Yadda Yadda Yadda

Guru & I headed off to be in the audience for 'Bert's Family Feud' yesterday afternoon. Was lots of fun, and we even got a Bert mask each! Yay for Bert me! I won't rehash what we did, just see Guru's blog for the speil. I've decided I should be on tv more this year. I was on a few times last year. Maybe 3? Well, it'll be more this year! Watch out for me on Monday & Tuesdays Family Feud shows Australians! And as a side note, I have an incredibly sore back today and I can't move properly, I think it was the chairs yesterday. Ow. I'm going to wallow in self pity I think.

Time for even more photos!!!


A few of us went around to Anna & Rob's last weekend for Rob's 26th birthday. We just hung out and generally had fun. It was the first time some people had seem them since they got back from their honeymoon in South America a few days prior. So there was lots of looking at photos, handing out presents and general funness! Yes, that is a real word... This is Alex & I.


This one is Alison. Kathryn went around taking photos of everyone's eyes, and I like the way this one turned out! I wish I could raise one eyebrow, but I can't... Sniff sniff...



This is Emma and her boyfriend Anesti. Aren't they adorable? :)






I love this photo!!! This is Anna & Grant. As I was about to take the photo, Anna fell backwards (almost off the chair) and Grant's laughing and trying to catch her! I love it! So you get connections, Anna is married to Rob, and Grant is engaged to Kelly.





This is me kissing Kathryn. Awww! I love her!






And this one is Kathryn & her boyfriend Keith. Keith and Anesti (Emma's boyfriend) are best friends, so that's how we met Keith. Just so you know the connections.










This one is Rob (married to Anna) & Stas (Anna's cousin and Alex's boyfriend). Aren't they good looking boys? The hat Rob is wearing is one that we all got. They bought back about 10 of them, and we all got Llama hats! Aren't they awesome!!! I love mine! Mine is cream with some brown through it. It's so warm! I want it to get colder so I have an excuse to wear it!

It'd actually be great to get some feedback from you guys about my blogging. Are too many photos boring? I like photos, but if they are just annoying then please tell me. Or I can just post one or two at a time.

Love to you all! Mwah!

Here, have a go!

And this would have to be one of the best sites I've ever seen. The most beautiful desktop pics you'll ever find!

EDIT: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ORBY!!!


As promised, here is a report on Grant's 25th which was a week and a half ago now. We went up to Olinda (in the dandenongs hills on the outskirts of Melbourne) to a restaurant for dinner. It was so pretty! But so far away... Anyway, this is Grant and Kelly who are getting married later on this year. These are the guys who asked me to sing at their wedding while they sign the register. How exciting! I'd tell you the song, but it's a secret! Shhh!


This one is the gorgeous Kathryn and her lovely boyfriend Keith. Aren't they adorable? That's right, everyone saw 'Awwww!' 1, 2, 3! "AWWWW!!!"








And now presenting to you: Lisa and her boyfriend Adrian. Don't they just look... um... well, they look something. Just kidding guys, you rock!








And now for the final installment in this issue's photo montage: Grant and "Alison" enjoying the cake. Oh yeah, so much cake... as you can tell, Grant was loving the cake! As he should, being the birthday boy and all!

March seems to be the season for birthdays. I've spent so much money on presents this month, but I also got lots of presents, seeing as I'm one of the thousand people who seem to have a March birthday. More photos of other things to come, but I haven't edited them yet.

I'm struggling to get the motivation to get back into study after 2 weeks off. Hoping that feeling won't last long.

On a lighter note, we won our first A grade game of volleyball tonight! WHOO!!! And half our team were missing. Perhaps they're holding us back and we should dump them! :P

We just got a brand new 20 inch iMac! So sweet!!! I have our eMac in my room now. All wireless, network, internet, everything. SWEET!!!

For some reason I can't upload photos onto my blog through Blogger anymore. Stupid Blogger! The page doesn't finish loading when I load them up. Oh well, you'll have to put up with me rambling on, rather than seeing wonderful pictures of what I'm rambling on about.

