Australia!
Well it’s hard to believe I’ve been in America for almost 2 years. The time has flown yet it feels like forever ago that I left Australia.
All I knew coming into this cultural exchange was that I wanted to do anything and everything- as much as I possibly could. And I have done just that! (as you can tell by my blog and all my photos!) As crazy as it sounds I knew this exchange was only for a certain amount of time so I’ve just lived and enjoyed every moment to its fullest! I definitely want to continue living life with this frame of mind!
My experience has been so much more than I could have ever imagined. My ‘family’ have been wonderful and so supportive of me. I honestly can not thank Justin and Katherine enough for taking me in and giving me all that they have. Leaving my boys Brennan and Reid has definitely been the hardest and saddest thing I’ve had to do since I’ve been here.
I’ve also made some amazing friends who inspire me everyday to live, laugh, enjoy, create and love. I know these friends will be apart of my life forever. I’m especially grateful to Chelsea and Steve for absolutely everything they have done and continue to do for me.
Although I have been struggling to find the ‘good’ in ‘goodbye’ I know that I will be back before too long….
This has been the best experience of my life to date.
Australia…I’ll see you soon!
some “see you soon’s”
I’ve spent the last few days saying ‘see you soon’ to some friends and “family” who have been SO good to me throughout my time in the US. I’ve nearly cried all my tears but I know that the distance will not impact on the friendships I’ve made over here.
Last outing with my boys- Santa Monica
hanging out with Ash before she went back to the east coast!
hanging out with Dani at ‘For Goodness Cakes’
Then we went to Southcoast Plaza…
Victorias Secret
we saw Santa!!
taking artsy photos in the mall
cheesy christmas sweater at Walmart!! (the snow is sewed on pearls haha)
Having dinner with my favorites at BJ’s in Huntington Beach!!! <3 <3
Brytni, Hali, Andrew, Chelsea, Steve, Stacy, Summer and Heather..I love you guys!! and I loved the Pizookie >_<
My US blog is coming to an end…
San Diego Zoo Safari Park!
My friends Andrew, Hali, Julian and I went on an adventure to the SD Zoo Safari Park to find coyotes…and failed! Unfortunately they don’t have coyotes there however we did see some other fun animals and more importantly we had a fun day together in our spiritoods!
Andrew and Julian goofing around the night before
I tried on Andrew’s Peter Pan shoes >_<
Happy Birthday Brytni!
Thanksgiving
This year was my second Thanksgiving and it was just as great as the first one!! I really do wish Australia celebrated Thanksgiving. There was so much yummy food it was ridiculous. We ate and ate and ate and ate. It was fun having my Aussie friends here in LA to celebrate with us too!
=)
A Disneyland Christmas
Jaimi, Emily, Ashlee and I went to Disneyland on Tuesday! Of Course it was so so busy because of it being Thanksgiving week however we still managed to have a great time and make the most of standing in lines for hours.
I met up with Andrew for a bit and then Brytni joined us for some of the time and Chelsea and Steve came later in the night!
photos, photos, photos!
minnie in her christmas costume!
some cute pics of Andrew and a special friend!
aussie princesses
Cinderella and the fairy godmother
castle
Cruella De Vil loved the camera!
cute Mickey pretzels
Christmas Parade
Mary Poppins and Bert =)
teacups!!
Toontown!
We went to Mickey’s House
Story telling
a favorite =)
Auora
Snow White
Cinderella
photo by Brytni
Brytni
happy hoods
castle by night
Peter Pan’s flight
spicy kebabs
Winnie the Pooh ride
<3
love this Belle dress candied apple!
ice-cream time!!
christmas fireworks
Chelsea and Steve!
in line for Space Mountain….85 minutessssss
so pretty!
So Cal Adventures!
Jaimi, Emily and I have been up to lots here in Southern Cali! Ash arrived from PA to come spend a week with us over Thanksgiving too so here’s us Aussies taking over California!
