Anna's Aussie trip, Post 2: Shell & Simon's wedding

Continuing on from the previous post...

On Thursday afternoon (November 10th), I took a Greyhound bus from Dalby to Toowoomba (a one hour trip), where I was met at the bus depot by my high school best friend, Kat. We only had an hour and a half together, but we spent it chatting nonstop at a café and then back at her flat. (We forgot to take a photo, but click here to see the one we took almost exactly a year earlier!)

Then, Shelley and Zoe collected me from Kat's flat and the three of us headed to Shell's parents' farm near Gatton, half an hour away. Zoe was over from NZ for the wedding, and it was the first time I had met her - although we had both heard about each other from various mutual friends! Shell and I hadn't seen each other for a year, so it was wonderful to have that night together at Graham and Katrina's house to catch up properly before lots of other guests arrived the next day.

On Friday, various friends and relatives trickled in throughout the day. It was a fun and relaxing day of eating yummy food and catching up with good friends.

Delle and Shell
Sheralyn, Chany, Tim, Zoe and Shell
Wes, Lianna, me, Delle
Zoe trying to avoid catching an iPad addiction
That evening (the night before the wedding), about 20 of us met at the reception venue to set up the tables for the next day, practice our musical numbers, and have dinner.

At dinner, I passed my camera along the table and collected the following shots...
Valda (mother of the groom), Katrina and Graham (parents of the bride)
Tim and Chany
Zoe, Delle (sister of the bride) and Caleb (brother of the groom)
The groom
The bride
Lachlan (brother of the bride) and Sheralyn
Lianna
Lachlan
Wes
Alex (brother of the bride)
[In the early hours of the wedding day, insert here my experience with the stomach bug mentioned in the previous post. It does not need to be blogged about; suffice to say that I was very glad of some effective medicine that got me (albeit rather pale and faint) to the wedding I had travelled 12000kms for!]
And now for some photos of the wedding!
Shell and Simon's wedding ceremony was held at 3:30pm on Saturday, November 12th, at Spring Bluff Railway Station...

Shell, Graham, Lianna and Delle arriving




Lianna and Delle
Caleb and Lachlan



Graham and Katrina









Glen and Jo
And here are some photos from the reception at the Lockyer Valley Cultural Centre in Gatton...






At my table: Wes, Jo, Glen, Tim, Chany, Sheralyn, Jess



It was a thoroughly beautiful wedding - a classy vintage theme, touching vows, heartfelt and hilarious speeches, beautiful singing, delicious food, a lolly table, and departure by plane (see above). Congratulations Shell and Simon!!
The next evening, after having spent three nights at Graham and Katrina's, I headed back to Brisbane with Delle, and stayed Sunday night at her place. I spent Monday hanging out in her flat while she went to work, and that evening we had Red Rooster for dinner before she dropped me at the airport for my flight to Perth to spend six days with my parents.


To be continued!

Anna's Aussie trip, Post 1: Visiting family

At almost midnight on Saturday, November 5th, I boarded my Air Canada flight to Sydney... bound for sunshine, loved ones, and Simon and Shell's wedding.

I landed in Sydney around 9:30am on Monday, November 7th, missed my connecting Qantas flight to Brisbane due to too tight a transfer margin, was put on another flight leaving one hour later, and as a result happened to run into our friends Vic and Joan at the gate! They live 40 minutes from us in Canada, and I hadn't known they were visiting Australia for 2 months, so it was a very pleasant surprise! We spent the rest of the time at the gate catching up on each other's news, and flew to Brisbane on the same flight.




Jim and Jenny (Ben's parents) met me at Brisbane airport, having been notified of my delayed arrival time thanks to a Skype call from Canada! We headed straight to Ben's sister Merity's place for a Red Rooster lunch.


The afternoon was spent playing with my nephew Leo, and cuddling my nephew Archer (whom I was meeting for the first time).




After Fraser (Merity's hubby) got home from work, we had a yummy dinner of burritos and then headed to Jim and Jenny's place, where I stayed the night.

The next morning, Tuesday, I was up bright and early to catch a Greyhound bus to Dalby (3 hours away), where I planned to spend one night with my grandparents and one night with my aunt and uncle and two little cousins.




This is what the countryside looks like where I grew up...


My uncle Owen met me off the bus in Dalby, and we went to Red Rooster for lunch. This wasn't just any old Red Rooster, though - it was the site of my first (and still longest held) job! I even had a chat with two old workmates.


We also went for a walk down Dalby's main street... which has been considerably "beautified", and had a 40-store shopping centre added to it since I last walked down it! I managed to catch up with an old school friend in the shop he now owns, run into two other friends out shopping with their baby girls, and leave a note for another school friend while she was dealing with a client at her work. Ah, small towns!

As to my accommodation plans, I ended up spending both nights with my grandparents due to my littlest cousin catching a tummy bug and ending up in hospital. He was kind enough to share the bug with his sister, parents, grandparents and me, though!

My two days on my grandparents' farm involved:

Lots of visits to the chook pen with Grandma and my cousin Lara...

Playing with the dogs, Cassie and Topaz...



Mealtimes and smoko...






...And lots of wandering around the farm just reminiscing about the many precious childhood memories made there.

On Thursday afternoon, before Grandma took me to the Greyhound bus that would transport me to Toowoomba (1 hour away) for the wedding weekend, I had a brief visit with my aunt Philippa and baby cousin Jarvis in the hospital. The poor little chap showed limited enthusiasm for meeting his big first cousin for the first time, and a bit over a day later I would come to appreciate (rather more than I would have liked to) how he felt!

Then, it was onto the bus and off to Toowoomba!

Where's Anna?

Just to keep you in the loop, dear reader... in a few days' time I will be on my way to Australia! Ben had his turn in September for his uni prac subjects, and now I am going for my good friend Shelley's wedding. I'm very excited to see my friends and family again, tuck into some lamingtons and Red Rooster, and soak up the sunshine (in a sun-smart manner, of course)!

Below is a map showing the main places I will be visiting during my whirlwind, 15-day trip...

Check back here in a few weeks to read all about it!