July 17

This was the big day. I woke up with a pretty bad hangover, faint memories, and two NASTY large bruises on my butt from falling into wood piles the night before! The girls were put to work almost immediately to cook breakfast for the boys and then start cooking for the party. I colored directional signs for toilets and parking, etc. and taped them up around the property. A test explosive went off, so we had to duck and cover behind a bunker. The boys warned me that it could come flying at us, so we couldn’t look, just hide... Turns out, it just shot up into the air a few feet, not very dramatic, but the suspense was pretty high, waiting for it to go off at any unknown instant. Jillian made her Jalapeño Cheese dip. It usually takes 20 min, but with this quantity, it took probably a couple hours! Somewhere in there, I took a pretty cold shower and dressed for the party. As the party began, everyone was excited to try the dip and luckily it was a huge success. The bread bowls were completely decimated and everyone asked for the recipe! There were bum can fires throughout the area, and a band played some great music, and everyone we mingled with was very friendly. Later a giant bonfire was lit and people danced. Curry beef and chicken was served with rice and potatoes, which was quite yummy. Michael’s dad and uncle gave speeches about Michael and the charity that the night was supporting. Michael didn’t want gifts, he only wanted people to donate to his family’s non-profit: the Helen Bonner Health Centre in Cambodia. They raised quite a bit of money and actually hit their goal for the night because it is a worthy cause and inspiring story.

There is a song here in Australia that when played, men must immediately drop their pants and sing along. We had never seen such a phenomenon, but watched in awe as all of these guys we had just spent the weekend getting to know proceeded to follow tradition! At another point in the evening, we had a streaker, multiple singers took the mic, and there was revelry all around. The cake was a traditional Chocolate Irish Biscuit Cake, which was interesting and delicious. Toward the end of the night, more wood was delivered for the large bonfire and of course Lina and I ran over to lend a hand. She jumped in the truck and handed huge, heavy logs to two guys and me, who then walked it and threw them on the fire. I say “logs”, but I should really call them trees, because they were probably anywhere from 50-150 lb logs, some even 4 feet long! Later we wondered why other men didn’t come help, but oh well. That’s our pro-activeness taking the lead. We probably headed to bed around 2am, crawling over people now sprawled out all over the farmhouse floor.