Okay everyone, here are the birthday pics (and yes mom, I DID get a birthday cake!)
My Mocha Chocolate Birthday cake that Conor made me :)
This is Conor admiring his creation
(which tasted really really really yummy!!)
Monday, November 27, 2006
Birthday Pics Part II
Decorations :)
More Decorations
24th Birthday, and 24 candles in the box!
"Happy Birthday to you..."
Make a wish!
Yay for presents :)
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
More Birthday Celebrations!
Hey, so Happy Birthday to my big brother Mike! I’m all partied out now! On Monday Marcia at the Respect Life Office here, got an afternoon tea all organized for my birthday and bought this really fancy “Brunetti” Chocolate Cake and some of the girls came by, so that was really nice! I don’t know if it’s because it was my birthday or what, but I was actually feeling really out of sorts on Monday, kinda homesick but just kinda depressed all-in-all, and that actually really lifted my spirits, so yeah, it was really nice. And then on Tuesday night my cousin Jeanette (who’s from Abbotsford but studying in Brisbane) came over for dinner and stayed for cake and a movie. Julie, Natalie, Anne and Clare from the school all came for cake and Julie and Natalie stayed and we watched “Waiting for Guffman”. None of them had seen it or any of the other similar mockumentaries, so that was fun. Conor made a mocha chocolate cake and it turned out great! I have pictures, but I’m at the school and didn’t bring them…I’ll post them tomorrow.
Yeah, so Jeanette is here in Melbourne with her flatmate Jo. Jo’s brother lives here, so they arrived on Sunday, and stayed at Jo’s brothers for two nights, and then Jeanette stayed at our place last night, and again tonight, and then the two of them are gonna get a hotel and for a couple more nights before heading back to Brisbane. The weather here is just crazy! Last week Melbourne had it’s coldest day in 50 years or something, but the state that we’re in, Victoria, actually getting a lot of snow in certain areas, and we got rain and hail and it was just really cold. THEN…the day before yesterday it was 32 and yesterday it was a very humid 36 degrees…which is the hottest November day Melbourne has had since the 1930s…so what a change one week can make here! Our apartment really soaks in the heat, even though we don’t receive any direct sunlight into the apartment, plus Conor was baking the cake all day, and then making Jeanette and I dinner…so with the stove on our place felt like a stove! I had a really hard time falling asleep last night in the heat, but managed to after midnight (even though I was in bed just after 10:30!) and had to work this morning at 8.
Well I’m gonna head home and have a nap or something (the weathers cooler today, but very nice out) and then Conor and I are going to meet up with Jeanette and Jo later on at Lygon St for dinner! Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes, and I’ll put pics up here tomorrow!
Yeah, so Jeanette is here in Melbourne with her flatmate Jo. Jo’s brother lives here, so they arrived on Sunday, and stayed at Jo’s brothers for two nights, and then Jeanette stayed at our place last night, and again tonight, and then the two of them are gonna get a hotel and for a couple more nights before heading back to Brisbane. The weather here is just crazy! Last week Melbourne had it’s coldest day in 50 years or something, but the state that we’re in, Victoria, actually getting a lot of snow in certain areas, and we got rain and hail and it was just really cold. THEN…the day before yesterday it was 32 and yesterday it was a very humid 36 degrees…which is the hottest November day Melbourne has had since the 1930s…so what a change one week can make here! Our apartment really soaks in the heat, even though we don’t receive any direct sunlight into the apartment, plus Conor was baking the cake all day, and then making Jeanette and I dinner…so with the stove on our place felt like a stove! I had a really hard time falling asleep last night in the heat, but managed to after midnight (even though I was in bed just after 10:30!) and had to work this morning at 8.
Well I’m gonna head home and have a nap or something (the weathers cooler today, but very nice out) and then Conor and I are going to meet up with Jeanette and Jo later on at Lygon St for dinner! Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes, and I’ll put pics up here tomorrow!
Monday, November 20, 2006
Happy Birthday to ME!!
It was my birthday yesterday! But since it’s the 19th back home right now, it’s also my birthday today (yay for two birthdays!!) Anyways, yesterday morning we went to the parish of the director of the John Paul II Institute, Monseignor Elliot (although we ended up there a little late due to our driver, hehe). From there we went to an end-of-the-year bbq for the school. It went really well, probably the best weather I’ve ever been in on my birthday, and we went to this really nice park by the river. They sang Happy birthday to me even!
In the evening, since we had been eating the whole time at the bbq, Conor and I didn’t feel like a meal or anything, but instead we headed down to this street near downtown called “Lygon St”. There’s a big italian community there, so the streets are lined with restaurants and cafes, and this amazing chocolate place called “Koko blacks”. That’s where we went, and I had an iced chocolate and it was amazing! Anyone who comes to visit, remind us to take you to Lygon St, although I doubt we would forget.
