Valentine's Weekend on the Gold Coast

Dan and I celebrated our 6 month married anniversary as well as Valentine's Day the weekend of the 15th with a night away on the Gold Coast.

Originally when we were looking to move out here, we wanted to move on the Gold Coast, but since we both got jobs about 45 mins north of there, it just didn't make much sense, but it's a beautiful place to visit on the weekends.

Dan arranged a nice night out on the town with dinner and dancing and we stayed at a hotel in Mermaid waters.

We went to this Thai restaurant where you walk onto this platform and the climb down into your table, so it seems like you're sitting on the floor but you're actually tucked down into your own little cave. The food was really good and the presentation was really cool. Dan got a curry and it came in a dish with it's own candle keeping it warm. It was BYO (which a lot of restaurants here are), so we were able to bring in our own bottle of wine for dinner.

 Here you can see the platform you walk on and the table tucked below.

 

Here's another look at the platform you step onto and the climb into your table cave. Wearing a dress that night was not the easiest choice. 

 There was a table across from us that wanted a photo of them, so we offered to take it. They didn't ask us initially to take the photo because they didn't want to interrupt us as they felt we were gazing into each other's eyes (I probably had something in my eye..) Then they insisted on taking a photo of us, but instead of taking a normal photo they forced us to do the "gazing look" again.. so that's this...

 This was the presentation of Dan's curry dish.

As you can see, he was  fan.

After dinner, we walked over to Jupiter's Casino to play some slot machines and go to a bar where there is live music. I ended up winning $30 on a slot machine, so I bought the next round of drinks.

There was this awesome bar in the casino that only served specialty drinks in mason jars, so I got one with grapefruit vodka, chilli flakes, pineapple and lime I think. It was so good and I love the mason jar. Oh and it also had crunchy ice which is the best!

In case you were interested to see it...

After we got our drinks, we headed to the bar with live music and did a little dancing. 

 This was the small live music bar. There was no one in there when we first walked in but then it filled up fast!

The night ended in a funny way when I asked Dan "did you want to go?" only to see if he was happy to stay, and with that we were out the door because he thought I said "I want to go". So we take a cab back to the hotel and when we get inside we were talking about how much fun we were both having and then realize that he thought I said I wanted to go, so we left but in reality neither of us actually wanted to go. 

We contemplated going back, but decided it was too much effort, and it's better to end the night on a high note. 

So if you're ever on the Gold Coast, I recommend the mason jar bar and the other bar with live music. It was a lot of fun. Oh and Dan arranged all of it as a surprise. nice work huh!

The next day we went and had a nice breakfast in Burleigh Heads (beautiful area of the Gold Coast) before heading to Ryan and Katie's for Sienna's 2nd birthday party. 

We found this great little cafe called the Red Frog cafe. We got amazing tea and coffee and a nice breakfast.

Chai Tea Latte and Vanilla Latte. So good!

After breakfast we went to Ryan and Katie's. Originally the party was supposed to be at the beach, but I've failed to mention that it was POURING all weekend so heading the beach in the rain and wet grounds was probably not the best idea, so Ryan and Katie moved the party to their house, but kept the beach theme.

They and their friends and family had made the cutest snacks and desserts including little cookie people laying on towels with umbrellas and a massive cupcake stand where all the cupcakes looked like pales filled with sand. Friends with kids- you should do this!

 These were little candy bars with Smartie (like M&Ms) wheels and teddy gram drivers

 These little guys were laying on fruit roll ups with licorice to rest their heads on and to put the umbrella in.

 This is the amazing sand castle cupcake stand. so clever right!?!?

The party was great and we were able to catch up with a lot of friends and celebrate Sienna turning two and also to see Katie close to welcoming number 2!

I have also failed to mention that we left Jackson to stay overnight at home all by himself (such a big boy). So after the party we were anxious to get back home and see what damage he might have made for us. 

To our surprise (why should we be surprised...), Jackson was a perfect angel and VERY happy to see us. 

We spent the afternoon playing with him and relaxing getting ready for a busy work week.

Overall it was a really great weekend and a great celebration of our first 6 months of marriage. (Don't worry, we don't plan on celebrating every 6 months of marriage, but given all of the changes in the past 6, we thought this one was a good one to celebrate).

until next time....

Weekend, a time for crafts!

