Accomplishing something

I was pretty productive today. I made a list of the things that I need to accomplish now that I'm married and settling back into day to day life. They basically fall into three categories: name change, job search, and cleaning the apartment.

I sent some emails to people and I took out the recycling. I realised that there isn't very much that I can do about changing my name or applying for a partner visa yet, though. I still need to wait for our marriage license to be processed and then get a copy. I did find out, though, that I only need to show that to banks and other places to change my name and that there's no other legal paperwork. Of course I will need to do legal stuff to get my passport changed and apply for the visa, though.

Rohan got home and made dinner and he was talking about how perfect our arrangement of him cooking and me cleaning because he hates washing up. To which I replied, "I know, right, I hate cooking." It really is a pretty awesome arrangement.

After dinner, I was bored and Rohan said that I looked confused. I told him that I didn't know what to do because I was bored so we played some games together. First we played a Kirby game on the Wii. After fully completing on of the levels we decided to try playing Small World, a board game, again since last time I was really sick and needed a nap part way through him explaining the game. He beat me by quite a bit, but he said I still played better than expected. That's pretty much just because he helped me with every single move.

Then it was bedtime.

Back to regular life means more boring posts

I didn't do anything interesting during the day unless you count painting my nails. That was rather exciting since I hadn't painted them in a while. Other than that I just watched tv.

But at night was Bible study. This week we were having a group dinner at KJ and Chris' house. Paul picked us up and we got kinda lost trying to find their house and parking was a nightmare, but we were still the first ones there. Everyone actually made it this week! It was the first time that I met Lisa or Simon. Dinner was nice. Then we had our usual Bible study after followed by some chocolates that people brought. Rohan and I failed at remembering to bring something. I blame that we just got back from complete chaos a few days ago and I think that's understandable.

Paul took us back home and by that point it was getting pretty late so we didn't do much else.

Feeling more at home

I went to the store in the morning to pick up the food on the grocery list that Rohan made for me. He is the cook in our family and he made a list of what I needed to get for the meals that he planned for this week. I must have texted him like 20 times to figure out what exactly he wanted or what he wanted as a substitute when the butcher didn't have what he wanted. Rohan came home for lunch shortly after I got back from shopping.

I slept most of the rest of the day as I was still not feeling well. I had a miserable headache. Then I realised that it was because I'm overwhelmed. Our apartment is so messy and I feel like I've accomplished nothing toward cleaning it and there's just too much to do that I didn't know where to start. I did do the laundry since we've gotten back, but that just added to the massive pile that was my clothes. I couldn't close the closet doors because I had too much stuff just piled in there.

When Rohan got home, I decided that I wanted to start putting together my closet organiser thing, for lack of a better word. I tried to do it myself but then I ended up breaking a dowel and needing to go to the store for wood glue. At that point I got some more help from Rohan although he was also making dinner at that time.

He made chicken soup for dinner, which was definitely good for someone who has been sick. We finished my organiser thing after dinner and he helped me move it to my closet. I then spent a good part of the rest of the night organising my clothes. They now fit in their cubbies and I can actually close the door. Having a place for your clothes makes you feel so much more at home. I think I then just watched my parents' DVR until it was bedtime.

Wake up call from Tupperware

I slept in because I could and I still don't feel well. I woke up around 10, but I had no where to go, so I stayed in bed. About thirty minutes later, I hear this ringing noise. It took me a bit to realise that it was the intercom. I got out of bed and went to answer it. I was confused because I wasn't expecting anyone. We were originally supposed to get our Tupperware delivered today but then they tried to deliver early and I had to reschedule to tomorrow. But I answered the phone and sure enough it was the courier that was delivering our Tupperware. I quickly changed into actual pants and went down to get it.

Rohan came home for lunch. He ate and then we went through the Tupperware to make sure that the order was all there. We were confused about some of the names, but it was all correct. Rohan went back to work and I tried to stay up for a bit. That didn't work well and I went back to sleep.

At least I woke up again in time for Rohan to get home. Our mail was on hold while we were gone, so today was the first day that we would have gotten anything. We were surprised that we didn't have a package slip because Rohan has to go pick one up so often even when he didn't just get married and has gifts to pick up. He goes there so often that they don't even ask for ID anymore. They just know him and by default they're starting to know me. But anyway, we thought that was unusual so we decided to go down there anyway.

We didn't go straight there, though. We first went through Westfield. On our way there, we ran into Daniel. Not literally, despite Rohan's attempts with his trolley. We talked to him for a bit before finishing our trip. We did a quick run through of the furniture section of Myer. Then we went to EB. I think Rohan was having withdrawal from his favourite place. There was no one in there when we got there, so Rohan was talking with one of the employees. That's another place that they know him REALLY well. Finally we actually got to the post office. They did not have any packages for us. So sad. Although they may have just not gotten there yet.

On the way back from the post office, I wanted to check for a cubby hole shelf thing to put in my side of the closet to organise my clothes. We couldn't find it at Target so I went down to Kmart while Rohan got us some burgers from Grill'd for dinner. He met me at Kmart, where they had what I was looking for, so we bought that and a couple of other things we needed around the apartment and went home to eat. Rohan has a bunch of shows that he wants to watch with me so he had me pick. I chose the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. We watched the first disk. Then Rohan went back to whatever he was doing on his computer and building his pokemon nanoblocks and I watched American Ninja Warrior and So You Think You Can Dance via my parents' DVR. I'm so far behind!



Note: I also spent part of the day working out how to forward my emails to my new account. It's caitlinecurrie@gmail.com.

A blog written on the correct day! WHAT?!

I am sick. I woke up this morning feeling great but quickly felt like crap again and went back to sleep right after. I slept for most of the day. I woke up a bit to post my pictures and to write some of my blog. I mostly just got up to eat.

Rohan went to Westfield to pick up a few essentials and brought lunch back. After eating, I worked on my blog a bit and then Rohan wanted to play the game Smallworld that I got from his parents for Christmas. We started to get the game set up and he was explaining the rules to me. I just could not stay awake and so I had to take a nap before I just dropped at the table. Rohan came in to cuddle me to sleep, but I woke up three hours later and he was also asleep. I guess his body was saying that caffeine isn't always the answer.

We had dinner later. We got some chinese from a place nearby. I got a corn and chicken soup, which is like egg drop that you get in the states. It has been years since I've had egg drop soup, so I thought that it was really good. The rest of the night has been filled with trying to do laundry and post things on my blog while trying not to collapse from being sick.

Home sweet home

We had to get up pretty early. Thankfully it was not as early as the wedding day, but we couldn't sleep in. We had to spend the whole day until our flight packing. We had a lot of things that we left at the Curries house from wedding things and presents to my stuff that I used as packing material for stuff I shipped over.

