Some pics

Just a few pictures of random stuff. I went up to Sydney a few weeks ago to see my Mum when she was over here (she came unexpectedly to visit her brother - my uncle - who has extremely advanced cancer). We stopped in an international candy store and I couldn't resist a bag of my all-time favorite jelly bellys - juicy pear! I was so excited and they were oh so good.






Brent and I went to the annual Australian American Association black tie dinner and this was my attempt at a girly up-do. It wasn't perfect (didn't look as good as I wanted from the back), but I am still happy with my attempt and I don't think I looked half bad! The evening was a lot of fun and we met some interesting people as well.






One of the biggest sporting events in Australia is "Melbourne Cup Day" - a horse race. Though the race itself only lasts about a minute, it is a day of celebration, even outside of Melbourne. We had a work party where we ate the traditional cold chicken lunch and most of the women wore big fancy hats (even me, though I didn't take a photo). My colleague in this picture won the best costume prize as he wore his jockey glasses and a fitting rain coat as it was pouring! It was a fun afternoon - even better knowing we were getting paid while partying! :)









On Veteran's Day we went to the US Embassy for a concert by the US Air Force Band that came from Hawaii just for this! It was a lot of fun and I even got to chat up the Ambassador for a while. He is from California so we had a nice chat about that. The Ambassador is singing with the band in this photo (wearing the light hawaiian shirt) as he loves Elvis and he joined in to sing it!

Happy Halloween!

Puking Pumpkin! (guacamole)


I love Halloween, I always have. When I was little and we lived in Melbourne, my Dad would take us out and we would knock on doors and give them candy since Halloween was not celebrated at all here at that time. Over the years, it has gained in popularity a little bit, though most people 40+ scoff at it (they do about almost anything American). I didn't do anything last year and I was sad about that so this year I decided to have a party.
I started planning back in September and in early October a few things started to appear in a couple random stores here and there. I stocked up on what I could and my parents were so good to me and sent me a ton of stuff. I made up some cool e-vites and sent them out and got the house all decked out. I put spiderwebbing everywhere, had small lights and candles everywhere for cool lighting, had fog machines and even made a cemetery in the backyard with tiki torches. It looked awesome. I made a ton of food and even managed to find a cauldron to put the main drink in and had a cool little fogger in it. I was so excited for weeks, but when the night came, only 6 people showed up. I had a really good time with those that were there, but I was really disappointed that not many people came. It isn't about the money, but I spent I think at least $500 on everything. Most of the decorations I can use again in the future though.
But despite the bad turnout it was a lot of fun. I had scary music playing, we bobbed for apples and I even had a pinata. Here's hoping next year's numbers are better! :)

Living Room



Backyard foggy cemetery



Cauldron drink table (you can't see the fog)



The food table

Vacation!!

Again, I procrastinate - been a couple months since updating yet again!
Biggest news was my visit back to the US for 3.5 weeks. It was glorious and it was so hard to leave. It was not a very relaxing vacation however with so much going on. We flew to New York and had one day to recover before the craziness began. We went to a wedding on Long Island on the Saturday morning and made it to the cocktail hour of the reception at which point we hit the road to drive to Maryland for a wedding that evening. We missed the ceremony (as was expected) but made it for the reception and the after party at the hotel that night. This wedding was for a girl from our Master's program so we also got to catch up with good friends. It was a great time and we all partied well into the night (including the bride!).
The next day we drove back to NY and hung out there for a few days with Brent's family. I also got to meet up and have dinner with a friend of mine that now lives in NY, Kate. Her family has a summer house just a couple down from our old beach house in Santa Barbara so we spent every summer together and have known eachother forever. It was so fun to catch up with her and in NY of all places!
After eating glorious NY pizza we headed down to Tampa, Florida for a week to spend time with Brent's family down there. Brent got pretty sick so we didn't get to go to Miami as we had wanted to, but it was still fun. Brent celebrated his birthday while we were there and he went fishing with his brother and cousin. They didn't catch anything and they all got very sunburnt, but they had a blast together. I knew I would just roast, even with sunscreen, so I opted to stay home. Good choice!
From Florida we flew to California and spent a couple days at my parents where I went to my 10-year high school reunion. It was really fun to catch up with everyone and we had a pretty good turnout with about 50% of the class being able to make it (my class was less than 40 people). We had it at a picnic ground on the lake and we had fun watching the kids in the water and all chatting away. Good times!
We then spent a day and a half in San Francisco where I tried to eat as much sourdough as possible (still wasn't enough) and then got back on yet another plane to head back east to Boston.
Boston was awesome and I think it may be my new favorite city. I loved all the history and the people were great and such good food. Expensive though, I spent more there than everywhere else combined! I was in Boston for yet another wedding, this one for a couple that got together in our Grad program. It was tons of fun and so hard to leave!
After 5 days in Boston it was back on the plane to head down under. There was lots of plane drama which resulted in us having to spend the night in Denver and got our luggage lost, but it all turned out ok because I got to visit my cousin that lives in Denver and we got upgraded to business class on the flight to Sydney. I don't think I can ever go back to economy on that flight now. I actually slept for half of the flight since your seat reclines to a full flat bed and they really take care of you! I loved it.
Once back in Australia (luggageless, but eventually got it back) we headed up to northern NSW for my family reunion. It was massive but fun to see everyone and have a couple days relaxing on the beach. I got really sick, but managed a visit to Sydney for a couple days to hang with my siblings which although went too quickly, was super fun. Made all the more interesting when I got kicked by a kangaroo resulting in a massive bruise on my leg. If it were the US, I would be sitting pretty with a nice settlement right now, but unfortunately this is Australia :(
My parents came down to Canberra for a visit and that was good fun. Then it was time to eventually get back to work after 5.5 weeks off. I love that I get so much vacation time here!
I will also eventually post pictures...one day!

