Bitter-Sweet

I had two large events happen in the past few days, one good and one bad. On Sunday, my Grandma Joan Perritt died. She was a wonderful grandma and I love her so much and will miss her. I am sad that I can't make the funeral in Australia, but I got to spend a wonderful afternoon with her a few months ago. When I went to Sydney for my job interview in September, I spent an afternoon with Grandma and it was great. The last time I had seen her before that was so no good, she didn't even remember who I was (she had very advanced dementia). When I saw her in September she smiled and lit up when I walked into the room and held my hand when I sat next to her. She said, "oh what are you doing here, I am so happy you are here!" She told me she loved me and that I had the most beautiful smile she had ever seen. To which of course I replied, "good genes!" My grandma was a wonderful woman and I will miss her dearly.



The good event was that yesterday Brent and I finished our MBA's and I are done with school! It was so nice to turn in our final final last night and walk out of the classroom knowing we were completely done. We are excited! We won't be attending the graduation ceremony since we will be in Australia, but I am putting up a photo from our graduation from our first Master's degree - we would look the same in this graduation!

5 Things...

5 things I was doing 10 years ago:
1. Serving as School Spirit Commissioner
2. Going to plays in Ashland, OR
3. Enjoying long summers at the Beach House in Santa Barbara
4. Performing in Little Shop of Horrors as a do-op girl
5. Dreaming of going to college and leaving town!

5 things on my to-do list:
1. Figure out how to cook shark steak
2. Finish my homework
3. Submit Brent's visa application
4. Buy my plane ticket to Australia
5. Plan our New Year's bash in Philadelphia

5 snacks I enjoy:
1. Pumpkin spice frappucino
2. Chips and Salsa
3. Popcorn
4. Brownies
5. Cheese and crackers

5 things I would do if I were a millionaire:
1. Pay off school loans and other debt
2. Buy a house
3. See the rest of the world
4. Invest
5. Start my own company

5 places I've lived:
1. Calgary, Canada
2. USA: California, Utah, Texas, New York, Florida
3. Europe: Austria, England, Switzerland, Netherlands
4. Bangkok, Thailand
5. Australia: Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and soon Canberra

5 jobs I've had:
1. Math & Science tutor
2. BYU Alumni Association records specialist
3. Pacific Materials Lab assistant office manager
4. Utah State Historical Society architechtural preservation assistant
5. Project Manager at Global Human Rights Defence (Netherlands)

5 people I tag:
1. Bethany
2. Heidi
3. Christy
4. Starla
5. Gilly

Visiting the Fam in Utah

My little sister had surgery so I decided to go to Utah to help her out and visit the fam for a couple days. My mum came out too so not everyone was there, but a good chunk! My brother and sister in law and two gorgeous nieces live in Utah as well so it was a good time.

Claire Dressed up as Jazzercize girl


Me with the girls (post-cupcake)

I hadn't seen anyone for close to a year and a half so it was really nice to see them and I had fun. I helped Esther out at the hospital and at home, ran some errands on campus for her and otherwise just hung out and played with everyone.

Me and Mum and Me and Esther

My nieces, Josie and Claire, both had birthdays coming up so we had a little combined birthday party for them. I made Penguin cupcakes for them and they turned out pretty well. The girls were so excited for them all day. Josie helped me decorate them and she did a good job! All day Claire kept saying "time for cake? time for cake?" it was pretty funny.


The penguin cupcakes


Claire very excited about the cupcakes!

Happy Halloween!

I love halloween, though my pumpkins are still sitting on the table uncarved - sad! I thought we would get a lot of trick or treaters because we live in a large culdsac neighborhood, but we ended up only getting one group of four boys. I was totally bummed out! But we went to a fun party at the Blue Martini in downtown Tampa and that was fun.
Brent and I dressed up as characters from the anime cartoon Inuyasha. Brent was the title character and I was his fellow demon-slaying Japanese school girl superhero, Kagome. I made my costume a couple months ago when we went to an Anime festival in Orlando, so it was fun to be able to use it again!


Brent as Inuyasha and me as Kagome




The actual characters

BIG news!!

I found out last week I got the job in Australia! I am totally excited. It is with the Department of Veteran Affairs and it starts February 2 in Canberra. I am busy working on Brent's visa and getting everything all ready to move across the world (again). Hurray!!

Happy Birthday to Me!

I can now no longer deny that I am in my "upper" twenties and though the thought of getting even older is a bit depressing, I managed to have a great day! My birthday was on the 19th and I decided I wanted to go surfing so Brent and I drove to the other side of Florida to Cocoa Beach (only about two hours or so from Tampa). It was a nice day, but crappy waves. I was a bit bummed out, but still got a board and headed out. It was so nice just to be out in the water paddling around and on a board. The current was crazy strong and the wind brought in some funky sideways waves as well so it was altogether bad surfing conditions combined with my now muscle-free upper body. I need to do some serious working out! But it was a really fun day and Brent stuck it out for me even though he really hates the beach. Love him! I also went to Ron Jon's, the largest surf shop in the world, it was awesome. If only I had the money to buy lots of stuff! In the end, I settled for a little surfboard keychain at $3 a pop - boy to I love to splurge!

Cupcake Mania

I have been bored lately, so I bought a cupcake book and have been trying it out. So far I have made two, here are some pictures. Sorry that this is sooo not exciting as my past adventures and travels, I don't like normal life.

