Visiting Arian on the Gold Coast

A friend from our Chicago days (who is actually Aussie but lives in Germany) was in town--we had the opportunity to visit with Arian yesterday afternoon. We took Max to the beach, walked around Surfer's Paradise and had a late lunch. It was great to see her and hear more about what she has been doing these last seven years. I can't believe it had been that long!

As we were driving back to Ari's parents' house, we stopped the car for a picture since I had failed to take any during the five hours we spent together. At least I remembered to bring the camera!

Max was intrigued by this man with an Elmo balloon perched on his head. He wanted one of us to go with him to talk to the man about acquiring a balloon. He finally approached the man who said he needed money ($2). We gave Max the two dollars then he asked the man to make him a frog.

Watching the man make his frog

Unfortunately, Max tripped with the frog in his hand on our walk back to the car. Part of the frog's body popped. It still had eyes, a mouth, and part of the body so he wasn't too bothered. From that point on, Max proceeded to pull and twist at the frog until it was only a head, then had only one eye, then was only a mouth. At the end, it was just a deflated partial balloon. Max's goal to have the frog meet Kiki went unrealized.