Hiking About

Even though I have been in Canberra coming up three years, I only just discovered a fantastic hiking area - Googong Lake. It is only a 30-ish minute drive from my house so you'd think I would have been there before but no! Anyway, just a few pics from our afternoon out there on a perfect Spring day.


Brent in front of one of the caves


Me overlooking some of the nice landscape


London Arch Bridge


London Arch Bridge

Gardening and Cooking

It has been a long, cold winter here in Canberra and Spring is finally starting to settle in. The rain has returned and everything is turning green and growing like crazy. Flowers are blooming and the temperature is perfect for sitting on the deck and enjoying lunch in the slightly crisp weather. The only bad thing is that my sneezing has definitely increased - the price you pay for Spring I guess!

We started a veggie and herb garden in the back yard - something we have been planning to do since moving in almost two years ago so I am glad we finally got to it! When I say "we" I really mean Brent - I took pictures and fetched gardening tools and he did the back-breaking work - can't complain about that deal!

I like to cook most of the time, but Spring puts me in the mood to really cook! It is also good weather to start up the bbq again which is a good thing because Costco here sells Tri-Tip! Non-Californians probably don't know what this is - it is an amazing cut of beef that is so tasty and for some reason isn't really eaten outside of California. Even my siblings in Utah and Texas can't get it! I am not really sure why they sell it here, I have never seen it in Australia before, maybe it is because the US Ambassador is from California. For what ever reason, I am very happy!

So just going to post a few pictures of things around the garden and a couple of the things I have been cooking up. Hurray for Spring!



Tri-Tip and Brownie Cookies with Peanut Butter Mousse Filling (recipe here)



Brent planting the veggie garden and some nice flowers with a pretty bird in our backyard

New Job!

I haven't updated my blog in a while but this time something really exciting has happened in the meantime - I got a new job!!

I applied back in March and started a month ago - government takes forever, haha.
So the job is as a Risk Adviser for AusAID - Australian Agency for International Development. At this stage in my career, this is my total dream job! This is a massive step in the right direction for my ultimate career goal (working for the UN) so getting this job was amazingly awesome.
I am so excited to be back in the international arena because I have missed it so!

And it gets better - there will be lots of travel! Part of my job will be to go out to our overseas posts to train them in how to manage risk. The majority of travel will be to Pacific Islands and South Asia, but hopefully a few glamorous locations like Paris and Geneva too!

So, in case you can't tell, I loooove my job! I can't get over how awesome it is!

If you get a chance, check it out: www.ausaid.gov.au

This is my office with the Millennium Development Goals on the windows:

Around Canberra

A walk around the lake on a gorgeous autumn day

Battle of Coral Sea Commemoration

On May 5, the Australian-American Association hosted the commemoration of the battle of the coral sea here in canberra. It was pretty cool and it was nice (and rare) to celebrate both sides of my family military history at the same time. Great day!

The "Catafalque Party" made up of Australian Navy and US Marines


The Governor-General taking a wreath to lay at the American Memorial


All the wreathes from various groups


The US Ambassador to Australia giving a speech


Me with the last two surviving Australian veterans of the Coral Sea Battle - they were hilarious!

Lame update...

So I haven't been on here in ages, I will try to do better! I have been working on my office the past couple weeks. I got a sweet desk, some wall stuff that I still need to put up (will take more photos then) and made an accent wall. Since I rent I can't paint or do wallpaper so I improvised with wrapping paper and sticky-tac! I am happy with it!

PS - couldn't get the first picture to rotate (it is from my phone) so tilt your head to the right to see it!

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!