Coffee.
Saturday morning we got up and rode Tiger to the marina to a little cafe for brekky. I had another fun coffee moment. I ordered a short black coffee with 3 sugars and cream. I was picturing a small coffee in the USA. You would think I would know by now that this is not how things work here. I was in the Chemist (pharmacy) buying a “heating pad” when my coffee arrived.
Side note…I need a heating pad because I haven’t seen my favorite masseuse Janey in months and I don’t know if you have noticed but have had a little bit of stress in my life, so my muscles are a hot mess. Another side note…heating pads are apparently not the kind you plug in to an outlet, but the kind filled with Australian wheat that you put in the microwave for a couple of minutes.
Imagine Jay sitting at the sidewalk table giggling by himself as he awaits my return to the table when this appears. How did they put 3 sugars in this cup?!?!

I believe my response was “what the hell is that?” And then was even further disappointed to try a sip. Cold, disgusting coffee.

So I took my midget-sized coffee inside and asked for some education. The sweet lady laughed and said, “you want an American coffee. I will fix this right up. And you need to order a long black with cream on the side.” Well, round two was about 50% bigger, still tasted like crap, but was at least hot. Maybe my taste buds just need to adapt.

Garage sale.
One of the houses in the neighborhood had a garage sale, so we stopped by on our way home from the marina. What we really need is storage furniture for the kids’ toys, but of course that had already been sold. So instead we just picked up more toys – a decent amount of army toys. We did get a couple baskets that are in rough shape but will at least attempt to hide some toys. Ty is happy. 🙂

Car show…sort of.
The plan was then to go to the Gold Coast Car Show because Jay had been seeing signs since we got here and of course wanted to go. We hopped in the car and after struggling to find the directions thought we were finally heading in the right direction. Until we ended up doing a complete circle on Old Coach Road… A few more attempts at finding the place and we ended up at a big empty grass lot. There were a couple guys standing by the car show sign. They said, “tomorrow mate, the 17th”. Jay has looked at signs and the website a bunch of times, and knew that it was this weekend, but failed to notice one key detail. So…no worries…plan B!

Currumbin.
Finally!! After being in Australia for almost a month, we saw kangaroos and koalas! We had heard that Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary was a great place to go, and since it wasn’t far from the “car show” we decided to go check it out. Knowing that anyone who comes to visit will want to see the critters, we bought an annual pass (hint hint – come visit!!)
We didn’t get far into the park. We saw the koalas and got a $20 picture (really wish I would have put on makeup and done my hair).

Then Lily was hungry so I fed her while the boys started eating lunch. When I got back to the table, Ty was hot so he took off his shirt. And then about 50 Asians walked by and thought he and Lily were the cutest kids ever. Ty must have felt like a celebrity because he got his picture taken with every single lady…and there were tons. Lily got oohed and ahhhed at, the occasional hand and cheek rub, and even one lady asked to hold her (I politely declined). It was awesome. Jay and I were just like, “what the heck is happening” and cracking up. Ty egged them on when he said, “ni hao.”
After the autographs were all signed and the crowd moved on, we started to go back into the park, but were told that a nasty storm was on its way. So, we quickly ran through the snake area (ewwww!) and went back to the car. Turns out we only saw a teensy tiny portion of the park, but since we have a pass we can go back whenever we want.

Schoolies.
We thought it would be fun to drive up the coast to get home. It was fun (found some cool beaches we will check out later) until we hit the schoolie traffic heading into Surfers Paradise. This is the equivalent to Spring Break in the US, but worse because it is a bunch of high schoolers. Since they are going into summer, seniors just graduated. Apparently they ALL go to Surfers. And we were stuck in traffic with all of them. If we didn’t have the kids with us, we might have kept on and partied with them (and been known as the “toolies”), but I couldn’t stand sitting still, so we turned around and went several kilometers out of the way, but at least we were moving.

Lily’s Room.
I finally got the decorations put up in Lily’s room! I brought her things from Iowa, helps brighten up the boring white walls. Love it!

Butcher.
We hopped back in the buggy and went to the marina to get some fresh meat to cook for dinner. Jay and I got ribs, Ty got honey soy chicken skewers. The butcher and his wife were super nice. Will definitely go back. We haven’t been impressed by the meat from the grocery store.
Jay and Lily went to the grocery store for dessert while Ty and I checked out the clothes in the Marina V Boutique. Cute stuff! One Mudcake and a container of ice cream later, and it was back home for a relaxing, yummy night in at Roo’s Barefoot Cantina. Yes, you can check in at our house on Facebook and Four Square. 🙂