Day 90 Rachel's Twenteenth Birthday - Seaworld and Family get-together :D

What a day!

It started at 6am, with me dashing through to Rachel's room when she was in the shower, so I could leave my card and collage with her HUGE pile of pressies from home. Thankfully, she understood all the private jokes on the collage and was still chuckling about some of them when we were in the car. Brad had offered to drive us to Central Station, via the back roads of course :P He'd also received a mysterious phone call from Zach, their eldest son, for a lift to work. OMG! We pulled up on the side of the road and it was only when the thin, scrawny, soaked (yes, I had jinxed the weather with my new sunnies) and slightly crazed looking man got in the car singing that I realized that is was him. As he got in, he announced 'Zach is every so slightly drunk, girls' - slightly unnecessary. He was claiming his last beer was 4am and it had just turned into 'an unexpectedly large and long night' but he wasn't fooling anyone. Turning to Rachel and saying Happy Birthday, complete with robot-style arms, he then turned to me as if to say where am I, who are you? When thanking Brad for the rescue, he actually rubbed his bald spot. I kept expecting Brad to try and talk sense into him but he let him continue...

Zach then gave us a demo of these two 'douchebags' who were fighting, with 'baby fists and windmill arms' , all about some Indian (who was actually an aboriginal) who had called Zach and his friends 'a bunch of convicts'. Zach rounded off his involvement (telling a nearby guy, who was actually Indian, to control his girlfriend even thoughthey were just crossing the same traffic lights) by saying/slurring 'you would have done the same, Dad'. Brad: 'Well, I don't know about that'. I couldn't believe he was going to work like that! Getting dropped off at the station, thanking them for the entertainment and wishing a quick recovery (though he wasn't going to get that if he got the beer he was asking for), we knew today would be interesting!

Seaworld was amazing! The rain stopped and the cloud even started clearing by the afternoon. VIP entry into the park and we managed to get to the rides before all the long queues. Rachel even braved the orange loop to loop rollercoaster though the picture I took of her showed her to be more pale than the 6 year old next to her  Then on jet rescue, I could hear scream at every twist and acceleration - at one point saying 'I'm going to break my neck!' LOL

The dolphin show was just as amazing as the first time... so good, we actually watched both showings  Sadly, despite Rachel taking her shoes off in preparation and me jumping up and down pointing to her and proclaiming her birthday, two snivelling little kids were picked to touch and feed the dolphins. Next time, we're taking banners! We also got soaked on the log flume ride and Bermuda triangle - the Bermuda one is a boat ride with a mini log flume but inside there are all these weird aliens with people in tanks, aircraft wrecks and then the boat goes backwards, pillars collapse and water floods the place before the final log flume = SCARY! We ended the day with cable cars, shark bay, touching starfish and sea cucumbers (DISGUSTINGLY SQUIDGY) and Rachel buying her own souvenir cup (with DIY straw cover, 'so it doesn't get dirty in the locker') and sea lion soft toy :p
We arrived back home to see the deck all covered in fairy lights and candles; Rosemaree had invited Peter, Julia and Tara and their parents Ray and Danye around (' as hired props to make up the numbers lol') for our second birthday meal! We played singstar, but Rachel and I were pretty hopeless as we didn't recognise half of the Australian songs! We did sing Ruby by the Kaiserchiefs though and I won, achieving lead singer level (yeah right :P) even though Darcy and Julia mocked me the rest of the night about how I say 'joking' so so posh in 'are you joking with me?' :'(

I also managed to join in with sex bomb and I believe in miracles, much to the laughter of Brad who snuck up behind me during my solo part - is it possible to die from embrassment?! Darcy's such a good singer though the song he picked (Panic at the disco's one about lap dancing) probably wasn't the best choice to duet with 10 year old Tara lol
The food was fancy as normal, with Brad asking me how I like my steak - my answer of normal got a few laughs but whether it was medium or burned, it tasted delicious with Peter's pasta salad and my favourite honey sausages. Pudding was out on the deck in the form of a huge bounty bar for everyone... everyone who could catch them as Brad flung them across the deck. Thankfully, I didn't humiliate myself there! Rachel, to earn her pudding, had to perform a newly-created Australian tradition of blowing out all the candles on the deck whilst we sang happy birthday. It took 3 goes and she was hyperventilating so much by the end of it, she looked like she would faint! Her birthday cake was a tiny strawberry trifle with cheesecake and it's apparently Australian tradition that when y our spoon touches the bottom, you have the kiss the nearest boy. Rosemaree and Danye were being deadly serious. Rachel looked sideways to see that it was 6ft brotherly Darcy and both of them went bright red. I don't know whose face was funnier but I couldn't contain my laughter, when Rachel took over 10 minutes to reach the bottom, by which time conversation had moved on. It was such a great day and the look on Brad's face... grinning at us all... proud(?) was just so sweet!

Day 91

I am soon to become one of those annoying youths who clog up your mailbox with thousands of pamphlets advertsing things nobody - absolutely nobody - wants :P What i didn't realise is that the first pamphlet delivery cam yesterday when we were out and gave Brad a right shock. As a house with a no junkmail sign, it's understandable that Brad rang up the company to complain... of course, when i explained they were mine, Rosemaree just laughed and demanded Brad range them back to apologise as 'he was... not rude, but sharp with them'! Plus they were delivered around the front so to make them easier to get into the house through the normal back entrance, Brad drove the ute around the front, literally 5 yards, to help me pile them in. I walked around the side of the house and must have looked so petrified to explore this new part of the garden that Brad gave me a demo of how i should walk it - hand up in the air, like a shark's fin to get rid of the cobwebs (though why my hand should prefer cobwebs anymore than my face, I'm unsure :P) and waddling on the pavement careful not to step in possum poo. Plus we had a crowd of rowdy builders watching us. Great. Piling them on the deck, Darcy was getting all exicted at the possibility of helping me out for some easy money.

In the evening, dinner was a big affair with Dennis, an ex-homestay student coming round. He had just broken up with his girlfriend and sat there looking physcially heart broken. Rosemaree flapped around like a mother hen, trying to fatten him back up and 'fix his heart with food' lol, even offering him doggy bags of lasagne to take back. So with Dennis, it took the total up to 7 for dinner. Brad got served last as normal, though this time he didn't even get a call, being relegated to the 'fourth level' lol, only being allowed the rejected bits of apricot chicken after we had all been fussed over!