Gma came over to visit us for a bit before we left as well. Rohan's aunt and uncle were also there. Then we had lunch. We had soup that Michelle took out of the freezer as well as some meat pies and haggas that she picked up. I tried the meat pie but not the haggas. I'm not a fan of meat pies, but the soup was really good. That was just a short break followed by more packing. I think that Rohan is a packing ninja because he managed to get everything into three checked bags, two backpacks, and two other carry-ons, including my dress and one of the presents that we got that we stuffed with more stuff.

Rohan's dad and uncle took us to the airport. We tried to check in at the kiosk, but it did not register that we had ordered another bag using Rohan's frequent flier points and wanted to charge us. He went up to the desk to ask them. They checked our bags and told us to go over to the customer service desk to ask them about it. I guess it was a weird process or something but then the guy waived the fee. He said it just sort of disappeared when he did something, but I think it had to do with Rohan wearing a top hat and me carrying my wedding dress bag. We found that people were especially nice to us when we have those. The security people were even joking around with us when we went through. I think it helps that there weren't very many people going through at that time anyway.

The flight wasn't full which was very nice because it meant that I could easily get my dress into the overhead compartment. I had a huge headache, so I tried to sleep. That didn't go so well and I watched Divergent. I did end up falling asleep after that and I woke up to a flight attendant giving us a free bottle of wine. That's the second one we got for free. That's just sitting somewhere in our kitchen now.

Paul picked us up from the airport and took us back to our apartment. Then we unpacked our suitcases to make sure that nothing broke. We were lucky to find that everything was in the number of pieces that it should have been. Despite all of the crazy mess that unpacking resulted in, I was glad to be back and finally have somewhere that I can call home.

Back to Australia

We got to have the buffet breakfast at the hotel this morning. We chose to go to the Singapore style one instead of the more western one. It was pretty good. I mostly ate the western type foods there, but I did also try some of the other stuff. I tried some new fruits. Dragonfruit was alright. Rohan told me in advance kind of what it tasted like so I knew what to expect. It's the texture of kiwi but doesn't have a very strong flavour. I also tried a rose apple. Rohan described it as tasting dry. I didn't really know what that meant, but I tried it anyway. I did not like it and I saw what he meant. It makes your mouth feel really dry. I took one bite but he finished it off for me.

After eating, we went back up to the room to finish packing. I basically packed everything last night, so I took a little nap before finishing up. It was basically a case of throwing everything into the suitcases because we knew we had to repack when we got to Perth anyway. Then we went downstairs to check out and had them hold our luggage when we went out for a bit before leaving Singapore.

Our trip was to the Magnum store once again. This time we went to get the custom Magnums. Rohan's was prettier because he got the rose petals, but I thought mine was also really pretty because I had the white chocolate drizzle. I didn't try Rohan's because he had dark chocolate as his base, but mine was really good. They were rich, though, so we got another one of the Summer Berries shake that we got a few days ago before we left.

We went back to the hotel and got our stuff before getting a taxi to the airport. Changi is not a normal airport. They have so many gardens and interesting things there. First we went into the cactus garden. That was pretty cool, except that it was ridiculously hot and I was not feeling well. We also went through the various terminals to look at different stuff. The butterfly gardens were really awesome. I took a lot of pictures there. My quads were hurting immensely today and the butterfly gardens made me realise why. I was doing a lot of squatting yesterday while taking pictures. I found that out by squatting to take pictures of butterflies and it REALLY hurt. The security at Changi was also strange. You only showed your boarding pass and you could get to all of the stores and gardens and fun stuff. The actual security scans was right as you boarded the plane. I was so confused by the lack of security until we actually went up to the gate.

The flight to Perth was fine. Rohan and I spent the whole time doing puzzles in the book that he got for take-off and landing entertainment. The Perth airport must have gone through some major renovations because coming back was so nice. We both got to use the e-passport scan. I knew that mine had that, but I've never been able to use it even in America. Apparently they allow you to use it if you are Australian, a New Zealander, a Singaporean, British, or American. That was pretty nice. Then Rohan had to declare a few things and that took literally seconds. He went through the e-scanner before me, had to talk to some lady to declare them and was done talking to her a couple seconds after I got through the e-scanner.

When we got our bags, we went out to meet with Rohan's parents and Justine, who picked us up at the airport. Then we went back to their house and Justine was nice enough to sleep in her old room and give Rohan and me the ensuite room, which used to be Rohan's room when he lived there.

Pretty flowers, pretty views

For breakfast, we went down to get kaya toast, which Rohan loves. It's like a coconut thing. I thought that there was no way that I'd like it because I don't like coconut at all, but it wasn't bad. I just tried a bite of Rohan's. I had gotten the soft boiled eggs for myself. Unfortunately they made my stomach hurt a bit, but it felt better when I grabbed some Shapes to eat as well.

We decided to actually go to Gardens by the Bay today. We were both feeling alright and we really wanted to be able to do that. This time we made sure to head in the correct direction. We actually took the trains there, so that helped. Plus it's right by the Marina Bay Sands, which we had been to multiple times. It was much easier to find it this time compared to Monday.

Since it's always really hot and humid in Singapore and we weren't feeling all that well, we decided to go to just the indoor gardens. Although we did walk through a couple of other ones on our way to the inside domes. The first dome that we went into we started going left and discovered that it was the Western Australian section. That explained why we, especially Rohan, knew all of the plants there. We walked around and that place is huge! They have so many different areas of the world represented and beautiful flowers. By the end of the first indoor garden, my camera was blinking that the battery was low because I had taken so many pictures.

We went over to the second indoor garden. That one is called the cloud garden. It's basically a large indoor mountain and waterfall. The mountain is seven stories high. You start at the bottom and then take a lift up to the six floor, walk up to the seventh, and then walk down the different areas around and through the mountain. I got a few pictures with my camera before it completely died and then I just used my phone's camera. I probably took around 400 pictures just in those two areas.

After those two gardens, we had to make our way back to the hotel. We needed to get cleaned up and changed to go to high tea. High tea was at Equinox, which is a restaurant at the Swissotel on the 70th floor, which is the highest floor. Rohan wore some work clothes and I wore my dress that my mom and I had made together.

High tea was pretty nice. Rohan and I each ordered a mocktail as well as the high tea for two. There are different options that you can order like normal food things, but what we ordered was a three tiered plate thingy with little sandwiches, little desserts, and scones. It also came with a tea or coffee and Rohan ordered the mint tea. I don't like tea or coffee, so he got what he wanted for that. My mocktail was delicious. The little sandwiches were also good. But I loved some of the desserts. My favourites were a fruit mousse thingy and a thingy that was orange but we think was chocolate flavoured. I wasn't very fond of the scones. I had never had them before but they were too dense for me. I tried eating them with lots of jam, but it didn't help much. We had two types each and I wasn't even able to eat a whole one of either type.

