Wednesday the 20th of April

'Sup Gang?

So here I am with my fabulously fluffy hair! :D haha

Today I got home from.... DISNEY WORLD!!!

AHHHHHHHH 

MAAAAYYYY 

ZIIINNNGGGGG

EXXXCLLAAMMAATTIIOONNN MAARRKKK!!!

Pictures from the trip:

 I thought these were the CUTEST little things EVER!!!

[I bought 3...]

 Cinderella's Castle!! [If you look closely, you can see some of the princesses dancing with their princes on the stage!]

 I got SO excited when I saw/heard this. They are planning on building ALL the Disney Princess's Castles by 2012!!! This one I reckon is Ariel's!!! AHHH EXCITING!!

 Me and the Grinch!! :D

 Me and Sam, holding his Green eggs and Ham!

 Me and Thing 2. I thought he was Thing 1, and the other thing had just walked off I didn't know he was coming back, so my hand is held up pretending I was thing 2.... 

Or just 'Peace Out', whatever...

 They had all these Characters and things shaped out of leaves and bushes, this is the 'Pixar' Ball.

 In the 'EPCOT' park, you go 'all around the world'. It's a bit hard to describe here... so I think another video blog is in order :P But different sections of the park are built to make you feel like you are actually in the country.

This one, however, is Germany.

 This is Japan! [Oh, and all these countries aren't just 1 or 2 buildings. They are like whole streets and towns with dancers and authentic foods and goods!!]

 Morocco!! And this is where Aladdin and Jasmine hung out and you could get photos with them.... but the line was too big....

 Here are some more hedge creations. Tigger and...

 Piglet and Eyore. So cute!

 There were also a ton of amazing sunsets.

I do have more photos, check my facebook! :D

Oh, and just saying, on the Monday we went to Universal Studios, and that's where the "Dr.Seuss World" can be found, and all the pictures of me with the Dr.Seuss characters were taken. :)

I will be going to sleep now... But expect a better update soon!

:D

WAIT!!

I found a short Video!!

This is of the EPCOT country, 'Mexico'.

We went inside this biiig building, and inside they had made the roof look like it was an evening sky, and hung lanterns from the roof, and made the walls... not look like walls, but like you could see for miles! It was placed in the middle of a market place type thing, and then over the balcany, a big restaurant where you could have dinner. Take a look.

 

 Sorry for the bad quality...

Wednesday the 13th of April

hahaha.... this picture was taken as I was listening to my vlog... I was smiling, then... I guess I started pitying myself!! hahaha

Anyway, this is just a small blog to say a few things. 

1. Here is my first vlog:

2. I will be going to Disney World day after tomorrow and I still have to pack all the bags and do heaps of washing and stuff, so I won't have much time to update this, so probably the next time I write will be when I get back from Florida.

Wish me luck!!!

Monday the 11th of April

 

Suuuup?

That's just me with my new water bottle which I think is super cool!! :D 

Guess what I did today? No? No guesses? WELL I.... went to Zumba!! 

Yes, I know! Me! Oh but it was fun!!

For those of you who don't know what Zumba is, it's pretty much dancing for an hour to fast paced music as a way of exercise, and man alive am I going to be sore tomorrow!! They do a bit of Samba, and hip-hop, and Belly dancing and all sorts of dancing!! It's also cool because no one is really watching you, and you don't watch other people, so you don't feel silly doing these dances when you cannot dance!! You're all there for the same reason, it's like an unwritten rule not to judge others when exercising! haha

Definitely try it out [girls] if you haven't already! :D

I went with 'Jay' my Aussie friend who lives around the corner from me. We had a good moment as well. 

Ok so we are like the ONLY 2 Aussies in the country or something, and this particular this morning we were both together in the car listening to this particular radio station - when "We come from a Land down Under" comes on the Radio!!!!

We wound down our windows and tried to sing along at the top of our voices..... but alas neither us really knew the words very well - but we managed to scream the chorus pretty good!! haha

Although I'm still not sure what the women do... I know the men Blunder.... but the women? They do something and then we all hear the thunder and go to take cover. hehehehe

Anyway, I then came home and did a biiiig load of washing and cleaned my room! :D

At the end of the week I am going with my host family to Florida to Disney World!!!! WOOOOOHOOOO!!! And I was talking to my host mum and she was suggesting that I get some really good walking shoes. SO I went today to get some and the lady working there talked me into buying the shoes that are kinda becoming the 'thing' to wear [mostly for like mums and older ladies and stuff - but WHATEVER!!!!]

They're the exercise shoes... with the curved bottoms...

Yeah I know I'm a dork, whatever......

So that's me at the moment!! Will fill you in soon!! :D

Saturday 9th April

So I am sitting here in my room about to go to sleep. [I thought it would be a cool idea to have a picture of where I am when I'm writing my blogs!]

Today was a really fun day. 

It started off with a super good sleep in :D Then I drove and met a friend [who I shall now name 'L'... or 'El'... cos that sounds cooler. :)

We then drive down to the Virginia beach Ocean Front! In the summer it's a really big Tourist attraction. Today was a pretty cold day - and walking along the beach [after having a parking meter eat all our money...], we had a laugh trying to find a bare set of footprints in the sand, because everyone was wearing shoes it was so cold!

We then walked up an El introduced me to "Salt Water Taffy"! It's really good! :D Then we just walked along the shop fronts window shopping and talking. In the Summer there would be whole amusement parks and stuff open, but they were all closed for the Winter and stuff, but maybe my host family will go some time?

We then went and got some frozen Custard. SO. GOOD. MAN. ALIVE! :D

We had some Chick-fil-A for lunch - a fast-food restaurant which I think Australia should adopt.