Anna & Rob decided to come back from South America early. They were due back tomorrow (Friday) but just turned up on my (ok, their) doorstep on Tuesday afternoon. They were supposed to stay in Lima for the last few days, but they didn't really like Lima (it was really smoggy), so they left early and didn't tell anyone they were coming back to the country! So I was the first one to see them as they rocked up unannounced. Wish I'd cleaned the house... I mean it wasn't dirty or anything, but my stuff was everywhere coz I was treating it like my place. So that was a lovely surprise! They surprised their parents that night and I sat through about 1000 photos (no exaggeration). They were all great, but wow, so many photos. I am so unbelievably jealous now, and I totally have the travel bug bad! I want to go overseas!!! NOW!!! Sigh... so anyway, we had people over at their place last night. I invited people around under a false pretense and surprised them all with Anna & Rob. Was lots of fun, but they crashed early because they were still kind of jet lagged.

Yesterday, Anna & Rob took me out to their favourite Vietnamese restaurant for lunch. It was so yummy!!! I put psycho hot chilli in my food. You can't even get this stuff in supermarkets it's so hot. Then I did the dumbest thing ever and touched my eye!!! I can't believe something can hurt that much! I thought I was going to have to get them to take me to the hospital it burned so badly! So much pain, so much burning...

Pa's funeral is tomorrow. Think it's going to be a sad day.

There is so much to catch up on! I haven't blogged properly for a while now coz I'm house sitting far away, but I'm hanging out at my parents' place this arvo, so time to get some blogging in! Prepare for a photo onslaught! This is from my birthday party last weekend. I had so much fun. There were about 40 people in a little 2 bedroom town house! Kinda squishy, but very fun! I really enjoyed the night as you can see! This is a group of us as I was cutting the cake.



I got so many exciting presents! Lots of jewelery, a japaese tea set, 'Buffy' stuff, 'Serenity' on dvd, Jane Austin's guide to dating (haha!), fondue set, shoes, money, a bag, lots of stuff really. This is Alex & I as I was cutting the cake! Is it not the most exciting cake in the universe?!!! Here's a better photo of the cake:



It's a turtle cake!!! I love turtles! The wonderful Ben made the cake, with some assistance from myself, but I didn't do much in thhe hlping department, but I did help taste is along the way! It's a white chocolate cake with rasberry and blackberry sauces throughout. It has a layer of custard in the middle and it has advokaat and white chocolate ganash on top as the icing, coloured green of course. How awesome is this cake?!!!


This is (from left to right) Wire, Dboy and Guru. Aren't they gorgeous men? :)









We need to balance out the gender balance of the photos now, so here are some girls! This is Simone (Left) and Jess (Right). Looking beautiful as always!



And here is Dboy and Chrystal (aka Mrs. Dboy). Don't they just look like the perect couple? I just want to squeeze their cheeks!





And to finish off my party photos, this is Ben & myself. I wonder if my cheek tasted any good?





Now to move on! Ben came over to my place on Wednesday and we shaved his beard all funkified like! Yes, I have a fantastic grasp of the English language! So he has a kind of tiger beard now. Isn't it funky? Then he decided it woudl be a good idea to go to the BMX track behind my house sitting house. SO he had a go for a while, then decided that I should have a go, which was fine for a while. I made my first 3 jumps fine! I'm not sure why I decided it was a good idea to do 1m jumps when I haven't been on a BMX track for like 10 years. So anyway, they were great, I got air and landed and it was great, but then the fourth jump was not so sucessful. I stacked the landing and scraped up half of my right shin. Owie! Cleaning the dirt out of it stung so much! Fun night...

For some reason blogger won't let me upload any more photos, so you can see the photos from Grant's 25th next time. That's all for now folks!

Pa just died. The funeral will be on Friday.

