Well I'll try to post a couple more pictures tonight.  Xanga is not being very responsive tonight.

This is the beach once we made our way through the main street at Manley Beach.

We got here about lunch time this day.  It was so cool to see the people that work in the area to come down and sit around and eat their lunch on this beautiful beach.

Since this is pictures can you even imagine how beautiful the place is in person?  I hope so, it is incredible!

Lots of surfers were out this day.

Thanks for letting me share all the pictures, it helps me keep the memory alive of one of the most wonderful vacations I have ever been on.  Have a great evening and an even better Thursday.

Since I am still so caught up on my vacation you all are going to have to tell me to stop posting these pictures...let me know when your sick of seeing them.  These are a few more of when we first arrived. 

This is in the state of Queensland and a short distance from Maroochydore where we stayed the first week.  This is one of their turn-about's that is used in place of stop lights.  Great ideas in the smaller areas.

This was when we first arrived in Sydney and were going to Manley Beach via the ferry.  I'm sure you all know this is the Sydney Opera House *snicker*

I hope you can really tell just how beautiful this city is!

Same trip just moving away from the Opera House.

This is the main street when arriving at Manley Beach.  Some of the cutest shops, I hope you can tell by the architecture just how unique this place was.

More to come later...Xanga not being very cooperative tonight and taking forever to download a picture.

WOW....what a vacation.   I am still trying to get back into the swing of things so this will be a real quick short blog with a couple of pictures.  I have only downloaded 1 disk so far with over 326 pictures on it and I have 2 more to go.  I can't begin to tell you what a beautiful country Australia is...we both fell in love.  If we could retire there we would do so in a minute!  If you have the opportunity to go, you should.  No amount of pictures or words can begin to tell you what a place this is.

This was right out our penthouse to the beach in Maroochydore, close to Noosa Heads where we were until November 1st.

This is the beach...

This was our vacation location with our rental car....we were on the top floor by one of the blue panels.  Not only was the balcony on the front there was one on the back over the pool with a circular staircase up to the Jacuzzi.  Talk about a nice place!

This is another shot from the rear.

That's all for now....gotta get back into the swing of things and it's off to work for me tomorrow morning.

WOW....I can't believe it's almost here.  We have been planning this trip to Australia for over a year now and it's almost here!  Would you believe I don't have one thing packed.  Don't know if I should be handling it this way but thought I would just wait until Saturday morning to get everything in the suitcases.  We have a couple of lists going with everything we need to buy on one and everything we need to stop on the other.  So far this is working well.  The list's keep getting smaller with each passing day.  I usually stress out when we plan for trips and thought I would try it a little bit differently this time.  We are staying in Penthouse apartments in both Noosa Heads and Sydney so they both have washers and dryers in the apartments.  So at least we can do laundry once at each location and not have to worry about taking 2 weeks worth of under gear   I have purchased space bags that do not require a vacuum cleaner to take out the air.  You just roll them up and expel the air that way.  I'll let you know if they work out well or it was a waste of my money.

We leave Saturday from our home and go into San Francisco where our friends live.  We will be leaving our car in their garage so we don't have to worry about that.  Our friends have ordered a Limo to take us to the airport!  Our flight doesn't leave until 10:30 PM Saturday and we arrive in Sydney on Monday morning about 9:00 AM.  Then get on another plane for Noosa Heads.

Just in case this is my last post until we get back my thoughts and prayers will be with everyone.  I'll be back

A Pumpkin

A woman was asked by a coworker, "What is like to be a Christian?" The coworker replied, "It is like being a pumpkin, God picks you from the patch, brings you in, and washes all the dirt off of you.  Then he cuts off the top and scoops out all the yucky stuff.  He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, etc., and then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside of you to shine for the whole world to see."

This was passed on to me from another pumpkin.  I couldn't resist sharing with my Xanga friends

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Got the luggage out of the way today, we ended up buying Travel Pro, there was an additional 10% off and every penny helps.  It ended up being a little over a $100 that we saved though, so not so bad. 

The couple we are going with will be coming over tomorrow so we can work out any last minute arrangements.  We have to worry about what we will be doing with our car.  They live in San Francisco and we live in the burbs about 45 minutes outside of there.  Since we will be flying out of SF International we will be going to there place and since we are taking the "red eye" so to speak we shouldn't be running into much traffic.  I don't particularly want to take BART into the city with all our luggage you know.

My SIL came though some what.  Her husband will be staying here to take care of the house and kitty's.  I think we will be taking Shelly (Green Cheek Amazon Parrot) to a place to be boarded.  Not sure it would be good for her to stay here and have my nephew messing with her.  My SIL will come over on the weekends with him and stay here with her husband.  She is about 20 years old and is not used to kids.  I think we will feel better and she will be better off as well.  It will not be as traumatic on her as it would the kitty's to be boarded out.

Everyone have a great weekend the weather is beginning to cool off here so it will be comfortable around here for a change.

