Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!


What are your resolutions everyone?

Or are we not bothering this year because they usually last a max of a week.

Especially if you make stupid, too unthinkably hard to keep ones like

"I swear to eat one piece of chocolate a week"

Because you then buy your block which is supposed to last half a year, you eat that first piece, and then you eat another, making the excuse of "i just won't eat one tomorrow" and so fourth. And its just setting yourself up for failure. :D But it's such good tasting failure.....

Until you look at the empty packaging and think "SHITE! I now have lost all confidence in my self control".


So make ones that are easy to keep :D And good luck to you!


ALL MY LOVE

xoxoxooxoxox



p.s - Maddy you have done a fab job at spreading my blog address around which i originally intended to be kinda private :) haha. Now people will actually realize my grip on the English language isn't too strong :( I love you!

Happy Holidays and All that jazz

I hope you all have had a fantastic week so far and have received all the gifts in the world that you may have wanted :)

My week has been my busiest yet. With many new discoveries :)

So, i tried the cheese in a can deal. It still grosses me out heaps............ How can real cheese be compressed into a can? It just doesn't happen. And Keith is all, "Yeah, sometimes i just squirt it straight into my mouth, like you do with cream."
With cream, i agree that it is amazing, but with cheese?? NOH!

What else, what else.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhmmmmm......

I had the great pleasure of meeting Marvina's delightful 7 year old niece Mariana.
Now, she was shy at first, i couldn't get a word out of her. But then.......
She started hitting me, lightly at first and she would piss herself laughing so i was like, eh, let the girl have her fun. So she was quite content to slap and pinch and push and hit then hide for about 4 hours on end. I never knew riding in the backseat could be so very dangerous.... She starts giggling and i look across to see her holding a solid square present ready at my face level, hardly enough time to register it before it hit me in the forehead. :) I found out she is ticklish and she stopped being so violent than, haha. Although she did spit on me at another time......
She was v cute though, and we ran around Macy's for an hour raising havoc. In the perfume section she sprayed me with god only knows what, but it smelt GROSS, and then i sprayed her with something else gross. haha, then we covered up the horrid scent with nice, nice, lovely, amazing expensive perfumes.
And it seems Mariana is at the stage in her life when she just discovered guys and girls have different things "down there". I first realized this when a male overweight bull dog waddled past with very prominent ah, whatevs, and she just laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and then the pony came also, which also happened to be male and she laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed..... Walking through the underwear section in Macy's was SUCH a mistake. She would go up to the pictures of the women in their underwear, point at their crotch and go crazy, then she would pick up the undies hold the crotch and giggle and giggle and run away when i tried to stop her. Oh my lord it was funny though, she is insaaaaaane.

After all of this crazy shinannigans we went out for tea. Literally. Marvina and i went to this all organic tea room. It was so peaceful and all zen, we tried 3 different teas - Pumpkin Chai (fantastic, do it, try it) "Waves of Joy" - Lemon myrtle, lemon grass, ginger and rose hip (ahhh, don't try this one unless all the water in the world has disappeared and its a matter of life and death) and Cherry Vanilla (mmmmmmmmmmmmm =] ). It was really nicccce :)
Ah, we also went to yet another mall, this one was another outside one called Scottsdale somethingarather and it was good..... until entering a shop and finding a really nice dress and then seeing the price tag aaaaaaaah $400? Nopae.... Juciy Couture is not for people on a budget!
AH! The Cheesecake Factory! You must go if you ever get the chance. Absolutely amazing restaurant, lemonade, is actually homemade lemonade, the food is fantastic, and the range of cheesecake dessert is mindblowing. I had the cookie dough cheesecake...... ahhhhhhh my gooooooooddddddddddd, vanilla cheese cake in an oreo base filled with huge chunks of cookie dough and 2 huge dollops of whipped cream and chocolate fudge..........................................

Ah, we also went to this really cute little park thing. I guess it's kinda like Lobethal lights but all condensed into a park. You get on this little train and it rides around and everything is all decorated, they have light tunnels and little reindeer and fake snow blowing around and lights in all of the trees and all the little light up statues, its all SO CUTE. We waited in line for 2 hours :) it was frickin freezing though. It doesn't snow here but god it gets chillllly.