Catching Up

Alright, so much for keeping up to date. And yet again I will have no pictures because my computer broke and I can't access my flickr pictures from my work computer (yet I can access this site - strange!)
Since my last post, Brent and I have moved to a new place and it is heaven. We were living in a small, old, dirty, cockroach-infested, falling apart, noisy, too cold/too hot apartment. It was a place that I took in desperation as I had been looking for 6 weeks with no luck and run out of my free housing that work was paying for. But at least it is over and now we live in luxury! :) We now live in a 5-bedroom, 2-story, new kitchen, clean, heated/airconditioned house with a balcony and a view to the surrounding hills. We've been there over two months and still love it so much. Unfortunately we are still renting (such a waste of money!), but our quality of life has changed considerably since moving.
I have also finished up my time working in Parliament House and am now in my permanent position here in the Department. My title is "Intelligence Officer" so I like that I sound so undercover and covert. I mainly work on researching the overall drivers and trends in fraud by our clients and providers and also internally. We have our 3-year fraud control plan due at the end of June so I am busy getting together stats and doing risk assessments and all that fun stuff. It is pretty interesting and I am enjoying the work and the people I work with.
Brent is well in the groove of his job with The Smith Family, a non-profit that promotes and helps with education for disadvantaged families.
I am definitely missing the US though. I miss everyone and the cheap prices and the availability of everything and mainly good Mexican food :) We have a trip planned to the US for June and I am so so excited. We have a couple weddings to go to, my 10-yr high school reunion, Brent's family to visit (mine will all be out in Oz for a family reunion when we get back) and so much good food to catch up on!

Happy New Year!

I can't believe it is 2010. For some reason I recalled a random conversation I had with a friend back when we were about to start 7th grade. We talked about how crazy it was going to be when we graduated high school in the year 2000. It has been 16 years since that conversation - how funny that it was randomly dredged up by my brain!
2009 was a year of immense change so I am looking forward to a more stable year. The year started out well with a nice raise and also the news that Brent got a great job at The Smith Family - the largest charity organisation in Australia. He will be starting on Monday and we are both very excited.
It was a very rough year for Brent having to move to a country that he had only visited once before for two weeks, leave all of his family and friends behind, get used to the crazy accent and all the even crazier words we use, the prejudice against Americans, the lack of recognition of his educational qualifications, a first job that turned out to be very bad, etc etc.
So this year already looks promising for us. We will be moving to a new place at the end of February and that is enough to keep us upbeat! Our current apartment has been trouble from the beginning - it was infested with cockroaches upon moving in, the kitchen benches began falling apart, the taps broke one after the other, the winter came and we froze then summer came and we roasted, the neighbour below smokes on his porch all the time and lucky us get all the smoke, the apartments across the parking lot are public housing - bringing with it so many fun things, the neighbour next door wakes up every morning at 8:30 with a disgusting hacking cough. Oh I can't wait to move, can you tell?! :)
I have two overarching goals this year: my physical health and my finances. I have allowed myself to get so overweight and out of shape, so I need to focus and get back on track. I want to get back to where I was just over 3 years ago - super hot!
With both of us working, I can now start to sort out all my finances and get my debts paid down. We also want to start saving for a house with a goal to be able to buy within 2 years.
We will also finally figure out when we are getting married - preferably after making considerable headway on the first two goals!
So I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years. I am looking forward to this year!