On Tuesday nights we usually have a couple girls from the school over for a movie night (Julie from Detroit and Natalie from Perth). So this week Conor is going to make a cake for it, for my birthday, and we’ll have Natalie and Julie and a few other people over as well. Also my cousin Jeanette is in town from Brisbane, so she is going to stay over night with us on Tuesday and Wednesday night so that’s nice! It looks like we might be squeezing 9 people in our little apartment! I’ll write about how that goes afterwards!
Anyways, here some pics from yesterday, and I’ll also add them to my MSN Space so you can check out more there.
This is Claire - a great host in her apron, on her way to the "barbie"
Love self-portraits :)
In the evening, since we had been eating the whole time at the bbq, Conor and I didn’t feel like a meal or anything, but instead we headed down to this street near downtown called “Lygon St”. There’s a big italian community there, so the streets are lined with restaurants and cafes, and this amazing chocolate place called “Koko blacks”. That’s where we went, and I had an iced chocolate and it was amazing! Anyone who comes to visit, remind us to take you to Lygon St, although I doubt we would forget.
On Tuesday nights we usually have a couple girls from the school over for a movie night (Julie from Detroit and Natalie from Perth). So this week Conor is going to make a cake for it, for my birthday, and we’ll have Natalie and Julie and a few other people over as well. Also my cousin Jeanette is in town from Brisbane, so she is going to stay over night with us on Tuesday and Wednesday night so that’s nice! It looks like we might be squeezing 9 people in our little apartment! I’ll write about how that goes afterwards!
Anyways, here some pics from yesterday, and I’ll also add them to my MSN Space so you can check out more there.
This first one is just some of us standing around in the shade
(the afternoon started off quite warm)
This is Claire - a great host in her apron, on her way to the "barbie"
Love self-portraits :)This is Julie and I
(she's done her studies soon and will be going
home the beginning of December, we will miss her)
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Pictures
If you go to the link for "Jaclyn's MSN space" on the left, there are three new sections of pictures.
One section was from a Tuesday last month that Conor and I went to the casino and watched an NHL game - and then wandered around afterwards
The BBQ @ Dr Nicks I've already posted about
Melbourne Cup Day - we were invited to a BBQ at the house we play poker. I've never watched any horse racing before, but it was fun none the less. We did a sweep (where everyone puts in $2 and randomly draws a horse - top three winners get paid as well as the looser)...it was funny to see the little girls get so into it! We started off the afternoon with a BBQ, the main race that day (for the Melbourne Cup) was on around 3, and then after that we broke out the poker! The poker pictures I put up are actually from the first Sunday in November, not from Melbourne Cup Day.
Melbourne Cup Day is huge here - "The race that stops the Nation" it's called, although most Australians probably watch it, only Melbourne and surrounding suburbs get the day off. It's a huge fashion event for the ladies as well, but all the racing days are. It's interesting because leading up to Melbourne Cup day, Saterday's are the big race days of the week and I work in town on Saterdays, so I get to see everyone all dressed up heading to the train station to go out to the track. The ladies wear big hats, or this feather clip things called Facinators. The Melbourne Cup used to be just for Australians, but then New Zealanders started racing as well, and as the prize money as grew more people have been coming to race. The winner this year was a Japanese guy who couldn't speak English, so when they did the interview that was normally for the winner, they interviewed the runner up instead! He had a good laugh over that and apologized that his interview probably wasn't as interesting as the Japanese guys could have been.
Anyways, that was last week - I also worked at Sumo Salad all last week because they needed some shifts filled, and Marcia (here at the office) was thinking she might be going to Canberra. Canberra is the capitol city for Australia, and there were alot of Parliamentary things going on this week, one being the passing of a bill to allow certain stem-cell research. So Marcia and others are busy now trying to see what they can do to get the bill revoked.
Well, I better go get some work done!
One section was from a Tuesday last month that Conor and I went to the casino and watched an NHL game - and then wandered around afterwards
The BBQ @ Dr Nicks I've already posted about
Melbourne Cup Day - we were invited to a BBQ at the house we play poker. I've never watched any horse racing before, but it was fun none the less. We did a sweep (where everyone puts in $2 and randomly draws a horse - top three winners get paid as well as the looser)...it was funny to see the little girls get so into it! We started off the afternoon with a BBQ, the main race that day (for the Melbourne Cup) was on around 3, and then after that we broke out the poker! The poker pictures I put up are actually from the first Sunday in November, not from Melbourne Cup Day.