Christmas was leisurely, really good food, had a ham and really nice chocolate cake. We didn't end up getting a tree because the guy selling them close by wanted $50 for a 4 foot piece of crap and Marvina was like.. Ahhhhhhhhh no. So instead they covered the table in branches and it was a makeshift tree... It was cute!
We all got really nice gift, and the Wii has been overused by Keith in the last few days haha. And i got a starbucks voucher along with other things :) YESSSSSSSSSSS there isn't one day apart from christmas day that i haven't indulged in a beautiful mocha....... aaaaaaahhh.

Grand Canyon in February! YEAH!

I should be starting helping at the elementary school after the holidays finish... awwww i can't wait. And now sales are on! It's amazing! :D :D :D :D :D :D if things were cheap before its just ridiculous now :)

Ya ya ya. So..


HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM!!!!!!!!!
Tomorrow, :) you are 16!
I hope you have a wonderful day! I love you!


Ahhhh, in other news............i uh took some photos today. :)
And my mum sent me a picture of my ugmo pup dressed as santa. I'm sorry Ruby, that my parents abuse you so :)


These fruchocs are reminding me of homey. Adelaide, if good for nothing else, makes great chocolate.

Haha

George Bush got attacked with a shoe.
About time, about time.


Anyway, here is a commercial that i experienced yesterday... I couldn't stop laughing because when your innocently watching tv, do you seriously expect this to suddenly come on?? Haha :)
Enjoy.



Much love

America's bread tastes like sugar.

Emma, your idea was fantastic, so ah, i um.. copied. :)

These are little things that I have been noticing since I arrived and I thought I would share them with everyone:

*Cars - Everyone here drives either - Mercs, BMW, Hummers (I have seen so many of these, as common as the ute), Porshe, Jaguar and any other top end car. I haven't seen a Toyota, Misubishi, Holden (that's obvious as it's only aussie, but i mean that type of car) or any car that isn't under $65,000 in my time here. It's intimadating when you go to cross the road and you walk infront of a mini moster truck that the bottom of the windscreen is already higher than your head. Awesome. Everything here is about indulgence. EVERYTHING.
*Meals - Australian food is like eating cardboard in comparison. To be honest i much prefer the cardboard. Okay, so.....The bread is sweetend, alot, more than maccas buns. I had pasta the night before last and it tasted like sea water it was that salty. Similar to you emma, the meals are HUGE. ABOSOLUTELY HUGE. And then comes dessert. Doesn't help that my host mum used to own and run a catering company so the food is fantastic, usually, apart from the over salting and sweetning. You know vitamin water? You can't get the same size bottles here, they are about 850ml instead of 600ml. They have this great stuff called mintwater though. It's all natural, water with mint in it. Totally freshens your breath as you drink. There is also chocmint water, but i'm yet to become that adventurous. Also, when you go to fast food chains, our largest drink size is usually there smallest, or medium. There biggest holds something like 2 litres. That's crazy.

*Fast Food - Haha, so if you want a burger in Aus you have 3 choices.... Hungry Jacks, Maccas or KFC and i guess subway aswell. WELL, here there are so many fast food chains i can't even remember all of them. There are at least 10 more. Wendy's here sells burgers, NOT ICECREAM! If you wanna get fat, welcome to your dreamland. For those of you who are wondering, i'm yet to supersize anything. The only fast food i've had here was "jack in the box" YAY! And Starbucks....For some reason it tastes fricking amazing here. Maybe isn't because its just wow. Ah, okay and get this - starbucks in a drive through. oh lordy. And you know how after you receive your coffe you go over to the table with the chocolate and vanilla shakers? here they have a huge jug of cream. Thinner cream than aussie cream, but still, sweet jesus that's amazing.

