Day 4 – Saturday, October 25th

The theme for the day was R&R……Rest and Reminiscing!!!!

We sadly left our five start accommodation this morning, but moved into the seven star home of Richard and Marilyn Wray. We spent most of the day eating and talking….a great combination. It has been great fun to catch up on our families, especially since all of our “small” children have now grown up and have lives of their own.

In order to get a little bit of exercise, we drove back to Moreton Bay and had a fun time walking along the beach and watching the little kids play in the sand and ocean. It was also nice to walk along some of the streets and see the houses that have either been refurbished or built in the classic old Australian architecture style. It was also good to see the gum trees again, although we are not used to them being along a beach.

Our bird sighting of the day was a wonderful, LOUD group of Sulphur Crested Cockatoos that came flying over the house. We have missed that sound!!!

At 4:00, we drove to Richard’s office where we met up with Greg and Marie Skerman, more friends from the Canberra Days who now live in Toowoomba, a country town about 2 hours from Brisbane. Marie had come with friends for the craft show and Greg drove down later to join us for dinner. Once again, there was a lot of laughing and reminiscing about the good old Canberra Days. Both of these couples left Canberra within a year of us leaving Australia. They said that it just wasn’t the same without the YANKS!!!

Marie made us feel really good when she said that for many years their traditional Sunday lunch were salad sandwiches (sandwiches with lettuce and tomato) and potato chips….something that they had learned from the Arnold’s.

My favorite comment of the night was by Greg, who while trying to describe someone that we had known from the church said “they were a young couple”…..and then paused and said “of course we were ALL young back then”.

We had dinner at a wonderful Greek restaurant, joined by Richard and Marilyn’s son Mike. The food was excellent….starting with dips with flat bread and also a great fried cheese, followed by the biggest plates of food that I have ever seen. Only Mike (the youngest among us) was able to clean his plate. I had cabbage rolls and vegies and Michael had a Lamb Shank with vegies.

Afterwards, we went to a coffee shop called Three Monkeys which reminded us of a very LARGE Jittery Joes in Athens. We all sat on the outdoor patio under the trees and laughed and laughed. It was a great evening.