Melbourne Cup Day is huge here - "The race that stops the Nation" it's called, although most Australians probably watch it, only Melbourne and surrounding suburbs get the day off. It's a huge fashion event for the ladies as well, but all the racing days are. It's interesting because leading up to Melbourne Cup day, Saterday's are the big race days of the week and I work in town on Saterdays, so I get to see everyone all dressed up heading to the train station to go out to the track. The ladies wear big hats, or this feather clip things called Facinators. The Melbourne Cup used to be just for Australians, but then New Zealanders started racing as well, and as the prize money as grew more people have been coming to race. The winner this year was a Japanese guy who couldn't speak English, so when they did the interview that was normally for the winner, they interviewed the runner up instead! He had a good laugh over that and apologized that his interview probably wasn't as interesting as the Japanese guys could have been.
Anyways, that was last week - I also worked at Sumo Salad all last week because they needed some shifts filled, and Marcia (here at the office) was thinking she might be going to Canberra. Canberra is the capitol city for Australia, and there were alot of Parliamentary things going on this week, one being the passing of a bill to allow certain stem-cell research. So Marcia and others are busy now trying to see what they can do to get the bill revoked.
Well, I better go get some work done!
Monday, November 06, 2006
Poker poker poker
Firstly, thank you all for commenting - glad to hear that all this typing isn't in vain :)
(but actually, I would probably do this even if no one read it, it's kind of a journal for me, so we can look back on it later as well)
So we have another really interesting Sunday in a row! We went to mass at a parish up the road with a few girls from the school, and then headed to a bbq afterwards. One of the professors at the school, Dr Nick, invited all the students and some other people as well to an afternoon barbeque at his house, and it turned out to be a really nice day so it was really fun. Another international couple came with their two kids (three and one year olds), and they were a lot of fun! There was a trampoline which the little girl really liked, and an assortment of balls with the little boy took to right away. We probably got there around 1230 and left just before 6. Some people stayed to play games and such, but since we would be going out again to play poker (yay, poker night!) we decided to go home and just take a break before we headed out again. We finally got some luck our way, and Conor won the pot! $90 altogether! So he was VERY excited after that.
We also got invited to another bbq for Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday is a BIG day for Melbourne as it is “Melbourne Cup day”. I don’t know if it’s the final day or horse races, or just the biggest horseracing event of the year, but it’s held the second Tuesday in November every year and it’s a huge event. Apart from the horse races, it’s also a big fashion event where all the men get into their finest suits and all the women get completed decked out (fancy dresses, completely insensible footwear, feathers in their hair or the largest hats you’ve ever seen, etc.) It’s also become a holiday, where, if you do work the Tuesday you generally quit the day around noon as well as any other office in town. So the biggest places to go on Melbourne Cup day are Flemington, where the races are actually held (but it’s really expensive and there are A LOT of people that go), or to Federation Square downtown where they have the races up on a big screen outside and people come into town and hang out and watch the races. We were going to go to Fed Square with Julie, but then the people who hold the poker night invited us to come over for their bbq and to watch the races, and since Julie leaves December 2nd, we gave her the call. So we will be going to the bbq instead, which will be nice…this family is just really cool and fun and relaxing to hang out with, Conor would probably get stressed out in town with hundreds of people milling about! Hehe!
(but actually, I would probably do this even if no one read it, it's kind of a journal for me, so we can look back on it later as well)
So we have another really interesting Sunday in a row! We went to mass at a parish up the road with a few girls from the school, and then headed to a bbq afterwards. One of the professors at the school, Dr Nick, invited all the students and some other people as well to an afternoon barbeque at his house, and it turned out to be a really nice day so it was really fun. Another international couple came with their two kids (three and one year olds), and they were a lot of fun! There was a trampoline which the little girl really liked, and an assortment of balls with the little boy took to right away. We probably got there around 1230 and left just before 6. Some people stayed to play games and such, but since we would be going out again to play poker (yay, poker night!) we decided to go home and just take a break before we headed out again. We finally got some luck our way, and Conor won the pot! $90 altogether! So he was VERY excited after that.
We also got invited to another bbq for Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday is a BIG day for Melbourne as it is “Melbourne Cup day”. I don’t know if it’s the final day or horse races, or just the biggest horseracing event of the year, but it’s held the second Tuesday in November every year and it’s a huge event. Apart from the horse races, it’s also a big fashion event where all the men get into their finest suits and all the women get completed decked out (fancy dresses, completely insensible footwear, feathers in their hair or the largest hats you’ve ever seen, etc.) It’s also become a holiday, where, if you do work the Tuesday you generally quit the day around noon as well as any other office in town. So the biggest places to go on Melbourne Cup day are Flemington, where the races are actually held (but it’s really expensive and there are A LOT of people that go), or to Federation Square downtown where they have the races up on a big screen outside and people come into town and hang out and watch the races. We were going to go to Fed Square with Julie, but then the people who hold the poker night invited us to come over for their bbq and to watch the races, and since Julie leaves December 2nd, we gave her the call. So we will be going to the bbq instead, which will be nice…this family is just really cool and fun and relaxing to hang out with, Conor would probably get stressed out in town with hundreds of people milling about! Hehe!
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