30 Years Young

As many of you already know June 20th was my (Casey) 30th birthday, what an awesome place in the world to celebrate. Although I really missed all of you being with me, we had a wonderful time. Christa totally surprised and spoiled me. All the fun started on the 19th, she booked a rental car here in Cairns and planned to drive up the coast to Port Douglas for a couple of days. Port Douglas is a little resort town an hour north of Cairns. It is home to the world famous 4 mile beach. It has a lot of really nice resorts and the main strip is loaded with really cool cafes, restaurants and shops. We stayed in a beautiful 1 bedroom suite at a resort called Mantra Links. The room was so nice, and when we got there it felt like heaven, I didn’t want to leave the room. You have to understand that we have been living in hostels for 2 months, where the bathrooms & the kitchen are shared, so experiencing cleanliness and our own space was soooooooooo nice. Christa thought it was really funny that I was cool with just chilling as I usually want to go explore and do all that there is to do. So that day we just relaxed and enjoyed the room. The morning of my birthday Christa made me breakfast and we sat on the patio overlooking the pool, in a rainforest setting, reading and talking for a few hours. Afterwards we went for a walk on 4 mile beach then we checked out some of the shops. In the evening we went for appys at a really cool tapas bar then on to a really nice Mediterranean restaurant for a fantastic dinner. After dinner we walked along the shops and found the funkiest restaurant for dessert & coffee. The restaurant had a funky lounge that was open air and the bathroom had a floor to ceiling aquarium, so cool. We sat in the lounge and I had the best Oreo cookies and cream cheese cake. The next day we headed back to Cairns and along the way stopped at Hartley’s crocodile farm where they have over 200 crocodiles. There is 2 parts to the farm, one is where they breed and farm crocodiles for their skin and meat and the other part is a natural habitat that they use to educate people on crocs. My favourite part was the boat ride around the swamp, there are 17 crocs and you get pretty close to them. One part of the tour the guy driving the boat feeds a 4.5 meter croc right beside the boat. He held out a pole with chicken heads on the end of it and gets this massive croc to jump out of the water right beside the boat. It was so amazing to see this huge animal up close. I had a wonderful couple of days and it feels great to be 30, no really it does, maybe because of where I am at in my life or maybe it’s just because everyone that we meet thinks that I look 25. I am so thankful to God for all that He has blessed me with in my life and all that He has in store for me in the years to come. THANK YOU for the many birthday wishes and love that I definitely felt all the way on the other side of the world. I love and miss you all.