After high tea, we went back to the hotel to relax a bit. Then Rohan said he was full and wanted to go walk it off. We went back to Funan to pick up some more Pokemon nanoblocks. Gotta catch 'em all, right? As we were leaving Funan, we passed Old Chang Kee. Janice loves that place and, while they have it in Perth, they don't have it in Canberra. Rohan asked if I wanted to stop there and make Janice jealous. I said no because I didn't want to eat anything, but Rohan said he wanted to. So much for being too full!

We went back to the hotel until we decided to go out for dinner. We went to Glutton's Bay. It's another one of Rohan's favourite food spots. It's a bunch of different food stands where they specialize in one or two dishes each and do them really well. At first we walked through to decide what we wanted. At that ;oint, we were really close to the outdoor arena where they were setting up for Singapore's National Day festivities in a couple of weeks. They were doing a rehearsal of some of the stuff, including a video presentation and fountain show. We decided to watch it before heading back to get the food.

I wasn't sure what I wanted for dinner, but after telling Rohan that I've never had satay, he suggested that. He also said that I had to try the bbq chicken wings because they are Elise's favourite and he thought that I'd like them too. The satay was alright. It's not something that I would ever order, but I could eat it. The chicken wings, however, were really good. We also got some juices. Mine was watermelon and green apple. I love watermelon juice! After dinner, we called it a night and went home.

Edelweiss

Rohan was still not feeling well so most of the day was spent sleeping. You know he's not well when he actually sleeps more than me!

In the early afternoon, we actually left the hotel. We went to the Funan DigitaLife Mall, which is a big mall of only electronics stores. The fifth floor was Rohan's paradise. It is where all of the gaming stores are located as well as the better food court. I ended up getting a new phone case because mine broke within a week of getting it. Then we ate lunch. We got a pepper rice steak to share. That stuff is good. We had it in Perth before. It's served on a hot plate kind of like a fajita so it's raw when they first five it to you and you mix it up to cook.

We walked around the mall for a few hours. Rohan picked up a few things and I even found an area that had nail polish. I had completely forgotten that we were waiting for one store to reopen so that Rohan could pick up a game and I spent most of my money which meant that we were running low on cash since he was out. We didn't realise it until at the register and we had to try to find all of our change to make up the last $8 we needed. Luckily we had just enough or that would have been awkward. Well more awkward than it already was to go through our change to collect $8.

Also, I had the song Edelweiss stuck in my head during the afternoon. It made sense because we just saw the Sound of Music last night, but then we heard the instrumental version of the song playing over the mall's speakers. Then we heard it  playing again. I couldn't escape it! At least it's a pretty song.

We came back to the hotel after that. Rohan still isn't 100%, so he wanted to rest a bit before dinner. I ended up being the one that needed rest. I fell asleep and Rohan had to wake me up for dinner. My throat was starting to hurt. It isn't the same kind of pain as before but rather an itchy feeling. I'm not sure if it's good or bad that it's different because it's not as painful but it also means that I might get Rohan sick again. It's rather unfortunate that we keep taking turns being sick.

We went down to Din Tai Fung for dinner. The Curries are obsessed with the soup dumplings there, so it was a must on our list of things to do here. It was pretty good. I'm not really a dumpling fan, but these were by far the best dumplings I've had, which I guess isn't saying much since I don't eat them often. I got a chicken soup for my sore throat and then we got some pork thing, pork/veggie dumplings, and the soup dumplings.

After dinner, we came back for an early night. I took a bath in hopes that it would help me not to get sick any further. I feel a bit better so we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

In Sickness and in Health

Rohan started to get pretty sick last night. We're pretty sure that it is the same thing that I had last week. His immune system is just able to hold off getting sick unroll it's a better time somehow.

He laid in bed and slept almost all day. I didn't do much but stayed around our room.  Around lunch time, I went downstairs to get us some lunch and medicine that he needed. I also had to change our reservations for high tea from this afternoon until Thursday. Hopefully he'll be better by then. I wasn't sick for too long, so we're banking on his immune system kicking some viral butt since it's much better than my immune system.

I was also tired today, but just from all the walking yesterday. I slept for a lot of the afternoon but was woken up when the cleaning lady came. I did fall back asleep before taking a shower and getting ready to go out.

We probably wouldn't have left the hotel if it weren't for the fact that we had tickets to see The Sound of Music tonight. Since Rohan is sick, we wanted to do as little walking as we had to. We took two trains, one stop each, to get to the theatre. We went by it yesterday and picked up our tickets so we knew where it was. That was the first time that we've taken the trains this trip though. I'm glad that Rohan is at least sentient enough that he could find our way.

We quickly ate some dinner at the food court there. We got a bbq pizza and some garlic bread to share. I ate most of it since he wasn't hungry. Then we went to the theatre.

Our seats were really good and the show was amazing. It was so much better than the Carrie Underwood version that was on tv last year.

We took the trains back and now Rohan is relaxing before going to bed. Hopefully he'll get better soon. His fever does seem to have gone down although we don't have a thermometer here.

So lost. Much walking. Monday July 21

Our first goal for the morning was to go find Michelle's current favourite place to exchange money in Singapore. We found it but it was closed so we went to go get breakfast first. We ate at a Vietnamese place called Nam Nam. It was cheap and good, so they was a plus. Then I realised that I forgot to take my medication this morning so we went back to the hotel room. In the end that didn't matter though because the money exchange only opened a couple of minutes before we got back there.

We exchanged some money and then went on our way. We had scheduled to go see the gardens. We ended up not going to the gardens. In fact, we somehow managed to get completely turned around and went the opposite direction. We blame the evil buildings that we figured out later have rotational symmetry and were therefore horrible things to use as landmarks.

But we did have some fun exploring, even though we didn't realise that we were lost until way father into the trip than it should have been. At least it meant that we could cross off a few other things from our list of things to do, such as the day that we scheduled to just get lost and chinatown. We also saw a beautiful Hindu temple.

One of the times we went into the air conditioning to get a reprieve from the humidity, we walked into a mall and right in front of us was a Sephora store! I had to go in because they don't have Sephora in Australia, although it's coming late this year and next year around the country. It's really different than the one in the States, but I still got some nail polish.

Another time we went to get a reprieve we went into Mustafas. It's a huge store but guess what section we walked in at... yup, the cosmetics section. I got more nail polish but these were really cheap.

