Australia

At the end of February Mike, Myself and my parents boarded a plane heading to Australia for my cousin Kelva's wedding, after 30 some hours of traveling we finally arrived to Townsville AU. We stayed at Magnetic Island for a couple days accompanied by my Uncle John (from Canada). It was so wonderful to have those couple days to hang out and relax and catch up with John. We had plenty of exploring time on scooters, which was a lot of fun after I got the hang of steering those stinkin things!!!! After our time on the island we headed back to catch up with the rest of the crew that had arrived in. We had a good portion of our Canadian family (Joan & Dale, Richard & Kathy, and my cuz Brandon), as well as the Aussie crew. It was so much fun to see everyone. They are all so truly important to me, and I care about them all so much!!!

The wedding was gorgeously done, the flowers, the food, and all of the wonderful people. Kelva looked stunning (which was no surprise), and the speeches had everyone rolling!

after the wedding, we headed to Richard and Dyan's Station. With mango smoothie stops, tours of their new place, getting stuck in the mud and a cocktail stop, our 4 hour trip turned in to 12 hours. Dyan had a wonderful spread of steak and lobster awaiting us when we finally drove in at 10:30. We spent the next couple days at Wentworth Richard gave us great tours of their place never missing an opportunity for pictures whether it be of Emu, roos, cattle, or landscape! We also got to see a bit of Simons territory, and Kelva's new home! Mike's highlight of the trip (besides getting stuck in the mud), was Simon taking Mike up in the helicopter. WOW, what a rush! We had the privledge of being Kelva & Simons first house guests as a married couple!

On the way home we flew through Tokyo Japan and took and extra 2 days to check it all out! I booked the rooms online and was trying to save a little $$$. The place I booked looked very nice for the money on line. We get on the subway, and as we look at the map we discover that the stop we need is the very last one, and is as far away from any thing we would want to do as possible. When we finally get there we walk around this part of the city trying to find the location. When we get checked in we head up the our room. When we opened up the door, I think I can safely say that all 4 of our jaws hit the floor as our room consisted of 2 sets of bunkbeds 3 high and that was about it! Our bath room had a standard toilet, but the bathing area was Japanese style. Basically, you have a stool about a foot off the ground and a shower hose. Needless to say, no one was too impressed and all you could do was laugh (kind of). Mike was not too impressed with my booking choices and at 10pm in foreign city, we decided to tough it out and hopefully find a deferent hotel the following day. We head out to try and find a restaurant because we have not yet had supper. The area we were staying in was more residential, where the locals lived and nothing was translated. We finally go in a neat looking restaurant which had circular grills in which they set into the table. The people that worked there did not speak a stitch of English, so we lived life on the wild side and prayed and pointed to writing on the menu, which we then cooked on our grill at the table. We ended up with a couple different types of soup, meats, and deserts. My meat was marinated bacon. But all in all it was very good and a awesome experience!

After settling back into our bunks, the snore-a-than began between Mom and Dad. We tried ear plugs and it didn't dull the roar. Mike went down to see if he could get online to search for better accommodation for the following night. I suffered through and finally fell asleep after several yells to my parents to BE QUIET!!!

The next day, Mike let us know our options, which there weren't very many. We end up getting separate rooms at the Tokyo Hilton for about $250/room. By this point it no amount would have been too high to keep a descent quite room to sleep in!!! We spent the day touring around the area of the Hilton and it was great!