Holiday Waffle

Check out the new 'Soul' building at Surfers Paradise. 

It's a beauty. 

I took this photo on my run yesterday. We're down the coast for the school holidays. The weather is beautiful and the temperature is much cooler than in the height of the summer heat, at Christmas time.

This photo is rather deceiving. Queensland's tallest building, the Q1, is that building to the left of Soul, with the spire. It's over 320m tall and Soul is only 240m high.

We're staying in a smaller hotel.... near the ones I used to think were so tall in the 70's as a kid. I remember the Apollo, the Chateau and the Iluka were the 3 skyscrapers on the Surfer's foreshore in the 70's. You could see them for miles. How things have changed. 

We had rather an exciting afternoon when we stumbled upon the world's best lolly shop....

.... and we finished the day lying on the floor of our hotel last night, chins in hands, watching the night begin from our floor to ceiling windows. We saw what people were watching on TV in their apartments, people having parties on their balconies, we saw the reverse bungy jump in action and even a fight down in the main street.

It's interesting talking to real estate agents down here... as you do. The market down here has dropped 50% since the peak in 2008. There are some bargains to be had. I was told a story about the one million dollar pre-sales, in one of these big beauties, that were valued down to 400K by the time the new owners had to settle the contract at the original contract price, which was way above valuation. Ouch.

So we're chilling out. This last school term seemed exceptionally long! We needed this holiday. Especially my big son. He worked super hard last term. His head was never out of a book. He got good grades... good boy. He's going on the Japan school trip at the end of Term 3. He has never gotten below an A+ in Japanese over the past 5 years. He loves it. I promised that he could go to Japan if he made more of an effort speaking Japanese in sushi trains and Japanese restaurants. I said I would like to hear what I have paying for all these years. He's now singing like a (Japanese) canary! 

We had a fabulous Japanese meal last night in a little restaurant in Surfers. Big son had the Japanese dictionary out and was teaching me all about verbs and possession. Little one is a lot more out there with his Japanese and says every word he knows in the one sentence.

My boys are growing up too fast. I am cherishing every single moment with them.

So, I'm skipping between Brissie and the coast all week for appointments and orders... and of course orchestra practice tonight. String tutorials. Bit scared. Funny, I used to stand out the front of my bushband for 19 years playing solo violin.. and now in a big orchestra again, I feel so exposed! Doesn't help that they are all violin teachers... and that they play every day.... well. 

I'm getting there. 

The bathroom in the new house. Honestly, it's the best bit.

Still hoping nothing stops me from making it mine!

Still doing due diligence on the house block too. Hoping not to find anything scary and impossible to deal with. I have until Thursday and then I go unconditional. Also scary.

Healthy fear all round.

Happy Monday!