I may or may not be getting sick..

...let's just hope that it's the second part of that statement. It may be just because I was in the sun for most of the earlier part of the day. who knows. My day started out with my alarm waking me up at 8 am and Deanna texting pretty much at the exact same time. So I got up to see what time we were going to the river, but no one was up yet so I decided to go back to bed for 15 more minutes. The second time I got up was more successful because Julie and Mark (my host parents) were up and eating "brekky". Our plan for the morning was to go out to the river on the boat for jet skiing (not for me) and tubing (definitely for me), we get to the river and it's closed because there is a wake boarding competition. I was actually surprised that the river was opened anyways because it is still so flooded, but needless to say, we did not go out on the river. Julie walked Deanna, Matt (the other uni student who is staying at our house) and me around the area of the river we were already at and they had the nicest public FREE pool that I've ever seen! (So Deanna and I are planning to find out way there tomorrow on bikes), and then everyone decided we should go to the island because we already had to boat and everything. We did have to run back to the house though to get the stinger suits...noooo getting stung for me!

We finally made it to the boat access place to put the boat in the water and as soon as we were on the water we found out how choppy it was. soooooo choppy. apparently winds that are 15 to 20 knots are quite high. who knew? well, Mark and Sam (the son here) knew but Julie kept telling them it would be alright if we went. ha! well it was alright, just pretty rough.

When we go to Maggie Island (Magnetic Island) we went to Horseshoe Bay which is where they usually like to take the boat we had morning tea then Mark, Julie, and Sam all went water skiing and knee boarding (Matt tried that too), and Deanna and I hung out on the beach (in the shade) until it was our turn. Then we got to go tubing again! It's quite fun, and quite tiring. My muscles at the inside of my elbows always get sore because I hold on so tight. After all of those shenanigans, we had lunch at the fish and chips shop up the road, except they were out of fish..which was fine with me because I don't like fish. I had my usual chicken and avocado sandwich (it's really a good thing I started liking avocado right before I came to Australia).

Then the boating adventure started again...Julie told Mark to go the opposite way around the island because maybe it would be less choppy that way...it definitely was not. Deanna, Matt, and I were all sitting on the bench in the back of the boat, and we were every now and then getting sprayed by some water which was kind of silly, but then all of the sudden the waves became HUGE and every single bit of me was wet. Julie gave Deanna and me towels to put over our faces because the spray was so bad and it's salt water so it stings pretty well. It was really quite hilarious. Everyone was pretty soaked, but Deanna had it the worst and then I came in second. I'll put up pictures when I can get them from Deanna. Then I fell asleep on the way home from the boat dock and I'm pretty sure everyone else did, well maybe not.

I think there is a gecko living outside of my window, it's nice, I really enjoy their chirping. There's definitely a gecko living in the kitchen at my house here, and I've tried to catch it, but it just runs behind the cabinets. I think it knows how lucky we are to live somewhere with AC.

Oh yea...about the family I'm living with her:
-Mark and Julie are the parents..Mark does something with selling air conditioners (I'm quite lucky for that!) and Julie works with deaf children. She always comes home and tells me stories about her deaf babies.
-Tash is 17 and she just started uni this past week. She usually is at work or out with her friends but she really nice, and she gives me rides when she can!
-Sam is going to turn 16 this month and he's a junior in highschool and works at Blockbuster so we get lots of free movies to watch!
-Carly is 19, but I don't really know her because she lives in an apartment with her boyfriend.
-Matt isn't part of their family, but he's the other uni student living here. He's from somewhere near Cairnes and he's only 16 but he skipped some grades in high school or something like that.

Oh!! yesterday I had bad luck with the buses because they were being stupid, and bad luck with walking because I got gross new blisters, BUT I had great luck with seeing animals! I saw a kookaburra!, lorikeets (which are beautiful birds that are green, purple, yellow, red, and sometimes other colors), and THREE wallabies! (that was right before the bus driver shook his head at my when he drove right by me and the busstop--I wasn't very happy about that ugg). I saw all of them on my campus! It was pretty neat. Oh, and I saw my gecko friend in the kitchen.

Just in case you didn't realize it, there are NOT 29 days in this February that just past. I had a slight mix up with that last night when I was talking to Hawke, so I just wanted to make sure no one had the same problem :)

Also, did you know I've been gone an entire month? It's so weird to me, it doesn't feel really like I've been gone that long, but then I think back at all of the things I've already done..Melbourne, Darwin, Kakadu, Litchfield, and being in Townsville for two weeks already, it's really crazy. And I also think back to how much I've been missing people and I can really tell I've been gone for a long time too.

I really do miss all of you, but I'm sure all of you know it. I don't think about it all of the time, probably because I would go crazy if I did and also just because there is so many new things going on around me, but I do really really miss all of you.

I have to clean my room tomorrow, I won't let it get like it gets at home, I won't I won't. You know how my floor usually is at home? that's just kind of like what my bed is right now, except maybe a fourth of the stuff, but as some of you know that is still quite a lot. I've just been pushing it to one side of my bed so I can sleep on the other half.

oh dear, this post is getting quite lengthy, I suppose I'll leave it at that for now. lovelovelove!



oh!!! I found a sand dollar today!! it's just a baby one and I love it!