Bowen

Our trip to Bowen was a bit more than we could chew. Actually, scratch that, it was like biting into a juicy sweet Pineapple but actually getting a fresh lemon. Both are good but you definitely were not expecting your pineapple to be quite so sour. With a little sugar though it was still a delicious lemon!
We packed up and left around 3 in the afternoon Friday the 2nd, just after Sky got out of school.

This guy was hangin around the park.

I am trying to learn to take pictures more often but I am still lacking so I don't have a picture of our camp site but, picture this in your head if you would. our reservations were at a site we  had never been at before because this was a first, camping out at Bowen. It was a jam packed caravan park with a load a of old fogies just living there all winter from southern Australia where it is much cooler this time of year. They all were besties who knew each other from the countless other winters together. We are pretty sure we were the only tent in the whole place, everyone else was in there luxury caravans. I guess the lady at the desk saves the best spots for her regulars so we were left with this space squashed in an odd corner with a park light right over the top of our tent. It was an excellent light it gave its all, working to its full capacity and never held back. for one second. . . . ever. . . all. night. long. 

 In the morning, when we were quite sure the sun had risen, Sky woke me up and asked me to go to the bathroom with her so I figured I might as well get up. However when I walked outside it was still pitch black around our glowing tent! Thanks to that determined little light none of us were ever sure when it was morning outside and as a result Sky and Rain both woke up at 5 am assuming the sun was up. Sigh, I never thought letting your light so shine could bug me so much.

We were up so early that we walked over to the beach and decided to watch the sunrise.

Sky and I shell seared in low tide water and found super cool shells! We may have gotten our PJs a bit wet in the process but it was well worth it. 

we headed back to camp for breakfast in the caravan cooking area. Sky thought it was her own personal jungle gym.

In order to fully appreciate the beach all day long we packed up camp early and  Davey found this little guy. I wonder if tree frogs work the same as kissing normal frogs? or would I have ended up with a Sloth prince or something, or maybe because I am in Australia it would be an Aboriginal, didgeridoo playin prince. . . neither seemed very appealing so I decided to leave it a mystery. 

after packing up everyone was rear-en to got to the water!

Davey Sky and I jumped in almost right when we got there! The water was so clear and beautiful! the sun was out and it was looking like a promising day to be at the beach. 15 minutes later Sky and I decided to go Rock hoping around the Bay. the rocks went put in the ocean so it was fun to see how far out you could make it. Nothing was very deep around the rocks though. There were barnacles and crustasion on ever rock and the farthest ones were almost completely covered on all sides. We made it out all the way out and just as we started coming back Sky slipped on a rock and sliced her foot on a barnacle! It was quite deep and I didnt want her walking around on it I walked back close enough to flag down Davey and helped him get her back the rest of the way! 

Sky was taken to the hospital and got 5 stitches. After that we decided to come back home because Sky wouldnt be have much fun when the pain mad wore off.

She was a good sport.

On our way home I was blessed with quite a treat.

A picture with the worlds largest mango! It is in the middle of nowhere and cost $30,000 to make! But don't worry because they only went $60,000 over budget and ended up paying $90,000 for it instead.

Then we found a great big fake pumpkin so we had to tourist that puppy up as well! 

So the trip wasn't quite what we expected, but we can add it to the list of adventures and I can check a few wacky tourist spots off my list. I think the pros well outweighed the cons and even some of the cons make good enough stories to maybe be thought of as a pro one day.

Pieca Pizza

Sorry I am a bit late on this one but I have had a lack in bogging motivation.

For an entire week we decided to try making a different kind of pizza every night!  We started on the 21st

SUNDAY

The delicious Pineapple and ham pizza with extra cheese and hold the tomatoes on one side. We decided to begin the week with a classic and then we could get really crazy a bit later

22nd
MONDAY

BBQ With bacon, fried Shrooms, and caramelized onions. scrrrrrumpcious.

23rd

TUESDAY

Happy Birthday to Sum! We celebrated with the all time best pizza discovered in history  the classic, bacon, spinach, artichoke, with white sauce. Yesss! One more slice please!

TUESDAY NIGHT

We were all really in the spirit of things and summer came up with a brilliant Idea to have a pizza dessert instead of the typical cake and Ice cream. the delicacy has a sugar cookie base with cream cheese, fresh whipped cream, and powdered sugar spread and topped with the finest kiwis and strawberries around! It was so fantastic, just writing about it is making my mouth water for more!

