random things on thursday morning

this week has been very busy. we have a conference this weekend that is called ROOTS (yes, for the aussies i know this is very funny). anyway, it's been busy doing lots of things for that.

the make up of our house has changed dramatically. we currently have the same number of occupants as this time last week, but only 2 of us are the same.

naike from italy arrived on tuesday. she's going to teach me italian. i did it at school for 5 yers, yet really can't speak it AT ALL. so she is going to help me. hopefully. maybe.

it has been great having cate/cath here. though it has meant that i feel like i am 16 again having a sleepover with her best friend. you know, you have to chat before you fall asleep. i am a tired girl right now. not nearly enough sleep.

oh, got to go.

bye.

a crazy day...and it's only 11.15am

it's only 11.15am and this day is already a mix of emotions.

i started the day pretty well. i went to sasha's 10th birthday breakfast party. we had ice cream for breakfast. in fact the official spread also included sour lollies, chips and fairy floss (or cotton candy for the north americans). (i should mention that geoff and sandra are away and so this birthday breakfast feast was not necessarily condoned by his parents...but anyway). it was a nice time.

but i am also a little bit sad today. four of my housemates have officially moved out over the last few days. i had to say goodbye to the last two this morning (even though i will see them both next weekend - it was still sad). some of the friendships i have formed are very special. it was the end of something nice. i know that things change in life, but sometimes you just don't really want them too. things happen, things change. sometimes they are only different for a season, sometimes they will never be same again and sometimes you just have to wait and see what will happen and hope that things turn out ok. when things get messed up, you just never know.

but i am also very very excited because in about half an hour i am heading down to buffalo with heather and denise to pick up cath from the airport (cate for the canadians - i am worried i am going to start calling her cate while she is here - i let you know how it goes). it will be great to have her here just to hang out and talk with. sweet.

newsflash

newsflash - heather has been doing all these stupid quizzes on the computer this morning. anyway she did one on me and this is what it said about me...

i am more confident and arrogant than a rockstar

hmmmm.

(special note to Flushy Flush McPants - what times are you living in? how old are you? the king james version??? get a life - in the new millenium that is)

love

If I could speak in any language in heaven or on earth but didn't love others, I would only be making meaningless noise like a loud gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I knew all the mysteries of the future and knew everything about everything, but didn't love others, what good would I be? And if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, without love I would be no good to anybody. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn't love others, I would be of no value whatsoever.
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
Love will last forever, but prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will all disappear. Now we know only a little, and even the gift of prophecy reveals little! But when the end comes, these special gifts will all disappear.

There are three things that will endure--faith, hope, and love--and the greatest of these is love.

(and no, i didn't write it, it's from the bible - 1 corinthians 13)

more pictures

here are some more pictures from the trip...








life back in toronto has again been in full swing. on sunday for church we had a picnic, as it was fathers day. yesterday i was back in the office. zoe, matt and i spent the afternoon running errands for the ROOTS conference which happens next weekend. then last night i ended up with 3 kittens at my house. long story. this morning we took them down to the humane society. a few people (who's names i won't mention suggested throwing them in the river - as much as i hate cats i couldn't do that). cath (or cate as they call her here) arrives on monday. i am looking forward to that.

the hole in the ground

we went and saw the hole in the ground today and i must say i was very very impressed. did you know that from the east point to the west point the grand canyon is 446 kms long??? i didn't, until today. it was amazing really. it kind of blew my mind. it was brilliant. so we checked out the hole from various points. took lots of photos. got a bit sunburnt. tomorrow i am flying home. so i thought i would just give you all a summary of my trip away in photo form.