We had walked a lot all morning so we decided to turn back at that point and go to the hotel to figure out what we wanted to do. The air con was awesome and it was great to relax our feet. We had reached the goal of what you should walk per day by 10:30, so we were exhausted. We also grabbed some bread stuff from downstairs to eat for lunch.

While we were relaxing, we also figured out why we got so lost and how to get where we wanted to go that afternoon. That was a very smart thing to do. Our first stop was the customs Magnum shop. This year is the 25th anniversary of Mangum so they had one dessert called the Silver Jubilee. It was a cheese cake and magnum bar. Rohan and I got that to share. We also got a summer berries smoothie. Both were so incredibly delicious and they complimented each other so well. We were also going to get custom magnums to go because it was supposed to close on Wednesday and we definitely wanted to get them. But then we heard that it was extended until late next month. We decided to save the custom magnums for Friday before we leave.

Our next stop was the Fountain of Wealth. It's a large fountain that has a light show every night starting at 8. We still had quite a bit of time, so we went to the Marina Bay Sands shopping area. That place is huge. But guess what we saw there... an OPI kiosk! I just bought one nail polish there. Mostly because I was looking at the polishes for a while and felt like I should buy something but also because they were a lot cheaper than they are in Australia.

We finished retracing our steps and made it back to the Fountain of Wealth to see the light show. Rohan said it's a lot different than it used to be, but it was still cool. We got dinner afterward. We got juices at the juice bar. I got green apple and sour plum. I've never had sour plum before but it was SO good. Rohan had guava. Neither of us were that hungry so we got something to share from an Indian restaurant in that food court.

We found our way back to the hotel and we were so happy to be done walking. I had the pedometer on my phone running the whole day and the final count was  36.8km. That's A LOT of walking!

Singapore!

Rohan and I had to get up at 5 in order to rush to get ready for the airport. Rohan's parents were coming to get us at 5:30 with my parents to take see us off. We got there and checked in. Then we sat at Dome to be with our parents before going off through security. Neither of us had our laptop so it was a breeze to get through.

After two early mornings and a long exciting day, I was exhausted. Luckily it was a pretty empty plane so Rohan and I got one of the four seat rows to ourselves.  I slept across three of the chairs. I was so tired that I wasn't even awake when the plane took off!

The trip is about 4 hours. We went through customs, which was also really quick to go through, and grabbed a taxi to our hotel. We're staying at the Swissotel. I think our room got upgraded and the view is really pretty. I took pictures on my camera that I'll need to post when I get home.

By the time we got to the hotel, it was about 2:30. I changed into shorts because it's hot in Singapore and then we went to get lunch. The hotel that we're at is connected to a big mall so we went down to the food court there. We got some Japanese pork stuff to share. It was really good.

We went back up to the hotel to relax for most of the day. It's been a busy few weeks so we needed to relax and make a plan for what we wanted to do this week. Someone from the hotel also brought us up a bottle of wine as a honeymoon gift. It's to bad we don't drink.

We went to dinner really late because we had such a late lunch. We went back downstairs and found a place about a half hour before they closed. It was really good. Rohan loved it. He got a drink that was a watermelon and lime frozen drink. He also loved his squid. I got half of a chicken which was also good.

That's pretty much all we did. We'll actually leave the building tomorrow, though.

Miss Roth to Mrs. Currie

I had to get up really early for hair and make-up. They were coming at 5, so I set my alarm for 4:15 with the knowledge that I would keep hitting snooze until 4:30. I surprisingly wasn't tired at all when I actually woke up but really excited. I was singing to myself  "Going to the Chapel." I couldn't contain my joy.

I went into the kitchen and waited for the hair and makeup people to come. The photographers also came to take pictures of us getting ready. There were two people that came to do our hair so Jacki and I were the first ones. I had sent Jessica, the hair artist, a picture of what I wanted her to do to my hair. I absolutely loved it. Then I got my makeup done when Justine was finished. While waiting for everyone else to finish, I fixed the heart onto my left ring finger nail, which you can read about here. Right before she left, Jessica also put my tiara in so that I didn't mess up my hair.

After everyone was dressed and had their hair and makeup done, they helped me to get dressed. Getting my dress on was a production. But the hard part was really trying to get my shoes on. Once I was all laced up, my parents helped me to find my shoes, which I had placed under my dress, and then I had to sit down for my parents to put them on. Sitting on a bar stool was very challenging because it was higher than a normal chair so I had to try to jump up a bit to get on it and allow for the poof of my dress. The chair kept moving backwards whenever I tried to get on it. I think someone had to hold the chair still to allow me to sit on it.

One of the Currie family friends has a red jaguar and he picked up my dad and I to go to the church. It was so weird getting to the church just minutes before walking down the aisle. I was really calm all morning, just extremely happy, but I completely lost it while I was watching everyone walk down the aisle. I started crying so much! I was so happy and it's something that I felt like would never actually get here. I managed to control my crying by the time that I started to walk in, though. I think that seeing Rohan helped.

I won't go into details about the wedding ceremony because you can just watch the video here. Although I do want to add that the reason that we kissed twice at the "you may kiss the bride" part was because right after we kissed Rohan said that it had to be longer for the photographers. The fact that I didn't think about that is really ironic because I'm usually all about the photography. But there you go, that's the story of why we kissed twice.

After we walked out of the ceremony, Rohan dropped my hand and ran straight to the candy bar. Seriously, it did not take long for him to leave his new wife! But at least he did bring me some candy as well. Then we stood by the doors and saw everyone as they came out. There was a lot of congratulations and hugs. As soon as we greeted everyone, I went and took off my ceremony blue wedges and put on my reception flip flops. My feet felt so much better! Then we went into the main church area to take family pictures before the wedding party went on their way to take more pictures.

We didn't have a lot of time between the ceremony and reception, so we only took pictures around the area where the reception was. It was beautiful and had a beautiful view of the city and Swan River, so it didn't matter. We missed the stairs down to the beach at first because only Rohan knew where it was and he was somehow at the back of the pack. So we went sort of backwards from right by the reception hall to back by the beach. I didn't mind because I had my comfortable shoes on and my bridesmaids helped me with my dress, but I think my bridesmaids' feet weren't happy.

After pictures, we went into the bar area of the reception hall to have drinks while waiting for our time to go into the hall. Our names were announced and we went to sit down. The food was amazing! They were a bit slow with serving everyone, though. That's my only complaint of the day. We didn't really have time for dancing or mingling with people because the timetable was slower than it was supposed to be and we had to leave. The speeches were good and Steve's speech was hilarious. He sang to a parody that he wrote of "Let it Go" from Frozen. There's a video of the slideshow and music here, but it just has the words instead of him singing it. Jacki also made a picture slideshow of Rohan and I growing up and our relationship which can be seen here. We had dessert and cake after the speeches and then it was really time to go.

