Coolangatta, Australia: Part 1

It’s finally here! We woke up bright and early to meet our mom’s at the airport after not seeing them for the past four months. We were so excited we could hardly contain ourselves! After waiting in the arrival area for about 20 minutes they finally walked through the door. We all gave each other big hugs and enjoyed watching our parents’ faces light up when seeing Tyson. He wasn’t talking or walking when we left home so he’s like a totally new kid now. After we were all caught up with our hugs we walked to the rental car place to rent a car for the next 10 days. We’re staying in a beach town that’s an hour and a half south of Brisbane so we figured a car would be best instead of dealing with buses and trains. My parents have a time share there so they were nice enough to let us all stay there for a week. On our drive down we were all hungry for breakfast so we stopped at a little café. We had the most amazing breakfast including French toast, pancakes and a breaky burrito along with a few cappuccino’s to help them fight the jet lag from the 15 hours they just got done flying.

When we arrived at our hotel they said it wouldn’t be ready for another five hours. Dang! Our moms were exhausted and were we as well from all the excitement, but no nap was in our future so we would have to champ it up. We decided to head over to the beach to let Tyson play in the sand and watch the waves for a while.  It was super windy out but we still had fun playing outside and catching up. After a while we were hungry for lunch so walked over to a little café a block from the beach. We had salad for lunch with some yummy garlic bread. By the time were done the hotel had called to tell us the room was ready early (yay!) so we walked back early and checked in.

We brought our bags to the room and then wrote up a grocery list for the week. Fortunately, we have a large condo with two rooms and a full kitchen. Mom’s cooking for a whole week, sweeeeet! We walked over to the grocery store a block away and started working our way down the list. After a about 10 minutes at the store we were all so tired so that said screw the rest of the list and we’ll just work with what’s already in our cart. At least we had picked up stuff to make spaghetti for dinner and breakfast items for the morning. We carried all the groceries back to the condo and cooked up our yummy spaghetti dinner. That night we stayed up way later than we thought we could reminiscing and catching up on that last 4 month’s we’d missed together. Awesome times!

The next morning my mom made us a nice home cooked breakfast of eggs, toast and bacon. Yum! After breakfast Marshall and I wanted to work on the blog so our moms took Tyson to a playground for a few hours. It’s so nice having them here so we can have a little free time to ourselves and Tyson absolutely loves playing with them. He’s already not acting like we’re here and going straight to them for everything. He definitely loves his grandma’s. Probably doesn’t hurt that they brought him lots of goodies from home and shower him with hugs and kisses every chance they get. Lucky guy!

Later that afternoon we went back to the grocery store to pick up the items we skipped on the list the day before. Now we were fully stocked for the rest of the week. After unpacking our groceries it was time to hit up the rooftop hot tub (it was more like bathwater warm but perfect for Tyson). I just sat on the side of the hot tub with my feet dipped in and snapped pictures of Tyson splashing around with his Nana and Grandma. Tyson had so much fun he didn’t want to get out, but our stomachs were growling for dinner. My mom made her famous chicken piccata and we enjoyed feasting on it while watching Mr. Bean in the background. Home cooked meals are the best and I gotta admit, I have a secret love for Mr. Bean movies. Perfect way to end the day!

The next day was Australia’s Father’s Day so Marshall got to have three Father’s Day’s this year. Must be nice! The first one was an accident because we thought Father’s Day was the weekend before it really was when we were in Portugal and he got another one on the actual U.S Father’s Day. He didn’t seem to mind. Tyson made him a nice little card and we bought him a chocolate cake to celebrate. We started the day taking Tyson to the playground and the beach to play. We’ve been lucky with the weather because the forecast showed rain our first three days and it never rained at all. It’s been sunny and in the low 70’s most of the time. The playground happened to be was across the street from a chocolate shop along the beach so we stopped in there to cool off while we sipped on chocolate shakes.

There happened to be a food fair in the park next to our hotel to celebrate Father’s Day, so we planned our day around it. Once it opened, we walked over there to enjoy the live music and several different food tents. One of the tents had a snake and a big lizard thing from the Zoo so we headed over there first to let Tyson pet them. He kept trying to squeeze the lizard’s tail when the lady was telling him to gently pet him. Ooops, sorry little fella! They had fairy floss (cotton candy) there so we got one for Tyson to try, but he wasn’t really into it so I ate most of it (although the sun melted half of it, haha). Marshall hit up the German sausage stand for a spicy sausage with the works and loved it.

Around lunch time we jumped in the car and drove an hour up into the mountains to a town called Mount Tamborine. It was a cute little town with unique gift shops and cafes. We first stopped at a really nice winery that had a big pond behind it that was full of ducks. Marshall and our moms did some wine tasting while I chased Tyson around. I’m not a wine person so that was totally fine by me. There was actually a gift shop inside the winery with all kinds of toys that kept Tyson entertained. There was also a restaurant that overlooked the pond that we ate lunch after the tasting. We weren’t too hungry so we just had a light lunch and enjoyed the view. Tyson got a kick out of watching all the ducks bathing in the pond. Marshall’s mom took Tyson for a walk and apparently had to fight off a ghost that was following her around the grounds. She said there was a spot next to some caves where she felt someone pulling on her hair as she walked by. She felt a tug about three different times then got the heck out of there. Creepy!

Once we were all finished with lunch we strolled through the town and found a little toy shop. Tyson found a toy kangaroo attached to a stick that you push. He just couldn’t put it down so Nana bought it for him to play with the rest of the time in Australia. We checked out a few more stores and then were ready to head back. When we got back to the hotel we all heated up leftovers and then enjoyed the chocolate cake we got Marshall for Father’s Day. We were all pretty exhausted from the excitement and decided to plug in a movie and make our way to bed when we started to doze off. I can’t believe it’s already been 3 days since our moms got here! Looking forward to seeing what the next week brings!!