March 1, 2009

Hello mates! I hope that you are all doing well! This last week has been a fun one. Quintin and I went to the Cairns zoo that is just a couple of miles away from where we live. As you can tell from the pictures it was an extremely HOT day. My hair was completely soaked to the very ends. Gross, I know. But the great part was that I was able to hold a Koala (after they drugged her up on a bunch of eucalyptus) I held a crocodile (which was just about 2 feet long and had it’s mouth taped shut) and I pet a wombat. We watched a croc feed show and almost saw the croc eat the trainer, I guess that is part of the show but I would never do that in a million years. Quintin however would do it for free if they let him.

We were also able to go to the beach and lay out a bit. I don’t know why we laid out because I was so slathered in spf 30 and bug spray that there wasn’t even a slight bit of chance that I would get any sun at all. There are beautiful botanical gardens by our church so we went there next. I got all slathered again in bug spray and tracked through the rainforest path with Quintin. I never thought that I would be scared going through trees but it is what is in the trees that scares me. I had to duck under huge spider webs, but the land is so beautiful that it is worth it.

I have slathered on the bug spray lately because we were fortunate enough to come to Australia during it’s worst break out of Dengue Fever. I call it the Dang Fever using my Utah/Texan accent (thanks a lot Dustin). It is carried by mosquitoes or as the Aussies call them “mozzies”. It can be deadly and I hear that it is incredibly painful and barfalicious.
So now I smell like bug spray when I go out but hopefully the Dang Fever will go away soon.

Speaking of painful, Quintin called me yesterday returning from a hike with his friend Johnno. He was in so much pain that I could barely hear him between the moans and groans. He told me that he is in the car pulled over because he couldn’t move. I felt totally helpless because he had the car and was downtown while I sat at the house with no transport and about 20 mins from where he was at. I called Johnno and asked him if he could come get me. When we got to the 24 hour care that Q was at Johnno left and all of the sudden Quintin’s pain was gone. The Dr. said that it was probably a gas bubble and charged us $65 bucks. But the way that Quintin described it and the fact that he felt the same pain a little bit this morning points to kidney stones. We hope that he doesn’t have another one, it was pretty intense.

I was called to teach Gospel Doctrine this week and the next and I just wanted to curl up and die. The lesson today was pretty good, I guess, it’s hard to say when you are on the other side. But we had our branch pres and his counselor stop by today and I was given a real calling. I can’t say what it is yet but I’ve never had this position before and it made me really happy.

Mo lata mates!