New Years Eve!

For New Years Eve we drove 45 minutes south to the Mornington peninsula. We spent the day on the beach and in the evening we got pizza and ice cream and waited for it to get dark. It doesn't get dark until 9:00 pm as it is summer over here.

To kill some time Olivia took up bridge jumping with this 11 year old boy...Olivia had some moves :-)

Mary jumped from the lower platform!

Here in the bigger cities, the fireworks are set off at two different times. There is a 9:00 firework display for families with children and then a midnight firework display for those willing to go the distance. We read in the newspaper that if you drive out to the peninsula you can see all three sets of fireworks set off over the city. Since it was our first new years in Melbourne we took the advice and drove down.

Unfortunately we needed binoculars to see the fireworks from this far away. After the 9:00 display we jumped in our car and headed back to the city. We got home in time for the midnight fireworks (our house is 20 minutes outside the city) and could see the fireworks from our bedroom window perfectly. This just goes to show you don't need to drive far away when paradise is sitting on your back door!

Either way, we had a fabulous time--here is a picture of the Melbourne 2013 fireworks--complements of the internet :-)