There were some pretty good statues around:

Including one which was of a young girl, where there [apparently] was a matching one of the other side of the ocean in another country facing it:

... I don't know if you can read this or not, but it says:

I AM THE NORWEGIAN LADY

I STAND HERE 

AS MY SISTER BEFORE ME

TO WISH ALL MEN OF THE SEA

SAFE RETURN HOME

So that was nice. :)

Then we drove home and I took out my Aussie Au-Pair friend [whom shall now be "J" or 'Jay' :)] which lives just around the corner [seriously what are the chances??] to meet up with some of the Crew from my small group to go to the movies. They said it was at the "Greenbrair Cinema"... little did I know there were two...

So we were about 25 minutes late. Apparently we only missed like 5 minutes of the show though - so thank goodness for the ads [thought sometimes they are the best bit...]

So we ended up seeing "Sucker Punch." 

Interesting movie... Full on and Intense!!!

It reminded me a lot of "Scott Pilgrim vs The World." But that was mainly from the amazing quality of the video and the surreal-ness of the content. But lot less... happy fun. And not funny. I kept thinking "Wow... this is so anime... this has to have been some sort of Manga or something"

I mean my whole idea of the film may have been a WHOLE lot different if I had have seen those first 5 minutes... because the first half an hour I was really trying to work out what was going on... But I got there. Pretty much it's not the kind of film I will be recommending to people. But it wasn't too bad.

Then me and Jay went and had some dinner at Applebee's. Wasn't bad at all!! I really wasn't hungry though, so I asked Jay to order a soup side with hers [because you can only order it with a meal] and then I would pay her the $2 for it. :) So that was good. Then I came home and cleaned my bag out... haha long time needed. :P

Anyway, so I shall be going to sleep now so I can get up in time for small group tomorrow!

Seeyas!

Friday April 8

 

Hey guys!! So I am right now sitting in Starbucks chilling.

[My 'look' is because I will be going to the gym which = no make-up or fancy hair]

Host kids are either at school or on a spring break camp which, since it is the last day, started at 9 and ends at 12:00. Because its about a 40 minute drive, I decided that it would probably be a smarter idea to just stick around somewhere for a few hours, rather then go all the way home and then leave not too long after.

SO I got my SUPER cool computer and am now sitting using up free internet. 

Speaking of free internet. I love how many places have free internet. The karate place my kids go to has free internet for parents [and au pairs :P] to use while they wait. So on my iphone [which doesn't work as a phone over here] logged into skype, and I had a chat with my family back home. 

I LOVE SKYPE!!

I was sitting down next to other people on their phones, calling Australia - for free. Free. AND I could talk to more then one person at a time. Thankfully the time that the kids are at karate is the perfect [sorta] time to call, because it's just before my family is AUS go to work. :D

YAY

After I finish business over this end of town we are going to go to the YMCA [the gym] and while she's going to be at the kids zone, I am going to try some sort of class. Zumba, kickboxing... maybe even yoga? hahahahahahahaha not yoga. If there aren't any classes on I think I shall just go on the bikes and treadmills in the main room. 

Because I worked on Tuesday [Which is usually my day off] I get tomorrow [Saturday] off!! I was talking with one of my friends over here about it, and she suggested that I go see the Ocean front at Virginia Beach. Rain or Shine, I've been here 4 months already and there is no excuse for me not to have been yet [apparently] so she insists that be our task for tomorrow... but at the moment the weather isn't looking too friendly. We'll see. 

I have TOTALLY been teaching myself Japanese. And rather successfully if I don't say so myself! There was this AMAZING free iPhone app that I found which is the BEST teacher ever!! Totally recommend it to anyone who wants to learn the very basics. It starts with the alphabet. [by the way, this is reading it and writing it... actual words come later]

[For those interested it's called 'Human Japanese Lite' in the itunes store]

Anyway, I could keep writing for ages, but alas you're probably sick of my writing. Leave me a comment and tell me if you think this is a good sized post, or too long or too short etc. 

Anyway, byes. Will fill in soon I am sure. :)

Change of Blog theme. And Gym.

Hey guys,

As you may have noticed, there are quite a few of the posts missing from my blog. That is because this blog will now be more of a diary of an Au Pair, rather then the Job of an Au Pair... so it will consist more about what I do in my free time and the wonders of America land, rather then all the details and specifics of the kids I look after. Hope this is still enjoyable for you!

So recently I joined the Gym!! Proud of me??? I am!!!

I am mostly doing just on the bikes and treadmills and stuff... maybe trying to get swimming in there a few times a month. 

I tried swimming laps once and MAN did it take alllll the energy out of me to the extreme!!!! I thought I was done with just 2 laps of the pool!! I managaed to keep going, but unfortunately [*cough*] there was a lesson coming so I HAD to get out... No, moving to another lane was not an option... shhhh...

My host mum has suggested that I join classes that are on around the times that I go [after dropping kids off at school]  Like Zumba, or Pilates... or there are some kick-boxing things... which isn't fighting, just the moves. Apparently it's a really good workout though, so I'm going to look into it!!

I am LOVING all the letters I'm getting from people, and am working really hard on replying to them all within a week of getting them. 

ALSO when I sent out the BIG group of letters at the start of the year... turns out I forgot some poeple, I am finding out every now and again random people who I forgot to send one to... and I really have forgotten who I have sent letters to and who I have not... so if you have not received a letter, but would like one, leave a message and your address [or email/facebook me your address] and I will try to get one to you pronto!! 

So yeah... Will fill in again soon [and yes I know that I say that a lot and don't... and honestly it will probably happen again...]

Seeya!