**important notice - only one month to go!!! if you are saying one month till what, then if you know me i am very disappointed, if you don't really know me then you might be excused, i am still deciding. in one month it will be July 16. Somebody's birthday. (me). don't forget it. i love birthdays - especially mine. usually i get all my kids to sing happy birthday to me at school. i will miss that this year. **

anyway, the pictures... oh ok, so i somewhere i have messed up. i will have to put only a few on at a time. oh, and they will be out of order too, after the first one that is!

it started with heather and greg driving me to buffalo

long beach pier with mum

dad, me and the charger

with the rodriguera family in phoenix

me standing at the edge of the hole in the ground

number plates

mum decided she was going to play this game, with herself, on our road trip. when we started driving on tuesday from LA, she wrote down all the different states number plates that she saw. she started racking them up pretty quickly. her aim to get all 50, not sure if she can do it! she's currently at 32 states. she has just excitedly told me that the last one she got was kansas. she also has mexico, alberta and british coloumbia. it actually got to the point that the other day she was telling me or dad (whoever was driving) to hurry up or slow down or change lanes, because she could see, and i quote, 'a very interesting number plate'. hmmmm. has agnes lost the plot???

today we left phoenix and drove to flagstaff. we took a little detour through a town called sedona, which was truly beautiful. it was in the middle of all these mountainy rocky things, like you'd see in a western movie. we walked around the shopping strips and it really was a cute little town. i also saw two lizzards getting it on.

i have changed my flights and am heading back to toronto on saturday. we are doing the grand canyon tomorrow and then driving towards las vegas tomorrow night. i fly out of vegas saturday afternoon and mum and dad will drive back to LA where they will fly out of on sunday morning. i am looking forward to going home. (how scary that after 2 months i'm calling toronto home). i have missed being there.

flushy pants. there you go. i have mentioned you on my blog (does that count?).

love you all.

travel update - phoenix

i should really update my travels over the last few days. here goes. hope it's not boring.

on monday we (i will just clarify that the 'we' means mum, dad and me - i will not mention the fact that at 26 years of age i am on holidays with my parents ever again - i will just refer to us as 'we' so we can all pretend this isn't happening - just don't tell anyone that i am having an alright time - that's even worse) anyway, on monday we went and checked out long beach and took it pretty easy. we went for a swim at the hotel and met up with uncle robert. we went out with him and his work mate for dinner. after we got back to the hotel we saw a bit of australia's game against japan (see my previous blog for my thoughts on that game - legends).
we got up tuesday and began our drive out to phoenix. tuesday morning sucked. we started driving but had to change rental car because there was something dodgy going on with the wheel. that was ok, but annoying. until we drove out of the place and then realised they hadn't put any petrol in it, so we had to go back. and then i found out to change my flights to go home a little bit earlier was going to cost me $500. and a few other little things happened and we were all hating tuesday morning. but at least we hated it together and could laugh that it sucked. the day got better and hotter. the drive out to phoenix went relatively quickly. it's about 300 miles, whatever that is in kms. by the time we got out to phoenix the temperature was about 44 degrees celcius. hot. hot. hot.
anyway, the whole reason we are in phoenix is to visit some old family friends, vivian and rod. our families go back a long way. i'll tell you another day if you ask, but too long to blog about now. so we just hung out last night. george, their son, who's dad's age and his wife flo are here too.
today, wednesday, we all slept in. i had a good sleep but did wake up about 3.30am when i heard people up in the kitchen. turns out george got stung in the butt by a scorpian in the middle of the night. i always thought they were deadly. apparently not. you just use ice.
it's too hot to do anything else and we didn't come to this massive city in the middle of the desert to do sightseeing anyway, so we spent most of the day at the mall. mum and i shopped. dad, george and flo went to a movie. we've just finished dinner, which was awesome and full of laughs. i am with some funny people right now.
tomorrow we (back to the original 3 again) head off to flagstaff. then friday will be our grand canyon day.
so i hope that wasn't too boring a blog, but just thought i'd fill you in on the details of my whereabouts.

australians - bloody legends

ok, so for me to blog twice in one day something special must have happened. it certainly has. australia has done itself proud. the socceroos are bloody legends. i have just finished watching the last 5 minutes of our first world cup game, where we came from being 1-0 down to winning 1-3. bloody legends. how many people live in japan and how many live in australia. seriously, we are sporting legends! bring on brazil i say!