I didn't want to leave without at least a couple special dances, so I asked Sabrina, who was the coordinator from the reception hall. She said it was fine, so we had the father-daughter dance and Rohan and my first dance. I wanted my dad to cry at my wedding because he's pretty emotional about things like that and he cried at both of my sisters' weddings. It was only fair that he cried at mine. I knew just the song to make him bawl and I kept it a surprise until it played.

I went with Sabrina to show her the correct song and then I came back out. The music started and my dad looked like he thought he knew the song but wasn't sure. I asked him if he knew it and once the words started he put his head on my shoulder and began sobbing uncontrollably. The song is called The Gift and is written by Dan May, who went to school with my parents. Everytime my dad posted about Rohan and I getting engaged or coming to Australia for our wedding, he would use the hashtag #rootsandwings. The song talks about his father giving him roots and wings. Here's a video of my dad and I dancing.

Then Rohan and I had our first dance. It was "Let's Never Be Apart Again" by Andrew Huang, who is one of Rohan's favourite musicians from youtube. We started dancing to it and then Rohan invited anyone else that wanted to dance to join us. It was mostly the wedding party and their significant others. Then it was actually time to go. Rohan made a little announcement that the reception was over and mentioned that it was pouring outside. I looked and it was raining like crazy! I was so glad that the rain held off so that my dress didn't get ruined!

Everyone made an archway that we ran out through. We went into the van that the rest of the bridal party was in for the day and we went back to the Curries. We took a detour at the Pritchards so that my sisters could change and gather my suitcase and things.

We had a smaller family get together that evening at Rohan's parents house. Rohan changed right away but I wanted to wear my dress. It made me feel extra pretty and that dress was expensive so of course I was going to wear it for as long as I could! We made sure to get a picture of me being all dressed up and him in shorts and a t-shirt because it's all too typical of him. We hung out and had some of the cake from our wedding because we didn't have time to eat any at the reception. It was so good! Rohan's mum ordered pizza for dinner. I actually did change before eating, but that was more because I had to go to the bathroom and that would have been difficult in my dress. I'm just glad that I have a large enough bladder that I lasted that long.

At the end of the night I had to say goodbye to my family. Rohan and I were leaving in the morning so it was the last time that we would see them in who knows how long. Adrianna broke my heart because she was crying so much. She loves her new uncle so much and she didn't want to have to say goodbye to us. But I made sure that she knows that she can skype us, even if it doesn't help as much for a five year old who just wants to play instead of talk. I was going to see my parents in the morning, though, because they wanted to see us off to the airport.

Rohan and I had a bit more to get ready before going off to the hotel. Then I realised that I had forgot my toiletries at the Pritchard's. We made a stop back there before going to the hotel. Rohan told me that I should burst in and scream that I've had enough and was leaving! I didn't do that, though. I just went and grabbed my stuff and said goodbye again because that time I was actually leaving. The kids weren't awake at that time, so leaving was easier. Then we went into the city to our hotel and finally got to relax.

So much free Tupperware!

I woke up and went over to see Rohan in the morning to work on our playlist for the reception. I still wasn't feeling well and kept almost falling asleep so I went to take a nap on Justine's bed for a while and he kept working on it. He's amazing.

When I got up, I had to go back to the Pritchard's for my pre-wedding makeup trial. It went well. She made it look pretty natural which is what I asked because I think I've worn makeup a total of 6 or so times in my life. This was the first time that Rohan had seen me with makeup on. I'm glad that he prefers me without makeup. It's so much less work (and money!).

Then I went back to Rohan's parents' house because Rohan and I were getting picked up by the photographers for a pre-wedding photo shoot. Usually people would use it for engagement pictures but since we're pressed for time we used it more for a time to get to know the photographers and them to know us.

I actually quite enjoyed the session. They were also happy with us because we were good at being cutesy and posing ourselves. Rohan, who hates taking photos, didn't seem to mind it too much either because we stopped at a chocolate factory and got ice cream and another place to eat cheese. The cheese was amazing. We just sampled it and decided to buy a block of the chilli cheddar, as did the photographers.

They dropped us back off at Rohan's parents' place when we were done. My parents were there back from their trip with Michelle and Alastair. They seemed to have had a lot of fun, and ate a lot too. After we got there, my dad went back to the Pritchard's and my mom stayed for my kitchen tea. It's basically a wedding shower. They were still getting ready for it and Rohan, Elise, and I got Chinese take away to eat quickly before everyone arrived. I'm finally feeling better so I was starving after not eating much the past few days.

The kitchen tea was a Tupperware party put on by Rohan's sisters. Justine is at camp this week, though, so she just got back in time for the party and went back when we had finished. Elise did a lot of the work with baking and making the games. It was a lot of fun and people bought lots of Tupperware which meant that I got lots of free Tupperware. Yay free stuff! Rohan and Alastair had gone over to the Pritchard's to play games with the guys during the party so I called Rohan back after everyone left to help me pick out stuff since he's the cook in our relationship.

After the party, Emma gave us a ride back to the Pritchard's and I'm just writing this up before going to bed. Tomorrow will be a fun day up at Caversham! 3 days!

(Here's a picture of the amazing cheese for future reference...)

"Chah-lie"- Adrianna's Australian accent

I woke up really early this morning only to go to the kitchen and check the time to find out it was only 1:40am. I guess that's the problem with sleeping all day. I did fall asleep again after taking more strepsils, though.

When I woke up again, I went out to the kitchen to drink some orange juice and then Rohan came over. Apparently they had tried to call but my phone was still in the bedroom so we didn't hear it. He wanted to see what the plan was. We decided that the Curries would pick us up at 11. I felt good enough to go out today, at least.

They came and took us to King's Park. We walked around for a bit to admire the beautiful views of Perth and even went to the DNA tower. I didn't go up it because I was still not feeling well.

We climbed back into the cars and went to Hillary's, which is kind of a little shopping centre on the water. We ate lunch there. Most of the family got seafood, but I got some grilled chicken and mashed potatoes because I thought that it would be better on my stomach. I hadn't eaten much in the last couple of days, so I could only eat a bit of it. I took the rest home for dinner though.

We walked around some more and went into some of the various shops, including a British lolly store. The ones that I wanted were sour and would have hurt my throat, so Rohan got them and is keeping them for the plane ride to our honeymoon since I have no self control even though I know it would hurt. Hopefully my throat is better by then!

They wanted to get gelato and decided to go down to Freo. Since I still don't feel well, I laid in the backseat on the way down there and stayed in the car when they went to get it.

