Our home away from home

Ben has started back at Uni this week, he has already started to prepare for his new subject of Biology - borrowed lab coat and my reading glasses!  He certainly looks the part of the intellectual University student!

Our caravan site at Ben and Natalie's!  Our van fits beautifully beside their home and we are enjoying our new camping chairs!

Morning tea at the caravan site!

Pa took a fall on our last walk, spent the afternoon being cared for by Dr Paige!  He is feeling much better, just a little worse for wear with a few grazes and a sore shoulder!  He certainly was well looked after and followed the Doctor's orders to be brave!

A dream home - morning tea at Susie's home, a new home that is built on a canal near the Marroochydore River.  Absolutely beautiful home, with a gorgeous view over the water, it was lovely and warm sitting out on the deck, we could all enjoy living here!

View of the pool!

Looking into the house with a lovely sunny spot to settle in with a good book!

Congratulations to our beautiful niece, Phoebe and Karim who have just announced their engagement!  We are very excited for them and will have to start saving to enjoy the celebrations in Morocco!  

More sunny days!

Another week and time is flying by and we have started to think of home!  Our time is so special here, spending time with our wonderful family.  Bonnie enjoys the routine of the beach in the morning and then the afternoon is spent following Paige around.  She shares tea parties with Paige and her friends and is often sitting amongst them with her own tea cup to drink out of!

Ben returns to University next week for the 2nd semester.  He has done brilliantly in his exams and is already started reading his text books in preparation for his new units.  We had a celebration lunch last Wednesday at Fish on Parkyn, a beautiful restaurant in Mooloolaba.  A very delicious way to spend the day!

Paige, reading the menu and deciding on fish and chips for her meal!

Beautiful photo of our very special family!

Entree share platter, how delicious!

Ross' seafood chowder, was it as good as the chowder at the Drunken Admiral in Hobart?

It was yummy, loaded with lots of fresh seafood.

Ross' whole snapper, what a handsome looking character!

Not much left of him now - he has seen better days!

Room for dessert! Pomegranates, brandy basket and semi-freddo!

Sienna's first time in the high chair that belonged to my Dad when he was a baby!  She loves her food and looks forward to her yummy fruit and vegetables.

Paige is a beautiful artist, a morning spent in the caravan drawing a bright red spider, with lots of legs!

Have had latex overlays made for the caravan and picked them up on Thursday, we are sleeping much better, and without the old stiff bones to contend with when we wake up!

Ben and Ross have done all the running repairs on the van and all we have to do now is to take it in for it's service before we head home.  We are leaving Ben and Natalie's on the August 3, down to the Coromal Dealership in Brisbane, to drop off the caravan for the service while catching up with Ross' brother and Sheryl before we head west.  At this stage we are heading towards Kingaroy, Dalby, Mitchell and then south to Lightening Ridge.  However, word from home doesn't entice us to return with such cold weather Melbourne is experiencing!  

Mid July and life rolls by in sunny Queensland

Friday, and time to update the blog!  Have had an eventful week, leaving last Sunday for Brisbane to spend time with my friend Cath.  Monday was a busy day for Cath, an appointment with her Bone Marrow Transplant Specialist who has given the go ahead for her transplant in August.  They have found a perfect match for her in America and with a successful transplant she will be cured from the hideous disease of Multiple Myeloma she has been suffering from for the last 5 years.  Her hospital visits take up most of the day but we were able to squeeze in a delicious Vietnamese soup for lunch at West End and a lovely wander around the shops in New Farm.

Ross was left at home to babysit the baby, this included discovering a pesky cane toad which he had to do battle with!  Luckily, Bonnie had not seen it, after her cane toad episode last year we were much relieved to exterminate the varmint before she got to chomp on it!

Ross and Bonnie kept up the lovely walk routine, down to Mudjimba to frolic in the water and sand.  A lovely photo of Bonnie sun baking on the beach.

Ross has had some miraculous visits with his Mum, from nearly losing her and not being able to wake her to her sitting up, conversing and hungry, ready to eat lunch!  She enjoys being taken out into the sun in her wheel chair and admiring the lovely gardens that surround the nursing home.

