Scavenger Hunt Sunday: Better Late Than Never

1. Family

It wouldn't be a trip home to Australia if we didn't sit at Pop's Bar drinking his home brew. This particular day, I brought over the port I received for my graduation in 2000.

He was most happy.

2. Motion Blur

This action shot is of my two beautiful sisters looking less-than stunning on Xmas day. Georgia (Left) won a stick-on mo' in her bon-bon's. Not wanting to be left out, Jasmin drew her very own mo' on her finger. Laughter and a bad dancing photo shoot ensued.

 3. Pretty Package

 The centre piece of our Christmas Dinner table.

4. Glow

It's a long shot, but Jasmin is definitely glowing in this picture.

5.Sparkle

I feel like we have done sparkle, so I am throwing in a curve ball...
I feel like I "sparkle" when I am by the ocean...Cheesy, but will have to do!

I Still Call Australia...Part One

There are birds chirping. Hibiscus flowers are swaying in the humid wind. Kerry Ann Kennelly is on the telly. It is a balmy 26 degrees at 8:30 am in sunny Brisvegas. My skin feels rehydrated and alive. It is nice to be back in the land of nasal accents and ice cold beers.

The 15 hour direct flight from YVR to Sydney is the best way to travel to this far-away land. Exhausted from the weekend, I slept a good 8 hours on the plane. I didn't get to eat a lot of food the day before I traveled, due to last minute packing stress and a general sense of 'holy shit I cant believe Im leaving to go home for 6 weeks'. I do not understand why it takes me longer to pack my bag after so many years of travel. It should get easier, it should be a streamlined process. But no - I obsess more. I find ways to fit liquid into smaller containers. I create different folding methods to pack in multiple pairs of shoes. This obsession with packing perfectly is killing me!

My flight from YVR left at 11:45pm. I found a little california roll pack that had seen better days and shoveled it down. Even old sushi in Vancouver is still edible. It mildly satiated my need for sustenance. I boarded my flight knowing that I would be eating again in less than 2 hours.

When I fly, I like to order the vegetarian option so that I get my food first and hot. I sit in the aisle, so that when I finish eating, I can easily get up to brush my teeth, and prepare for sleep while everyone else is locked in with their tray tables, like they are sitting on a rollercoaster from hell.  1 hour into the flight the hostess gave me my indian chickpea concoction. Smugly, I settled down to watch 'How to Train Your Dragon' and tucked into my little meat-free dish much to the chargrin of my fellow passengers. After my 3rd bite, I noticed the aircon blowing ice cold wind on my face plummeting my body temperature to below zero so I decided to try to turn it off without having to talk to the person beside me. I refuse to speak to people beside me on the plane. Too many times I have made the mistake of chatting to people to then to be treated with a 9 hour converstation on a myriad of topics such as gun laws, children's birthdays, Obama, and Oprah. Carefully avoiding eye contact with 29B, I balanced my plate in my left hand and I held it out in the aisle while I undid my seatbelt, removed my blanki and stood to manouver the aircon nozzle with my right hand. Now, most of you know that I broke my arm back in May and it is getting strong, but sometimes has spasms at unfortunate times...this was one of these times. My little balls of chickpea flung high in the air and splattered unceremoniously on the ground below. The quinoa salad landed on my seat and my smug expression turned beet red. I tried to clean it up as much as I could, but the rice just mushed further into the carpet and the small quinoa balls wedged themselves firmly to the stitching of the seat. I slumped unhappily hungry in my seat and began to pray for a problem-free flight from here in. I popped 2 sleeping pills to induce a coma-like state to forget my nigling hunger. I awoke 4 hours later sweating and nauseated. My stomach was growling...hypoglycemic, I imagined myself violently vomiting and passing out in my mushy rice aisle. I stripped down to my sports bra and began fanning myself with the safety card (in my opinion, the only thing that card is useful for is fanning one's body in times of great duress. The brace position wont save you in a burning plane). The passing hostess saw my panic and swooped in to see if I was okay. "Just a little hungry," I replied. She swiflty brought me a cookie and ginger ale thus saving me from an impending hypoglycemic coma. What is the moral of this story? Always read your safety card and know when to use it.

Steven, my oldest friend met me in Brisvegas airport. Like all true old mates, we swiftly fell into a groove and within minutes it felt like we had been living down the road from each other for the last 27 years playing cars in his backyard. We cracked our first beer by the Christmas tree: it was a Montieth Summer's Ale. It tasted like a refreshing ginger beer.

 After that, we cruised down to Paddington Street to sit on the open patio of Iceworks bar. Across the road, people were gathering for the U2 concert. It was fun to people watch; it is still quite çold for Brisbane standards and it amused me to no end that some people were in winter boots and jeans. My most disturbing fashion discovery is that most Brisvegas men are now in short, tight jean shorts...leaving little to the imagination. It is a longer version of the budgie smuggler. Budgie smugglers for the urban professional. "But this is the land of the rising redneck!" I exclaim. Steven says that 10 years ago any man in tight shorts would have been beaten for wearing such monstrosities. But recently, little Brisvegas is going through a slight ''renassiance''...   Cheers to Brissy!

At the Iceworks bar, we tucked into a duck and plum sauce pizza with a watercress salad on top. Then, we moved on to a restaurant called Lark where we ate mussels in garlic and white wine sauce and calamari.

Cocktails in Australia are $16 so we only had one. We finished the night with a 2006 Grant Burge Holy Trinity GSM by the Christmas Tree while watching reruns of Summer Heights High..It was a great way to begin my Aussie tour downunder. I dont have the star quality like Oprah, but I will try to blog as much as I can about my time here to inspire you all to make the trip here someday.

Scavenger Hunt: November 21

A difficult list this week! It was a great challenge...especially as I have a new job and have less time to muck around taking photos and playing with Photoshop. Here is the best I can do with limited time and no SLR...The good news is that my camera might be returned to me by Friday!

1. The View Above

Edmonton is now a frozen tundra. It turned violent last week and I have enjoyed every minute of it. The coldest day was today: minus 23 with a windchill of 32. Yeah! This photo was taken on Chad's and my river valley walk on Saturday afternoon. The river is now frozen. We managed to catch the last rays of sunlight over the valley. Spectacular views - more photos to come soon!

2. Something Hot

It's Movember! How could I not think that Chad's Mo is the hottest thing to hit E-town this year? I love this pic as there are small ice crystals forming on the small mo-hairs. Support Chad and his Movember fund-raising effort!

3. Something Cold

A) I don't know why anyone would lock their bike in the public area over winter and B) why hasn't this bike been stolen yet?

4. Electronic
I was lucky enough to receive this pink sewing machine from my friend, Kari. I love it and it has inspired me to start making my own clothes.

5. Sparkle

A blurry picture of a Christmas ornament. Not very original...Sorry!

Mutton Dressed Up As Lamb

Last Christmas, we had a little family photo shoot. My aim was to finally get a photo of my pop smiling...a harder task than you think! I told some dirty jokes while snapping away. It helped that he'd had a few home brew beers prior to the shoot. After wards, we began mucking around with Photoshop and we decided to try to take 30 years off of them. Not that they need it; they are in their 70's and are looking pretty sharp for a couple of old ducks, but nevertheless, it was quite amusing to play around with the clone stamp; it is one of the easiest tools to use and produces instant results - who needs a dentist or Oil of Olay when you have Photoshop!

The SOOC shot: Not too bad at all and he is smiling!

Post Production: Wrinkles smoothed, teeth lightened!

It's going to be good to see them in 3 weeks!