life in Emu Park

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We’ve been living and making some money so we can venture on soon ☺ I still work at the marina making coffees and what not. I make so many I think about them in my sleep. Long black, cappuccino, latte, flat white, short black, macchiato, moccachino, muggachino, baby chino, hot chocolate, chai latte, extra hot, soy, skim, no foam, double shot, weak, caramel, cold milk on the side. There are a gazillion options I’m telling you! These people are serious about their coffee! But I am very glad to have the experience so I can get a job making coffees at other places! I work from 6:30 am to 2:30pm 5 days a week and I get 1 coffee and a free lunch everyday ☺ But I am very glad that I will be leaving in a few weeks, speaking of I should probably tell them that I am leaving soon… Byron just got a job at a pineapple patch. He picks them and they replant the spiky tops of them and do some other things I think… he works from 6:30-4 Mon-Thurs and until 10:30am on Fridays so he has a good long weekend. On both of our days off from our main jobs we help out at the resort/backpackers. We help them clean in the mornings and Byron still does some of the driving (picking up/dropping of traveling backpackers). There is an extremely funny Irish couple (Dan and Aoife) and another gal (Jan) staying with us at the moment. They will be staying there for a while, Dan and Jan both work with Byron at the pineapple patch and Aoife (Efa is how you say it) works at another restaurant near by. I absolutely LOVE THEM TO PIECES ALREADY!! The backpackers had a benefit to raise money for a charity called Give Me 5 For Kids. For kids in the hospital, the money buys equipment and stuff like that. People from around the neighborhood all made food and there was a band and raffles and a jumping castle for kids and a bar, oh it was an absolute ball. We had tons of fun!! I am getting OVERLY excited for Abbey to come!!!! I have been in deep thought about what to do when she gets here and it looks like I will be flying down to Sydney to meet up with her and we will spend a few days there and then we’ll travel up the coast together and stop a few of my favorite places (Byron Bay, Noosa, Mooloolaba, Hervey Bay, etc) and we will meet up with Byron in Emu Park and stay for a night here and have Claude take us out fishing!! Then the 3 of us will travel up the coast to Cairns (hoping that Arne is up for the journey!) *Plans might change but I’m looking into things to see what our best option will be. where we will be in nice and warm weather and can go out to the barrier reef and all that jazz!! Oh the other day we went to what they call the Rocky show. It’s basically Rockhampton’s carnival. It travels all around Australia and it puts on a decent show, we saw lots of animals and it had bunch of market stalls and rides (although we didn’t go on one because it cost $15 a ride!! Ridiculous! We got to see a car show and a bunch of guys on moto-cross or something. They were crazy! Doing flips in the air on their motorcycles and jumping things. It was pretty sweet, unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me! They were saying one of the guys was doing ‘the most dangerous jump in the world’ which I’m sure was just made up but it was still awesome!! This past weekend was Claude’s birthday and he had a nice bbq and all the neighbors and friends were there. THEN a group of 30 American’s came to stay one night at the backpackers! They were all from New York and they were all really nice and a lot of fun. They were on a study abroad program sort of like the one I did a few years back except they are all teachers and they have come to do their student teaching, I thought it would be nice to stop and visit them and maybe Abbey and I can go into a class room from one of the girls who is doing special education … we’ll see if we can but it would be nice for abbey to maybe see how its different here (or maybe alike??) and maybe they’ll offer her a job and she and I can stay and live here forever. JUST Kidding, but not really. 😉
That’s all for now!! Peace, miss, love, happiness to all XOXOXOXOXOXOX
Allie and Byron ☺

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Photos

baby frogs!
they're everywhere

sunrise on the way to work!
there's at least 1 good thing about being up at the crack of dawn every morning for work :)

Mmmm!
Now that's some good tucka!

Byron's birthday dinner
at the Pines Pub down the road with Claude, his wife Pam, Michael the Belgium guy, Pammy (she lives at the backpackers full time and helps out)

the Singing Ship
In Emu Park, this is about all there is in town with 1 roundabout, 2 restaurants, 1 hotel, a fruit & veg, and a post office.

Jilly
belongs to the owner's of the backpackers.... she is doing a pretty decent job and taking over Mac, Snickers, and Cooper's place

Kershaw Gardens
in Rockhampton

Monorail
this was the sweetest piece of playground equipment we had ever come across and not a single other kid was on it... we couldn't figure it out!

Yabbies
caught with a pump that you stick in the sand and used to catch whiting and other smaller fish of the rocks down the beach