August- The Month of Running

Over the past 5 weeks Jason and I have been training for the Sunshine Coast Marathon Runs. Jason was training for the half marathon, 13.1 miles or 21K, and I was training for the 10K or 6.2 miles. I have never been much of a runner, I remember not even being able to run the mile for volleyball tryouts in highschool. However, much to my surprise a little practice and training went a long way. Jason on the other hand "enjoys" running so he was a good, somewhat annoying trainer. In the evening after work we would run the 5K trail together and Jason would usually go a bit further to get in the extra distance. Jason was training for a half marathon in Lexington but was unable to run it due to an injured Achilles tendon, this was on his "bucket list" for Australia and he did it!!  On August 18, we ran the local Bontanic to Bridge 8K fun run to prepare for the next weekends big race. The following weekend we spent on the beautiful Sunshine Coast in Mooloolaba. The race was on Sunday so Saturday we enjoyed seeing the beautiful area and even went out on a "Maiden Voyage" with our friends Ann and Chris on their new boat. It felt so great to be back on a boat, although, ocean boating is much different that lake boating we still loved being on the water under the amazing Australian sunshine!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Jason!

Jason is officially the same age as me and Bucky! 28! Must be rough living with two that are older and wiser than he is! Last year Jason was by himself for his birthday so I had to make sure that he felt extra special this year!  We went to dinner at Scotties, considered an "upper" scale restaurant in Gladstone. The food was great and the company was even better. We had just ordered a bottle of wine and on my way back from the bathroom, Jason was chatting with the girl behind him. Turns out her boyfriend is from Kansas, of course since he was an American we became instant friends. They pulled their table around to join ours and 4 bottles of wine later we had made friends with everyone on the patio and could officially call Jasons birthday dinner a success!

My Friends

Jason and I have been good about documenting our adventures down under for the most part but one area, I feel we don't hi-light as much as we should because they are the biggest part of making living abroad easier and enjoyable is our wonderful friends that we have made! We all get together often and just don't think to take pictures, so on our recent girls night, I made sure to capture a picture of all the girls! All 5 of them are American and are in the same situation as us, where they are thousands and thousands of miles away from home and only have our spouses and eachother to rely on. Since the guys work such long hours, we like to get together for coffee, walks, lunch, sewing (a whole other blog post will be dedicated to this), crafts, book club, and bachelorette nights. All the couples get together for cookouts and game nights! They are all such amazing people and we are so blessed to have met them and have them in our lives.

So meet my friends... :)

Left to right: Katie, Alexa, Ann, me, Megan and Nicole.

A Little Local Flair

This weekend Jason and I spend the weekend doing what the locals do. Every first Saturday of the month they have what's called, BAM (Beaches, Art & Music) in Tannum Sands. They have 80 booths set up selling locally made food, crafts, clothes and jewelry. There was also a local band playing all right on the beach. We tried our first "Potato Tornado"!

 

Sunday afternoon went to a Multicultural Festival at the Marina. We were secretly hoping that there would be an American booth set up with chicken wings, hot dogs and funnel cakes. Although, there wasn't much American style food. We did stand in the longest line for some Jamaican Jerk chicken and our new favorite boysenberry ice cream!  We also sat and watched the girls dance from all different cultures which was very entertaining.

Fairy Floss is what they call Cotton Candy

 

 

 

After the festival we decided to walk on the beach. Hard to believe this is winter weather in Australia! No complaints here!

 

 

 

After the festival we decided to walk on the beach. Hard to believe this is winter weather in Australia! No complaints here!