I went to visit my Pa today. He's expected to die in the next few days, so that was probably the last time I'll see him. It's really hitting me how old and frail we all will become. But perhaps it's worse for some. Pa has cancer, he is now bleeding internally, and he has advanced Alzheimer's. I'm not even sure he knew who I was today. He may have, I'm not sure. He didn't really speak. That is the first time I have seen him where he couldn't really speak, and I'm not sure if he knew me. At least the other times he knew me, he just couldn't remember anything I was doing, where I lived, etc. But at least he knew me. What a horrible disease Alzheimer's is! I'm feeling rather sad about knowing that he could die any time. I've never seen him so frail. He was way too skinny, and his face was all sunken, and his skin was a weird yellow colour. I hate death. I've only had one other person close to me die, that was my other grandfather in 1999. I'm just feeling a bit sad.

Here is a get well soon message to our wonderful and esteemed Revhead! He's not feeling too well and has a busted up elbow. We hope to see you back in the blogging world and the real world soon!

Seriously. Birthdays rock.

Yay for me and extending my birthday as long as humanly possible! I had friends over on Monday night who decided to make it my pre-birthday celebration, which at midnight turned into my brithday celebration. Then on my actual birthday (Tuesday) I had birthday wishes from people at college, then saw my family, then my small group came over to my place and we had cake and I got sung to. Yay! Tonight I'm having a party with my work mates, then tomorrow night I'm having a party with everyone else. Oh yeah, so much birthday celbrating! I'm lovin' it!

Can I also say how much I am just loving being in a house with a beautiful piano! So much nicer than my electric one. Not that I don't adore mine, coz I do, but real pianos just feel classy or something. I'm playing the piano sooooooo much! I hope the neighbours don't end up hating me, given that they don't already! I've learnt a song called 'my foolish heart' by victor young. Oh how I love that song! It's my current favourite!

Well on Monday night we didn't play volleyball because we had a bye, so Ben (as seen on the right) & Alex (as seen below) came over and we had a bit of a hit of the Vball on the oval. Lots of fun! Then we decided to try and make it look like we were writing on the walls at Anna & Rob's so we could email them the photos and freak them out!


We wrote on glad wrap then stuck it to the wall and took photos. But it was pretty obvious that we were writing on glad wrap. I couldn't make it look like it was really written on the wall. Oh well, I'll email them a photo anyway. It'll be fun! Aren't we the mischeivious ones! Mwahahahahaha!

It's my birthday! Whoo!!! I'm excited and I'm 24! The wonderful Ben (who is an awesome chef) cooked me French toast for breakfast this morning, I got some cards and pressies from people at college (you guys rock!), and a fondue set from Guru (my brother who rocks). It's going to be a good day, and it's only half over! My small group is coming to my place tonight too. I love birthdays!!! I can't wait for the cake to begin! Thanks for all the great birthday wishes so far! Love to you all!

*insert big kiss here*

It's my birthday tomorrow! WHOO!!!

I have had a busy weekend filled with dinners, a wedding, a house warming, study, church stuff and just generally not enough sleep. Had fun though. I have a sociology test soon, better go study. I love it though, it's my favourite subject! Been getting lots of exciting emails from Anna & Rob who are over in South American on their honeymoon. Sounds like they have having the most amazing time! I'm sooooo jealous! I want to travel! Stay safe y'all! Boom baby!

Well how super intelligent am I?! Don't answer that... Anyway, I am house sitting as of yesterday for some friends of mine who have gone off to South America on their honeymoon! Anna & Rob got married almost 3 weeks ago and have just left to go overseas. I'm sooooo jealous! I posted some photos from their wedding for those of you who are confused as to who I'm on about. So anyway, tonight I thought to myself 'I'll make a fruit salad! How nice!' Now the knives we have at home (can't you see where this is going?) aren't all super new sharp coz we've had them for a while. The knives here however are super new sharp because they were a wedding present. So I delightfully sliced one of my fingers open tonight. Oh the pain! It was a nice deep cut too. It bled lots and lots for about an hour. So much blood! At least it's not bleeding anymore, but I might get a scar from it! Hmmm... I should be more careful when working with knives!

