months leading up to their trip, aeva and adie wanted to see the animals australia is known for. you know, the famous ones hanging on souvenir key chains or looking cute on fridge magnets. not rabid dingoes or poisonous red back spiders. they’re kids, for crying out loud! they deserve the fairytale version.

so we took them around the corner to myuna farm to see kangaroos up close and personal. legitimize their aussie holiday to spare them from the potential awkwardness when people back home ask them if they saw any kangaroos and they reply in the defensive negative.

because, hell, if somebody tells me they just got back from australia and i’ve never been, that would be the first thing i’d ask! you’d be amazed how many people visiting australia have never actually seen a kangaroo in person. i mean, i almost didn’t. until jeff took pity on me squealing with delight at having seen one on the side of the road.

dead.

a tragic victim of hit-and-run.

so, yeah, myuna farm was where i first saw a kangaroo too. alive and breathing, thank you very much.

but before all the kangaroo business, we stopped by at hog’s breath cafe for lunch. dennis was craving for steak. apparently, rumor has it that australia’s beef are A-prime so he wanted to find out for himself. i didn’t really get to ask him his verdict but i guess it’s safe to say that he liked it. also because for as long as i’ve known him, he’s not a fussy eater. the only time he’d probably complain about the food is when he gets gastro out of it.

i love my brother-in-law. he’s the most chill person you’ll ever meet. very easy-going.

anyway, i do remember him saying that the australian serving portion of steaks is “just right.” i took it to mean that the individual serving amount of meat we get here is exactly that — one individual. and not, say, 3 hungry vikings.

although for the record, i still find it difficult to finish one serving of steak on my own. that’s why i need my younger sister to go halvsies with me. that way, we also get 50-50 on clogged arteries. fair enough.

my older sister ordered calamari and was pleasantly surprised that it tasted fresh like it came from the sea and not from the freezer. i was like, huh? i guess i’ll have to order a seafood platter when we visit them in texas to understand what she meant by that.

several bad pictures later, we were on our way.

kangaroos and farm animals aren’t all they have in myuna farm. they also have snakes and turtles and iguanas and such in glass cages. a lot of school kids go on excursions here and i always find it cute how excited they get when they see chickens and llamas and goats, or play with rabbits and guinea pigs and feed them hay.

kids teach you about life like that. i mean, you know, it could be the simplest of things and yet they’re having the time of their lives. if there’s one thing we could learn from them, it’s how to live in the moment.

but then again, kids don’t have mortgages and bills to think about so… yeah.

it took a while for adie to warm up to these furry creatures, as adorable as they were. unless it’s peppa pig, she’s the type who likes to suss things out a bit. meanwhile, aeva jumps right in, and in the process, shows adie what she’s missing out on until the latter finally gives in and decides that it’s actually kind of fun.

that’s the beauty of watching the dynamics of these two. such amazing kids.

at the entrance, the staff gives you a bag of bread that you can give to the animals, except those with a “please do not feed sign” on their fence. as far as i know, it’s only the kangaroos that you can’t feed. i don’t know why. the rest you can stuff full with abbott’s village bakery bread. come to think of it, who would have known the pigs and i share the same love for this particular brand of sliced bread?!

there was this really friendly staff whose name i can’t recall because i suck at remembering people’s names like that but he was very nice. he had a bit of a chat with dennis before we went in and when he saw us again near the kangaroos, he showed us this trick of feeding emus off our heads. let’s just say adie enjoyed that part, at her dadda’s expense.

bought aeva some fridge magnet souvenirs where i asked her to choose from pictures of the different myuna farm animals with their names on them.

the moment she saw it, she knew. she wanted the goat one.

the reason?

his name was dennis.

chuckled all the way to the car while chanting “dennis the goat” in a sing-song voice, over and over again.

i don’t think she was even referring to the goat at all.

*raven at 7 months