Then my parents, Michelle, Rohan, and I went to grandmama's house. She wanted to give Rohan and I our wedding present. It was a beautiful quilt that she made for us. She makes a lot of beautifully embroidered things and paper crafts. She also showed us her sewing stuff and my mom liked it.

Michelle and Rohan dropped my parents and I off at the house where we're staying. My parents had the key which meant that my sisters couldn't get in when we were at grandmama's and had to go to the Currie's house. They came back and now we're just relaxing while my sisters and their husbands are debating going out.

Charlie is the dog where we are staying. Adrianna started saying his name with an Australian accent now because she said he listens better when she calls him like that.

Please be better by the wedding!

I was really sick today. My family, minus the kids, all went out. I went over to the Curries house with the kids. They spent all day playing the wii u with Rohan except for lunch and dinner.

Since I was still really sick, I spent all day sleeping in Justine's bed since she is away at camp and we figured it was better for me to sleep there than at the house where we're staying by myself in case I needed anything.

 

Alastair checked my throat and ear again to see if there was any other medicine he could give me, but decided that it was, in fact, a virus. Rohan went and got me dissolvable panadol at the store so we didn't need to keep crushing it. Then by the time I went home, my stomach was feeling really sick, so I took more medicine for that. I'm just all drugged up!

Aussie Rules!

I woke up about 9 to go to church with the Curries. Rohan and his parents came by about 10:15 to pick up anyone that wanted to go to church. My parents and I went with them.

We talked to a lot of people before church and after since it had been a while since they saw Rohan and since we're getting married next week, they were happy to see that I made it back.

After church, I went back with Rohan and his sisters to their house while my parents went with Rohan's parents. Then we got ready to go to the footy game. It was the Fremantle dockers against the GWS giants. Freo ended up winning by a lot.

Sometime during the game I started feeling really sick. My throat hurt really a lot whenever I swallowed. Then the pain started to spread to my ear. It got progressively worse, especially as we headed home. Alastair is a doctor so he checked my ears and throat to see if I needed to take medication since I definitely don't want to be sick on Saturday. He said that my throat was really red but that my ear looked fine and was probably just hurting because ears often hurt with sore throats. He gave me some strepsils and it started feeling a lot better.  Then I was feeling really cold so he gave me a panadol for my fever.

We had some curries at the Curries for dinner. Austin and Rohan played some Wii U and that pretty much made Austin's life. I opened my presents from Christmas from the Curries and my birthday present from grandmama. (Not a typo. That's what they call her.)

Most of my family walked back to the house where we are staying but Michelle drove my parents and me back so that we could take my dress as well as Adrianna's.

Now I'm relaxing by the fireplace trying to catch up on my blog and get warm before heading off to bed to hopefully get better.

On the road again... or is that in the air again?

Today was pretty much a travel day. I was sore from sleeping on the floor so I slept in my parents bed while they went to eat breakfast at the hotel.  When they we getting ready to leave, I went to Rohan's place.

I had to do laundry and repack my suitcase in the few hours before we had to leave. We didn't have much food since we're about to be gone for two weeks, so we went to Westfield to grab a quick lunch.

Rohan had arranged with Paul, a friend from church, to give us a lift to the airport. We weren't done packing when he got there, so he came up. We went through the list of the most important stuff like the marriage form, the rings, and our passports/birth certificates like 5 times.

We finally left and got to the Canberra airport. We were at terminal 13 and I was surprised that they even had that many terminals at the Canberra airport. It's really small.

The flight went fine. I slept for most of it because I was exhausted. We landed in Perth a little earlier than scheduled. As we waited for our bags, Rohan's parents got there. Then Rohan's friends came to get him for his buck's party (Aka bachelor party) as that was the only night that worked.

I stayed with Michelle and Alastair at a coffee shop and waited for my family to arrive about an hour later. Then they phoned Elise and Justine to come help take everyone home. We had three cars and just enough room to get everyone and their suitcases into the cars.

We headed to the Pritchard's. They are family friends of the Curries and out of town this week so they are kindly letting my family stay in their house. We just have to take care of their dog, Charlie. The Curries left us there and we went to bed.

Zonked before dinner again!

My family is still jetlagged which meant that I woke up to the sounds of my parents waking up at 5:30. I was so tired and kept almost falling asleep all day when traveling on the tour. We took a tour bus up to the Blue Mountains today. We also learned that they are called that because the eucalyptus trees give off a blue haze when seen from far away.

We met at the lobby around 8 for the bus to come pick us up. We were the first people picked up so we had to make a few stops before leaving the city.

The bus took us about an hour out of the city before the first stop. We stopped at a park by the river where our tour guide, Cameron, took the payments for the tour. He also had some biscuits and juice set up for morning tea. The park had bathrooms and a playground. Adrianna loved the playground and didn't want to leave.

Cameron said that we were running ahead of schedule so he made an additional stop at an aboriginal sacred site. The aboriginal people had no written language, but they did have a lot of carvings. This place had a kangaroo carved into the rocks. The story that is believed of the carving is that it was a ceremony of initiating a boy into a man. That's believed because the kangaroo is depicted as dead and it is believed that it was learning to hunt that initiated a boy into manhood.

The next stop was Wentworth Falls.  I had been there 3.5 years ago but it was just as beautiful. We went to the same lookout point but we went down a different trail.  This time we went to Prince's Rock. I had mini anxiety attacks but I got down and back up alright. Plus I didn't twist my ankle like the last time I was in Wentworth Falls.

We ate lunch after that in a city called Leura. The cafe that my family ate at was called Loaves and Dishes. I got a frittata and it was really good. Then we stopped at a candy store. It was just my mom and I at first and my dad had my wallet but luckily my mom had some money so I could get a stick of my favorite fruit licorice.

We hopped back on the bus to go to a place called Scenic World. It has different cable cars and such that took us though the area. The first thing we got to see was the Three Sisters. Since Jacki, Jillian, and I are three sisters, we had to get lots of pictures with it in the background. The legend was that the sisters fell in love with three brothers and when the brothers tried to steal them away from their father after he denied the brothers the possibility of marrying the sisters, he turned the sisters to stone to protect them. It would have made more sense to me if the dad froze the brothers but whatever.

There was also a small area of rainforest in the Blue mountains because of how the mountain keeps away the dry hot wind and allows rainforest plants to grow. That area was also a coal mine so we got to see part of that. One of the cable car things was actually originally designed for tourists that came down to see the land but would ask the coal miners to bring them back up. It's the steepest cable car thing, or whatever it is, in the world. They modernized it, luckily, and you could actually adjust the angle of the bench that your were sitting on. I was with Jacki, John, and Jillian on a bench and we did the steepest one. When it stated going up, we basically slid off the bench and our knees stopped us by hitting the bench in front of us. When we got back to the top, there was a souvenir shop. Cameron got the kids on the trip a stuffed kangaroo each. That was a nice surprise.

