Will's Almost-Birthday

This morning we wrapped Will's early birthday prezzies - in the Christmas paper he requested - and, after much anticipation, gave them to him! The Ben 10 PJs and remote-control car were a huge hit and earned us a few cuddles and giggles from the little guy.

We all bundled into the car to go check out dad's work and go out to lunch. We went to the National Portrait Gallery and had yummy beef and mushroom pies for lunch and had a little look around at some rather strange art.

After lunch it was time to finish Will's early birthday off right with some quality time with just the three of us. We checked out this fun toy shop, complete with tents, remote-control bugs, and a talking parrot...

 

Then it was on to Donut King for a milkshake and a donut!

Will's final request for his pretend birthday, besides the prezzies and Donut King, was that we all play hide-and-seek and Simon Says. So, when we got home, that's exactly what we did! Han and Eddie also finished making up their dance - a video will be coming shortly - and we said goodbye to Nan who was catching the evening train back to Sydney.

We had good old bangers and mash for dinner before - drama! The power went out! Will was alarmingly freaked out that we were without TV, but other than that, we just lit candles and waited it out. It was lovely, actually, playing cards by candlelight with background music from Lucy's phone.

 

The power came back on, inexplicably, just a few hours later. A tiring but really fun day, we're feeling so lucky to be able to spend precious time with the fam.

Surprises, Suppers, and Sports!

The Siers fam came over for a Sunday lunch. Without intending to, we surprised Tim and Krystle! Even though the cat had been out of the bag for a while, they weren't expecting us and got a bit of a shock! We played with the kids after lunch - Tim's so funny! We all played with Will's dress-ups, learned some Morse code, and had a good laugh.

Dad and Hannah stayed up for the second night in a row, joined by Lucy and Nanna, to watch the end of what had been a very disappointing couple days of sport. The Brumbies were destroyed on Saturday night by the Western Force in what should've been an easy win. Then, on Sunday, the Aussies lost the first test of the Ashes to the Brits! In a highly controversial match (involving some definite cheating by the Poms and some questionable calls by the umpire) we lost by 14 runs! Ahhh it was awful - but we'll get em next time...

Yesterday was a PJ day and Eddie and Han made great progress on the dance. We played "Simon Says" and Lucy's "Simon says touch ya bum" got a cheeky giggle out of Will. We had yummy Thai food for dinner and laughed our heads off at Hamish and Andy's Gap Year Asia.

Today we celebrated Eddie's birthday way early with a girls' day! We did a makeover in the morning, including a princess braid hairdo, makeup, and manicure - Will got a manicure too - then we went out to the shops!

Now came the challenge: driving on the other side of the road. With Hannah (as usual) at the wheel, the driving actually went fine! We had a couple harrowing moments when we found ourselves on the wrong side of the road, but never any actual danger. No, the real trouble was navigating... With the data on our phones disabled (and therefore no access to google maps) we were taking it old school - as in following street signs. It was entirely unsuccessful. We ended up going across one bridge and back again three different times - once after having the shopping centre in sight - and around countless roundabouts before we finally made it to the car park in Civic!

It was totally worth the effort, though, because we had such a fun time shopping with Ed! She got some lovely things and we bought a few tops, then we went to Donut King and had cinnamon donuts and milkshakes for afternoon tea.

Eddie did a fashion show when we got home, then we rounded up the whole clan to go to Sue and Sir's for dinner. Sir put on an incredible spread of roast beef, baked potatoes, brussel sprouts, carrots, and Yorkshire puddings for dinner and Sue made chocolate mousse, red jelly, and a hazelnut torte for dessert! Will fell asleep, poor little guy, so we called it a night - and took a tin of Sue's wonderful shortbread with us!

Relaxing with the Fam

On Thursday we had a lazy morning then went out to lunch with Sue and Sir at Debacle.

 

A few too many slices of pizza later, we decided to walk off our lunch at the DFO outlets! Retail therapy is a wonderful thing! We didn't have nearly enough time, though, so we knew we'd be back soon.
That night we witnessed history! On day 1 of the Ashes test series Ashton Agar, the number 11 batsman, brought the Aussies back from the brink of disaster and into the lead against the Poms!! The (very cute) 19-year-old, in his first professional match, almost scored a century! It was so cool to watch, a definite highlight!