on the sporting front, i will add something else i learned today. so we all know that federer is an absolute legend, even if he's not australian, but there is one thing he can't do and that is beat nadal. over recent times, good old rog has a record of 1 win - 6 losses to nadal. against everyone else in the world his record is 198 wins - 8 losses. hmmm. what's going on there. who cares really. i still love federer. though not as much as i love patty rafter. he's a legend too.

all this talk about legends makes me feel like i am matty parker. love you mattspew.

false alarm

overall i've had a pretty good weekend. there were a few meetings that went too long, but what can you do - pretend that your 1 year old nephew has had enough and you need to take him out? hmmm. not a bad idea. i think i wrote the other day that it was good to catch up with lots of people and meet some new ones too. i didn't realise how many people i knew in the states.

we said goodbye to hil and daniel around dinner time, then mum and dad and i headed out for dinner. dinner was good. they then went out and did the laundry and i caught up on some emails and chatted with a few people from all around the world - thanks msn. they got back and mum wanted to go for a swim, so we went down to the pool while dad watched the crows score yet another victory for the season on his laptop. go the mighty crows.

today we aren't doing much. just packing up this morning. we are hanging around in LA for one more day as my uncle is flying in from aus this afternoon, so we will have dinner with him tonight and we'll all stay at the same hotel, then tomorrow we'll head off to phoenix.

so last night just as i had got to sleep, this massive alarm goes off with this annoucement saying, this is an alarm, you need to evacuate the building via the stairs and assemble in the carpark, do not get in the elevator. and it keeps going. so mum and i jump out of bed (well i didn't jump, mum did, i just kind of rolled out after questioning if we really did have to leave) dad was still watching the footy. mum grabs her rings and her phone, i was just concerned about what i was wearing and decided i wasn't going anywhere till i changed my top. who knows what dad was doing. so we trudge out the room, there's another lady who is in the corridor and we all go out the backstairs. this alarm is still going off. we made our way round to the carpark, only one other man follows us out the building. we end up just going back inside and the guy at the front desk says it's a false alarm. great. thanks very much. we get back to the room to discover the card isn't working to get us back in. fantastic. dad goes and gets one that works. meanwhile, mum and i are sitting on the floor laughing about how we reacted and in the situation which for all we knew, could have been real. we get back into bed, it then takes me hour to get back to sleep. thanks sheraton. thanks very much.

for those back home in melbourne, hope that the long weekend was great. hope syg went well. only four more days till school holidays, don't go crazy.

tired

i am very tired right now. i didn't sleep all that well last night, well i did, but only for a few hours. so i am knackered. today was a good day though. mum and i had a buffet breakfast together and that was good. we then did a little shopping. then we drove out to the salvation army's training college here in LA. this weekend it is the commissioning of the new officers. so there was stuff going on there all day. it was good as i got to see a lot of people who i know. some i saw in seattle not long ago, right through to my good friend lincoln who i haven't seen for 5 years. it was a good day. and the favourite one i got to see today was my little daniel. he's changed so much even since i saw him 8 weeks ago. but he is 1 now! hil and daniel flew in tonight. daz went down to seattle from vancouver to stay with kez for the weekend so that will be good. this tired girl is going to bed.

oh i will mention one funny thing that happened yesterday as we crossed the border. the lady was asking me questions - of course, because i am an alien - and she asked me when i was leaving canada and i said october, she clearly didn't understand, but instead of asking me to repeat it, she just looked at heather and said did she say october? it was funny. it doesn't sound very funny now that i have written it, but trust me, it was.

nickname nation

yesterday i was out with heather and rob who have both spent time in Aus. i came up with the term nickname nation. we all agree that australians often shorten names.
the thing they don't realise is how seriously us aussie are into nic names. there's the whole 'zza' nicname. for example, kerryn becomes kezza, darren becomes dazza and then of course everyone knows a shazza.
or if a person has a short name, then due to our obsessive nickname nature, we lengthen it. take my dad, ross becomes rossco, or my friends, beth becomes betho, annie becomes fannie (or better yet, fannie mac), jayne becomes jaynus.
or then there's the whole adding an 'o' on the end. ask any aussie and i guarantee they will know a jono, a robbo and a stevo. i just realised beth fits into this category as well.
anyway, this is just a short snippet on the nickname nation.
we won't even get into regular words like sunnies or arvo. well, save those for another blog.

