Day 5: The first Tuesday of every November is Melbourne Cup day. It is a public holiday in Melbourne, so the long weekend gave me the chance to run away to Perth for the weekend. So for the first time since I moved to Melbourne, I watched Melbourne Cup interstate. We had the required Sweepstakes – Gail won and then Barbar (my grandma) came second and third – and we had delicious food. This was finished off with cups of tea and gorgeous orange cake. It was a beautiful sun filled day, spent with family and friends we have known for so long that they are family now.
NaPhoPoMo #2
Day 2: Derby Day at the races with 105,000 of our best friends! Everyone was dressed in black and white and it was gorgeous way to spend a spectacular Melbourne day! I even won a little bit of money (:
Miss P
This post is dedicated to most important small person in my life. She lights up the room when she enters, her laughter is contagious, and her smile is gorgeous. Today is Halloween, so I wanted to share my favourite holiday with her. She came straight from Ballet so was already dressed up, so I put on my fairy outfit for her especially. However, within 20 minutes, she had sweet talked her way into wearing all of my costume! By the end, I didn’t have a costume left – just sparkly shoes! Before my party, I couldn’t decide whether I would be Mary Poppins or a Fairy – turns out I was both this Halloween! Miss Pippi, you are amazing and I can’t wait to watch you grow up. I’ll be by your side always – there to have special ‘not grownup’ adventures with and to always look for spiders with. I love you beautiful girl.
Spooktacular
It’s Halloween! It is my second favourite holiday – with Christmas of course being my favourite. It comes from living in America for four years and I just love it. It is a ridiculous holiday that I just love celebrating because there is no real reason for it! To make my love for it actually have a point, I’ve started having a Halloween party – this is my second year having one and the new thing this year was the photobooth I set up! It wasn’t perfect but for its first outing, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Mostly, I just loved how many people loved using the remote for the camera – especially the guys! I went as Mary Poppins – should I should branch out from my normal Hermione Granger. Was really happy with how it went as it gave me an excuse for some Umbrella Mondays photos!
It was an evening of Mary Poppins, Jelly Beans, Ghost Strawberries, Onesies, Tony Montanas, Penguins, Minnie Mouses, Foot Players, Flintstones, Wizards, Policemen, Vikings, Hippies, Stars, Mexicans, Screams, Pilots, Russians, Velmas, Cats, Skeletons, AND Royal Family Members!
There and Back Again
This November, I have been lucky enough to be invited to the amazing wedding of Sarah, of LineVerseStanza, and Jason. What is especially incredible about this wedding is that it will be on the set of Lord of the Rings (!!!) at Hobbiton, New Zealand. I am so excited for this wedding in just under two months from now. If that wasn’t enough, Sarah and Jason have created the most amazing Wedding invitations. Their Save the Dates were also amazing – all of it tying in the Book theme of the wedding. Over at Sarah’s blog, she details the effort and love that these invitations required and I definitely suggest checking it out, because it makes these beauties even more worth it. I love the invite so much, I wanted to share it on here.
Royal Melbourne Show
Last weekend, I went along to the Royal Melbourne Show with two of my closest friends from school, Courtney and Lai-Ling. I hadn’t been to The Show since I was about 4 or 5, which means that I barely remember it. Hence, this was the first time I’ve ever been! It was a lot of fun. We got there nice and early, which was an excellent idea, and left when the crowds got crazy. The crowds were so crazy in the afternoon the line to get into the Showbag Pavillion was probably 300 people long!
We enjoyed wandering around looking at gorgeous dogs, lambs, goat kids, Masterchef kitchens, horses, finding couches and tvs converted into pot plants, eating Dippin Dots, buying showbags, and winning toys.
August 2013
It is finally spring here in Melbourne which means that August is over. The last month of winter didn’t feel like that to me, given that it started off in Bangkok and ended with mid 20s weather in Melbourne. However, that very first night back from Bangkok, I did go to Soccer training and it was raining and 7.5 degrees! This month’s highlights are Bangkok to start with of course, but the month also included the launch of the sixth issue of the magazine I’m involved with, in Brief, with my image on the front cover, delicious food as usual, planting flowers, saying goodbye to Emma for 5 months as she goes on exchange in Denmark, and hanging out with my dogs. The best part of the month, though, was the Melbourne Writers Festival. It ended on Sunday, so September 1st so next month’s calendar will have the last little bit of it, but the end of this month was entirely shaped by the festival. I was at the festival every day of the 11 days (my favourite number!) save one because I fell ill from being so exhausted! It was an incredible experience. There were over 300 events in the festival and even though I was there almost every day, I only went to 50 of them! And that felt like a lot! It was a great organisation to be part of and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
So that was August 2013! Now onto September!
Fulton Street Band
Fulton Street is a kickass band I was lucky enough to see last Friday night. A friend of mine, Andrew, is on the keyboards and but this nine-piece band features trumpets, trombones, guitars, saxophones and drums as well. Their signer also has a stunning voice and brings this band together.
At the bottom of this post is two little videos to show how awesome they are!
Melbourne Writers Festival
This year, I have been lucky enough to intern at the Melbourne Writers Festival. One of my favourite events that I have been to so far is Tavi Gevinson’s talk last Friday night. Tavi is a blogger, a journalist, an actress, an editor and most of all a teenage girl. Her speech about #fangirling was really inspiring and just made me proud to be a girl. I can’t do justice to her speech in just a few words here, but it was an amazing experience and I loved sharing it with my beautiful friend Berlin. Estelle Tang interviewed her after the speech, and my photos capture a few moments between the two very lovely ladies.
The line outside in the rain was also crazy but filled with beautiful girls in flower crowns!
Ten on Ten
I’ve just joined 10 on 10! It is a project to take 10 photos on the 10th of every month, to grab a snapshot of your life in that moment. You are supposed to take one every hour, but I didn’t quite do that, but tried to get a shot every few hours, so that the whole day can be seen through these photos. The day was also my boyfriend’s birthday, so quite a few of the photos are dedicated to his day.
1/Early morning frost on my window
2&3/Strange Bike campaign just outside the State Library on my way to work at The Melbourne Writers Festival | Melbourne Central Shot Tower
4/Hershey’s Cookies and Cream chocolate snack as a pick-me-up after lunch
5/The garden in front of the State Library on my afternoon break
6&7/Snugglepot statue in front of the State Library |Admiring the sunshine
8/Lost this pair of earrings on the weekend, so bought another pair to replace them after work
9/Walking under the train station to meet Kit
10&11/Happy Birthday Kit!
12/The Birthday Hat
So I broke the rules a little bit, but I enjoyed the challenge of finding the beauty in the ordinary of a 9-5 working day. Ten on Ten was created by Rebekah and I found it through the beautiful Tahnee’s blog.
p.s. the 10th of July was also the 2 year anniversary of coming home from Europe 🙁