This isn't going to be the most earthshaking entry, but I wanted to share some completed crafts with you all (mostly you Cori...).

This weekend, Dan and I were treated with a weekend with pretty much no obligations, so we took the time to relax and get some stuff done around the house.

Our dear dog, Jackson, has been a little crazy when we get home from work, so in efforts to have an enjoyable evening Friday night we decided to take him for a walk at this dog beach area I found on the bay in Cleveland.

 The park was really nice and after Jackson ran around with a couple dogs we decided to push him a little more and keep going on the path.

Then Saturday Jackson had a grooming appointment (which went really well), so Dan and I had a nice 4 free hours to go to breakfast and run some errands getting the necessary items for our afternoon crafts.

I had got a Living Social voucher for a place called Coffee Delish in Cleveland. We both got really nice meals and drinks and planned out our day.

Our main craft goal for the weekend was to finish this bar/shelf thing I've been dreaming of. I found a photo on Pintrest months ago, and then Amanda made a wine rack bookcase that looked great, so I really wanted to get ours finished to see if it lived up to my hopes and dreams.

Basically we wanted to turn some shelves into a unit that holds wine bottles, glasses, and liquor. We already bought and built the shelves, but we needed to paint the wine bottle holders we bought as well as finish the backing on the top part of the shelving unit.

So we were on a hunt for wallpaper and backing for the shelves.

Apparently wallpaper is harder to find than I thought, and Dan had the idea that maybe we could use fabric instead of wallpaper. So we went to a fabric store and Dan found the perfect fabric (he's turning out to be pretty useful isn't he...).

We got the fabric, then went and got the backing we needed as well as spray paint for the racks, picked up Jackson and went home to start the project.

To our surprise, our project turned out to go perfectly smooth (which never happens) and we're really happy with the end result.

The above image shows our craft in its finished form :). We spray painted the wine racks and nice grey to match our couch and then put the fabric backing on the top half.

The above is an up-close photo of the fabric backing. I really wanted a nice yellow, and this color is perfect! the print is little pears which I feel is cuter than plain dots :)

I was so impressed with us, that I decided to push my craft limits and start/finish a project I've wanted to do with the flowers from my wedding boquet.

I had wanted to dry out my wedding bouquet and then take all the petals and put them in some sort of form in a shadow box to then hang on the wall and have forever. However, I hung my bouquet upside down when we left for our honeymoon and due to the hot and humid summer we had in San Diego, when we got back from our honeymoon my bouquet was pretty much all rotten. So I salvaged the petals I could and took the fabric and finishings used by the florist and brought them with in hopes to come up with something. And since I somehow managed to get the petals into Australia, which I'm pretty sure is illegal because it's a plant... I thought now I have to do something with it because they've made it this far.

So I decided to buy an "O" (for O'Brien for any of you slower people out there...) and glue the petals and finishings to it.

Overall, I feel pretty happy with it, and sits on the dresser in our room.

We now are looking for more crafty projects since the first two went relatively well. Watch out world- we're taking over!

Stay tuned for more, and I swear in my next post I'll be putting up photos of the whole house. Just need to do some finishing touches :)

Until then...

Australia Day... one to remember

So for those of you who don't know, Australia Day is January 26th. It's the day Australia became a colony and it's celebrated much like 4th of July in the US, just without fireworks.

Another big part of the day is this radio station here called Triple J plays their "Hottest 100" countdown playing the top 100 songs of the year that were voted by listeners. It's a lot of good new music and it's a pretty indie/alternative station. It's a really massive deal here and everyone can vote on the songs online and then they have the countdown on Australia day. The Bundy crew always has a big Australia Day party and then people all vote at the party for the top 10 songs.

It's the middle of summer here, so we all thought it'd be a great idea to rent Dan's Grandad's beach house down at Bargara for Australia Day and get a large group of people up there for a big party. So that's been the plan for a long time and all the Bundy crew plus around 10 of us from Brisbane/Gold Coast were driving up for it.

A few days before the weekend, we all looked at the weather and saw it was going to rain. We were all bummed but hoped it would still move out of the weather system.

However, on Friday as we all started to drive up, we were getting constant updates from our dear friend Dee who works for Queensland Roads to see if any roads were closed because it was raining that bad. We drove in non-stop pouring down wind and rain until we finally made it to the beach, and we were all just happy to be there.

