Our "Rainbow Bay" Holiday

We've just returned from such an amazing, wonderful adventure! First, we enjoyed a MUCH needed holiday break at beautiful Rainbow Bay on the Gold Coast. The people who were in the unit we'd booked prior to our arrival had requested to stay an extra few days, so we were moved to a different unit from the one we'd booked. As we walked in to the unit, we just kept walking.... and walking.... and walking! There were absolutely massive, beautiful living spaces including two kitchens, plus there were 4 bedrooms & 3 bathrooms, and all up there was pretty much 360 degree views since we had the entire floor to ourselves!!! We quickly checked to make sure that we were in the right unit, and were delighted to find out we were - for no extra cost! What a blessing! After having so much stress & busyness over the past few months, with Geoff working multiple jobs and studying his masters at the same time, it was such a blessing to be upgraded to such a beautiful place. And for no extra money!

Inside looking out:

I'm so cool, man! :)

How cool is the sky in the background - it's in two halves, and top bit looks like ripples in the sand!

A progression of photos showing about half of the view of the ocean from different windows in the unit (beautiful!). I wish I could have taken a video from one side all the way around to the back of the unit - a full 360 degrees!

On most days, I was treated to a bit of a performance by whales on their journey south.

One day Geoff took D & M to Australia Zoo, mostly because of M's absolute passion for all things "animal" and also because of the hero status she ascribes to Bindi Irwin:

Our other big day out was when we all went to Movie World (half price tickets made it even more awesome!).

Miss M got to pose for a photo with the gang from Scooby Doo, which was a huge buzz for her:

And she was QUITE the daredevil on the dodgems!

We had some fun trying to get the camera working in the dimly lit "big kid" dodgem ride, with the bright lights on the cars. We tried adjusting the shutter speed, using the flash & no flash, and adjusting the ISO, but in the end decided there is still lots to learn about our new 2nd hand digital SLR camera! Regardless, we all decided the photos were actually pretty cool! This is Mr T - obviously going WAY too fast for the camera LOL.

"I'm SOOOOO tired, PLEEEEASE can you carry me??" :) (Such lovely big brothers)

D got to go up the front and be a volunteer in making a film at the "Hollywood Stunt Driver" show

(He's on the left towards the back, with the black, red and white shirt on)

It was such an entertaining, funny show - we all had an absolute blast. Check out the car split into 2 halves by the bike!

Here, the funny character in the show proves that he actually CAN drive a car (probably the best stunt driver there!) when he ended up driving over the top of the rooves, and into a building, which immediately burst into flames!

And in the end it all went off with a big bang! The kids all had different favourite rides, which, of course, had to be ridden over and over and over again! I'm sure I got queasy before anyone else - and I only went on the little kid stuff LOL!

FUN ON THE ROAD:

Miss M having fun on a playground ride at the caravan park at Nambucca Heads. Look at that HEAD of hair!!

T learning some tricks on the Z-Flex:

Skater Chick!

What a handsome lad - otherwise known as the one who seems to hate having his photo taken (hence why there's not very many photos of him on here!)

Words cannot possibly express the fun that was had this night!!....... :)

SURFING

One of the big reasons we discovered beautiful Rainbow Bay was because T & B knew it was a great spot to surf, with about 3 or 4 awesome breaks all within easy walking distance (and all VERY close to our awesome unit!). But alas, the swell was not our friend, and for our ENTIRE holiday of 2 weeks there was barely a wave in sight. Seriously, on most days it was like Pacific Lake, not Pacific Ocean! Anyway, out of sheer determination, the boys did attempt to catch a few little waves on most days. Here they are at D-Bar (see the HUGE waves!!):

Synchronised Surfing :)

Did you see those HUGE waves??

So there you have a very LONG blog post outlining a little bit of our holiday to the Gold Coast, and some of the fun we had along the way. We felt very blessed and privileged to have such a wonderful holiday in such a gorgeous part of the world.

A fantastic opportunity to reconnect as a family in the midst of a hectic crazy year!

Stay tuned for the 2nd installment, about our trip to Tallebudgera for the inaugural Australian Unschooling Conference!