Penney For Your Thoughts!: travel

Duane won a carton of Corona through some sort of boy bet. I'm not sure of specifics, but it had something to do with "my football team being better than your", a typical pissing contest between men/boys.

I've had my ~~years~~ days of beer drinking and haven't had one for a long time, but decided it might be a nice complement to the seafood marinara pasta that I'd made for dinner. Duane served it up with the obligatory wedge of lime shoved in the neck. I took a sip........and that's when it hit me.

I NEED TO TRAVEL

One taste of that sweet cerveza and I was immediately reminiscent of my travelling days. Sipping corona's on the beach of Mexico, walking through a late night summer thunderstorm after a night out at the nightclubs of Cabo San Lucas, jumping out of a plane in Canada, standing at the top of the Canadian Rockies, visiting a million temples in Japan, walking down the cobblestone street of Old Montreal, dancing in the street as I enjoyed my very first snow fall in Banff. The world is such a wondrous and amazing place and I want to discover as much of it as I can.

I want to spend chunks of time really exploring a country/place, not just quick little touristy visits. I'm also toying with the idea of spending a year in another country. Once I'm a fully registered Midwife (OMG, I can't believe that I'm on the way to that!!!), there are many countries that I can work in. Canada being one. Duane and I have talked about spending a year there. I spent a year back in my youth (gosh, now I feel old - I have youth), and have a wonderful friend living there. It would be a great base for lots of travel, and would give the kids a taste of another country without the daunting task of learning another language.

I love my life right now. I just know that once the kids are older, I can't wait to take them around the world and open there eyes to the amazing planet we live on. Money is the only thing that will stop us, but even for that we have a plan. Duane and I have worked out that we can pay our home loan off in 5 years. So, by the time Grace is 10, which we agree is a perfect age to travel, we should be mortgage free! It means we have to somehow come up with an extra $300 per week to do it, which sounds doable - I think. I know that we wont be able to start immediately, but I'm hoping that next year I can maybe get an assistant nursing position and maybe fit in a few shifts every week. I'm also thinking maybe over the holidays I can pick up some work, then just dump all that on the mortgage.

So, next year we have decided to start the project. It will probably take longer, but that's our plan for now. We want to be paying the last payment on our mortgage by the end of 2016. I can't imagine how that will feel. Imagine not having to pay a mortgage EVER AGAIN!!! Being able to save all that money instead and use it on much better things than just interest! The hardest bit in all this will be refraining from wanting to get a bigger and better house. Duane and I often talk about our "dream" home, complete with acreage and ensuite. However, we both have agreed that to be in our house and mortgage free would make us happier than extra land and a bigger/newer house.

One thing that may have to be sacrificed though is another baby. Having a 3rd would mean me out of the workforce longer and not being able to pay the house off as fast as we want to. I may be ok with it too. Unless I think of tiny little wondersuits - then I'm a mess. But right now, I'm thinking about making the best life for the family I have here. If I am blessed with another, we'll work around it and everything will be fine too.

Well we are all home safe (just!) from our week long sojourn to the beautiful Brunswick Heads. We hired a large beach house with a quiet surf beach to the front, river out the back and little kids swimming bay a short stroll away. It was a perfect location, with plenty to occupy everyone.
The house was large enough to fit everyone in comfortably, a huge deck for the kids to run amok on and all the modern day mod-cons so we weren't "roughing" it. Perfect.

Out of the 7 days we had only nice beach weather for 4 of them. The other 3 were very dreary and rain filled. There was constant news updates about possible flash flooding and heavy rain fall, meaning lots of calls from the mil to see if we needed "rescuing" or not (she's a little over dramatic!) Those days SUCKED though, being stuck in a house with limited resources to amuse the kids.

