raining.  We saw kangaroos and emu walk by as we were eating.  It is still fascinating to see them.  We decided to try to go on a short walk since it had stopped raining.  As we drove out to the Sanctuary, we drove by at least 100 kangaroos.  They were right next to the road.  We were afraid they would hop out in front of us, but thankfully, they didn't.  On our walk, the ranger said we might be able to see a couple of platypus.  We walked down to the series of ponds.  It started raining as we reached the pond where the platypus had been seen.  We waited patiently and ended up seeing two.  It was really neat.  We walked back to the car in the rain and headed home to warm up.

Madeline, Adam, & Sydney watching
the platypus

Vero, Peter, Dagan, &
Bob watching the
platypus.

The platypus is in the center.

Happy Birthday Dagan!

Bob and Vero made a wonderful lamb dinner with chips (french fries), tomatoes, and fennel for dinner, and Madeline made him a chocolate birthday cake.  Dagan was very excited.  He has decided that lamb is one of his favorite meals in Australia, and you can never go wrong with chocolate cake.  He opened his crazy hat from us, and got a Rin Tin Tin book from Bob, Vero, Madeline, and Peter.  He said he is going to read it on our way home on the plane.  We played some Sheepshead again after dinner before heading to bed.  It was a great way for Dagan to spend his birthday.  He said it was nice to be with family.

Dagan's hat and new book

The girls are braiding Dagan's new hat.