Für Das Geburtstagskind!

This car wasn't "for the birthday girl" as the heading might suggest, I just wanted to carry on from my last post!
This is from the storms, the week before last! Damage is gonna take a while to clear up here in Brisbane, we still have a sellotape covered hole in our bathroom ceiling!

So it's official: Sandra is old now! On Wednesday Sandra turned 30, but prior to that I surprised her with a trip down to Surfers Paradise last weekend. Any Brisbane local would say (and have said) "uuuggghh, why would you take her there!?!" to that, and on many levels I agree with them. But it's a nice escape for a short while, plus when we were down there I surprised her again with "The Man in Black" tickets, which was a Johnny Cash tribute band/show at Jupiters Casino.

The Thursday before last I told Sandra that we were going away for the weekend, and that she would need to pack for the beach and a Saturday night out (not "out out" but for "kinda going out"). We left Brisbane late last Saturday morning via Greyhound coaches, and that's when she found out that our destination was to be Surfers Paradise....and when we arrived, this was our room for the night....

The view from the throne

Even though we were away form Sandra's birthday, it wasn't her birthday yet, so the first beer of the weekend was for Stavros' Birthday!

And whilst we were in Hard Rock Cafe I told Sandra the real reason we were down in Surfers for the weekend...the shock on her face, with the nervous tone in her voice..."aaahhh why!???"

"Don't worry, not that, I aint that stupid!...but this..." As I handed her the tickets. So a couple of hours later we headed to the casino. Although I almost wish I didn't tell her what we were seeing after we arrived, there was no adverts anywhere in the casino, nothing to indicate why we would be there or what was going on. And as we sat down we (and by "we" I obviously just mean "me" now) brought the average age of the crowd/audience down by quite a bit. So it would have been well funny to watch her face as all these older folk would've slowly started sitting around us..."What the hell did you bring me to....?...."

They were all really good, and very close to the real (I think). But Sandra loved it!

We stayed out for a few drinks after the show, but I did forget that it was Schoolies week (Australians kinda version of America's Spring Break, but for school leavers) but it was the tail end of it, so we managed to stay clear of the worst of it. And then the following morning we started the day with an All-you'can-eat breakfast, in which I probably over ate! Before chilling out around Surfers, including spending a few hours in the arcade, and heading back to Brisbane on Sunday evening.

The view  from our room on Sunday morning!

Our hotel on the left. We were on the 8th floor, in the corner

It sucks loosing to the Germans at any form of football!

Sandra got a Turkey!

And we found this little scarred guy on our walk home last Sunday, on the side of our road.

This week at work was pretty non eventful really, but this week in food......

A free gift from Woolworths

And a gift from home. LIME JELLY. Thanks Mum

Wednesday was Sandra's birthday, so I put out these classy balloons that my Mum sent me for her in our room in the morning. I had to do an induction coarse in the city on Wednesday, so I couldn't get the day off of work, but I did take her out for a meal in the evening in South Bank.

For her birthday I also got Sandra and I flights from Brisbane to Cairns, for the first week in February flying back from Proserpine. So now we've got a couple of months to plane what we do between the two locations.

Another storm brewing on Friday. I left work in a rush, and had the traffic lights in my favour, and managed to ride my 11/12km ride in half an hour....speedy! Was pretty pleased.

My ride up the Gateway Bridge on my way home from work....but my way down on the ride to work!

...And my ride up the Gateway Bridge on my way to work, and the way down on route home. You can see so many reasons why I prefer riding from work rather than to work!

And in short, this weekend has been a bit of a let down. But it was good catching up with my parents yesterday morning, and Tyler (in the USA) this morning, we will carry on that conversation soon. And Happy Birthday Stinko for today!

9 weeks of my contract with work done, only 17 left now! Just gotta figure out what's going on after that! Oh and what to do over the Christmas and New Year period now!