she can kick and stretch

Today is my mom's 50th birthday. I wish so badly I could be with her to celebrate. She's one of my best friends and such an inspiration to me. I love you, Mom. Happy Birthday.

fran

Greetings blog-lovers! I'm sorry we haven't posted in a few days. We bought a car (finally - on the last day in Cairns), left the sharehouse and went camping for three nights so we didn't have internet access. As excited as we were to leave Cairns, we were really sad to leave our flat mates and realized that was ultimately the reason we started our journey in such a tourist town...to meet such amazing people. We really hope to keep in touch with them and hear more about where their journey takes them.

Here's a picture of the car (her name's Fran):

Fran is a 1990 Ford Falcon station wagon and she's perfect. We rolled the seats down and slept in the back of the car for three nights and it worked out beautifully! I had a little bit of a sore back but other than that, it was awesome! Much better than a tent (it rains just about every night here) and it's amazing to have the freedom to go wherever we want whenever we want. Here are a few photos of where Fran took us over the past few days:

We arrived at the winery yesterday afternoon and had our first day of work today. Tony and Trudie own Shannonvale Winery in Mossman, Queensland. They're an amazing couple with a beautiful orchard overlooking the rainforest mountains. They grow all the tropical fruit organically and do everything themselves. They feed us three meals a day (mostly from the garden!) and allow us to sleep in an air conditioned campervan just outside their house. Today, Trudie had me gardening, cleaning and labeling wine bottles. Robbie mowed the grass (this was a HUGE job considering the orchard is five acres) and did a ton of weeding among the pineapples. We did about five hours of work by lunchtime and had the rest of the day to relax. It was a great day and we're looking forward to tomorrow.

mashed potatoes and gravy...MORE PLEASE!

Dave, I'm not sure if you read my blog but I wanted to give you a big shout on your thirtieth birthday. You are such a dear friend to Robbie and I. You're such a great guy with so much success ahead of you! I can't believe you're turning thirty... you act like a big kid. But that's what we all love about you. I hope you have a wonderful birthday and you celebrate it with mad gusto! You deserve all the joy in the world. We are sending you all our love from down under and thinking about you a lot. We love you, Dave! Happy Birthday!