So anyway, I am house sitting. It's so nice! It's a long way away (Whittlesea for those of you familiar with Melbourne Geography), which is nice, but also annoying coz I have to drive a long way to get to places I would usually go to (eg. work). I adore my family (whom I live with), but I think I'm really going to appreciate just having a bit of time on my own and getting some space. Oh, and did I mention they have a lovely piano? It's awesome!!! :)

I get so mad at our pathetically self absorbed western culture! I know I am a part of the problem, so I am highly hypocritical, but sometimes when I just take a step back, I get so mad! As you all probably know, I live in Melbourne. Don't get me wrong, I adore Melbourne, I love living here! As I'm sure you are aware, we are about to host the XVIIIth Commonwealth Games, which our wonderful city is all excited about. We've seen Melbourne 2006 ad campaigns for a long, long time now. What a waste!!! I mean, come on!



There are people starving in countries all over the world, just look at Africa, just look at one country in Africa, look at Ghana. There are children starving to death who are orphans beacuse their parents are dead from AIDS and we are spending millions and millions of dollars on fireworks and exciting light shows! Where are our priorities?! Do we care so little for our fellow human beings that we we would prefer to look at pretty fleeting lights than save lives? What is wrong with us?!
I was thinking mainly of the opening and closing ceremonies. They are so expensive and flashy, and what do they bring us? Do you think anyone will remember this opening ceremony in 5 years? NO! I'm not saying that we should do away with the commonwealth games, but come on! Why are we spening billions of dollars on our momentary entertainment when people are dying! DYING!!! We don't care beacuse we are not personally affected. I wish I cared more. I wish I did more. I wish we were all less self-absorbed and did something about this atrocity. People needlessly die! It does not have to be this way! This problem extends far beyond just this particular example. It's a lifestyle for us in the western world. Why can't we just forget about ourselves for a while and help those who actually need it?

Well, I have finally joined the world of video blogging! This is just a dodgy one from my phone, so that's why the quality is so crappy. Guru filmed this one, and it feautures the delightful me! :) Enjoy!
*bows dramatically*



Ah crap. I just watched it and it's all jerky and the colours are all weird. oh well, I'll have to do a proper one with a real video camera soon then. But for now, this'll do. Oh, and excuse my total lack of attractiveness. I was lazing around on my couch looking kinda crap.

By the way, only 10 days til my brithday!!! :) Everyone get excited! Tink is about to enter into her 24th year!

Just got back from 'walks', a bar/cafe in Eltham. They have a great accoustic duo there on a Wednesday night. Lots of fun! Great company too! You guys rock! You know who you are!

So I plan to be feuding with other families soon! Guru & I are going to be in the audience for the tv game show 'Family Feud' this Friday afternoon (not sure when it goes to air). They'll be taping 2 episodes, and we're going with the view of being a family on the show eventually. Whoo! We'll be famous and win many prizes! That's the plan anyway. Bring on the free stuff!!!

On Friday night I headed off to the zoo with some people from my Church. Was heaps of fun! They have twilight music there over the summer, so we saw a 60's cover band who were kinda ordinary, but the animals were very fun. See? I am keeping my new years resolution of going out to see all the things that Melbourne has to offer! Here is a pretty peecock that was just wandering around, I was chasing it with the camera and freaking it out. How fun!


Here is Brent (aka Wire) looking lovely as always. Don't you just want to pinch his cheeks?! :)







Here is a lion looking particularly laazy. They hardly moved the whole time we were there. Pfft, scarey creatures. Sure... We were going to throw one of the boys in there to make it more interesting, but couldnt' be bothered hoisting them over the fences.








Aren't Meercats just cool? I don't know why, but they're just so interesting!