*Vegetables - Canned peas are never the same as real peas. Ew.
*Bread - Sickly sweet, i'd give anything for some bakers delight.
*Low Fat -HA, keep dreaming.
*Butter - Yellow dipped in salt.
*Sex - Is everywhere. Its so much more obvious in amercan culture than back home. We look subtle and almost conservative in comparison. Turn on the tv, SEX SEX SEX SEX. All the programs are SEX SEX SEX. My host dad has a habit of turning the tv onto the "gay channel" when ever anyone is drifting of to sleep. It's not grafically like r rated gay or anything. But still, it's funny, he just pisses himself laughing the whole time.
*Shopping - WOW. I never want to come home in that reguard. Everything is cheaper. Calvin klein jeans? $55. Victoria's secret bra? $40. Fantastic quality clothes that would cost around $70 - $120 in Australia? I'm talking pure cotton, pure wool, fantastic quality. ahh i dunno, like only $15-$22. THAT'S RIGHT. I went on a major spree yesterday. ahhhh, beautiful. This was only 1 of 25 malls in the area mind you. Ah, it was at least 2 1/2 times the size of marion, and had 3 story's and a huge fountain in the middle....i only had an hour and a half to look around. I got incredibly overwhelmed standing outside Louis V. looking across the way at Gucci, done a little further Victoria's secret, then guess, then chanel, then mac make up and then lacoste. ahhhh sweet jesus. So i ah, went into lacoste and bought myself things for half price. The sales are already crazy. the economic crisis is great in that reguard. Everywhere is having 15% - 75% off sales already. Imagine Janruary. FAR OUT.
*Weather -Today is the first day that its been resonably cool. It's about 15 degrees here. A very welcome change.
*The Language - Funny, my host dad calls me grandma because i said i was a "bit drowsy" at one stage. Apparntly i speak using many "old peoples" terms. haha. I also had to explain to him what the phrase"make allowance for" meant. He was like "isn't that like money?" no dear sir. Yeah, he's more mechanically driven. But ah, yes, accent is very noticable, people always smile. Lot's of "where are you from"?
*Australia - As emma said - Acdc, the wiggles and desert are about the extent of knowledge about australia. Oh and kangaroos. And I will never look at pancakes the same after hearing the term Koala Pancakes substituting roadkill.

I've had about 3 people ask me

"where in Aus are you from?"

"South Australia"

"Oh okay, but ah, what state?"

"Ah, that is the state name."

*ahem*

Stupid lush English, not ones for originality.

*Power Points - Other than the fact that their plugs are different to ours I am still yet to see and on/off switch to a powerpoint.. AGREED. Weird that americans still call it a power switch?
*Humor - Must be obvious for americans to laugh. : ) Keith comments on how british humor is very dry and not funny. Ha, he's never heard of monty python either. He also asked me last night why is it that Australian men always dress up as women. Apparently there was some skitch show on from australia where everyone is trans? And it's not we can be heroes! Also, Summer heights high with j'aime went straight over their heads :) haha.
*Dressing for Winter - In arizona? Seriously?
*Music - We have so much variety. There are no weekend shows like video hits or rage. You know how on the radio there is a decent mix of all genres? Not here, you'd be crazy to hope for much more than t-pain, 50 cent, g unit, timberland and jt. Oh, and maybe some jbros every now and then.
*American Movies - IMAX, i want to go there so bad. Its a movie theatre that is 3 story's high and the screen goes out around you to each side and above your head. :)
*Tip - Whenever you go to a resurant, cafe, get take out, whatever, you have to give a tip of 9-15%. My american phone even has a tip calculator. You're the rudest person in the world if you don't do this. I didn't know how much i was meant to tip at starbucks, so i ah, gave them like $1.40. ahaha. Lucky people. Oh! and money is way confusing, coloured notes are the most beautiful invention you will soon realise. And when all the coins are the same shape, and the 10c is smaller than the 5c but the 10c is the same size as the 1c. Good lord, don't be in a hurry to work out change. And tax also isn't included in any of the prices you see. It's added on at the register.

*The Snow - Not here, but we are going to the snow at some point :)

*Spiders - Haven't seen any yet!
*The Smell -ahhh, la smelt like pure smog. Here is alot more fresh. but i'm beginning to miss eucalyptus
*The Heaters - CENTRAL HEATING : )
*Beer - Haha, we have good beer apparently.
*Christmas - Here christmas is huge. yeah, tree's everywhere, lights in all the palm trees around some of the roads and the malls... wow. But emma i know what you mean about it being more advertised! Everyone has stared saying "Happy holidays!" instead of goodbye. And starbucks cups are covered in green reindeer flying across a red sky. : )
*Mobile Phones - They have unlimited internet on their phones here for like a $30 a/m plan. The phones are fantastic. Everything is so advanced. : )
*Computers - :) Cheaper.