Come Saturday morning- the rain is still coming down in sheets and there was so much wind and no real sign of it stopping. There was another storm just 2 hours north that was making it's way down to us.

It rained so much that many people (including Judy and Shane) weren't able to make it to the beach for the day because the roads were flooded, and then the tornados started...

I'm pretty sure there has never been one tornado in that area, and that day there were 3. Luckily, where we were wasn't affected but very close by roofs were flying off, cars were turning upside down, etc.

We were all safe at the house, it was very wet, but we all still had a really good time.

Then came Sunday morning... and guess what- it was still raining. Our biggest concern became all of us getting back into Bundaberg (only 15 minute drive away) so that we didn't get stranded on the beach. Some of the group tried several times but each time found water too high to cross in normal cars. (Monday was a public holiday, so we were hoping to get into Bundaberg sometime Sunday so we could then get home on Monday).

A little later in the morning a group of us were able to drive through some of the water and make it back into Bundaberg. We were very releived to be out of the beach and thought the worst was over.

We were wrong.

Turns out the water from the beach quickly moved out and the sun came up, but we all had moved from the house and into Bundaberg, where the river that runs through the town water was rising rapidly.

To cut this short- there was a MASSIVE flood 2 years ago in Dec 2010/Jan 11 that really did damage to the town, and this one was expected to be worse. The waters in the river just kept rising and the river was moving so fast. The river broke its banks and moved into North Bundaberg quickly flooding all the houses and businesses around it. At first it was expected to flood 300 homes, and it turned into 2,000. People were being evacuated by helicopter from standing on their roof because that was the only way out.

Towns to the south were starting to flood as well, and we all knew there was no way we were making it back to work Tuesday (which also happened to be the first day of school/work for Dan and many of the others that had driven up).

Judy and Shane's house was fine and most all the other people we know in Bundy were fine. Gaz and Mel's house was in danger for a few days, but the water got up their driveway but didn't make it into their home. They had never seen water in places the water was.

It was unreal.

Tuesday, since we were unable to drive down, we decided to go down and help out. The boys helped carry stretchers of elderly people coming out of the helicopters that had been evacuated. It was about 100 degrees that day, so my job was to carry an umbrella and shade the people while they were on teh stretchers or in wheel chairs. Helping out and seeing the victims made it very real.

I'll put some photos and a video from the news below, but basically all of North Bundaberg was completely flooded and now in 2 feet of mud. It will take a while for the town to rebuild and let's just hope another flood isn't just 2 years away.

 To the left of this photo is a massive mall that has an underground parking lot that was completely filled with water. Behind me is Judy's office that we helped clear everything out in case the water came in. Luckily it didn't, but the shopping center will take a while to come good again.

 To the right of this photo is the old bridge that connects South Bundaberg to North Bundaberg. The river is normally around 30 feet below the bridge, and as you can see in this photo it's almost to the bridge. In the following days the river completely goes over the bridge, only able to cross by boat.

 This is an aerial view of Bundy looking South to North. The large white buildings on the bottom left is the shopping center I was talking about in the photo before. Judy's work is just left of those orange roof buildings. As you can see the river runs through the town and it's hard to see the line of the river with all the flooding.

Here's another aerial view of mainly North Bundaberg. The old bridge is near the bottom and North Bundy is on the left of the photo. Photo pretty much speaks for itself.

Here's a link of a video from 9 News that shows more of the flood and rescue efforts. (Also, I have a quick cameo at the end in this video carrying an umbrella.)

http://ninem.sn/0wt4XPb

As the water is now receeding, here's a link of a video of the aftermath

http://ninem.sn/M248fdI

Please keep Bundaberg in your prayers as it's been an unreal time for all of them.

Well hopefully the next post will be more uplifting and more often :)

Working on the House and Getting Jackson!

Sorry for the delay everyone, things have been pretty busy both at home and at work, so the blog has been put a little bit on the back burner.

So just a few updates of the past few weeks leading up to now...

After Christmas and New Years, we came back to Redland Bay and I returned to work.

Judy, Shane, Dave, and Lisa came down that following weekend to check out where we're living and to help us continue to get organized.

