DAYS 185 TO DAY 193 - A WEEK CATCHING UP WITH FAMILY AND PARENTS......

Back in Queensland and catching up with friends and family.
Our very good friends, the Vanderduys are home from PNG and living in Brisbane at the moment so it was good to organise a catch up with them whilst all their kids were home...

Their kids are almost like our grandchildren too.  They were our practice run at grandparenting and we love them to bits, so it was good to catch up with them again,
Sarah and the children decided to come over for a visit with us.  We headed over to Redcliffe to visit them just after breakfast and spent a wonderful day with them catching up....

In the afternoon we decided to take the kids down to Settlement Cove in Redcliffe for a swim.  It is such a lovely area close to the beach.  

Just as we arrived in the carpark at the Cove, the clutch in the car went... It just stuck to the floor of the car and we couldn't change the gears at all.  Good thing we have top cover with RACQ.  A phone call to them had them coming out to rescue us.  They were a good hour and a half away, so that didn't worry us as we had a car park there, so just decided to take the kids for their swim and come back to the car when they rang us to let us know they were there...

The kids enjoyed their swim, and as they took their bikes, also enjoyed a bit of a bike ride  before it was time for us to meet the RACQ.  

Max on his balance bike.....

Willow enjoying her bike ride.....

 There were quite a few south sea islander families down on the waterfront and they were enjoying doing a lot of their cultural dances for those that were interested in watching... They had drawn qite a crowd and we stood and watched them for some time....

Traditional dancing...

 We received a call from the RACQ as we were watching the dancing so we all headed back to the car.  We beet them back which was great cause it allowed us to get a couple of photos of us all together... Reuben was heading back to Newcastle the following day, so it was good to have everyone in the photo.  It has been quite a while since we have all been together and managed a bit family photo...

  Max enjoyed walking and  balancing along the fence.... whilst Steve was organising the car to be put on the back of the tow truck....

 Whilst we were keep the kids busy, the car was loaded onto the back of the tow truck...

 Max was super excited to see the big truck, he was even more excited about going for a ride in the big truck...We joked about the expense it cost us just to take Max for a ride in a big truck....

Someone is super happy about going for a ride in the big truck....

 It was a 57km ride home, and we had 24 hours to find someone to fix our car, and we would be able to get an extra tow to take the car to be repaired.  We were also entitled to a hire car whilst our car was being repaired and the only vehicles we had available to us was either a van or a ute....

In the end Steve decided to go for the Ute, as Sarah had a fair bit of stuff that she wanted to take to the dump and we had planned on hiring a trailer for the day, so when we were able to get the Ute, we decided to do a little yard work around Sarah's place the following day, so that we could take it all to the dump whilst we had the ute....

Max was in his element helping Poppy and Mummy clean up the yard

 They removed a lot of vegetation in the front yard, and little Max was in his element out their helping to clean it all up.  

Meanwhile whilst the others worked out in the yard,  Willow went through all the post cards wehad sent her and was sharing with me her favourite ones...

Sharing her post cards with me..... She had lots of favourites...

After morning tea,  Willow was out there helping as well... The kids loved being outdoors and even Willow got in the act and was helping put the rubbish in the back of the Ute....

 They really did accomplish quite a lot for a busy day in the garden....
Whist Steve and Sarah took the Ute to the dump.... Max had a treat as a bit of a reward for all his hard work helping his Mummy in the Garden.....

Enjoying a sweet treat for afternoon tea...

 Mean while these guys were at the dump getting rid of all of this..

 We received out car back the following day, so then had to take the rental back.  We had a pretty quite weekend just hanging around the house with Sarah and Colin and the kids.  

On Monday we took off heading to the Sunshine Coast,  we had to have our caravan at the repair centre to have our awning replaced as it got torn whilst we were in Whyalla.  We had to hang around a few extra days until the repairers came back from their summer break...

It was good to see my Dad again after having not seen him since our youngest daughters wedding back in May of 2017.  

My good friend Barb also caught up with us whilst we were at Dad's.  John and Barb had enjoyed quite a bit of our holiday with us until they did their gearbox in back in Geraldton in Western Australia, which meant they had to cut their holiday short and head home to Queensland.   So thankful that we got to do this marvelous holidays with such close friends.  It's the stuff that dreams are made of and I am so thankful that in our case it was a dream come true. 

Sarah and the children arrived Monday night to spend the night with us, as they were traveling to Rockhampton to bring our car back and also spend a week with us.  Our plan was to pick up our caravan first thing in the morning and head back to Rocky with a brief lunch stop in Bundy on our way through...

It was good to give the kids a bit of a break, and I alternated between traveling with Steve and traveling with Sarah.  We stopped again in Mirriam Vale for a quick snack and toilet break, and the kids had a lovely play in the playground there...

 It was almost 10pm at night by the time we arrived home...
Gone for six months and arriving home after dark....
No unpacking done tonight....
So good to be home.....