The first few days were spent at the beach having an awesome time. There was lots of paddling in the clear shallow water and plenty of extravegant sand castle building. I'm sure that some of them would have passed strict council approval - they were THAT awesome. The kids wore them self out, allowing everyone to head back to the house for lunch and afternoon sleeps. The afternoons were once again spent at the beach, with sweet little kids running around naked or in their undies. We figured that since it was after 4pm and all swimming gear was still wet and sandy from the morning session, we'd let the kidlets gets their daily dose of Vitamin D. So cute to watch the kids frolick about al nudie rudie! Plenty of bare bottoms to get my daily smack quota!

On the first day of rain the women made an executive decision to leave the men in charge of the offspring whilst we headed in for a lesuirly day at Byron Bay. Sounds nice hey? Well Byron isn't all that pretty on a grey, dull pissing down with rain day. There is no where to go except dodging in and out of very cool shops or sitting around sipping organic skinny chai lattes. Well after getting absolutely saturated with option 1, we decided to join the high flying cafe society and do a bit of cafe hopping.

A beautiful waft of Indian Curry was in the air, but as much as we tried to hunt down where it was coming from, it couldn't be found. We settled on an old favourite where we knew we wouldn't be disappointed. We chatted whilst stuffing our faces on over-sized vegie quiches, gigantic BLT's and huge servings of toasted turkish bread. It was all so yummy and had us groaning from being so full. After that we headed for a stroll around, but soon enough the pregnancy moaning started. "My feet hurt"......"The baaaabbbbyyyy wants desert" "Blah, blah blah" I'm kidding and anyway, I barely needed any convincing that dessert was a good and viable option!

We found a beautiful little cafe, with a very arrogant French waiter, right on the main beach at Byron. Pity the weather was so bad that we couldn't even enjoy the view, let alone see the water through all the rainfall. So again we sat and chatted, this time over chai Latte's, sticky date pudding and the most boring muffin in the history of muffins.

So by now we were completely soaked, but not uncomfortable enough to actually want to return to the husbands and kids. Hell no, there were better things to do. So we headed to the movies - sandy mexican rug and all. We watched Slumdog millionaire, which was a little depressing at times but overall a good watch. Could have done without the frequent wafts of the smelly chemist shoes though. Trudy was on to it and offered some spray deodorant, which after pissing ourself laughing for ages, we got to enjoy the chemical & synthetic aroma. (Ok, we didn't just tell some random that she smelt, it was a "had to be there joke!")

It seems that the boys coped quite well being cooped up in the house with the kids. Apparently the adults had fun playing indoor cricket whilst the kids watched. Kids amusing kids.

The next day was just a little overcast, not enough to keep us from the beach. The kids all had a blast paddling in the shallow water and taking turns on being dragged through the white wash on the body board. I decided to revisit my youth and have a try again at surfing. Last time I tried I took out my front tooth on a dirty great big malibu board, I was hoping this time would be less dramatic. Loic pushed me on to a few waves, I never got to stand but it was still a blast. Came out of it teeth intact, so that's a bonus.

Chelse came down for the day with her kidlets,and also Amanda, Emily and Julie. We had a big lunch of calamari and hand-cut chips. It would have to be the best fish and chips that I have ever had, hence the reason we had it about 5 times on the whole trip. Cholesteral or kidney problems anyone?? Sorry kids for the lack of nutrition, but we NEEDED it. Next week it will be back to healthy food options.

Wednesday was also a fine day, so the Dad's got some more bonding time with the kids whilst Nicole and I headed off to her Ob appt. By the afternoon the weather warnings were starting to come and you could feel it in the air that things were about to change. After the kids were in bed, the adults retreated to the deck for a few drinkies and some adult conversation. About this time my bottom right molars started aching. It got progressively worse, so I took some panadol washed down with some of Loic's special cocktail mix. The pain was numbed a little, and a mixture of the panadol, alcohol and tiredness allowed me to fall asleep.

