Love Me

WARNING: Beast of a blog ahead….

Characters: Devin, Elyse, Cameron, Caitlin, Lindsey, Patrick (Lindsey’s brother), Ned (Cameron’s surprise) and me…duh

Friday…

…started with a train ride to Sydney to board the 9:50 PM flight to Melbourne. Our flight got in at 11 something and we stumbled off the tiny jet plane into the smallest airport that I have ever seen in my life. A bus drove us the 45 minutes to our hostel, which I mistakenly assumed was from another planet. I guess they call it the Discovery Hostel for a reason because we definitely discovered some new things: rotten smells, yellow and brown stained pillows, fights that you can hear through the walls, and 'men' who cake on the makeup. But at 1:30 in the morning when your day started at 5:15, you just are thankful for a bed.

Saturday…

…We picked up the rental cars in the morning and began our journey through Melbourne to begin our trek down Great Ocean Road and see the sights. Boy, were we in for a drive! Devin had mapped out a few mandatory stops on the way and we drove that coastline like Jeff Gordon on happy pills. We affectionately named our cars Rape Dust (like ruffee) and Bloody Knuckles. Don’t laugh, Lindsey and Cameron are really creative.

This entire day was epic but I’ll try to stick to the good stories…

We stopped for lunch in Lorne and got some amazing smoothies and burgers and such…I almost ate at this place called The Bottle of Milk so I could order things off the menu like “What Everybody Gets,” “Bingo Bango,” ‘Hell Yeah,” or “Italian Stallion.” Creativity gets me every time. Then we happened upon a little park with in ground trampolines. Like a little kid of Christmas, I raced down there, slipped my shoes off, and bounced down the line of 5 trampolines as quick as my little legs would allow. After knocking several children over, (just go with it, it makes the story better) the loudspeaker comes on and a voice from heaven (or hell) says “You’re not supposed to be doing that. You have to pay for these, you know!” So I scampered away, obviously delighted with myself.

We managed to see the lighthouse and met the tour guide who recommended that we drive up Grey River Road and see the koalas that chill out in the trees up there. Supposedly they were full of them. Like the tourists we are, we bee lined for that and weren’t disappointed. Well, not that we saw a bunch of them, but we saw five or six. But the highlight of the trip was unexpected: on our way back to Great Ocean Road from the koalas, we saw a huge flock of parrots all over these four or five people. Of course we stopped and we quickly figured out that all it takes is a few peanuts for these friendly (but greedy) little guys to perch all over you.

We spent a good amount of time here, laughing at Lindsey dancing with birds clinging to her hair and Patrick, who looked like a man of the birds. Go figure, they loved him. Ten minutes later (or an hour…time flew!.....sorry, that was a really corny joke) we were on the road again.

It was really easy to get distracted by all of the places we saw along the way to stop at so we were making slower timing than we had planned. Our main goal was to reach the Twelve Apostles before the sun went down so we pushed for that. Make that Eleven...one of them fell. Wow. That was the best decision we made the entire trip. We made it just in time for sunset and were rewarded with some of the most spectacular displays of God’s glory that I have seen since I was in Greece last summer. It was one of those places that you just stand there and are overwhelmed by how tiny you are. Here is one of our 50 billion amazing pictures of those apostles taken by one of the photographically-gifted girls on our trip...After the Twelve Apostles, we set off for our hostel in the far away city of Port Fairy. We made excellent timing, so we got in around 8 and had a nice early sleep. We actually had a little cottage-like thing with bunk beds and a king bed. It was delightful and we laughed at our pictures and marveled at all of the breathtaking things we had experienced. Caitlin and Elyse provided late night entertainment with their sleep-talking conversations and we awoke ready for another blissful day in paradise.

Sunday…

…Paradise ran away from us. Clouds and rain found us. Luckily, nothing was going to damper our spirits! Well, several things tried to get Devin, but we got back up, wiped off our grubby selves and got right back on adventurer’s avenue. Want to hear about Devin’s misfortunes? Of course you do. Hmm…allergy-stricken eyes in the hostel, toe stubbed open at home, leaf cuts, and THEN….at the Grotto, we were standing on this overpass that looked down into mirror pools of turquoise water. Devin was having fun throwing rocks into them but just decided that rocks weren’t good enough so she decided to send her nice Nikon camera on a little trip. Patrick retrieved it and miraculously enough, the memory card is still fully loaded! Jesus likes to insert beauty into sadness. It’s refreshing. So two seconds of tears later, we were on our way to the Blowhole, Thunder Cave, and Sherbrooke River. Cameron was sweet enough to capture the moment of Devin needing a shoulder to cry on. This is real life...

Umm…yeah. That’s all I can say. I really can’t think of any way to describe the awesomeness. The ocean waves crashed with such an intensity, you could feel it resounding in your soul.

Then we found a little hole in the ground. Devin wanted to know if it was mud, quicksand, or rock so she asked me to test it out for her. Being as brilliant as I am, I jumped on the opportunity to ‘explore.’ I found out pretty quick that it was a puddle of sucky mud. It was actually like ice skating on mud. I like to say that I was just saving Devin from another mishap.

Back in the car we went and finished the drive back to Melbourne. Hours of windy roads, dramamine, and sing-a-longs later we parked it at Victoria Hall Hostel in the heart of the city... seemingly sketchy on the outside but wickedly cool on the inside. The group went to the casinos and skytower while I sat in our room like a good little student and worked on my final paper. Lame, but the end is in sight! Classes finished last week and we are busy turning in our final papers and taking final exams.

Monday…

…rise and shine! Cameron, Caitlin, and Lindsey woke up at the buttcrack of dawn (5:15) to take Elyse to the airport to catch her flight home. She had a final exam in the afternoon so she had to leave early. Then we drove to Brighton Beach to see the colorful little shacks that litter the beach. We took way too many pictures and even found a Clemson one. We took the compulsory Clemson flag picture with it and called it a day. We had to be back to catch the bus to the airport at 1:30 PM so we drove back to the city, grabbed lunch at a little café, turned Rapedust and Bloody Knuckles into the ‘authorities,’ and waved goodbye to the beautiful city of Melbourne. Really, it is such a gorgeous city…Devin is already planning her return trip.

Well, congratulations for powering through that mini-novel! We are now sitting on the train from Sydney back to Newcastle, reflecting on the weekend’s happenings and preparing to make it through one last week of school. Wait, did I say sitting? I mean dancing, singing, and marching through the train to Caitlin's favorite: Justin Bieber. What is this world coming to?

Brandi, our roommate, left for home today and we can’t believe it’s already June. Our group of seven is now six…reality is setting in. Our time here is dwindling …but we can’t wait to see all of you!

For the Curious...

Ok, ok. I know I've been slack on updating this. (thank you, Will Phil) Is being busy a good excuse? I didn't think so either but I thought it would be worth a try because that's the only reason I can think of. Hmmm...where to even begin?

We have been crazy over here with tons of Americans coming to visit. Randi Shamis came and stayed with us and after she left, Rebecca Morris got here with David. Oh yeah, and then Thomas and Rob. It's been so much fun getting to catch up with friends from Clemson and getting to show them a little bit of what life here is like. We took them to some of our favorite restaurants, had family dinner nights, played multiple games of ninja warrior, and stayed up way too late talking and laughing about life.

Last week we had the Rooney family and the Carman family over for dinner as a way to say "thank you" for all of the things they have done for us. If you don't remember, the Rooney's have had our entire clan over for dinner twice and the Carman's lent us their car for the first 3 months that we were here. We loaded up on veggie crates and decided to whip up something mean for these amazing people. Just so you know, this was no little feat. The Rooney's have five kids and the Carman's have four. Four boys, that is. So I'm sure you can understand the level of hype surrounding this feast for 26. It was a loaded day...Devin started in the kitchen at 1:00 PM and as soon as I got off work, I came home to join. Several hours later, the chicken and sauteed veggie skewers, pasta salad, homemade guacamole and salsa, bread, and tomato/cucumber/feta/red wine vinegar salad were done. It was interesting trying to squeeze so many people into our dining area but we managed. After dinner and some of the Sally and Clare Rooney's pavlova (a-ma-zing!) we played Signs and Psychologist. I can't even begin to explain how much we loves games, as I'm sure you may have figured out. Yeah....we love them.

We also managed a day trip to Sydney last week. A few of the group headed to Circular Quay to welcome back Jessica Watson from her 7 month sailing trip. If you didn't hear about it, it was a massive celebration because this 16 year old girl travelled all by herself for that entire time and she was just getting back. They had a highly publicized welcome back party thing that a bunch of our group attended. I didn't actually go. I spent my day wandering around Sydney by myself, which was actually really fun. It was my first time in a big city all by my lonesome getting to do whatever on earth I wanted. I treated myself to some of the best coffee I've ever had and tried really hard not to get lost. It was hard since I had forgotten my map. But news for everyone: I think **fingers crossed** that I know my way around Sydney. It's a big claim, I know. But really...I'm feeling pretty proud of myself right now. :)

In other big news, I just did my last speech for communications! And...drumroll, please...it was a success! God has been doing amazing things in my life and I can't help but share with the world how great He is. I can't imagine that I would have learned all of the difficult, wonderful, miraculous, important life lessons that I have learned if I would not have come halfway across the world. Not that He couldn't have taught me all these things over there. It's just that I think I needed to be moved so that I could pay better attention. So anyways....score one more for the Lord and I just thought I'd give you another reason to praise Him. :)

Lindsey is going to kill me for writing this...but she's pretty good at dancing. You should probably ask her to shadow dance for you sometime. Just throwing that out there...

The weather is definitely cooling off to where we have to wear jeans and jackets pretty much everyday. My window is stuck open in my room, so I spend a lot of time shivering at night. So one day, Lindsey and I got the brilliant idea to do a little rearranging. We moved my bed into Cameron and Caitlin's room, and then hers. So now we have our own little Madeleine room. Four little beds, all in a row. And Elyse (Miss Clavelle) comes and tucks us in at night. Just kidding. Devin sneaks in there with us sometimes and we all just share. Oh, and then we threw Reba in there too. 6 girls in 4 twin beds? Oh yes, the giggling goes on all night.

So I'm sure I'm missing about a million things that are worth hearing about but I'm just a little too scatterbrained right now to cover it all. We are leaving for Melbourne on Friday for the weekend. I'm sure we will actually blog about it and you will hear about all of the grand adventures of the girls of 62 Church Street, plus Patrick. Oh yeah, Lindsey's brother is visiting right now. So yep, Devin, Lindsey, Cameron, Caitlin, Elyse, me, and Patrick. He's a lucky guy haha....

Talk to you later!

Whirlwind Weekend in Sydney...

Well helllllllooo everybody! (There was a very specific way I just said that…wish you could have heard it J) It’s been a while since I have endeavored to whip up some fantastically- spun narrative of our lives… you have now been updated on Lindsey’s trip to New Zealand so I’m going to entertain (or bore) you with my latest trip to Sydney. Hmm, where to begin…

Brandi and I caught the morning train to Sydney for $3.90. Yes, that’s right. We paid $7.80 total to go to Sydney. Beat that! So we had a lovely 2.5 hour train ride and of course took the opportunity to hit up Paddy’s Market and some other little places because like usual, we brought the rain with us. It kindly cleared up as soon as we were ready to quit shopping and we checked into the X Base Hostel and met our grumpy roommate. Well sort of…she didn’t actually say anything to us but I could tell she loved that we said hi to her.

We always manage to meet the most interesting people in Sydney. This trip was no exception. As the directionally impaired person I am, I immediately whipped out my map to find where we were and were bombarded by this man begging to help us find wherever it is we wanted to go. After wiping the apple off our clothes that he had spewed all over us in his excitement, we hightailed it away from him as quickly as our little overloaded stems could handle. We also found ourselves an older man who wanted to know who the authority gods were of the city. He didn't know because he was from the planet Terrafina. We graciously explained that we didn't know, we were foreigners too. Then he wanted to know if something was funny because Brandi was smirking. I told him that no, nothing was funny. She was just happy. That made him angry because he informed us that he was unhappy. When we finally asked him to leave us alone so we could eat our breakfast, he muttered to us how we should enjoy our marriages because he was unhappily single. Yeah, made a lot of sense to us too. Ooohh the personalities you meet....

Sydney is overflowing with the coolest little streets and alleys and views. Every time we go we find another little hole in the wall or something that should be featured on Australia’s Best Kept Secrets. That probably doesn’t even exist, but it should. I volunteer to write it. Anyways, we soaked it all in on Friday and then happily ran into our friends who were busking on the street corner again. Needless to say, every time we run into buskers we end up spending hours getting caught up in the music. It was a lively Friday night, so there was a lot of people getting involved and somehow Brandi and I found ourselves on the street corner of George and Liverpool being swung around by some very drunk Nepalese guys. I think they had fun. (For anyone who is concerned, we weren’t two girls unattended in the big city…we had Rob with us J) He cheerfully redirected them to some Asian girls who ‘looked like they wanted to dance.’ They clearly didn’t but it did the trick. At least it did for about forty-five seconds or so. Even with their antics, we had the most fun night that we have ever had in Sydney. It was like one big giant sing-a-long. Rob got recruited to play a few songs with them on the drums and Brandi and I took advantage of the chance to record a little clip. I tried to embed it on this blog but it didn't work out for me. Oh and I even had my busking debut…I played the drumsticks (yep, just the sticks) and was the unmicrophoned back-up singer. Clearly I brought a lot to the table with that one…

The next day, I managed to go see the world’s highest grossing film of all time on the world’s largest IMAX screen!! (Avatar)….I went by myself because I had bought my ticket ahead of time and it sold out since it was the last showing ever at that IMAX. That was such an experience. Especially with the lady next to me holding her crying daughter, texting, overlapping my arm with hers, and talking: YES, talking on her mobile the entire time. It was obnoxious, but I managed to love the movie anyhow. Brandi finished our souvenir shopping for her family and friends and we met back up at Darling Harbour to continue our adventures. I went to the massive Apple store so they could finally check out my broken microphone on my laptop. It’s still broken. Looks like I’m still on silent Skype mode…

We headed to the train station at around 6:15 Saturday night and realized that the train didn’t come until 7:15 so we headed back down the streets to find ourselves a little snack. How unsurprising that we ended up back at the busking site. Taking the 7:15 turned into the 8:15, which turned into the 9:15, which ended up with us taking the 11:15. Luckily, (heavy sarcasm) the footy game had just finished so we were on a packed train, which causes some delays. Our train arrived in Newcastle at 2:30 in the morning and we stumbled back home and crashed into our not-so-comfy beds that managed to feel like heaven for once. As exhausted as we are/were (we’re still recovering) that whirlwind weekend in Sydney was ridiculously amazing! J

Weekend Adventure

The past week has been heaps busy in school. It is mid-semester and of course we have plenty of assignments due.

Cameron, Caitlin, and I left early Thursday morning to fly up to Brisbane. We arrived in Brisbane and drove to the Gold Coast to visit Ned and Caleb for the weekend on our way to their hostel we stopped at Surfers Paradise. It was great to see them and where they’re living. We cooked out hamburgers that night and caught up on life. To save a little money, we slept in their station-wagon, it was a tight squeeze but so fun J The next day we spent the day in Coolangatta and surfed. We also made a stop at the Billabong and Quicksilver outlets. We slept on the beach that night and gazed at the stars. The next day we snuck into a resort and after searching 15 floors we finally found the pool and hot tubs J That night Caleb, Caitlin, and I went to a movie while Cameron helped Ned work at the hostel. Caleb took us to a place called Point Danger and we climbed around the rocks overlooking the ocean. We sat on a rock enjoying the night and catching up on our lives. The next day we went to Byron Bay, a hippie beach town. We hiked up to a lighthouse and enjoyed the Gold Coast. We drove back to Brisbane that night and slept in the airport for an early flight back to Newcastle the next day. It was a beautiful weekend and we missed the other girls. We are all reunited back at our home and planning our next weekend in Sydney J

Holiday in New Zealand

6 friends: Cameron, Caitlin, Devin, Trenton, Chris, and Me

10 days

1 camper van

South Island, New Zealand

Our trip started off by waking up at 3 am to catch a flight from Sydney to Christchurch, New Zealand. When I arrived in New Zealand I found the hostel and explored Christchurch a little bit. I crashed early that night and woke up the next morning to find the girls running up to the hostel after they had just pushed the broken campervan down the street. Once we got a new camper van, we started our adventure around the south island. Our first stop was Lake Tekapo where we found a nice spot off the side of the road for our first night of sleep. Surprisingly, a few snowflakes had fallen that morning and we were all unprepared for the chilly weather. We began to realize that nature pee’s and no showers would be common this trip J

Waking up at Lake Tekapo was beautiful; we explored around the lake and found a tiny beautiful church that overlooked the lake. The water was incredibly blue from the glaciers and as we traveled that day we were amazed by the breathtaking views so of course we stopped off along scenic points whenever we got a chance. On our drive to Wanaka, we came across a “free food” sign and pulled over to check it out. New Zealand is starting a “driver reviver” program to keep their drivers’ safe and alert. We got free lattes, apples, bbq, candy, etc. It was amazing and much needed J

We made it to Wanaka and gazed at the stars that night. We pulled off the side of the road to sleep that night and apparently it is illegal. We were woken up at 4:45 am to a loud knock from the council of security. They made us move or the cops were coming to fine us. Chris frantically yet half asleep quickly drove away to another location.

The boys went skydiving and the girls enjoyed a beautiful day at the hot pools. We met up with the boys and heard about their thrilling adventure and finished the night by eating dinner by the lake and enjoying the sunset. We headed to Queenstown that night. Once we arrived we walked along the quaint little town and ran into Mike and Sean (friends from Clemson). We got to catch up a little and they decided to crash along our trip for a few days with us. We sat and listened to live music.

BUNGY JUMPING NEVIS!!! We woke up with nerves, knowing we would be jumping 143 meters from a pod. We made it and all jumped. It was an incredible peaceful experience and we all made it alive (although I got a hemorrhage in my left eyeball from the negative force) but no worries, I have another eyeball J It was definitely worth the thrilling experience. We went hiking afterwards and at the top of the mountain there was a luge. It was hilarious and so fun as we all luged back down the mountain. That night we headed for Milford Sound. On our way to Milford Sound we found a fallen avalanche that had formed into an igloo.

Milford Sound was beautiful but once we got there we decided to explore around. We found a gate that we climbed over and trekked through to arrive upon a giant waterfall and to get better views of this place. It was incredible.

On our way to Mt. Cook, we stopped off at Chasm. We hiked and got lost in a jungle where the boys found a cliff that led into the glaciered water. After we strategically climbed down to capture photos of the boys jumping off the cliff we headed back through Queenstown to grab dinner before we arrived at our next stop, Mt. Cook.

On our way to Mt. Cook, we all had to entertain ourselves and stay awake by singing and dancing to requested songs. And each night we had the lovely opportunities of hearing stories about gnomes that Trenton would creatively make up and share with the van-winches. As we drive all through New Zealand we have realized that more sheep inhabit the land than humans. Thousands of sheep, farm-raised deer, elk, cows, and lamas populate New Zealand.

Once we got to Mt. Cook, we hiked up Tazman glacier lake and blue pools. It was beautiful and on our last night we stopped in a town called, Geraldine. It was the creepiest town but we needed to charge up our vehicle at a trailer park J

We arrived back at the camper van place to turn it in and in hopes that they wouldn’t see the crack that we put in the side and a few other damages along the way. The boys flew out that night and we stayed another night at a backpackers in Christchurch. The next morning I went to the airport, yet couldn’t fly out because the flights were too full for standby. I was stuck in the airport and slept on the floor that night. I was able to fly out the next morning and make it back home to Newcastle.

New Zealand is an incredibly beautiful place.

Easter in Sydney

Happy Easter!

To kick off our fall break aka spring break aka Easter holidays, we woke up at the crack of dawn (5:30) to catch a train to Sydney. I think we looked pretty good, considering the hour...

Three hours later, we hopped off at Central station and lugged all of our bags to the Sydney Entertainment Centre for Hillsong’s Good Friday morning service. It was wonderful, of course, and then we made the fifteen minute trek to the X Base Hostel, where we were split up into two rooms. Just in case we forgot anything, there were (literally) 8 outdoor stores up and down the street of X Base. Lindsey, Cameron, and I got lucky enough to share a room with an almost naked 70 year old German man and two 23 year old English guys. We stayed up pretty late talking about where we were traveling, where we have been, and different cultures. It was my first hostel experience and I really liked it! Lindsey had to wake up at 3:30 in the morning to catch her plane to New Zealand and German man had to wake up at 5:00 to catch his flight home, so there wasn’t much sleeping in our room.

That night we all went to see a movie and on our way back, Elyse and I happened to run into our friends Rob and Lauren busking on the street. Confused? That means that they were playing music on the streets. It was so random that we ran into them and along with about fifty other people, we stood around and watched them play all of our favorites: Coldplay, Tom Petty, Oasis... you name it, they played it. What a little fun surprise that was...
We spent Saturday walking around Sydney and going to the Opera House. I could not believe how massive it was! We didn’t get to go in though because they have it all locked up unless you want to pay lots of money. Shocking. Fortunately, we were too preoccupied with the spectacular views of the Harbour Bridge and sweet trees surrounding it to notice too much. But good news, everybody! We got to touch it :) Here are our super excited faces!

Then we hurried back so that Devin, Caitlin, and Cameron could catch the shuttle to the airport for their flight. They are spending all week in New Zealand with Trenton and Chris driving a campervan around and exploring. I’m sure Lindsey will update you when she gets back. In the meantime, Brandi came up to Sydney to hang out with Elyse and I for the rest of the weekend. She and I even got to share a little twin mattress on the top of a bunkbed due to overcrowding at the inn...I mean hostel.

Saturday night, Rob took us to The Shark Hotel for a buffet dinner, which was really awesome. It was followed by the most interesting dessert restaurant I have ever experienced. Imagine an Asian hole-in-the-wall that is up two flights of dark stairs. You sit down, order a game off of a menu (we chose Jenga) and order some sort of ice cream or pie. For entertainment, Asian music videos are playing on tv screens around the place. To anybody who wants to open a business, I recommend doing that. I wish so badly that we had somewhere like that in Clemson! Oh, the hours of endless fun I could have...

For Easter Sunday, we went to Hillsong in the morning. The service was so much different than anything I have ever seen. On a big screen, we saw short little sermons from pastors across the four campuses. It is always good to be with a body of believers and in the Lord’s house. I love how you can travel across the world and still feel at home.We spent the afternoon walking around Sydney some more, and then headed back to Hillsong for the Film and Arts Festival. The art here was captivating…I found myself wandering off and just getting drawn in to different pieces of art that were all in some way related to our faith.

After this, Brandi, Elyse, and I made it back to the train to make our way back home. Several question games, never have I evers, and songs later, we made it back to our home where we crashed pretty fast. What a weekend! Sydney is so much fun. It’s kind of like New York except cleaner and there is less worthless junk sitting around. It easily makes one of my top five favorite cities to visit. Here is our "happy to be in Sydney" faces. Not really, but I had to come up with some excuse for my ridiculously happy face.On the schedule for this week: Blackbutt Reserve for koala and kangaroo sighting/petting/holding. Yay!

Girls in the Tent...SHUT UP!!!

We have so much to catch everybody up on, it's not even remotely funny. Get ready for an annoyingly long blog. I promise to make it less bumpy than our ride in Pedr's truck on the sand dunes. :)

Speaking of Pedr, his family invited all of us over to their house for dinner last week. It was so delightful! Mrs. Rooney made us a chicken and chick pea curry dinner that was probably one of the best things I have had since I've been here. Don't worry people, I made sure to get the recipe! We offered to bring dessert so from the bottom of our NUSA Veggie Crates, we made yet another delectable apple crisp. We spent the evening chatting with his family, laughing about random things, and getting to know some of their other friends from the church who also came.

On another one of our weekdays of no school, (I think this was Friday) we roadtripped up to Nelson Bay to see the beach there. We had heard that it was pretty, and we definitely were not disappointed. The weather was perfect, we sang our lungs out in the car, and enjoyed snorkeling with lots of fish.

And now onto my favorite happening of the trip so far: camping out on Stockton Beach's sand dunes! Pedr, Dan, their friend Jamie, Trenton, Chris, Brian, and all of us girls drove out to Stockton Beach, about an hour away, to hit the sand dunes for a camp out on Saturday night. As we are all practically native Australians now, (ha) we picked up sausages to bbq on the way and also seized the opportunity to introduce s'mores to the real Australians. They had never even heard of them. Or graham crackers. After scouring the grocery store, we came up with the most similar ingredients possible and began another awesome drive.

It's not even really fair to try to describe the sand dunes with words, but I guess we all understand the limitations of language. The thing is: I have never seen such an open, beautiful mass of sand anywhere, not even in pictures. We set up camp in the middle of the sand and settled in for the evening. I got lucky enough to cook the sausages, Brian whipped out his guitar and we had a pretty poor sing-a-long, and then we hit the s'mores. They caught on pretty fast and we were happy to have reversed the roles of culture introductions, if only for a few minutes. At about 9 PM, we all got tired and went to bed. Just kidding. Although we would have if we hadn't felt so lame about going to bed so early. We managed to squeak out a few more hours and then we passed out on the sand. Lindsey, Cam, and Caitlin snuggled themselves into a two man tent. Needless to say, Caitlin was out of there in about twenty minutes.

There is something rejuvenating about sleeping outside next to a smoky bonfire in the middle of nowhere, even if you do wake up to a dewey face and sleeping bag. Before we headed home, we trekked to the top of a dune and had a nice session of sand boarding....

For those of you who have never heard of it, picture sledding on sand. The boys took to sand surfing, I preferred the run-and-slide-on-your-stomach method, and Lindsey and Cameron dominated the two man sit. Bug Lindsey to let you see the video. It will make you laugh, I guarantee it.

As if you couldn't tell, we had a blast on that trip and look forward to doing it as soon as our backs recover from the hard sand. As for everyday life, we spend our time at the hub doing homework, at the beach soaking it up, playing Bananagrams as often as possible, and figuring out other shenanigans to get ourselves into.

On a more personal side note, I feel compelled to share with EVERYONE that God worked two miracles in my life over the past week. I made my first two speeches in 4 years!! To everyone who prayed for me, thank you so much. Jesus has been revealing Himself in so many ways and His faithfulness is consuming me. He has taught me how to trust and I am learning more and more everyday.

Whew! What an amazing life we have. It is going even faster than we thought that it would. We are already about to enter April, which absolutely blows my mind. The girls and Trenton and Chris are planning their Easter break trip to New Zealand, and Elyse and I are working on our June trip to NZ. She and I will be exploring Australia on our own for Easter break. This weekend we all are going to be up in Sydney for the Good Friday service at Hillsong. After that, all of them fly out for the week. Elyse and I will get to go to Hillsong for Easter, and then we are planning on heading over to Ulla Dulla for some exploring, and maybe going up to the lake with some friends.

Well, I think that about does it for today! Time to go pack our eskys for uni in the arvo. (pack our lunches for school in the afternoon) Let's be honest, I just said that so I could sound native :)

Fairy Bread and 4BYN

Its another beautiful week in Australia and we were able to get through this week of school as Laura worked diligently on papers, Cam and Caitlin intricately designed their projects, and I sculpted a masterpiece :)

Our tickets are finalized for our Easter Break. We get to see exciting New Zealand while renting a six man camper-van to drive around/sleep in as we explore pieces of Gods creation. Trenton, Chris, Cameron, Caitlin, Devin, and I will be partaking in this adventure. Laura and Elyse have made plans to explore Australia in depth and will get to see New Zealand in June. We are ready for a break and will hopefully get to spend Easter at Hillsong Church in Sydney :)

St. Patrick's Day is not huge here we have realized. I think we were one of a few sporting green that night but nonetheless we went out to one of our favorite places, the brewery, and sat along the waterfront overlooking the beautiful harbour.

Thursday we retrieved two more crates full of fruits and veggies from our school. We cooked a delicious meal and Pedr brought over sausages, mmmm. After dinner, Pedr took us Lawn Bowling. Its a game similar to Bocce Ball except it has its own court and is a little more classier. After an exciting game of lawn bowling, Pedr and Dan made us FAIRY BREAD. It is white bread, butter, and sprinkles, mmmm. Surprisingly it was good and we were happy to finally have a taste of this magical dessert.

Friday we went snorkeling and saw exotic fishes along with a giant STING RAY! It was exciting exploring in the vast sea :) We spent the rest of the day soaking up the sun and relaxing on the beach.

Today we went 4-byn (off-roading) with our friends in the Bush. It was exciting and adventurous until we had to pull our mate out of the deep pool of mud :)

We love you all,

Lindsey, Laura, Cameron, Caitlin

Consider Us Coloured...

No, I didn't misspell that. They spell things differently here...but anyways!!!!!!!

Wow, so much to catch you guys up on. Things have been hectic with school kicking off and being suddenly pounded with thousands of assignments. We are just starting to feel like we can actually find our classes on campus without getting lost. The campus is really large, looks like a jungle or rainforest, is literally filled with mosquitoes (mossies), and they don't space your classes out, so you have to run from one to the next. Hopefully you aren't a little dumb like me and have 4 classes back to back on opposite sides of campus. I guess it's a good workout, leaving 5 minutes early from class and arriving 10 minutes late to the next one simply because you just can't run fast enough. That and the fact that sometimes trains get delayed for 40 minutes while you are sitting on them is about all the cool stuff I can think about when it comes to classes.

So, on to the fun/important/interesting stuff! (I just knew that moms love hearing about school, so YES, we do actually go.) We just got back from Sydney and Hillsong's Colour Conference. For all you out there who are interested in seeing what it was kind of like, you can check out the website here. It's not really fair to try to describe it in a short post, but I'll see what my limited vocabulary can do...

Day 1: Lindsey, Caitlin, Cameron, and I pack up the car and set off for an adventurous drive to Sydney. I'm driving, Caitlin is navigating, and all is well with the world. It is 2:30 PM and we are driving to the house we are staying at, all timed to arrive around 4:45. Our first session is at 6:00, so we think we have plenty of time...

OK, let's be realistic. With me driving? Of course we would get lost...so, 6 or 7 u-turns, many frustrated stops for directions, and 4 hungry stomachs later, we just decide to park the car and get some food. Hopefully we will make it to tomorrow's session, since we give up on today's. Jesus wanted us at that session though, so it just happened that we had parked across the street from the Sydney Entertainment Centre (where the conference was being held) and we had the time wrong and it actually started at 7:30. Amazing. The rest of the night went well, if you call "well" getting lost again and not getting to the house until midnight, declaring our idea of hell to be driving in Sydney, and switching drivers as each one got more and more discouraged. But hey, we made it, had a place to stay, and were so thankful just to have made it.

Day 2: 3 sessions throughout the day, and it started with a bang! Priscilla Shirer was our first speaker of the day, and man did she bring it! I have never been so engrossed with what a speaker had to say. She was passionate, fiery, inspiring, anointed, and the Lord just had things to share through her. I think I learned more in that first session than I ever have in my life. I mean, I came looking for God, but He didn't just meet us there...He overwhelmed us there.

Elyse and I got to meet Bobbie Houston, which was a special treat. She hosted the conference and is the wife of Brian, head pastor of Hillsong.

We had a few breaks throughout the day where we got the chance to explore Sydney. There is a mall called Market City where it feels like you have been dropped directly into Asia. It's great unless you want anything to eat besides Asian. No joke, the entire food court was Asian. That's all I have to say about that.

Day 3: I'm getting my days confused, but I'm going to pretend like I'm not and just keep talking like this is 100% accurate. We had more sessions today, which were still indescribably tailored to me. :) Just kidding, everybody felt like that. But seriously, God wanted us there. He told us some pretty awesome stuff. After the sessions, we headed to Darling Harbour for dinner and just to chill. We were enthralled with some unexpected fireworks, dazzled by the lights across the harbour, entertained by the interesting clothes some people were wearing, sustained by some yummy food :), and rejuvenated by just getting to be with each other.

P.S. Elyse did come the day after us on the train due to her class schedule, so she was with us this entire time.

Day 4: We went to Hillsong for church, which was a continuation of our wonderful conference, since Priscilla spoke again. I could still listen to her all day...

Caitlin and Cameron learned from some Finland girls that Kelly Slater was to be at Bondi Beach that day, so we hastily rearranged our schedule so they could get a little glimpse of him. I'm glad we made it though, because it was such an experience. Bondi was packed, the surfers were out, and it was a beautiful day. We spent a few hours there, we all got to see the Kelly Slater, and we drove home happy. This time, I didn't get us lost and we played games the whole way home. You should ask to hear our awesome Australian accents that we perfected int he car. Guaranteed to confuse even the most native Australian of our actual origin. Exhausted but refueled, we are excited about this week, although it's a busy one.

If you want to read another really funny account of the weekend, click here to check out Elyse's blog. She's pretty funny, you might just laugh the whole time. Plus, she likes to make fun of me, which is always entertaining :)

To wrap it up, all I can say is that the Lord revealed Himself to us this weekend. We are so thankful for the opportunities we have had, we still like each other, and we have many more memories of Australia to add to our already-bursting brains.

Thanks for the prayers, we love them and we are praying for our friends and family back at home too! Praising Jesus for another fine day in Newcastle...

Love,

The Sheilas

Market Market Market aka Monkey Monkey Monkey

It's Sunday afternoon here, and after a beautiful service at Church180, the girls of The Hill went to lunch at Monkey Monkey Monkey for some bbq prawns (shrimp), stuffed mushrooms, and glorious dipping sauces with ciabatta and other stuff...The title of this blog deserves a little explanation, as Lindsey had excitedly told me about her coffee experience at "Market Market Market" and how we all needed to go back. I then went to a local and suggested that we meet up at this place, only to receive a confused look and a "I think you mean Monkey Monkey Monkey..." Needless to say, I didn't impress him with my knowledge of the area.

Typically we would be outside at the beach around this time, but we are currently banned due to a tsunami watch. Apparently they take tsunamis very seriously. Go figure. :)

We are all gearing up for school to start tomorrow, although not with very much enthusiasm. We rather enjoy our life as it is, but I guess we did come here to "study." With the little extra time that we do have, we have been scheming and plotting our wild spring break in New Zealand. It already is looking like quite the adventure. To sum it up, think of Elyse and I switching off driving a 6-person sleeper bus for 25 hours down the coast of New Zealand, with plenty of stops along the way to see the sights from Lord of the Rings, go skydiving, take the ferry from the North to the South Islands, go bungee jumping (or bungy, as they spell it), check out the amazing beaches, and whatever else falls into our laps. More details to come...

Sun poisoning is still our biggest enemy here..Elyse has been hit with it, and I still have it all over my hands and heels. Persistant itchiness is our current state of being.

We continue to meet new people everyday from all sorts of places. Most of them being Arkansas and Iowa, but hey...at least they are new faces! We also have some local friends at the church who invite us to fun church functions at their houses. It's always a good time...

We still love living together and have indulged in many roommate dinners where we splurge on spaghetti and ice cream.

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement, we are learning so many lessons about life, love, independence, trust, and faith. Feel free to ask for more details on those :) The Lord has been so faithful to provide everything that we need. I start seriously working this week (as scary as that is) and covet any sort of pleas to God for a miraculous barista to be born within me. Who knows, crazier things have happened! We love and miss you all....

Funny Lindsey Quote of the Week:
(looking at me in my room...) "Your bed looks like a hospital bed! I meant to tell you that when I woke up this morning and saw it.."