Spaghetti Cupcakes


Looks like real spaghetti, but they are cupcakes!


Shark Attack Cupcakes


I love the sharks, can you guess what they are made of?

A Quick Oz Trip

About 8 months ago, I applied for a job with the Australian Department of Veteran's Affairs and last month I finally heard back from them! I successfully gained an interview and I had a week and a half notice to get a ticket and everything together and go to Sydney for the interview.
I actually got a pretty good price on the ticket so I was happy for that. It is such a pain flying from the east coast, usually I just go straight from California (I am currently residing in FL). It was a lot of travel time in bad seats.
The interview went really well and I am waiting to hear back from them by the end of this month - keep your fingers crossed! It was a fast trip, I was only there 5 nights, but I got to see my Aunties, some cousins, and my Grandma. It was great to see my Grandma especially, since when I saw her last year she wasn't doing too well and didn't know who I was. This trip was great just for that, she was so excited that I came to visit her.

My Auntie Barb and baby Samara
My cousin Ellie and I

I also got to hang out with one of my best friends, Holly, as she flew in for the day down from Brisbane. It was so great of her to come in just for the day just so we could hang out! It was fun to catch up and we had a great time as usual.

Holly and I by Harbour Bridge

It was a whirlwind of a trip but hopefully worth it. I missed Brent like crazy, it was the longest we have ever been apart! We are usually together literally 24/7 (for over 1.5 years now) so we both had a tough time, but we managed.
So here's hoping I get the job!

Back Across the Atlantic

I have been out of the blogging loop for a bit, but time to get back to it. No excuse, just laziness. Brent and I returned to the US at the end of July and since we have done a lot of traveling, we decided to take a new mode of transportation back: The transatlantic ocean liner crossing on the Queen Mary 2. It was awesome. It took 6 nights, all of which were so much fun, elegant, grandiose, and downright royalty-like. It was black tie attire, high tea every afternoon, fancy balls, and out of this world food. Brent and I had an absolute blast and made some great friends too.


Embarking from Southampton, England
The elegant QM2 entryway


Look at me wearing heels!

The ship was elegant from top to bottom and I felt like royalty for a week. There is one crew member for every two passengers so the service is incredible. Drop your napkin and they pick it up a second later. They clean your room numerous times a day, leave little chocolates on the bed each night, and of course 24 hour (free) roomservice! They even slowed down and made an announcement as we passed over the Titanic site, it was pretty cool. It was a great week and definitely beats sitting in economy for a couple hours on a plane, can't wait to do it again!


Me enjoying the ride
Coming into New York harbor

Happy Birthday Brent!

For Brent's birthday weekend (June 22) I surprised him by renting a car and driving to France. First, we went to Normandy for a few days and then to Paris for a few days. It was an awesome weekend.
We stayed in the city of Caen in Normandy where the big WWII museum is located. We went to the museum, which is huge, and also saw their special exhibition on 9/11 that they have set up. Everything was really well done and interesting.


After the museum, we then drove out to Omaha Beach. We went to the American Cemetery that looks out over the beach and walked down to the beach. It was strange being right there and thinking about the horrific and important battle that took place right there. It was almost hard to believe it could take place at such a beautiful spot. Sitting on the beach looking out to the shining water was a bit surreal and unbelievable.



We went to one of the German bunkers on Omaha Beach and though it is mostly closed up, it was still cool to see. There is one full bunker completely open at one of the other beaches, but it was closed that day so we didn't get to see it.


While driving through the small Norman towns, we came across a little chateau with an apple orchard that sold freshly made drinks. The owner was really nice and surprisingly spoke very good English. He also had an adorable little boy that asked as all to "chink chink" our drinks (toast them). They let us walk around the chateau and take some pictures, it was really fun.


That night was a huge festival in Caen for the summer solstice. The streets were packed, there were tons of bands and lots of streetside crepes, mmm. We didn't know the festival was happening so I didn't have my camera with me - shame!

The next morning, Brent's birthday, we drove to Paris. We had some issues with the Tom-Tom GPS, but we made it finally :) Our hotel was in a great location so that was good. We walked to the Sacre Couer, hiked up the stairs for a great city view, ate an amazing dinner then finished the evening under the lights of the Eiffel Tower.

The Sacre Couer

My favorite Eiffel photo that I took


The next day, we did a Segway tour of Paris. It was really cool and we saw a lot. It was 4 hours long, we had a great tour guide, and a small group with a couple other Aussies. We did a Segway tour in Prague last year and loved it and were not disappointed this time either! We got to see a lot of the city without getting too tired out, gotta love it. That night we took the ride up the Eiffel Tower and that was a blast.


On our final day, we went to the Catacombs which was pretty cool. Brent has wanted to go since he saw a program on it when he was young. It was a bit morbid walking among the millions of bones in patterns, but also really interesting.

Brent found a section that was placed there on his birthday, eerie!

Our final stop was the Palace of Versailles. The lines were so long so we decided not to go inside and just walked around the immense gardens. They are so huge! It was a really hot day so we tried to stay in the shade as much as possible. I have wanted to go there for so long, I loved it! Next trip we'll go inside, but we were at our limit of waiting in lines at that point!


It was an awesome weekend and we had a blast. The food was of course amazing, the people were nice, and the subway was not as stinky as expected. I have a bunch more photos on my flickr site if you care to peruse: www.flickr.com/photos/lauradolman