After Scenic World, Cameron drove us around for a bit. He showed us the side of the cliff that completely fell apart when they had a dynamite incident. It was crazy.

The last stop before heading back to the city was called Lincoln's Rock.  That place had no guard rail or safety thing at all. Cameron saved it for last because he said it was the best view. I wouldn't know because I got about a third of the way out there before anxiety hit. My family was already out there and I have a big fear of falling. I can do heights just fine if there are harnesses or even railings, and I live roller coasters, but I was petrified in fear.

I went back to a flat spot and sat on a rock while everyone else went out there. I made sure that I was looking the other way so I didn't have to see, but I kept looking back. I would have panic attacks whenever I would see even people that I didn't know get close to the edge. Then I made the mistake of turning around when Jillian was getting a picture by the edge. At that point I was totally freaking out, bawling, and having a major panic attack. I didn't make the mistake of looking back when my parents were doing it even though I could hear them. My head, stomach, and chest hurt the rest of the trip because of the panic and stress my body went through.

We then went back toward the city and boarded a ferry to take us into the city. It was dark by that time, but it still was pretty, especially when we got near the city and saw all the lights.

We took the first stop off of the ferry which was near where we were staying. My parents went back to the hotel right away because my mom was having major back pains. The rest of us went to a Thai place, called Thai Foon, on the other side is the harbour. It was pretty good. The kids feel asleep before we got our food. That happened last night too and the night before that I was the only one to eat dinner. A combination of jetlag, busy days, and the sun setting so early because it's winter make for very tired children. The kids did wake up on the way back to the hotel though so Brit went to get them some McDonalds so they could at least eat something tonight.

Talk about exhausted feet!

Jetlag sucks but it just might be worse for the person that doesn't have it. My parents both woke up in the middle of the night and it woke me up both times. Then I tried to sleep in a bit but they woke me up when they actually got up.

We went down to the lobby and met up with Jacki, John, Brit, and Adrianna to go to the store and pick up some stuff for breakfast this week. They also wanted to stop at Subway for breakfast stuff for today.

Then we came back to the hotel for a bit to eat and dropped the stuff off. After a bit, we headed out to the cafe to get WiFi and coffee. I got a hot chocolate with caramel and it was delicious. We stopped back at the hotel just to have the woman at reception call and reserve our spots for a tour to the Blue Mountains tomorrow. Then we were off to a free walking tour.

The lady at the front desk gave us directions to where the tour started so we didn't get lost on our way there. That was good because we got there just before it was scheduled to leave, although they left about 10 minutes late. It was a couple hours long but it was really good and interesting. My mom and I stayed by the front to hear the stuff he was telling us, but I think the rest of my family used it as a photo op because they were always trailing behind talking pictures.

When we went past the coat of arms, I told my family about the coat of arms meal which is kangaroo on the left and emu on the right. My family all said that they wanted to try it so I Googled where we could get it while the tour was stopped. There was a hotel in The Rocks called The Australian Heritage Hotel that had it on a pizza. The tour finished in The Rocks, so we went there for a late lunch. It was really good! I never liked kangaroo when I had it before because it's really rich and needs to be really rare or it gets tough. But I actually really liked this one. Jacki and John also got a crocodile pizza so I tried that too. Even the kids tried the kangaroo, emu, and crocodile. I wad pleasantly surprised.

After lunch, we split up. The guys and the kids went back to the hotel to go swimming. The pool was freezing because it's an indoor/outdoor pool so I don't think that the swimming thing lasted very long.

My sisters, mom, and I went shopping. We went back to Queen Victoria Building, which is one place that we passed on the tour and my sisters wanted to go back to. We stopped at a lot of stores on the way there, particularly souvenir shops. Then the QVB was huge. I think it had about five floors. There's also two big clocks hanging.  One is based off of Australia and one off Great Britain. The British one does a beheading on the hour every hour, like a coocoo clock, but we totally forgot to go watch it at that time.

After shopping, we went back to the hotel. My sisters went to their rooms and my mom and I were surprised to find everyone else in our room. My sisters them came up and we decided what we wanted to do for dinner. We chose Cargo bar, which is just down the street from the hotel and has $10 steaks Monday-Wednesday. I thought they were either going to be really small or taste like leather but they were really good Anna a good size!

Part of the deal of the guys watching the kids during the day was that they could go out for drinks at night. The girls and the kids went back to the hotel while the guys went out. My sisters had to carry the kids back to the hotel because they fell asleep at the restaurant. We stopped at our own rooms and then we briefly went down to Jillian's room to hang out.

When I went back to our room, I took a shower since we have an early morning tomorrow. The shower here is really weird and is like climbing a mountain and then falling off it when you get in and out. Now I'm just relaxing and writing this post. As for the title, I had my phone's pedometer on all day. We walked 19.46 km, which is about 12 miles! My feet are loving laying down for the night.

They're here!

I spoke up much earlier than I'm used to so that I could get ready to go to Sydney. I booked a Murray coach bus for 8 am so Janice came and picked me up about a half hour before.

I got on the bus and luckily slept for most of it. When I woke up the lady next to me was talking about how she's never seen anyone sleep that way.  (With my head bent down onto my lap) That lead to a conversation about why I was going to Sydney and that my family was coming in. I felt like my dad making a buddy!

The bus gets off at Sydney central train station, so I walked with my bag to the hotel. I don't know my way around Sydney at all since I've only been here a couple of times, so I used my phone. I didn't get lost, but I did get confused with some of the directions since it was hard to find the some of the street signs and my map didn't have many of the street names listed. I was so relieved when I finally found it because I was so hot from wearing all of my layers from Canberra's morning.

I went to the front desk to ask the woman there to call up to my parents room, but she said that they told her I was coming and she just gave me a key. That was cool because I could surprise my parents. My mom was in the shower and the rest of my family was in their own rooms. But my dad was excited to see me and he called me sisters' rooms to let them know I was here.

They took about another hour and a half before we went to get lunch. I didn't eat dinner last night, because I ate so much at lunch from the Fourth of July party, that I was really hungry by the time I got to Sydney. It was hard to wait to eat. We finally caught up with everyone in the lobby and headed off to the harbour to grab some food.

