My husband is officially old

August 5th Matt turned the big 3-0 in the land down under. The next day he turned the big 3-0 again in the U.S. so he got lots of "happy birthday's" on that day too! Thanks to all who wished him a good one! He said all his birthday wishes came true so far except for the one where he wanted to get a duck billed platypus to take home. Well we still have time for that one, after all we are going to the Australian zoo this weekend. 

  To celebrate here my parents took him to the Pancake Manor in the morning to get some scrumptious chocolate chocolate chip pancakes with chocolate icecream for "brekki". Bryson and Sarah will be so proud we went there since they had both raved about the amazing pancakes there. I really like it too because they had gluten free pannycakes for me. Which on a side note, I'm like a kid in a candy shop with all the many gluten free options here! Aussies love their food and they also cater to those with special diets wether it's gluten free, low GI or sugar free they have tons to choose from even at your everyday places.

We should have taken some drool-worthy photos of the breakfast itself, but we all devoured ours too quickly. After we filled our bellies at the Pancake Manor we went to the mall in Brisbane's central business district. My parents took S. back to their apartment for a nap so we could get down to business looking for some birthday shoes. He already has his birthday suit and just needed some shoes to go with it.

Once we found the shoes that made all his dreams come true we went back to the apartment to get ready for a birthday date with his long time crush.

We left around 7 and took the ferry to South Bank across the river and walked up and down Little Stanley Street which is lined with every restaurant imaginable, but no chain ones! I really dislike chain restaurants so it was fun getting to choose from so many original ones. After eenie meenie miney mo a few times we finally opted for Thai food and sat outside on the terrace in a corner booth where we got to hang out for a few hours. One of the many things we love about eating out here: no tipping which means servers aren't trying to rush you out. You actually have to ask for the bill otherwise they won't bring it to you so you can literally sit there for as long as you want. We both had curry. I had Massaman, Matt had yellow curry and we were able to talk for hours courtesy of my parents watching Sawyer for us.

After dinner we walked around and took some photos of the city, but the good ones from Matt's proffesional grade camera I'll have to post later. Here's one in the meantime from my regular camera to give you and idea of how beautiful the city is at night. We took the ferry back over to the other side and went to the Casino for a little bit. They have a strict dress code so we had to make sure before we went out that we were dressed appropriately to get in. We played the penny slots and Matt won $40 with his birthday luck.

It was a really fun night which we finally wrapped up at around 11 so we didn't miss the last ferry back. 

I'm not sure if we can ever top his thirtieth unless next year we get to spend it another country. New Zealand perhaps?

For those who are curious at to why we are in Australia: My dad sells safety equipment to mines and travels the world doing so. Australia is a developing market for it and so his work asked him if he would move here for three few months to try it out. Um, yeah!! So my mom, dad and brother got an apartment here in Brisbane from June to August. Bryson already flew back to Idaho for school so we were able to get his room. Thanks Bry!