Ross picked me up from Brisbane on the Wednesday and we drove down to Coomera, south of Brisbane to catch up with Bob and Elaine.  Bob and Elaine, are another couple we met on the road in the year 2000, same time as we met Robert and May who we just met up with in Kingaroy.  They have just moved into a Retirement Village, looking over the Coomera River, what a lovely view, water, gumtrees and lots of bird life to enjoy from their deck.  We enjoyed lunch at the Boathouse Tavern, an interesting pub that housed a large boat set up as the bar!

We returned home on Wednesday night and Thursday was the big day for me to pick up my new phone!  So I am back with my new piece of technology Iphone 4, I think Ross is a little envious as he likes new gadgets and mine is now much more up-to-date than his phone!  He will now have to wait for the Iphone 5, or accidentally drop his Iphone in the dog Bowl!  This photo of our girl is taken with the new phone!

Latest photo from Natalie of our beautiful granddaughters!  We also received a beautiful letter from our other granddaughter, Sarah in Melbourne.  Another poppet who loves to draw, what a special treat for Nana and Pa!

A journey to Kingaroy!

With Ben, Natalie, Paige and Sienna babysitting the precious child, we headed off to Kingaroy to meet our wonderful Townsville friends who were heading south for a wedding in Maleny on the weekend.  Leaving in lovely sunshine, Monday morning we headed north, stopping at Yandina at the ginger factory for a supply of yummy biscuits and then a delicious coffee across the road at a coffee roasting shop and a chat to the mattress factory man to look at options to improve our caravan mattresses and then we were on our way.  The Bruce highway was incredibly busy with traffic and roadworks and we were glad to head inland and enjoy the amazing countryside of Queensland.  We were to meet Robert and May at 1.30 at the Kingaroy Visitor's Centre and we made it in good time and had lunch before meeting them.  It was wonderful to see them and so we sat down in the beautiful sunshine outside the Visitor's centre with a list of accommodation places to ring to organise our stay for the next 2 nights!  This is where the fun started!  We had decided to go inland, thinking on the coast and with school holidays, accommodation would be expensive and difficult!  Little did we know about SHUT DOWN!  All the places we rang could give us Monday night, but not Tuesday!  What was on, SHUT DOWN!  Apparently, at different times of the year, the large Tarong power station is shut down and all the Motels/Hotels are filled with volunteer tradespeople to do maintenance on the mine!  After 3 hours, and wonderful assistance from Claire at the Visitor's centre, we finally secured 2 nights at Hillside Hideaway, a Bed and Breakfast out of town!  What a find, we were so lucky!  We were welcomed by Maureen and her daughter and grandchildren and shown around her beautiful home, perched on a hill with wonderful views over the valley!  

This is a view from the outside table, looking across the valley, this is also the view we had from our bedroom window.  The sunrises were very special, with a gorgeous glow in the sky!

Our breakfast and dinner spot, delicious continental breakfast and BBQ each night for dinner

What a beautiful outlook!

Tuesday, after a relaxing and delicious breakfast, it was off to the Bunya Mountains for the day.  A gorgeous drive, through lush rainforest and magnificent trees, and finally up the top of the mountain and then a great walk through the ever changing landscape.  We have to say though, it was extremely cold, even for us Victorians, our little hot bodied friends from Townsville, certainly had something to complain about!

After our walk, and a dash for the sunniest table, we were rewarded with a delicious picnic lunch! 

Coomba Falls, what a beautiful spot, pity it was so damn cold, you couldn't even contemplate a swim!

We had such a lovely time with Robert and May, especially after such a rough start!  We sadly said goodbye to them at Kilcoy and returned home to the Sunshine coast!  Our baby greeted us with joy, but certainly didn't miss us!  She is very happy spending her days following Paige around!

For anyone who has tried to ring me or text, the holiday of many mishaps continues, I dropped my phone into Bonnie's water bowl!  We are hopefully replacing my phone very soon and will be contactable again!  Ross' number is 0419373373 if you need us!