The next day we went and saw Despicable Me 2, which was hilarious, and Eddie and Hannah started their 3rd, semi-annual dance to One Direction. If Han makes it through alive we'll upload a video of the final product...

Today was the day we made it back to DFO to finish our shopping. The sales were awesome!! Perhaps a little too tempting, poor Luce now has only five cents to her name.After our shopping trip we went to the train station to pick up Nan! She's as fit as ever and it's great to get to see her for the next few days!

Top Quotes from Will:
"Not if they're too juicy, just plain juicy"
- Will, when asked if he wanted strawberries

"Hannah, do you have prickly legs?"
"Sometimes - a bit at the moment.."
"Mum's legs are prickly ALL the time"
-Will, just as Han was tucking him into bed *



*Contrary to Will's statement, we have it in good faith that Claire actually sports silky smooth legs.

I Love a Sunburnt Country

We played Pirates and Spies with the kiddies in the morning then went to the Arboretum. It was beautiful but FREEZING! We hadn't fully remembered how cold Canberra winters get! We had a great time though, and Eddie and Will loved the playground!

 

 

 

Before heading home, we went up to the "Wide Brown Land" sign on the next hill over.

The quote comes from a poem (which Dad recited to us from memory) by Dorothea Mackellar:
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

 

We went home and got ready for dinner at the Press Club! We had a bit of a drama over who would wear what - because we both wanted to wear almost exactly the same outfit - and then got one last opportunity to surprise family members with our presence in the country. We gave Sue and Sir, our step-grandparents, quite a shock when they came over to babysit Ed and Will for the evening!

The party at the Press Club was hosted by the Australian American Association, so we fit right in! The Harvard Krockodiloes were there to sing for us and they put on a great show! We met a few of them afterwards and had a drink - which we were all pretty excited about, having come from the US with its high drinking age.

 

 

They were going to a pub after the show and we were tempted to go with, except that it's a pretty bogan place and we were still jetlagged and exhausted. So, instead, we had Maccas drive thru for dinner and went home.

It was the right call because we were obviously tired! The next day Lucy slept in until after 12:30 and Will, amazed, said "I can't believe it! Lucy's sleeping is the biggest!"

We had a chill day at home and helped Ed and Will ride their bikes - then we attempted to ride their bikes...

That night was family movie night and we watched "The Indian in the Cupboard" which featured two annoying kids, some mild racism, and the dad from Raise Your Voice. It was a fun night, though, and we definitely felt cosy and settled in.

Aussie Surprise!!

When we got back to the apartment after our day at the beach we had to hurry to get ready to go to the airport!! We were headed on a top secret trip to surprise Dad, Eddie, and Will in Australia! Ollie and Wyatt dropped us off at the international departures terminal and we checked in easily at the Qantas desk. On our way to security we spotted Leo and had to take a pic!

Only once we were on the plane did Lucy realise how terribly she got sunburnt at the beach! Her full body sunburn throbbing, it seemed like the best idea for both of us to try to get some sleep...
Ten hours later, we woke up! With only three hours left of the flight, we each watched a movie (Pulp Fiction and A Beautiful Mind), had brekkie, then found ourselves flying over the beautiful Australian coast!

We had made it home!

We cleared customs and navigated our way to the domestic terminal no worries - now all that separated us from the fam was a half hour flight to Canberra! Despite our uncontrollable excitement, the flight went by quickly. When we hopped off the plane, Claire was waiting for us with hot coffees and excitement that rivalled our own. We drove home and Claire dropped us off around the corner to wait while she went inside. We couldn't resist snapping a quick selfie before we went inside!!

We snuck up to the door as quietly as we could and rang the doorbell...

It went perfectly! For the first time in her life, Eddie was speechless - though it didn't last long - and Dad and Will were completely surprised!

For the rest of the day we hung out, read stories, played hide and seek, walked up to the park and had coffees at the café next door.

Later on we had our cousin Phoebe and her boyfriend, Jordan, over for dinner and got to do surprise #2 on them! Dad made lamb shanks for dinner and Lucy and I fell into bed, actually quite late, after surviving a huge and wonderful day of travel and excitement!

Quotes from the kiddies:
"Is this a dream?!"
- Edwina, when we arrived

"Hannah, did you order a little cup so you could finish first?"
- Will, about Hannah's chai latté at the café

"Maybe I could do some ninja moves... And kung fu moves..."
-Will, when Eddie told him he'd get hurt if he played rugby

Independence Day.