Emma, i'm sorry you had to eat cow tongue.... :( haaha i think we discussed the posibility of that happening though?? and the cheese sounds gross!

Much love,

xx

Tell me who in their right mind goes through 300 minutes on their phone in 4 days?? ME! WOO!

Bonjour, Howdy, Gday

Okay this is just a quick first blog.
Emma i just watched your videos, you are offically the cutest thing i have ever seen in my life.
Haha, my day has been brightened up :D
So, yeah.... now i've been in Az a week... I wrote this a few days ago and thought, what the hell... i may as well post it.

So, it’s been a week since I’ve seen everyone back home, and at this point in time I’m not feeling too homesick, though I know give it another week and I will be bawling. :)
I’m just going to start off by saying that this experience has been nothing at all what I imagined it to be like really. Everything here feels so normal, and seeing I don’t legally have to attend any school why I’m here at all, it feels kinda like a big holiday. I kinda wish at times I’d only signed up for 2 months now, instead of 3.….. Then I would’ve got heaps more of the summer and been able to go to Fringe, Big Day Out and Soundwave. Instead I’m here, in mighty Arizona.
I just checked on the baby and she puked everywhere.
Oh god.
Okay, so the 14 hour plane trip was lame, it was soooooo long… it felt like days in that seat. I was sitting next to a guy who seemed pretty unsociable for the first 13 hours of the flight… but BAM when breakfast was served there were questions being thrown left right and centre. He was nice actually, and gave me lots of handy tips and facts and stuff. He was from Washington…. On god, I wish so badly that that’s where I was. I haven’t really had the chance to see to much of Phoenix yet, as these past few days all I’ve done is help the family move. One thing is for sure though, Maddy now has a competitor for female with the biggest guns. MINE ARE HUUUUUGE.
I was travelling with 3 other kids, 2 from Sydney and 1 from Perth. They were so much fun ahaha it was great. One girl was going to… get this right, it’s like every American exchange students dream…. California. Not only that, but Orange County in Cali. OH MYY GODDD. And when I was all, you’re so lucky, she was all… I actually wanted Nashville. I was like NAH MAN!
But yeah, so we all arrive in LAX airport, have to go through customs.. We got put in the wrong lane at first.. The citizens lane and the fat angry hungry coppers really weren’t fond of us. My guy wasn’t gonna let me through because I didn’t have a visa. HA suck, I have a letter from the exchange company.
So we leave Julia behind with her Nbc family and the 3 of us get to chill for 3 hours. We were going to go on a shuttle bus ride that takes you down sunset boulevard and all that, but we didn’t have enough time. It was so surreal though, as we were flying into LA you saw the HOLLYWOOD sign and everything. It was SO smoggy though. Grossly so. Amazingly so. If that’s LA than god help the Chinese.
We fully wanted to buy all the LA merch, but couldn’t fit it in our bags. We settled for some great american coffee.. Starbucks to be exact. My white choc mocha w/ extra cream has never ever tasted better. Seriously, it shits all over the one in Adelaide. Or formerly shitted all over. The guy who made it was so chilled, whistling away. Ahaha then we couldn’t figure out all the change we had been given, it was such a struggle. So pete and I asked this lady could she explain it to us, she very politely did. She told us we didn’t have very strong accents for Australians.. We turned to each other and died a little on the inside. We were yet to step on true foreign soil and we were already losing our precious identities as laid back sheep shearers.
So oui, Pete and Kimberly left for Wisconsin and I had about an hour to myself. I failed to find any sweet american teen magazines but settled for some kind of gum and celia’s highly recommended peanut butter cups. Which aren’t as amazing on the 2nd try, kinda sickly actually. Anyway, boarded my little plane to Arizona, with a total of about 15 people on board. Promising.
Land in Arizona an hour later with no one there to pick me up. I waited for about 10 minutes, started to freak out and went up to the information desk. Long story short and 3 terminals later, I ended up meeting some really great people.