Universal City Walk
oh yeah, Jay Leno was at Universal!
Santa Monica!
Getting ready to go hang out with Rove on the set of RoveLA at the CBS studios in Hollywood!
We couldnt take any photos during the taping so I got nothing! But afterwards we went and hung out with Ross and Jason at some random bar and then got In-n-Out and Chik-fil-A! haha
this is me wearing Ross’s glasses
yummy!
Chelsea, Steve and I went to the House of Blues in Downtown Disney to see New Found Glory and Set Your Goals! I only got a couple of crappy photos on my phone!
Laguna Beach!
Dinner at Old Spaghetti Factory for Chelsea’s Birthday! yay!!!
We went to the American Music Awards at the Nokia Theatre in downtown LA on sunday night and it was so much fun!!! LMFAO’s finale was THE BEST!! Permanent imagine forever in my head of Justin Bieber shuffling in zebra pants and The Hoff dancing on stage in his underwear hahahahaha!
I have a few photos of us before we left!
Millions of Milkshakes after the AMA’s and a trip to Uncle Jacob’s new house! (it’s a Snow White castle! so pretty!)
Jaimi and i hiked up to the Hollywood sign after it rained! So pretty up there =)
so much security!
I took the girls to High Voltage Tattoo for a visit and they ended up getting tattoos. I didn’t influence them at all!
Khoi and the girls after they got tattooed
Camilla brought her pug into the shop!! I LOVE pugs!! even these blurry photos are cute!
looking around in Wonderland
yeaahhhh! thanks for taking the pic Mario!
Saddle Ranch on Sunset!
Brytni and Ash rode the bull!
fun times with my girls!
next blog- Disneyland! (i seriously never get sick of this place!!)
Tattoo Time.
Last Wednesday I went and saw Dan at High Voltage Tattoo and we ( I mean, he) finished my arm! It looks SO good, I love it!!! Thanks Daaaaniel!!!
I took lots of photos with my new camera!
Dan with his new setup- apparently it gets the work done in half the time. Not to mention it has double the amount of needles piercing my skin, gaaahhhhh
the one we all love, Mr Jeff Ward
my finished arm!
Everyone loves the California heart! Kat V D and Rooftop both took photos of it because they loved it so much!!
G counting my money because I’m too lazy
Dan being all Hollywood, signing copies of his new book (which by the way is called ‘With the Light of Truth’ and it’s a great book! check it out!!)
my sore arm is all taped up but I’m smiling =D
signature look
I’m so extremely happy with Dan’s work I cant thank him enough for his time over the last year. Despite our love/ hate relationship I love being around him because he’s so creative and as cliche as it sounds he inspires me to live my dreams….
Quality person.
Disney fun!
From Vegas Chelsea, Steve, Jaimi, Emily and I drove to Orange County. We spent the next 2 days Disney-ing! Here’s a bunch of photos! I love Disneyland at Christmas time!! The ‘snow’ on the castle is so pretty!
Mickey leading a marching band
Woody!!
Fawn at Pixie Hollow!
Teacups!
Its a small world!
Haunted Mansion all decorated for christmas!
Meeting princesses =D
Waiting to meet Rapunzel and Flynn for the first time!!
The christmas parade at night!
Chelsea and Steve watching the parade
Tigger!
Steve and Tigger bouncing!
Eeyore so sad
The castle at night! Amazing!
Buzz Lightyear ride with Emily
California Adventure photos!!!
I love Disney. <3 <3
Vegas baby
So I went to Vegas and all I took were a few lousy photos of the cheesy Welcome to Vegas sign!! hahahaha
No but really I was only there for 2 days and I had strep throat so I really didn’t do a whole lot! The upside of this is that I got my money’s worth for staying at the Luxor because I stayed in the hotel room while my friends went and partied at Snooki’s Birthday party!
I did get to go to Holly Madison’s ‘Peepshow’ at Planet Hollywood and that was amazing!! I have the biggest girl crush on Holly! We loved the show!