Our first day of independence serendipitously lined up with the original day of independence for the USA! Our 4th of July festivities began in the morning when Oliver, one of our best buds from high school, and his friend Wyatt picked us up to go explore Venice Beach! The boardwalk was INSANE! With a lingering smell of pot in the air, we saw a troupe of hippies playing the drums, muscle beach (where bodybuilders show off and work out in a terrifying cage), and this two-headed turtle:

As we were walking along, this young guy came right up to us and asked if we wanted some weed. When we said "no thanks" he asked Ollie and Wyatt if we were single and they said yes - thanks a lot guys - so this wannabe drug lord and his buddies all crowded around us, asking for our numbers and telling us their story. Apparently, he was from San Francisco, hoping to take over the drug scene at Venice beach! Haha we wished him luck with his business - our phone numbers still our own - and continued on our way...
There were so many cool stores! We were with boys, so the clothing shops remained unexplored, BUT we did go into this awesome place selling all these metal figurines - including a larger than life Bumblebee and Optimus Prime.

The time came, all too quickly, to find a bathroom. It was one of the most disgusting experiences of our lives, and we'll leave it at that..
We snapped a pic on the beach to prove we were there the headed back to the USC dorms where the guys were staying.

We had a false alarm invite to a party in Malibu - cause the guys' friend left just as we were about to head over - so we ended up hanging out on the roof with an awesome view of LA and the fireworks!

The next day we hung out at the apartment again and went shopping with Emily at The Grove. It was pretty much the Disneyland of shopping centres - just gorgeous. On our college budgets we didn't actually buy anything, but we visited MeMe working at Starbucks! We stopped by Ralph's (the grocery store) for components of our spaghetti feast we had planned for dinner, then went home.
Emily single-handedly prepared a delicious dinner - our first one all together as roomies!

After dinner, we went to the movies to see The Bling Ring. It was such a fun movie, and dangerously too real! Instead of disgusted with societal deification of celebrities, we came out of it totally inspired to steal their stuff! Not actually, but it glorified the whole saga and made it look so easy! We downloaded the movie soundtrack when we got home and let out our rule-breaking urges into a dance party of five. When, at 9:57, the neighbours below complained about the noise, MeMe sassily insisted that we had 3 more minutes. One song and a big synchronized jump later, it was 10:00 and time for bed...

We went to bed early, not because we're lame, but because we had to get up early this morning to go to the beach!! We decided on Long Beach and, with Hannah behind the wheel, made it there no worries! It was really overcast and chilly when we got there, but within the hour, the sun came out and the day was perfect! Emily, Chanelle, and Han braved the cold water while Lucy and MeMe psyched themselves up. Running in Bay Watch style was the only thing that got them in the water, but once we were all in we had a great time! The life guards were SO cute, so we all tried to think of casual ways to start drowning so they'd save us - then MeMe, who's vertically challenged, actually got dunked all the way under, so we decide that was enough of the water for the day.
We had another uncomfortable toilet experience today! It was as if (we imagine) we were in jail! The "stalls" we're just two walls about armpit height without doors! We took it in shifts to keep guard outside for each other, and got outta there asap.
We had In-and-Out Burgers for a late lunch and headed home, and that's where we're at now!
We have a super exciting day planned for tomorrow, so stay tuned!!!

California Girls!!

We made it to LA!! Woo! Just being here is so inspiring and exciting; it feels like we have the world at our fingertips. We got to work straight away - as in, we went shopping! Lucy got all her furniture sorted, then it was on to Walmart!

Two trolleys and five hours later, we dragged ourselves out of the superstore, feeling exhausted, lucky, and prepared to live on our own! 

On the last night with mum and Q we went out for Chinese with the roomies! (And forgot to take a photo, lame) But dinner was awesome, and our roommates are incredible! So sweet and hilarious, we totally lucked out! The next morning we dropped mum and Q off to the airport, with Hannah driving. After screeching across 4 lanes of traffic at the last minute, Han was officially a California driver! 

Then it was back to the apartment to get the furniture delivered and unpack! Hours later, we were finished! 

We had some deliciously cliche ramen noodles for dinner and went to bed, our first night of independence!