Geesh it's only 9 more days until we'll be in the air and on our way to Australia.  I'm beginning to get anxious now.  Too many things to do and it doesn't seem like there is enough time to get it all accomplished.  I'm guessing that's pretty normal but it sure does grate on the nerves.  I've started making a list of things that we need to make sure we are taking, things that have to get done here at the house, stopping the mail, the paper, the water delivery.  I don't think we ever think about all the stuff that goes on in our day to day lives until your going to be gone for 2 weeks.

I don't want to have to take the cats to the vets to be boarded as well as our parrot.  I'm really hoping that my SIL will come through and stay here.  She lives about 40 miles from here and she probably needs the break away from her husband.  At least the cats will still be in their own environment, do you think they will miss us? 

Since I have the PC back in operation I have finally taken a couple of shots of the "Pots". 

This is not a very good shot but this is the wall fountain that is on the side of the house (see the water running?)

I've got so much on my mind that I'm babbling, time to say good night and go to writing more stuff on the list.

Last blog I told you there was a couple of trolls at the Renaissance Faire.  I gotta tell you....they were weird.  But you make up your own mind

A little hard to make out but this one is relaxing in the trees.

This one is a little better, can you make out the fangs?

This one was on the ground feeding a couple of rats or mice.  Interesting that he never would stand up, moved around totally on his haunches.

This is almost the same picture but you can see a little more of this hand made enclosure for the animals.  There was little sticks tied all the way around with twine.

That is the (rat) on his shoulder and he was feeding him his sandwich.  I know it's hard to make out but those are fangs protruding from his mouth.  I gotta tell you....this was really different.  Something I have never seen at the Renaissance Faire before and not sure I would want to again.

Doing the Hump Dance Song

What a time I've had getting this PC back up and operating!  I know just enough about this stuff to get myself in trouble   But at least I have the new hard drive installed, XP on it, and both emails loaded.  Still have to install the old one and try to pull the old stuff off.  Now the challenge really begins  (later).

We went to the Renaissance Faire on Saturday as planned.  We were all very disappointed .  We have been going to this each year for over 20 years.  They moved it to a new location because the property they were using was sold for Condominiums.  This was way out in the boon docks 12 miles from a town, that is not what bothered us.  Anytime we can go on a adventure is fine with us but it was the layout.  In the old location the walk ways were very large, lots of people could mingle through the area.  This new location the isles were very slim, there was not enough room for people to walk so everyone was tripping over everyone else.  When the Queen's Parade came through the crowd, there wasn't enough room for people to move back out of the way.  Well, I guess we can always say we went and tried it once!

Here are a few pictures of the Faire.  Because of the crowd we didn't take as many as we usually do.

This actually was quite a resourceful costume, and not bad on the eyes either

You guys have to know I'm only 5' (pushing it) and I couldn't get high enough to get the full view, sorry guys .

This was a piece of the Queen's entourage but she turned just as I snapped the shot .

This is the shot this year of the Lechery and the Wench.

That's all for today, I have some very interesting shots of a couple of trolls that were there but will save them for next time.  They were so fascinating that the crowds around them we enormous.

I'm doing the Friday Happy Dance big time.  Got a call yesterday from Pottery World (the Sacramento Store) and they have my pots.  Seems as though they had not gotten through all their pallets and when they did low and behold there were some pots.  Anyway, the dear friend of ours that works in Sacramento is picking them up today and bringing them down tomorrow.  We are going to the Renaissance Faire tomorrow with them so this works out great. 

Received the hard drive from UPS today....don't get me started about that story, was supposed to be here yesterday (I paid for Next Day Air) that was yesterday.  But probably won't get to work on installing it until Sunday.  As soon as I can get it up and running I'll download the pictures of the pots from hell

Everyone have a great 3 day weekend and enjoy the extra time with your loved ones.

 

Still waiting on the hard drive to arrive, they just told me it should be here tomorrow....bummer!  Sometimes I've noticed that some folks leave recipes here so I thought you might like my recipe for a Sun Dried Tomato Hummus we use a lot.  It is very tasty with tortilla chips, is very nutritious with low fat.

Sun Dried Tomato Hummus

1/2 cup Julienne Cut Sun Dried Tomatoes

1  15-oz. can garbanzo beans, drained, reserving liquid

2  tablespoons tahini (sesame seed paste) optional, however, does not taste as good without it

1  tablespoon lemon juice

2  cloves garlic

1/4 teaspoon salt

Chop tomatoes in food processor.  Remove and set aside.  Place garbanzo beans, 3-4 tablespoons liquid from beans, tahini, lemon juice, garlic cloves and salt in food processor.  Whirl until very smooth.  Mix in tomatoes.

Serve with tortilla chips, raw vegetables, or spread on pita bread sandwiches. 

Very yummy and only takes a couple of minutes to prepare.  I always make a double recipe because it goes very fast when you have some company over.

Enjoy....