The next day I was till in so much pain, so my lovely husband pulled a few strings and got me into a Dentist golfer friend that he has in Byron Bay. A quick look at it, then a few x-rays and we had a diagnosis. Seems that I have a large cyst under the molars, which potentially has been there since I had all the trouble with my wisdom tooth. Apparently the cyst would have been growing under my wisdom tooth (hence all the pain at the time) and should have been removed at the same time. Instead it has stayed there, flared up a few times and then made it's painful appearance again this week. This all explains the long lasting of the pain even after the wisdom tooth was removed, the sensitivity in my jaw for ages and most likely why the anaesthetic didn't take the first time. The Dentist also thinks that the cyst has caused some nerve damage and I am most likely looking at 2 root canals if I want to avoid further pain and keep the 2 molars. Other option is to have 1 ripped out then see how it goes and maybe have the other one out too. I'm most likely going to go with option b, root canals are expensive (around $7000 for the 2 and we have no private insurance) and also I've had a root canal before and they are not the most enjoyable way to spend your day. I have a referral for a jaw person on the coast, but I can't get anything done until the antibiotics are finished and the infection has cleared up. Hopefully I can get 1 of the teeth pulled next week.

Oh, and after visiting the dentist on the Thursday the pain was becoming unbearable. I tolerated it all day, alternating between ipuprofen and panadol. Come night time though I was ready to wack myself over the head with a bat of nails. I dosed myself up on prodeine (panadol and a small amount of codeine) and tried to sleep. Little bit hard though with a jaw that feels like its being slowly split open with a blunt knife. The pain was going with my heartbeat, and none of the drugs were even taking the edge off. I tried everything. I just needed to sleep, hoping that if I got into a deep enough sleep I would be fine. I tried to mentally switch off the pain, then I tried visualising the tooth being extracted and all the infection being sucked out. Nothing worked and the pain seems to be getting worse, radiating up my jaw and into my ears. In desperation I took another lot of pain killers and waited for half hour, but still there was no relief. I was in tears by this stage and didn't think that there was anyway I would make it through the night. I called 13Health and after explaining everything to the nurse she suggested that I went to emergency to get something stronger, so at 11.30pm Duane & I headed off to Mullumbimby Hospital to GET.THE.DRUGS.

It's a small hospital, not much happening - so I was lucky to not have to wait and got straight in. The first nurse that saw me was an absolute cow, telling me that there is nothing that can be done and shoved us into a room with barely a grunt. By this stage the effects of the painkillers were starting to kick in, not helping my tooth at all but making me very tired and my whole body feel cotton-woolly and hazy. I filled out the forms, then the Dr came to check me out. My jaw had started to swell and all my gums were red and inflamed. He acknowledged that it would have been very painful and that hopefully the a/b's would kick in soon. He gave me some topical anaesthetic (which was BRILLIANT!), some stronger anti-inflammatory and some panadeine Forte. Now I don't normally handle codeine very well, but be damned if that was going to stop me downing these one. I was desperate for the pain to dull.

So after strict instruction not to take any of the panadeine for 4 hours, we were sent on out merry way. One of the nurses walked us to the door, then turned to me and said, "We have a great birthing suite here, you know" It was a strange thing to say considering she knew from going through all the questions with me that I wasn't pregnant and that I had 2 young children. I said to her that I had both my children at the Gold Coast Hospital, 1 at the Birth Centre. She then said, "But here you could have a waterbirth" I told her that I actually did have one for my son, then asked her if she was a midwife. She said she was, then I said that I was hopefully starting school next year to become one. She smiled then said, "Good, we need more midwives". It was just a funny moment, and so random that she even mentioned the birthing suite. It's certainly somewhere that I could imagine myself living, so maybe in the big scheme of things she was there to plant the seed for me? Maybe later on in life I will be working at the Mullumbimby Hospital?

So the rest of the trip was me drugged up to the eyeballs. The weather remained being crappy, which meant that we had to amuse the kids inside. We ended up packing up and heading home 1 night earlier than we planned.

It was a great holiday though. Nice to get away with some great friends and enjoy our families together. The kids all had a ball playing together and the parents all had a relaxing break.

I have heaps of pic's of the trip, but realised that most of the ones I took the kiddies are nudie. I'll try to find some modest ones: