Thanksgiving

I wasn't really sure how I would feel this past week with being away from my family for Thanksgiving but all in all things went really well. I guess its never easy being separated from family on holidays but you just have to adjust and realize that the holidays will be different but different isn't always bad, just different. This Thanksgiving was different, thats for sure. For my first time ever, I was not at the lake house celebrating with my family but thankfully was able to still be apart of their thanksgiving via Skype.

Obviously, Aussies do not celebrate Thanksgiving but since there are many Americans here my cousin organized a Thanksgiving lunch for after church. Their young adults group has done this for several years now and I was really thankful to be apart of it. We got together Saturday night and did lots of cooking of all the Thanksgiving favorites: sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, pumpkin pie, etc. Earlier in the week when we were working on the menu we were at the store and discovered turkeys here are super expensive! I believe we saw a TINY 2 kilo (4.4 lbs) turkey that would maybe feed 10 people that cost $45. That was not going to work out so great since we had 30 people who planned on coming for lunch. So my cousins started talking about other options for our meat, sausages, chicken, etc. I'm not going to lie I was pouting a little and Aussies just don't understand...it just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a turkey! My cousin was trying to keep it a surprise from me that a friend of hers who is a great cook was making the turkey, well she couldn't keep it a secret anymore and ended up telling me at the grocery store while we were shopping. I was so excited! I got to spend day with some family and friends, enjoyed some turkey, pumpkin pie, sweet tea and I even downloaded the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. Even though I missed being with my family back home it was a pretty perfect Thanksgiving.

I have so much to be thankful for this year. The short list....i'm thankful for this little adventure in Australia and new beginnings.

good intentions

I'm starting to slack on my updates. I really do have good intentions of keeping it up to date and if I updated it every time I thought about it there would be a ton of posts. Its the thought that counts, right? The last few weeks have been really good. I'm usually not too busy during the week but once the weekend hits its crazy busy around here. The last few weekends we've spent a lot of time cooking. I'm pretty sure i've "logged" more cooking hours since i've been in Australia than I have most of my adult life. Lets just say grilling a piece of chicken and heating up veggies does not count as cooking. Two weekends ago they had a formal dinner at church so Mel and I and some girls from church spent about 2 days cooking for that. Then this past weekend a group of students from Oklahoma Christian were visiting the Central Coast so we did some cooking for them. And i'm pretty sure there will be a lot of cooking this weekend since we're celebrating American Thanksgiving on Sunday.

Two weekends ago we visited Norah Head Lighthouse which is about 30-40 minutes away from here. It was a spot I had on my list that I wanted to visit after coming back to Australia. It was the perfect day to be there, the sun was shining and it felt almost like summer! The lighthouse was beautiful, you could walk around it and then down to the beach and rock pools. I'm pretty sure every time we go anywhere near the ocean I get excited and say how much I love it. I can't help it! In my entire life the closest i've ever lived to the beach was maybe 9 hours. I'm thankful to live in such a beautiful place.

Like I mentioned earlier this past weekend there was a group of students here from Oklahoma Christian University visiting the Gosford area. They are apart of the study abroad program called Pac Rim, they've been traveling around studying the last few months and are in Australia for the last few weeks of their trip. Friday we all went to the Reptile park and I finally got to pet/see a kangaroo! Saturday was a beach day followed by a big dinner at the Browns house and Sunday we had a bbq after church and then all went to the Central Coast Mariners game. It was a fun, but busy weekend. It was nice to spend the weekend with them and I think I got my "American" fix to hold me over for a while. I kept thinking though after spending the weekend with them that I feel so old! I remember my days at Harding like they were yesterday and being around them I kept thinking, I feel like that was just me. It was...just several years ago! Oh well, I can't complain because life after college has been great but sometimes I miss those days carefree college days.

I got my first package from home last week. I'm not going to lie, its was maybe the highlight of my week. There is just something about getting a little bit of love from home...even if it comes in the form of hair color, candy corn and a cute black dress :)

My cousins started to put of their Christmas tree yesterday. Its just weird. It shouldn't be that big of a surprise because the shops here have had Christmas decorations up and Christmas music playing for weeks. I just can't wrap my head around it yet that its almost December and almost summer and i'm still wearing little sun dresses. I'm just so used to a winter Christmas, I guess. Thanksgiving is this week, which I just can't believe. This was always my favorite week when I was teaching because it was our first few days out of school and usually much needed. I've been very thankful my homesick days are becoming less and less. I talked a few weeks ago with another American girl living here and she said around 3-6 months was hardest for her. I was thinking things have been easier for me, but who knows maybe I'll hit the 3-6 month slump, too. I'm sure with the holidays getting closer it will start to hit home a bit. As much as a I miss and love my family and friends, I'm loving my new life here. I think its taken me a while to let myself be comfortable, learn to enjoy and come to love my new life here because that makes it more real that i've started over here and my "old" life in Little Rock is really over. And its hard talking to people from home and missing them but being happy about being here, I guess there just comes a time when you start to find that balance that its ok to miss people but continue to live your life. Who knows if that makes sense...but I do think its helped with the whole "homesick" thing.

Here are a few pictures from the last few weeks. One day i'll figure out how to make my computer happy with blogger and be able to put up more pictures with captions etc, but that day is not today...

twenty six

Its official, as of last Saturday i'm closer to thirty than twenty. In all honesty it doesn't feel any different...at least not yet :) I will say its hard being so far away from my friends and family on birthdays, weddings, etc but thankfully my family here made my birthday a wonderful day full of surprises! Most of the day was planned and kept secret from me and I will say these Aussies sure do know how to keep a secret. I tried and tried to get it out of them but they wouldn't spill the beans. I did know that we were going out for brunch that morning with the whole family and then out again later that night but that was all I knew. We had brunch at a little cafe right by the water at Terrigal, one of the pretty beaches close by. It was actually a cloudy, cold day but I could care less because I love, love being at the beach. The rest of the day was fun and laid back. We went to Erina and did some shopping, had coffee club then went back to Mel and Dan's to watch a movie. Later that night we got dressed up and headed out to my other surprise which was drinks and the Lord Ashley Lounge at Terrigal. I couldn't have imagined a better 26th birthday and i'm so thankful for my family here who planned a fun day for me.

Twenty five was a great year, full of big changes etc so i'm kind of excited to see what twenty six holds...I have a feeling its going to be a good year :)

I've been trying to add some pictures from this weekend but for some reason blogger and my computer can't "find" my recent uploads. But some are posted on facebook, so that will have to do for now.

trick or treat?

I couldn't help but write a post about Halloween or more like the lack there of in Australia. I've never been one of those people who decks my house out for halloween or gets super excited about dressing up but i'm not going to lie, I did kind of miss all the excitement this year. Actually, to be honest I missed all the halloween excitement from school. The last few years with my kiddos we would make cute bats out of egg cartons, learn halloween poems, carve a pumpkin together...well, Ms. Wenner did the pumpkin carving, but you get the idea :)

Halloween here is not a big deal, what so ever. There are hardily any halloween decorations up at the shops, no candy corn and a pumpkin will cost you about $20. I was over at Mel and Dan's house Sunday night and I think we had maybe 4 groups of trick or treaters, maybe 15 kids total. We did however make a quick appearance at a halloween party Saturday night, Elisha and I dressed up as a lady bug and a bumble bee.