This is Simone & I











This is some of the group who came along checking out some sleeping seals. Man animals are lazy! Aren't they there to entertain us! We should have thrown things at them or something. Or not... Anyway, from L-R this is, Simone, Nick, Brent, Mike, Neale



Once again, a lazy kangaroo.











And this is Nick (Left) & Brent (Right) sitting in upright kiddy carts that were locked up. Just because sometimes we all want to do that! All in all it was a fun night! Gotta love the zoo!

Well I had my first week of classes for the year this week @ Kingsley. Was really fantastic! I'm really enjoying getting back into it. Thankfully I like all my subjects. So yay! I'm doing:

Intro to human behaviour
Issues in social construction (a sociology subject)
Intro to Theology
Discipleship foundations


I just got back from an overnight retreat for my 'discipleship foundations' subject. Was great! Was a great time of getting to know my lecturers and fellow students a bit better and spending some quality time with God. This is a picture of the campsite we stayed at.


I'm really excited about this semester, taking more counselling subjects, and just generally learning more about myself, God, and the world, and how all those things interact. I have some of my classmates from last year, and some new ones, which is awesome. This is a pic of some of the girls who went on the retreat.



This is Dan, he's one of my classmates from last year, and I'm in 3 classes with him this year. Yay!













This is Jule & I looking suprisingly chirpy after having hardly slept last night. Most of us hardly slept. It was kinda stuffy and humid in our rooms. Not a good night. I think I need a nap... Oh how I love naps...


Also forgot to say earlier in the week that I had a great night out on Wednedsay night @ walks. It's become a regular hang out for a few of us. It was a great time of hanging out with some of the gang and listening to some great music. Everyone should come!

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I'm going away overnight tonight on a retreat for one of my subjects. Should be awesome. See ya tomorrow! I'm going here. Looks pretty.

So tell me what romantic things you got and did on this romantic day! I did and got nothing. I need to live vicariously through others. No one loves me... *sniff sniff*

Well here are lots of photos from Anna & Rob's wedding yesterday. It was just so beautiful. They got married at a Winery in the Yarra Valley. It was stunning! The ceremony and the reception and photos were all in the same place. How handy! Anna & Rob have been together for 4 years now and they've finally tied the knot. Good on you guys! This is a photo of the stunning Rob (left) and his best man Grant before the ceremony.


Look at us girls! Aren't we pretty! From L-R: Emma, Sarah, Alison, Me, Lisa, Kathryn



The boys don't scrub up too badly either! From Back L-R goign clockwise: Adam, Rob, Grant, Dale, Anesti, Aaron, Seb












You may now kiss the bride!





















Aren't they absolutely beautiful?!






















This is Grant & Kelly, they are getting married in December. They are great friends of mine, and were the wedding party in this wedding. And they have asked me to sing at their wedding while they are signing the register! I'm soooooo excited!!!









Some of us girls looking super hot.















This is the beautiful couple having their first dance as husband and wife. Anna was threatening to hit people for calling her wife. It was hilarious! Wifey Wife!







Some of the girls thought they were monkeys!






Me wearing the veil. We all had a turn. Well I did catch the bouquet! Maybe I'll get married one day! It was just such a beautiful and perfect day. Perfect weather, amazing company and a wonderful celebration for two of my best friends. What a great day!

I want to get married. I caught the bouquet tonight! And I took about 450 photos!

Well I fixed my violin today and I had a play. It felt so good! I'm definately going to keep playing. The violin is just such a beautiful instrument! I'm going to have to build up my calluses again, and get back up to the standard that I was, but it'll happen! I love my violin!!! Isn't it pretty?

All I want to say is LOST IS AWESOME!!! Such a great episode tonight! I'm so fully hooked! Is it wrong that i'm so attracted to Sawyer? Yay for Josh Holloway!

Life is good. Saw the MSO again tonight. Are they astounding or what?! The answer is yes. I am most definitely taking up the violin again. I would love to join an Orchestra, but as if I have the time to do that. After seeing the MSO I went to 'walks' (cafe/bar near me) to see a fantastic accoustic duo. What a great night of great music!

