"I get knocked down, but I get up again"

Yesterday was my birthday.

Alun hates birthdays but made a big effort to make mine special, bless him. I woke up to pink balloons in the living room and 3 birthday cards from Alun! Three!!! Each one felt heavy. He’d put scratchie tickets in all of them and $200 in the main card.

I’m sooo spoilt!

We got up early, had breakfast and packed for one night’s stay at ‘Seashells Resort’ in the seaside city of Mandurah – about an hour’s drive from the city.

Mandurah is basically our Western Australian version of Venice:

There are 6 “hidden Giants” that are incredible art installations by some guy (lol I can’t remember his name, oops!). They’re “giants” made from wood. The advertisement says they’re hidden throughout Mandurah so I envisioned walking around the city of Mandurah, casually finding the Giants.

I was so wrong.

The 1st stop was to go to the visitor centre and get a special map with hints at where the Giants were hidden. I saw a place to hire eScooters and was so excited. I dragged Alun over (he hates them because as a Nurse, he sees so many people badly injured when riding them) to hire one each for an hour.

An hour will be plenty of time I thought.

Nope.

As the eScooter lady was giving us instructions and helmets, she was saying it would probably take a beginner (at this, she looked at me! Hahaha) over an hour to get to the first Giant and back. There wouldn’t be time to find 2 in the hour. I was so surprised by that!

Undeterred, I insisted Alun and I try anyway. Alun chuckled and strapped his helmet on “Ok, let’s go birthday girl”.

10 minutes later and Alun and I were on a random street corner, frowning at the map and wondering where WE were and how to get to the “x” the saleslady had marked on a spot really far away from the town centre.

“I say we give up the hunt for giants and just zoom around town, checking it out – you in?”

I was.

We folded the map and I put it in my bag. We pushed off on our eScooters and whizzed around the town centre instead.

Best. Decision. Ever.

We saw cute cafes, surf/beachy stores, beautiful homes, gorgeous pubs and loads of water! Haha. The Marina is stunning.

We stopped at a pretty tavern for drinks:

We were able to return our eScooters on time (Alun is very punctual whereas I’ll keep Library books for years after they’re due back), and checked into our apartment at Seashells Resort:

To be right on the beach front was next level.

We left our bags in the room and took off hand in hand to see more of Mandurah. It was so great to walk around in the sun and enjoy each other’s company.

I still wanted to see a Giant though, so we headed back to the car and put the address into Google maps.

It was really far away. There is no way we would have made it on scooters!

Here is the 1 Giant we saw. I loved the sight of him with his kind face and huge hands in the air, as if he’s praising God:

We ended the day with crab linguine and garlic bread at a gorgeous by right on the Marina. We just shared the meal and were glad we did because it was huge! Haha. So tasty, though:

Alun and I walked back to the Resort and sat our by the infinity pool (right on the beach) and watched the sun set. A wonderful end to a really great day:

So. I’m grateful for a happy, healthy birthday filled with loving messages ALL DAY from all my mates, from Mom, from my bonus parents Lyn and Pete, from my work mates – even from my bosses. I got beautiful cards and gifts and ultimately got to spend the day with my favourite person.

I’m so blessed and I had a great day.

Thank you, Abba Father xx