I Love Australia!

So, as we were driving home today from the local shops (the Logan Hyperdome) I looked at Angela and I said “I love living here”. Every now and again I will just say this out of the blue and as you can imagine she’ll get a huge grin on her face and say “I’m so glad”. It’s hard to explain exactly what it is about here that I love… maybe it’s because I love everything.

I love the weather obviously, it’s beautiful here. Even when it’s raining, we’re outside in tshirts because it’s still well over 20 degrees. It would be so hard to go back to being in the cold and it would be so strange as well. I feel completely at home here which I guess I didn’t really expect so soon. It’s only been a year and as much as I love Scotland, I feel entirely at home here and like I belong.

The people here remind me a bit of the people in Scotland - they’re very friendly. There’s no pretentiousness here, people just take you as you are and let you get on with everything that you want to. They don’t care too much what you’re into, just like you to get on with it and be happy. Of course there must be some horrible people here, just like there is anywhere, but we’ve yet to find them. People are laidback, chilled out and happy generally. Maybe it’s the weather, maybe it’s just the vibe of the place or maybe it’s just a completely different world. Probably a mix of all three.

Anyway, I love being here and I feel at home. I can’t imagine ever moving back to Scotland or to anywhere. We have everything here, the ocean, the mountains, the beach, the city… it’s all within half an hours drive and it’s all beautiful. I love Australia!

Monday Unexpected Holiday!

This Monday, Tracy was given a holiday from work for good work that she'd been doing the previous week so we made the most of it!

We went to the cinema to see The Other Boleyn Girl starring Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman. It was really good and it only cost us $7 to get in! We didn't realise it was a special 'senior show' of the movie so it was full of all the oldies hahahah. Still we could have got free tea, coffee and cakes if we'd wanted them and the oldies were all cool and nice and quiet during the movie.

After the film we decided to go for lunch to the Marriot Hotel in Surfers Paradise. We'd heard they had a nice buffet there so we went along to check it out. The hotel is beautiful and we loved the buffet, but it is expensive and definitely only for special occasions. It's mainly a seafood buffet and since neither of us are keen on seafood, we just ate all the other stuff which was nice!

Anyway, after that we came home, chilled out and watched some daytime TV hahaha.
Here's the trailer for The Other Boleyn Girl.

Kelly Clarkson & Mandy Moore

On Sunday night, we went up to Brisbane Entertainment Centre to see Kelly Clarkson in concert. She was supported by Mandy Moore and Sean Kingston. We didn't care too much for Sean Kingston but we love Mandy Moore so we were glad that she was the support act.

She was on for half an hour and was brilliant. Exactly how she sounds on her new album Wild Hope so that was great. She also sounded very sweet and humble which was nice. Shame she wasn't on for longer really.

Kelly Clarkson was on for an hour and a half and she was also brilliant live. Sounded great and got all the crowd jumping which is good. We left when she finished (before the encore) so that we could get out of the carpark as when we were at the Pink concert it took like 45 minutes to get out of the carpark. We were lucky we did that as it meant we got hot for 11 which was great!

Oh we also took this really funny video of a guy dancing in the audience, but we need to convert it before we can upload it, we'll try and remember as it's so funny.

Meanwhile here's a clip someone else took of Mandy singing an old hit 'Candy' at the concert we were at.

O'Reilly's Plateau - Weekend Adventure

So this weekend just gone was mad. Friday night we met up with new friends (Tracey & Anne - we know! How funny!) at Cactus Jacks in Logan and had lovely Mexican food and fun conversation. We then headed over to Coffee Club for a post meal Mochaccino and more chat, before heading home at 11.30pm.

Saturday (8th March) we thought we'd go somewhere we hadn't been before, so headed off towards O'Reilly's Plateau in the nearby mountains. It took longer to get there than we imagined, at close to two hours. Mainly this was because it's up a very long and high windy road with one lane at times, so you have to be very careful. We got there eventually though and managed to grab some lunch at the cafe. We had a chicken satay burger and chips and a meat lovers pizza. The food was nice and the place was packed with Japanese tourists. We went off for a wander around and saw all the parrots before heading off on the treetop walk. It's basically a series of rope bridges way up in the trees and was a lot of fun.

After the mountains were finished, we headed back down and went for a drive to look at little cars as we're considering buying a second car in the future. After that at night, we were exhausted and just watched a movie for the night. We watched the new Nicole Kidman movie The Invasion which was rubbish!

On Sunday we went out for a look around again at some cars and liked the Micra, Swift, Barina and Yaris, all a bit too expensive for us right now though at $17000. Still they're a lot cheaper than the Mini which is around $45,000!

You can check out loads of O'Reilly's Plateau photos HERE.

White Water World!

Last weekend we got up and thought "what can we get up to today?", we decided to use our passes into White Water World and go on some of the mad rides they have there. Off we went at 9.30AM Saturday morning and yes it was warm already!

We firstly went on a ride called The Green Room, as you'll see if you click on that link it's like this gigantic green funnel, very cool! We got to the top of the stairs and got ready to go and the water felt cold!! All that went out the window though and we wooshed down the slide at speed haha, wow it was awesome!!

Onto the next few rides and they were great! The hydro coaster was awesome fun and we took a funny photo on there but we haven't scanned it in (sorry!). We were only there a couple of hours, did all the big rides and headed home and all for free since we had our 2 year pass... woot!!

You can check out a couple of silly waterpark photos HERE (password the same as always).

Poocheroos - Ams and Hux

Just a little post with some pictures for those of you that miss seeing images of the poochies. We were on our way back from the groomers and they were both in the back of the car on the mattress.

We had been to Marina Mirage for lunch whilst Ambro and Huxley were bathed and pampered like the little prince and princess they are.

There are some funny pictures HERE and the password is the usual one. We hope you like them.

Generation X - The Thirteenth Generation

We were talking about generations last night, mainly because Angela is watching Quarterlife, this internet streaming show in which Generation Y twenty somethings question life the universe and everything, whilst really just being part of the problem. We're both part of Generation X because Gen Y is for people born between 1980-2000 or there abouts. Gen X on the other hand is people born in the 60's and 70's.

We came to the conclusion that not much ever really changes in the world. In Quarterlife one of the characters gets into a bit of an argument with his girlfriends mom, saying that her and her generation (pre X) were part of the hippy movement, part of the world changers, people that wanted better for the generations to come, but now have made their money and essentially sit on their asses doing nothing, whilst blaming the younger generation.

It's pretty depressing really, Generation X was like this cool generation, creating their own cultural identity in a lot of respects, but everyone regardless of generation just plods on through life, never really changing the big issues, even if we do sit around and talk incessantly about them.

Juno - A kind of Review

So we FINALLY got around to seeing Juno over the weekend and we loved it. A witty and sardonic script by Diablo Cody means Juno's examination of teen pregnancy takes on a really cool, non moralising (though it does in a more subtle manner) and grown up approach to what could have been just another teen pregnancy film with mallet styled warnings.

If you haven't seen Juno we urge you to do so. It's touchy topic and roll on verbal wit might be difficult for some to swallow, but look a little deeper and Juno is really something special. It's not predictable, it's not all sweetness and light, but it is a wonderful film. Kudos to the cast also, Ellen Page as Juno MacGuff is just astounding, Jennifer Garner as Vanessa is pained and wonderful and Allison Janney as Juno's step mom is just superb. Actually all of the actors and their characters are just fantastic. Hop down to the cineplex now!