Despite being sick it was a fun couple of days with Chelsea, Steve, Jaimi and Emily!
Early November Updates
Well I will start with- I dont really have too many new recent photos because my camera broke after Halloween! Which by the way I’m not upset about at all because it had definitely seen better days! And it gave me a good reason to go out and buy a new one! So it took me a couple of weeks but I got one- Canon Rebel T3i! So excited about this purchase! It’s a big fancy expensive camera and video camera. I’m currently learning how to use it!
But anyway here are a few snaps (mostly taken on my phone) from the last couple of weeks.
lazing around in my Missoni pants listening to Justin Biebers new christmas album! 
My little guy loves his bike
doing his favorite pose!
wagon time!
happy boy =)
out for dinner with my girls Jessie and Lara <3
my hairdresser Jay has a Mickey tattoo!! He rules!! just for the record yes he is wearing a fur scarf and white pants. He also had blue and purple hair, a headband and matching earrings and pink eyeshadow on one of his eyes.
watching tv at the Disney store in San Francisco
hanging out with Jess in Santa Cruz! mmmm Bettys Burgers!
hanging out in public restrooms taking pics like all the cool kids do!
Jaimi and Emily came to visit me in San Francisco!! Unfortunately I didn’t get to spend too much time with them because I came down with strep throat again =( however we did go to the Jacks Mannequin concert and we did get to make and eat Jaimi’s yummy lasagna!
A couple of events I didnt manage to take any photos of were Chelsea and Steve’s weekend trip to SF and our playgroup party we had with all our playgorup friends! That was very slack of me!
Anyway hopefully I will work out my new camera soon!! Lots of fun and exciting things happening over the rest of November!! Next up- Vegas weekend!
Concert fun!
Last saturday night I met up with some friends in the city and saw Simple Plan, Forever the Sickest Kids and The Cab at The Regency Ballroom! It was super fun and as you can see we took more photos of ourselves than the bands hahahaha! No but really I was to busy dancing and rocking out to the music to get any good photos of of the bands!
My girls Jessica and Gina!
Lindsay, Gina and Jessica
He was trying to see how high he could get his voice, hahaha
Trick or Treat…
Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!
Now I’ve only had 2 years experience of trick or treating but I feel pretty confident to say that Eucalyptus Street in San Carlos is one of the craziest streets to go trick or treating on! We have some friends who live on the street and last year we went to a party at their house for Halloween. Everyone on their street goes all out! They have the roads blocked off, every house is decorated with something crazy and once the sun goes down it is packed! Last year there was a big Alice in Wonderland themed production that was amazing. This year was no expception. It was Pirates of the Caribbean!! There was a big pirate ship and pirates doing acrobatics and dancing. They had real birds and a Jack Sparrow look alike. (all hired actors for the night) It really was unreal!
Oh and if you hadn’t figured out our costumes we were Pocahontas, Peter Pan and the Clown Sheep! (from the kids book ‘Where is the Green Sheep?’)
Halloween house party!
This year we put on a Halloween party at our house the day before Halloween. It was an afternoon/evening party and we had a great turn out with so many fantastic costumes! Last year I was tossing up between two costumes and ended up going with the Starbucks lady so this year I was set on doing the one I didn’t get to do last year- Pocahontas!!! We started on making a dress but somehow ran out of time so I ended up buying one at Disneyland. I really like it because it’s her winter dress and thats the one I had my heart set on wearing in the first place. It has fur on it and one of the sleeves is long. Actually the sleeves are around three quarter length because it’s a child’s size dress haha but I think I pulled it off just fine! We had yummy soup and grilled cheese sandwhiches, cupcakes, dirt cake and snacks. We bobbed for apples and took a bunch of great photos!
captured the best photo right here!! Snow White eating an apple. Such a cute pic!
Goblin Walk
Here’s a bunch of photos I took when we went to the San Carlos Goblin Walk on Friday night with our friends!
