Too much fun?

This is one of the sweet beaches at Byron Bay! Finally a background that will do these girls justice! :)


This is the most popular beach in the Gold Coast... Surfer's Paradise the possibilities sounded endless!! Oh, and I'm sure there were some cool beaches and stuff too...

Ok, so I'm not really sure if anyone is still going to read this or not, but I feel as though it's a half done project, and I'm no quitter.....


Saturday July 12
This was the day we were supposed to fly to the Gold Coast! It was pretty much my last day in Sydney and we had been planning all along to wake up and watch the sunrise one day.... Never happened surprise surprise, so this day we made a special effort and despite only getting a few hours sleep we still woke up and got to see it! It was so beautiful, looking back it seems surreal, like I'm not really sure it even happened! After that we took a long nap and then started our fun task of packing! When we decided we were gonna travel to the Gold Coast and Melbourne, all we really thought was, hey let's by the cheapest tickets possible because we're all poor... Those cheap tickets just included bringing a carry on and no checked luggage which meant only our backpacks. This would have been fine except for the fact that we were gonna be gone 10 days and the Gold Coast climate is super warm and the Melbourne climate is super cold!


This is our finished product, somehow we managed, I mean it's not that abnormal to wear the same shirt for 5 days straight right?.... Maybe part of our success at this kind of thing contributed to part of the reason all of us came home single?.... :)

We got into the Gold Coast by the time it was dark and rented a car and set off on our way to a friends Uncle..... The only issue is that they drive on the wrong side of the road.... I drove and kept thinking I wish I had bought more insurance on the rental car... :) It was quite exciting and very rewarding when we made it safely!


This is just one of your typical, "Hey, mom look I'm driving on the wrong side of the road" shots... No big deal!

Sunday July 13
We stayed with Gary and Pauline from South Africa! The Gold Coast is set up with a lot of man made canals that run through out the city and eventually go out into the ocean. Gary and Pauline house was right on one of the canals, and it was awesome! They are the greatest and took the best care of us ever! They showed us all around the Gold Coast Sunday morning and took us out to breakfast! Later that day we just spent some time laying out at the beach and soaking in the rays!

Monday July 14
Even though we had quite a few days in the GC we knew we had to get down to business quick! That's why naturally we decided to go to Warner Bro.s Movie World! It's a theme park set up similar to Univeral where you experience a movie through a ride! It was pretty cool minus the fact that it closed it 5, apparently all Australians have somehow genetically altered themselves to where no one needs anything after 5 o'clock, because nothing is ever open :) haha


This was the actual batman boat used in Batman forever!!


This is in front of the Superman ride! It was a way sweet roller coaster that helped us beat the laws of physics as we flew every which way??.... :)


Strangely enough, we actually ran into the real batman whilst he was promoting not only his batman signal but also the chicken strips available for purchase at any participating food stands!


Badda Bing Badda Boom!

Later that night I got to play soccer with the boys! It was so awesome! One of the first things I did when I got to Sydney was buy a soccer ball, and even though Wendy was so great about passing it around with me, I just don't think it was that fun for her haha!! So Gary invited me to play with their mens indoor team, it was 4 on 4 and rather than having walls it was just big nets around the whole field so it never went out and the goalie had an arc he had to stay in and we couldn't enter that arc. It was very fast paced, but ya know I showed a few of them what was, and by that I just mean I think they were afraid to hurt me so they backed down :) haha I still scored though and we won, so it was like what more could I ask for?!!


This was a sweet action shot Brighton captured during the heat of the battle! :)


Put me in coach, I'm ready to play, today!!

Tuesday July 15
We spent most of the day at the beach while the weather was nice! We ate lunch at this cute Italian place called Mama Roma's. All the restaurants in the GC are half price at lunch cause most people just come out for dinner so naturally we loved that! I ordered a sweet shrimp pasta dish and the thing I love most about the seafood here, is that you actually get seafood... A lot of places are super skimpy on the shrimp but hey loaded me up and it was delicious!

That night Gary and Pauline took us out for a cruise around the canal in the party pontoon! It was way fun, but the weather was terrible and it rained like crazy! It was still awesome to see all the incredible million dollar houses!

Wednesday July 16
Found us at the outlet malls cause the weather was still bad, we shopped til we dropped and later went to lunch at some old friends of my parents! They had a beautiful house in the country and fed us an awesome home cooked meal of roast and veggies! They were awesome and we ended up staying and chatting with them all night and left only after we promised if we came again we would stay with them next time! I can't get over how amazing everyone has been to us!

Thursday July 17
We went to Byron Bay! Total hippie town, it was awesome! I've never seen so many hippie love vans congregated together in one place! The beaches were beautiful and we laid out all day and then got to watch the sunset from the light house which is the eastern most point in all of Australia!


Although this picture looks like Wendy tried to catch us unawares (impossible to happen to me....) she's actually really trying to get a good pic of the two men in the background, they proceeded to hit on us using what I felt like we very unorthodox methods, but maybe thats just me I mean maybe lots of girls fall for the old, I just got outta prison and I'm really lonely line?
That night we got to see Batman the Dark Knight it came out 3 days earlier than in the states so we felt like pretty big deals after getting to see it before anyone else!!

Friday July 18
For our last day in the GC we went up a building called Q1 it's the tallest residential building in the world and gave an amazing view of the endless beaches along the Gold Coast and at all the intricate man made canals that clutter the city! When it was finally time to leave, we were all super sad 1) Because it was the first time we had legitmately been able to layout in the sun 2)We saw lots of hot surfers without wet suits and 3) Gary and Pauline were so great we felt like we were home!


This was just part of the incredible view from Q1, somebody really good must have taken that shot.... :)