My nephew is 21! in Adventures in paradise

Yesterday was such a crazy-busy day, for me at least. I picked up the car at 3pm and brought my bag with me so I could just leave straight for Toowoomba. The car they gave me was a Hybrid Toyota Camry and only had 494km on the odometer!
So that was impressive. Not so impressive at the thought of driving a brand new car without a single scratch on it, although I did opt for insurance when he asked me if I wanted it. I did find that strange, as the time before, I was never asked because work covered it. I thought maybe I did something wrong when I booked it by not writing in the fleet number or something. Anyway, peace of mind was good even though I hate scared-funds (my term for insurance).

I took off out of the carpark at a gradual pace. I haven't driven in quite a few months now, so each time I have to re-familiarize myself with how to drive a car haha, but after about 5 minutes I remember it's like riding a bike and you don't forget how to. It was a little embarrassing before I even got out of my parking bay though, as I couldn't figure out where the hell the handbrake was. It wasn't there! Turns out in Hybrid's, it's actually a foot brake haha. He told me I didn't need a key to start the car (which was weird in itself), but he must've forgotten to mention that. I figured it out :P

Even leaving at 3pm, I still managed to get stuck in mild traffic for around 20 minutes until I got out of the city onto the highway. Once on the highway, I had a pretty good feel of the car and could go a proper speed, although there were a LOT of roadworks on the way. It seems like roadworks never seem to end on that highway.

I got to Toowoomba before I knew it, and it was around 4:45-5pm I think, so I still had a while until the dinner at 6:30pm. The reason I had my bag was I planned to go to the Jetts gym there, which I knew was on Stenner street, so I did just that! (See, I'm staying dedicated!) Quite a nice gym with decor and carpets and set-out. The only thing I could fault it on was some of the equipment was pretty dated. Like I was doing shoulder press, and the bars kept touching toward the end of my motion and limiting my final push into the air haha. Never seen that happen on a shoulder press machine before. Also, the ab machine was un-adjustable and my knees were around my head haha! Anyway, I did a pretty decent workout I think, and there were a couple of other people there. The guys there weren't much to look at in the face, but a lot of them had very nice legs. I am suuuch a leg person, especially thighs and somewhat arse. I guess that makes sense :P

After the workout, I went into the changeroom to change into dinner attire and do my hair a bit (ergh, it's still such a mess as it's too long) and apply some deodorant. I'm thankful that I don't sweat much doing a gym workout (unless it's excessive cardio usually) but I still didn't wanna rock up at the restaurant looking like a scrubber.

I input the address into the 'Maps' app on my phone and made my way there. I had an idea but wasn't overly sure. I still got there about 20 minutes early and parked in a carpark over the road but nearby. It appeared to be free after checking all the signage, so sweet.

I got my present out of the bag and put it on the seat, as I was told we were doing coffee and cake and presents at my sister's house after the dinner (which they were also paying for! Score!)

I found the restaurant and went in and spoke to the lady about what name the party was under, but it appeared I was the first to arrive! I just decided to walk back outside and wait for people. I thought I saw my mother in the distance, so went over there, and I thought she disappeared behind a hedge, so I went the other side too. She must've thought the same thing, so it was a bit of a game of hide and seek on either side of the hedge for a bit there haha. I heard her distinctive voice say, "Is that him?" so I knew it was her. I then saw her and my dad and my sister all walking together up the path and I went over to them, "I could hear you, but not see you!", I said.

I gave my sister a kiss and a hug and my mum a kiss and a hug, and then extended my hand to shake dad's hand (Of course lol). He shook my hand and I was polite and didn't cause a scene at all. What reason did I have to? I only had to say hello and shake his hand - that's what 'men' do, right? I said hello and shook my nephew's hand. I hadn't seen him in a while, but it didn't seem he'd changed much, at least to me. My brother-in-law had a nice touch to the moment though when I went to shake his hand - he says, "We can do one of these," and leans in to hug me. Awww. Brilliant. He then asks my dad if he wants a hug and dad says, "A handshake is fine. We're not that close," (or something along those lines).
I could feel my eyes trying to roll in my head already lol.