24th

WEDNESDAY

the first BBQ was so delish that we went for a round 2 BBQ. this one had chicken, bacon, shrooms and Davey went a bit crazy and added tomatoes for a change. Could have done without the tomatoes but still a lovely pizza!

25th

THURSDAY

Tonight was an Ollie Favorite with nothing but veggies. black and green olives, red Capo peppers, mushrooms and red sauce. Gotta love the veggie pizza! I absolutely love having the Green olives on there they give the pizza that special little Zing we all want on our designated pizzas.

26th

FRIDAY

. . . .The Breakfast Pizza (still ate for dinner) this oddity had a tomato spread, bacon, potatoe, Cheese, of coarse, and the egg cracked on top. . . . . . I would definitely eat another breakfast pizza with extra potato but please HOLD THE EGG.

27th
SATURDAY
well saturday was supposed to be the intriguing  seafood pizza but because of some over anxious asians and a sale on chicken we broke the pizza streak for a day and had roasted chicken with mashed potatoes. still delicious, just not pizza.

28th
SUNDAY

Sunday was the everything left over day. Pineapple, black olives,  capos, mushrooms, onions, and Davey put some jalapenos on his side. We REALLY decided to just get rid of  ALL the toppings and made two pizzas this day so that we had left over pizza for lunch multiple days after. . . .

Needles to say we haven,t made a pizza sense because we had it soo much. Sky even said she didnt eat the piece in her lunch because she was so sick of pizza.

I got the best homemade bread instruction ever though  from Summ and Davo, and I cant wait to get back down to school and give it a whirl! Just call me the Pizza Queen from here on out.

A TREEmendous Find

Treemendous find! IT IS ALL ONE TREE!!!! Roots just fall from branches like there is no tomorrow (top right of this picture), and then they plant and thicken into this!

 Yeah ,this Tree is a thing strait out of my best dreams!

 Perhaps one day, when I am loaded, I will build a house up inside one of these puppies.

 Can you imagine being as tall as a fire hydrant and walking through this jungle of a tree. . . so cool

 YES!

 Wow such an awesome tree that we found! ; D 

 We were cool before we found this gorgeous specimen but now there is no words to describe us.

Reef Haych Q

On the thirteenth the Olsens took me to the Reef HQ in Townsville. It has a super huge coral reef as its main exhibit with fishes and sharks and a great big green sea turtle!

Davey, Rain and Sky.

Lion Fish. . . Somehow it is the only picture I got of a fish.

 We got to see some leopard sharks and their infants. Fun fact that I learned, Saw fish are actually in the Ray family and we saw one one of them too. 

 For those of you a bit confused she is cuddling with one of there big sharks. . . . . poor thing was taking a nap before she mauled it.

Trying to get a good picture with a shark was pretty amusing because, as a general rule they have to keep moving around or they suffocate.

I got to touch a star fish and watch them feed the little baby leopard sharks! 

 They even let us go into there turtle hospital where they revive injured or sick sea turtles and release them back into the wild! 

 This poor thing got hit by a boat propeller. All the white you see there is bone. I was also unaware that there was much bone at all in turtle shells, let alone this much. It does make sense however.

 This fella has floating syndrome. It just so happens that most of the turtles there had that in addition to whatever else they had. Floating Syn. happens when the turtle eats something, a plastic bag for example, that blocks up their digestive track. Or if they get a punctured or infected lung from being hit by a boat or ingesting pollution. Not good. For real people would you put your trash in the Bin! They are everywhere. I'm not even asking you to recycle just to put your Garbage in a Garbage Can. On second thought, so long as there is anyone doing things I say, you should just recycle.

 In other news bio-luminescent Fish are the height of cool fish in the sea. And if anyone is wondering I live on edge every time I swim in the ocean here, what with box jellies and Irukandji haunting in every shadow. It is amazing we aren't all dead. 

 If anyone is looking for a deep sea Hippie I know a couple

 Little fresh water turtles

 CLOWN FISH TANK!  The big one in the middle is actually just me.

Trouble Fish

If I learned anything on this trip it is that when I die and am creating awesome things like God, I am going to Build a Library with every other wall as an Aquarium, oh and night light that are purely Bioluminescent fish tanks! And it will definitely have an Aquarium Tunnel because those are the best thing ever!!!