There was this one guy, hell chilled, who kept telling me not to stress, it’ll be alright. He reminded me something chronic of Bosley outta Charlie’s Angels. Haha but his support was great. So when they couldn’t get on to my host family an couldn’t contact my emergency co ordinator, I was a lonely sole, who the lovely Arizona police force decided to take under there wing. The First 2 officers I met were bicyclists and when uno found out I was Aussie he said “ That’s where the wiggles come from right?” and proceeded to sing one of their more modern tunes. He was slightly jigging too. Oh god it was had to keep a straight face. The other officer was slathered with tatoos and had a hard worn scowl on his face. The lift up in the elevator to their office was one filled with conversation about wiggly mans’ son and his slow development in potty training, and dous accusing the poor son of having a disability.
So inside the office was actually really fun. Wiggly uno man, insisted on telling me how he plans to move out of America because Obama is president elect and is a terrorist. I asked him did he know who John Howard was and he says “ OH YEAH! Yeah I really like that guy, he’s cool” and when I said “oh really? Hahah I don’t really like him” he quickly proceeded to leave the room.
Lesson number one - Just because this country ALLOWS free speech, doesn’t mean it should ever be used when trying to make friends.
Haha anytime that uno would see any new officer he would ask them : “You know what the highest selling group to come outta Ostralya is?.. The wiggles, wow, like hah oh my god can you believe it??”
By the 7th time he asked the exact same question I was thinking, this guy needs to read more trivia.
Wiggly man was getting really into it all though, walking round the office saying 'CRIKEY and BUGGA" for the first hour. haha
There was this other guy with CRAZY blue eyes who sat there all smiley and happy and claiming he was great because he was English and therefore partly Australian….. He asked if there were many single ladies in Australia. Ahaha. He said he’d get divorced first, and then come and take a look.
Then I met the best officer of all, and I can’t for the life of me remember his name…. But anyway, he was really knowledgeable and we had a great chat. I gave the officers some timtams as thanks for the 3 hours of entertainment in which; one girl od’d and had to get taken to hospital, we later found out she was a kindy teacher and a guy of about 80 was caught shop lifting. Welcome to the usa.
The officers didn’t realize not everyone had guns in Australia. They looked shocked at the thought of it!
So I got picked up 5 hours later by host papa and got taken to a hotel…. Haha this sounds creepy. Anyway I had to spend the night there alone with a vending machine and free coffee machine (OH MY, AMAZING) because HF were moving and had nowhere for me to sleep. I was v frightened and kinda suspsious....
Next day, rise and shine, it was time to move all HF’s stuff. I’m buff man. Wikid biceps.
So all we’ve been doing for the past 4 days is moving and unpacking, moving and unpacking. The weather here is fantastic, probably about 25* all day : ) aha I’m yet to meet the jonas brothers, but I’m sure our time will come :D
Marvina and Keiths little baby, jaidyn is gorgeous… Loud, but a sweety. I can nurse and feed her with the botttle now :D haah Imma baby sitter. Oh, and I have a sweet bed, it double matress with pillow top and it’s double I think, maybe queen. But woweeeee.
The guy who was helping us move was really nice, but asked me if we have Christmas and pizza in Australia. Relevant questions I guess. But I tried not to laugh.
My HF is giving m a sidekick to use whilst I’m here . YES! .. Ahh Imma happy.
Sam, I’ve started using our herbal essenses coconut conditioner PLUS sunsilk shampoo... lethally amazing combo there.., it reminds me of you and your beautiful hair. Although you've moved on to bigger and better things now with pantene.. : (
OH and we have some sick ass, real life, wangsta dealers living above us. They go to bed at like 4am and all day they play some gaming console full boar and rap along to some hiphop. And people are constantly turning up at their door.. Aka DEALERS. But yeah man, they are pretty fully sick :D.
Update on the dealers... they puked over their balcony, into our balcony... So they got evicted.

My host dad is addicted to Final Fantasy... He talks about it more often than not. :)
Everything is pretty good atm, we got cable installed today! yaaaa!
Anyway... i think i may be going to church some days this week to meet some people my own age and hf is going to the snow in a few weeks :D
By the way, haha translation is still a slight problem here.
M:"Where is the babies dummy?"
D: "The what?"
M: "Dummy, like ah... pacifier??"
D: *At this point in time is laughing at me* " We call them binky's here"
D" Ain't givin no dummy to my baby"

Hahaa, but binky?? serisouly? ahh well.

Missing you all! And should be getting a webcam sooon to talk to you mads and emma :D :D
And for the first time in weeks, it's overcast here.
By the way, biscuits here are huge puff pastry things : )
Loooovvvvvvvvve xox