So the six of us head inside and mum tells dad to buy me a drink (haha go mum!) and he politely does. Of course he gets a bourbon and something and I get a midori lemonade haha! Totally girl-i-fying your bar order, father! The bar girl asks my dad if he has anything smaller than than the $50 note he's handed her. I was just thinking, "Woman, it's 6:30pm on a Friday night and you aren't carrying change??" Fuck! I guess it only shits me because of my retail background and it's not the customer's fault if you can't provide them change. And my dad only ever carries around $50 notes, for as long as I can remember. So he didn't have the change and she told someone to go and get some change. Umm, hello, shouldn't that have been organised? Anyway, I give mum her drink and sit down with mine. Some more people who I didn't know arrived and I said a polite hi. I sat next to my sister and across from my mum. Dad sat next to me. It didn't bother me, he'd just bought me a drink haha! Nah, I seriously didn't care. I was here to have a good time and I'd gone to a bit of effort to hire the car and drive up and I'd been productive already with the gym, so now it was time to relax and just have a chat.

Mum spoke a lot about all the business going back on the farm. It all seems very interesting. She's not entirely happy with the house dad has bought for them in Pittsworth, as she feels she preferred other ones over that one, but it's still being finished off and I guess it's a wait-and-see game to find out if she likes living there. Apparently the shed for the caravan only JUST fits it in with a quarter of an inch space to spare haha! I didn't even think to ask how they get in and out of the damn thing once it's in there haha. Apparently the grain company that they sold their last lot of grain to went bust, so there's a lot of umming and ahhing over whether they'll get paid for that crop, and it was some huge amount of money I can only dream of ever seeing. Eeep. She showed me a pic of the house and it looks like a typical house in a small town really. Be cool to see inside one day. I told mum I was surprised that they'd chosen to move to Pittsworth over Millmerran because all of her friends were in Milly etc. She told me she made a long list of all the things she was giving up compared to the small list of things dad was giving up haha! In the end, I told her if she ends up hating it that much they can always sell and move elsewhere, and she agreed with that.

The brother-in-laws side of the family all arrived, so they had a drink then we made our way over to the long table all set up for us. I didn't really know where to sit, as there weren't seating arrangements. Probably a good thing as it's much more casual that way. I opted for a seat up the end of one side, next to the birthday guy at the head of the table. The choice of menu was a three course meal, with a selection of three options in each the entree, main and dessert. The entrees were a tomato soup mixed with other exotic things I'd never heard of, tempura prawns and some sort of toast thing, the mains were barramundi, rib-eye steak and I think a pasta? And the desserts were a coconut brulee, a dark mudcake thingy and a sticky-date pudding. I knew straight away that my mum would have the sticky-date. She loooooves them.

I won't ranble on too much, but the food was SO FUCKING GOOD! Wow. We got given house bread before the entree, and then I had the tomato soup, but they brought out a plate with a few bits of vegies on it and placed it in front of us. The entirety of the vegies was about the size of the tip of my finger. I joked, "Is this is?" but of course I knew there was more coming. The waiter went around and poured the soup into the bowls of those who had ordered it. It was very rich tomato soup. Like majorly, but was still delicious. They must have been very ripe tomatoes. I also ordered the steak, as everyone else seemed to be going with the fish and whatever the other one was. Mine took a little longer as I ordered it medium-well.
Turns out my nephew also ordered steak, and we got our meals after everyone else. That too was yummo. I didn't even need a steak knife as the meat was so tender.

Then that dessert. Talk about ^orgasmic^. It was like a hard sugary layer of something covering whatever the sweet nectar of goodness was underneath.
A very good meal. My mum was seated next to me, and dad next to her (thankfully), so I spent most of the meal chatting to mum. Dad was telling me he had new hearing aids, and it was obvious because they needed adjusting. The ones he had before this were great and he could hear pretty much everything fine, so I'm not really sure why he needed new ones. I guess it had been a long time since I'd seen him. I chatted to my nephew for a little bit, mainly asking him if my sister had embarrassed him with photos, and recited remembering MY 21st when my lovely mother put up photos on a board, where one of them was me who had just been stung by a bee on my forehead so was in tears and holding a cold cloth to my forehead lol. He said, "Not yet". Haha.

After dinner, my sister and bro-in-law left a little earlier to go set things up at home. My bro-in-law's mother was especially friendly toward me last night. Not in THAT way lol, but I mean she was just very welcoming and speaking to me a lot and putting her arm around me, it was really sweet actually. I also got to see Gillian again, and she hasn't changed much in years either - still her usual cheery self. There was a moment in time there where we used to hang out a lot whenever visiting my sister (this is like 18-20 years ago LOL) and the family thought we were romantically interested in each other haha. She's now a Chaplain for special needs children, which really is a perfect career for her caring and funny personality.

Got back in the car and drove to my sisters place. I had to ask my mum what her street name was again, as I'd forgotten haha, but I figured I'd hold off asking for the number and just look for all the cars parked outside. Turns out that plan worked out pretty well :) I think I was the last to arrive. I brought my present inside and put it on the table and sat down.