Going away tomorrow, just overnight. It's a retreat for one of my subjects before classes start on Monday. Should be great. Report later. With photos. Of course!

As a side note, I can't say I'm a huge fan of Dvorak. I like bits of his music, but never the songs in total. I don't feel like they take me anywhere, they transition too much and never go where they feel like they are headed.

Happy Birthdays to Alison (24) & Penny (21)! Have a great day girls!

Have I mentioned how much I love weddings?! And how much I'm looking forward to going to so many?! I get to go to one on Saturday! WHOO!!! Yay for Anna & Rob! I can't wait to wear my new dress!!!

Classes start again on Monday, and I have a 2 day retreat for one of my subjects this Thursday/Friday. Looking forward to studying again. Looking forward to catching up with lots of people from college too. Yay for Kingsley! Such an awesome plave to study!

Loving "Dragon's Song" by Harmony at the moment. One of my current favourite songs. It's in 5/4 time! How interesting!

Got the house to myself tonight, it'll be nice to have some 'downtime'. I like my space sometimes, even though I'm a very social person.

Going to see the MSO again tomorrow night. Should be awesome.

Did I just Ludicrow?

Oh I'm so excited! My friend Amy got engaged a little while ago, and she's getting married on May 13th. And she has asked me to be a bridesmaid! WHOO!!! I'm so excited!!! Here is me and Amy from when she visited last month.



I'm going to 5 weddings this year! One in February (on Saturday actually), one in March, one in May, one in September and one in December. Love is in the air!

Last night I had my first meeting for my new role in my Church. I go to Eltham Baptist Church and I have been asked to be involved in the youth ministry this year. At first I was asked to be a youth leader, and I was going to do that, but then I was asked to take on a different role. Along with Danny, Chrystal and Brent, I will be helping to look after the needs of the youth leaders themselves. The way it works is the youth stuff all happens between 5pm and 9pm on Sundays, and then the leaders get together on Tuesday nights for pastoral care, bible study, debrief, fellowship, fun, whatever they need. So the leaders will be split into two groups, one lead by Danny & Chrystal, and the other lead by Brent & myself.

I'm really looking forward to this new role. I haven't done anything quite like this before. I think it will be a very challenging time for me. It will help me grow in all sorts of ways! I also think it's going to be a great to time get to know a whole bunch of people from my church a whole lot better. Not to mention a whole lot of fun!

Judging by our meeting last night, we will be spending about 15 minutes all together, then spending the majority of our time on a Tuesday in our small groups. This is a big responsibility which I'm all up for! I'm sure that with God we can make it work the way He wants it to. It's all a bit up in the air at the moment, seeing as Tuesday nights have never taken this exact format before, but it's exciting. It looks like we will be doing all sorts of things from listening to each other, to praying, to bible study, to learning new skills, to just chatting, to getting to know each other better, to whatever you can think of that would be beneficial to everyone. I can't wait to see what God is going to do through us all this year!

One of my new years resolutions was to take advatage of the things that Melbourne has to offer. I think I've done pretty well for the month of January. And last night I went to the Sidney Myer Music Bowl to see the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. The soloist that played with them last night was a pianist by the name of Hoang Pham, born in Vietnam now living in New York, via Australia, and the conductor was Pietari Inkinen from Finnland. They performed Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini. Oh how I love Rachmaninov! It was such a great night. The MSO played for about 2 hours. The rest of the pieces were other orchestral pieces from dvorak, vivaldi and I'm not sure about the last one. It wasn't the most pleasant weather for it, but I plan to go back next week, and hopefully it will be a bit nicer then. I just really enjoy good music, and the MSO are world class. It has inspired me to get my violin back out! This is Hoang Pham taking a bow after his dazzling performance. If only I could play like him...



And this is the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra after their performance, while we were all getting sore hands from clapping for so long. They even did an encore! I didn't realise orchestras did encores! What a night of amazing music!