We got a lot done while they were here and are slowly making progress to getting more settled. (I promise I'll post photos of the house soon, we just need a few more items to make it look a little more complete... we still have a long way to go in the decor department, but we'll get there)

While Judy and Shane were here I got my Christmas gift from my Secret Santa back home, who happened to be Taylor. She got me these magnetic birds that you hang on your wall and they hold letters in their beaks and your keys below their mouth. She had gotten them before Thanksgiving and I'm not sure if she knew I really liked them, but I really liked them and was SO excited to get them for our house. They were the first thing to be hung up!

(in case you're wondering what the other things are below it- one is the light switch and one is a fan remote that Dan hung with velcro)

Also while they were here, Dan did some gardening and we also got a new BBQ that Dan and Shane put together and we had a very nice steak dinner on our new BBQ!

So overall it was a very successful weekend and we made some massive progress in getting things we needed and hanging things up around the house.

____________________________________________________________________________

The following week Dan went down to Sydney for the week to visit Jackson and then I flew in Friday after work to get Jackson on Saturday.

I was able to hang out with Gina on Friday night which was awesome, and then Dan and I met up on Saturday to go free Jackson from jail!

It was so exciting to get Jackson. We got to quarantine and checked in and got Jackson's final release paperwork. Dan had already gotten his crate back during the week, then we waited in line with everyone else to get our dog! There were these guys in line behind us from South Africa and they asked us how long we had been away from our dog. We sighed and said... 30 days. Then we asked them the same question and they said, 6 months! Their dog had to do 5 months quarantine in South Africa and then one month in Australia. Not to mention that they moved to Australia pretty much immediately after their dogs went into quarantine, so they really hadn't seen them in about 6 months, and they had 2 dogs and 1 cat all in quarantine.. that'd be expensive! So we were lucky in comparison.

As we waited in line, we saw the area where the dogs were in crates waiting for pick up. We quickly realized that it might be a little chaotic (knowing Jackson) for us both to be there to get him, so I ended up going into the parking lot to wait, and Dan got Jackson.

I saw Dan and Jackson walk out and then Jackson was on a trail to go after and play with this one dog, when he thought he saw me and started heading my way. Needless to say, he was VERY excited... Dan captured this video...

So as you can see, we were all very excited to get Jackson back.

Immediately after getting Jackson we went across the street to a grassy field where Gina and her little sister Steph were waiting to say hi, then Dan and I headed to a dog park with Jackson.

later that day we had Kennett and Rose's engagement party and Jackson was going to be staying at Kennett's mom's house while the party was going on, so we wanted to make sure we spent some time with him and got some of his energy out so we could have fun at the party.

Jackson was excited to be out of jail and able to smell all the new smells.

We were a little excited too :)

 We did our job and the little boy was very tired.

After the park, it was off to Kennett's and time for the party!

Kennett and Rose put together a great party with their family and friends at their house. It was a hot day but they set up a nice tent in the backyard and everyone had a ton of fun!

The next day we left around 5am to hit the road for our 10 hour drive back to Redland Bay.

We had a great time in Sydney and we were very happy to have Jackson back.

Jackson did well in quarantine and other than long nails, dirty teeth, dry elbows, and dry skin- he was close to perfect.

He seems to really love his new house here, but I know he misses his friends in Carlsbad too.

Oh I almost forgot! We took Jackson to the dog beach on the Gold Coast the first week we had him and it was AMAZING!

There's this place called The Strand on the North end of the Gold Coast. Dan and I actually went there during my first visit to Australia and saw a little puppy on the beach and ever since we've had Jackson we've talked about taking him there.

So one night after work we drove down and Jackson had so much fun. There were a ton of dogs and so much space to run around. The water is also a lot warmer here, so he had no problem going in and running around. It was so great to see Jackson back at a beach just running and being himself again :)

There were quite a few jelly fish on the beach that had washed up. Luckily Jackson didn't want to play with them, but we were worried about him running into one.

 There are also these things called Blue Bottles (this one is a really big one) that are generally pretty small and they're like little jelly fish that you don't see and step on and they pop which is fun but the tentacles can sting you so you want to be careful of that.

So there you have it. The full Jackson update. We are very happy to be back together, and we were looking forward to heading up to Bundaberg with Jackson for Australia day (26th of Jan) for Jackson to see Dan's home town and meet Harry (Judy and Shane's dog)... that weekend didn't quite go as planned, more on that in the next post... (ooohhh cliff hanger...)