Natalie & Kevin’s Wedding
Photos from their church ceremony on 24 May 2014
Photos from their church ceremony on 24 May 2014
From Mother’s Day 2014, California, USA
I realised I have not blogged or updated or posted any new entries all. year. long…so I will first give an overall summary , and then post highlights by month. Overall Summary Ryan and I continue to play Dodgeball with a great bunch every Monday evening. Thank you to John G. for inviting us to his team. We started playing about a year ago, in Division 3 and worked our way up undefeated in Div 3 then undefeated Div 2, now we are in Div 1 for the second season -in total I have been playing 5 seasons with Pigs Flying. Megan and I began meeting up for indoor rock climbing, something that we put off recently since I returned from the states early June. Ryan and I stopped going weekly and I took a break from it before starting up again with Megan. Ryan and I were house-sitting for the Thomsons in West End from November to early January. Towards the end of 2013; we adopted Penelope and got a new car, along with new phones, and for me, new job. My contract position got extended from February to now December this year. Major plus. I hope eventually I’ll obtain a permanent role. (Note: I will update this post with photos along the way, but photos currently are all over the place, and so not all have been posted yet -most are on my instagram) January 2014
March 2014
June 2014
July 2014
2014..to be continued.
Like I said in the previous post: (*4 weeks in the states) my mom and I arrived Sunday evening where poor Ryan had to wait for our arrival due to delays.
My mom and I were terribly jet lagged the next day waking up at 4 am and starting our day at 6am, where the three of us went to Moray Cafe for brekky. We then walked to the Sydney Ferry Stop so that my mom could see the CityCat, Story Bridge and the City in the distance. Ryan went to work, and my mom and I started our first day together.
Our first stop was Merthyr Centre so that we could drop off Ryan’s drycleaning, and went to Coles and looked around the stores nearby.
I took my mom to Inala, so that she can see the Vietnamese community and stores out that way. We bought our groceries there and had lunch at Tan Thanh. My mom gave away her foreign-ness when ordering in pounds instead of kilos when buying meat at the butchery.
After Inala, we returned home, and my mom prepared food for the week, and we relaxed and had dinner when Ryan got back from work. My mom got to see us play dodgeball, which we won 16-10. She seemed to enjoyed it.
Today was picture day. We went to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, and took photos with Koalas and Kangaroos. Afterwards we spend some time at the Botanical Gardens near Mt Coot tha, and also checked out the lookout spot and had lunch there. We shared Barramundi and Chips.
It was a good day, and now we are relaxing, then off to the dry cleaners to pick up Ry’s shirts…then wait for Ry to come home and have dinner. Photos to follow…
Currently, I am sitting in the living room, as my mom is in the kitchen preparing dinner. How lucky am I?! Never in a million years would I have thought my mom would visit me here in Brisbane, and see how I’ve been living, so it’s pretty cool. I still can’t believe she is here. We arrived on Sunday evening after a 10.5 hr delay with our flights. Thought I’d take this time to reflect on my trip home, since I did not have any down time to blog. I found myself describe the whole trip as a whirlwind of activities. I did not get to see or spend time with all the people I wanted to see, it was difficult to match up times, and be accommodating towards friends with a tight schedule, and also when I did not have a car everyday. I left Brisbane and arrived at LAX on Friday 8/8, and was greeted by my friend Krystal. It was so sweet for her to pick me up, and we got to catch up on the way down to Westminster. We had lunch at Brodard’s and had a delicious meal- and I had my nem nuong fix. That day I hung out with Lilly and my nephew, Minh. We drove to Val’s house to pick her and Chloe up to go to South Coast Plaza. Afterwards, Lilly dropped me off to pick up the car from Thay’s house so that I have one to drive for the next few days. Friday, I hung out with my mom and we went shopping in Costa Mesa, and then I went home to get ready for my cousin’s wedding/reception. It was so great getting to see most of my rellies at the same time. Saturday was Minh’s 2nd birthday party celebration -and the theme was Mickey Mouse. Mom and I spent the morning running around getting stuff to prepare for the party. There was a good turn out and the weather, of course was great. 10 July 2014: I started this post…but never completed. I can’t remember that far back. But I will post this anyway.
Right now it is 2:21am and I’m on my shadow shift with my two lovely colleagues. It is my first overnight shift with this new job.
My first shadow shift was yesterday when I worked from 2:30-11:30pm. It wasn’t so scary as I had felt starting out. The kids were cool- we took them out to the golf range, returned and prepared dinner. The kids were competing over workouts-who could do the most push ups, pull ups, crunches etc.
Then they had their showers and relaxed with some tv- they also talked to me about what it was like for them to be addicted to their substance use. 10:30 is bed time so they eventually made their way.
There were a few incidents, but all in all- it wasn’t too bad.
Two kids have left the program and we are now left with two. Hopefully they will be able to complete the program-we are on day 3 out of the 11. They are pretty sweet kids.
We do bed checks every three hours and document them. 2:30 now. I have 6.5 more hours.