We had coffee and cake. The cake was designed in the shape of molcules and had a poindexter character haha. Perfect.

My nephew then opened all of his cards and presents and thanked everyone. My mum didn't realize the present on the table was mine and handed it to him saying "Look, there's one more here!" haha. There was a bit of an awkward moment when my nephew's grandfather on the other side of the family pointed out the pink wrapping paper that I'd used to wrap the present (because it looked like girl's wrapping). I was just thinking, "Really? Sure it's bright pink but it has 'happy birthday' written all over it." I'm not sure how it was meant to come across, but maybe it's because I was already prepared to defend myself against stupid statements from my dad that I wasn't expecting it from my brother-in-law's dad.

Anyway, my nephew asked who's present it was and I said, "It's mine. There's no card, sorry." Haha, I remember thinking I should get a card, but obviously I just put it off and it just didn't end up happening. The ironic thing is, my present was a complete hit! Everyone loved it! Mum asked me where I'd found it and my nephew's great-grandmother said it was a very good idea for a gift. THEN, the same guy who had a go about the pink wrapping (before he knew it was mine), was then engrossed in the book and spent the rest of the night reading it! Apparently he's a real bookworm haha.
So yeah, how cool is that! I told my nephew if he didn't like it, he could regift it haha. His other presents were a lot of alcohol and I joked that if I knew what everyone else was getting him, I WOULD'VE gone with the yard-glass option.

We had cake and I noticed my sister was cutting it in the exact way in a video I'd shared earlier in the week. She commented on it about it's timing, so I was pleasantly surprised that she'd taken notice of the video and cut it the exact same way! This is the link to it, if you have no idea what I'm on about :P

So the night was finally over, and I was glad to be able to head home. It was around 11pm before we'd even left, so getting quite late for everyone. Most others had their cake to cake home, and my sister was happy to wrap them up for everyone. I however, chowed into mine haha! It was so good! The icing was chewy, and even the base of the cake in that picture you can see was all part of the icing. The cake was mudcake inside, and who can say no to mudcake??

Backtracking to dinner: My bro-in-law was telling me he had all this spare Sambuca that was given to him as Christmas presents, and he couldn't get rid of it all - so he offered it to me, so when he was going around saying goodbye to everyone, he whispered to me that my sister had 'a little something to give' me. I said my goodbyes to everyone and gave my sister another kiss. I'm always amazed at how beautiful my sister is. Even at dinner I found myself momentarily mesmerized by her. Her hair's white and long and flowing. If I was going to take after anyone in my family, it would be her by far (clearly not physically, but in other ways haha). She handed me a pvc bag and said, 'shhhhh' haha! I knew what it contained.

I put my shoes back on at the door, but it took me a while and a few people asked what size my shoes were. I said they were 12 or 13, wasn't sure.
We went outside and I noticed my mum brushed her hand against my hand, out of view of my dad. I then realised what she was doing. She was pushing some money into my hand! It seemed very drug-dealer-ish haha! First my sister handing me a pvc bag, and now my mother sneaking me cash haha. That was very nice of her. I didn't even check to see how much was there, just pocketed it. I only then remembered my mum telling me that she would cover the cost of my car hire if I could make it. I was very happy to pay for it myself, but I'll admit this will definitely help.

The drive back to Brisbane was good. The roadworks were annoying as usual and I hate how no-one at night seems to take notice of the reduced speed limits. There's a few sections there that are 60k/ph and even one at 40k/ph! So, me being me, sticks to those limits because I don't particularly want a fine, even if there aren't any council workers on shift at that time. It doesn't prevent a couple of semi-trailers deciding to sit right up my arse on the one-lane highway though does it? Fuckers. Let alone all the ones who eventually manage to overtake me. If you're overtaking me, you're definitely not doing the speed limit! And I have cruise control now!

I only used the cruise control on the way home. It was pretty cool. I thought to myself that if only I had someone to steer the wheel for me, I could almost go for a nap in the back seat! Car technology these days, huh?

I got back to Brisbane and drove straight to the airport Woolies, at it's 24 hours. I decided now was a perfect time to get my groceries (yes, at 2:30am) whilst I still had the car and could drive everything right to my doorstep. Which I did.

I eventually got to sleep around 4am after putting everything away. I knew I had to be up fairly early to take the car back, as they close at midday on Saturdays.
Managed to do that, parked the car too close to a poll, but decided 'that'll do!' and handed my keys back in. I'd already refueled the previous night so that I didn't have to worry about doing it today. Apparently they fill up all their cars at the same servo I did, which makes sense. They just charge three times the price to do so for you.

Phew, think I covered everything.