by the way, i am now is LA. i am here for a few days, then out to phoenix and the grand canyon - or a dad calls it, the big hole in the ground. my flights here got a bit delayed but it all worked out pretty much, i got in to LA about 2 hours after i was supposed to. unfortunately i was greated with the news that kez isn't going to be here. she wasn't too well last night and so that is a bit sad. hil might still bring daniel down, but we'll just wait and see how she is tomorrow before they decide whether they will come or not. good news is my uncle is coming over to the states for a conference so we will get to see him on monday. funny thing is his conference is in seattle - where mum and dad live, but of course they are down here right now. pretty funny. alright, it's been a long day and so i am going to go to sleep now. i think mum and i are going shopping in the morning. i haven't bought a thing since i have been in toronto, so i think i am due. goodnight.

randoms

i typed a post yesterday and lost it to cyber space. i hate cyber space. it must be a pretty busy place. so many people lose things and they end up there. anyway...

just a few random things today

• on sunday at church heather was doing the powerpoint from her laptop as usual, when all of a sudden during sandra's sermon, msn messenger popped up on the screen. it was hilarous. i managed to get her attention and she quickly rectified the situation. i think erin fell off her chair from laughing so much. very funny.
• i saw the break up last night. i won't write about it as i guess some people who haven't seen it may not want it ruined. i will just say that i thought it was a good movie that sucked.
  
• as i currently type this, kylie and tam, 2 of my vermont girls are out hiking in the catherdral ranges with a bunch of year 9's on DTO camp. i am not jealous. i love DTO in december. but DTO in june is another story. last time i went on DTO in june was so horrible. not the kids. not the scenery. not sharing a tent with narelle - that's always enjoyable. but the cold. it was one of the most freezing, numbing, wettest, coldest memories of my life. we spent most of the time in our tents, which were practically floating trying to keep warm, and only being mildly successful. i don't think narelle and i have ever slept so close together. so, kylie and tam, my thoughts are with you, but i am glad my body is not.
• on thursday i am heading down to LA to meet up with my family - all but daz. that will be fun. then next week sometime mum and dad and i are heading out to phoenix. i'll be gone from toronto for 12 days. it will be fun. it's hot down there too - ridiculously hot - so i may even return here with a tan.

i'm an artiste

the weather here has been hot over the last few days. it gets muggy and humid here. may 30 was the hottest may 30 on record here ever. i think it was 34 or something like that. today it was kind of cooler, it tried to rain a little, but the rain wasn't overly successful. there were two things that the heat made me miss.
1) sitting in our 2x4 metre blow up pool in the backyard at york street, drinking drinks and watching the tv through aaron's bedroom window. good times.
2) not being able to go and swim in the coean. who cares how hot it gets when you can swim in the ocean.

tonight we had this special prayer session as part of the 24/7 prayer week. it was art. now, i am a useless artist, in terms of art,i am so not creative. at all. seriously. i still think i am hurt by my year 9 art teacher - i don't even remeber his name, it began with an m, all i remember is that he looked like a gorilla - anyway i did what i thought was the best piece of art work i had ever done and he gave me an e. that put me off art for life. so i went into this session very skeptical. i'm not really into fluffy stuff either. and for me, art if fluffy. (no offensive to any real artists out there, but that's what i think). i was seated at the naughty table (that's what we called ourselves) because we were supposed to be silent and we kept talking. we were all given a small canvas and a word. we then painted. i have to admit that i loved it. my piece of art even had meaning. by the end of it, i was really happy with what i had done. all the little canvasses actually go together and make a circle. it looks really good. i did art. i was good.