We ended up eating somewhere mostly because they had free WiFi and my family, well my dad and oldest sister, are really obsessed with being on the Internet and their phone all the time. My parents got two platter things and I shared with them. The seafood one was pretty good. My nephew, Austin, feel asleep on my sister's lap during lunch but mr niece, Adrianna, didn't appear to have jetlag at all. The service at the restaurant was really bad and slow, but at least they had people dressed up, Minnie Mouse and a pirate, that went around making balloon animals. 

After lunch, my brothers-in-law went back to the hotel with the kids and the original Roth 5 went to find The Rocks Market. We got pretty lost and had to ask for directions twice. It was nice when we got there though. There were a lot of nice things.

The market closed at 5 and the sun was setting so we stayed to go back to the hotel.  Or at least we tried. We got pretty lost. We even used my phone's GPS and we were lost! I'm not sure exactly how we did find our way back. I think it was a combination of my phone and seeing the buildings and signs that were outside of our rooms.

We went to our separate rooms when we got back. My mom went to sleep pretty much when we got back because she wasn't feeling well in addition to jetlag. My dad and I watched tv. I broke my own rule of staying up and I fell asleep for a little bit. Oops.

My dad went to bed around 8 and I ordered some delivery because I don't have jetlag and wanted to actually eat dinner. I got pasta from a place called Two Fat Chefs. Now I'm just eating and watching tv before I go to bed.

Oh say can you see?

I got up early this morning to get to Rohan's place so that I had time to make the eggs for the Fourth of July party. I got here and cooked the bacon while I prepared the rest of the stuff. I made stuffed eggs florentine. I thought they were good and apparently other people did, too, because they were gone. I was glad that I did end up making the double batch. As we were leaving to get to the party, I told Rohan that it made me feel like a real adult to be making something myself and bringing it to a party, instead of having my parents bring something. He laughed and said that it was weird going somewhere and him not having made what we're bringing.

The party was really nice. It was at Pete and Rebecca's place. He is an Australian and she is an American from North Carolina. They're the ones that took me to church when Greg and Rachel weren't here. So that means that they're the ones that I met through a locked door and climbing a fence. It was a really nice party. They had cooked out so there were burgers and hot dogs. Someone also brought pavlova for dessert and she placed the berries on top to look like the American flag.

After the party, I wanted to take all of my stuff to Rohan's place to move it there and then repack my bag just for Sydney. Greg and Rachel had cycled to the party, but they were nice enough to go back to their house, get my suitcases that I had packed last night, and then pick Rohan and I up from the party to go to Rohan's apartment.

I unpacked which mostly involved me throwing things into the closet and I repacked my bags while doing laundry. It was kind of messy deciding what I was going to take with me to Sydney and what to do with the stuff that I want to take with me to Perth/Singapore because I'll probably only have a few hours to pack and I don't want to forget anything. I made a list of things that we especially need to remember, like the wedding rings!

As soon as my clothes are done drying, I'll probably go back to Greg and Rachel's so that I can shower and get to bed at a reasonable hour. I'll be taking the 8am bus to Sydney which means that Janice is picking me up at 7:20 to take me to the bus station. At least I'll be able to sleep on the bus.

Yes, Karemah, I do still have a blog!

I went over to Rohan's place before lunch. We had another meeting with Craig for pre-marriage counselling. That went well. Then Rohan and I ate a quick lunch before he went to work.

During the afternoon, I went to the store to pick up the ingredients for the eggs that I was going to make for Saturday. I spent the afternoon hard boiling my eggs and painting my nails. One of the themes for nails was national pride, and since it was Fourth of July and we had a party the next day, I decided to do one hand with the American flag and one hand with the Australian flag.

Rohan came home from work and started cooking. Karemah was coming over for dinner. We had a good time. It was the first time that she had met Rohan, which is good that she met him because she's coming to our wedding! She thought that Rohan was hilarious and couldn't stop laughing. Karemah also isn't one to do things that are nerdy, for whatever reason she doesn't understand how I can be proud to be a nerd, but she did play Wii U Party with us and had fun.

She went home and then I went home a bit later.

Animals reunited

Today the Hungry Animals, my big group of friends from ANU, were finally able to meet up again. I think we rescheduled at least 5 times since I've been back. It was getting really ridiculous. We decided to meet at Grilld in Civic. Grilld is a burger place and the one in Civic just opened up since I've been gone.

I got there about 15 minutes early because of bus times, so I just walked around the Canberra Centre a little bit. Ok, so I really went to the chemist that was a few shops away to look at nail polish. I wasn't going to buy, though, because I wanted to wait until I have a job. Well, then I noticed that the Aussie brand that I've been wanting to try had a buy one get one free sale and the bottles are only $2.50, so that was really good. I was still going to restrain myself until I saw that they have a white one and I needed a new white because the one I got the other day sucks. Then I had to get a free one, so I got a red because the red I have also sucks because it's the same brand as my original white.

Then I waited for everyone to arrive. It was nice to catch up. It had been about a year since we've all seen each other, so we went around the table and each gave a summary of the past year. We also got a picture together. It'll probably be the last time we all get together because Ko is only here on a working holiday visa now, Boon is graduating and going to Singapore, and Janice doesn't know where she will go after she graduates in a couple weeks. Bec is planning on staying in Canberra, though, as am I for now.

After lunch, I made a quick stop at Big W to get a couple things for the apartment and then I went back to Belconnen. I spent the day looking up stuff online, watching SYTYCD, and painting my nails for OMD2. Now I'm just getting ready to go back to Greg and Rachel's place.

We all live in a yellow submarine

I got to Rohan's place early in the afternoon. He was out of the office, so it's great to have my own key and be able to come over when I want to. Karemah was initially supposed to come over so that I could do her nails, but she wasn't able to come. Instead I just did my own nails for OMD2, which you can read about on my nail art blog.

Rohan came home and we decided to just eat leftovers which meant that he didn't have to cook and we were able to do some rearranging of the apartment and think about what we want to do with stuff after we get back. We have a lot to reorganize already!

We started out by moving my desk out of the master bedroom and into the spot next to his. That was quite an ordeal. First we wanted to take the top part with the shelves off so that it was lighter and we could get it through the door since the bottom part would need to be on its side. There are these weird type of screws that we weren't sure how to unscrew. Rohan tried to look it up online but had difficulties. After a long time of trying to get them out, he pulled up the desk and realised that they weren't screwed in all the way and we could just lift it off.

But that's not the end of that. We tried to get the bottom of the desk out, but it would not fit around the corner of the hallway where the laundry area sticks out. Rohan figured that it would be much easier to just take it out through the glass doors. The apartment has a little patio area that luckily connects between the master bedroom and the living room. We could take it out that way, but it was still a lot of work trying to navigate around the dining room table and into its final spot. But we got it done and I was able to arrange basically all of the stuff that I left here last time.

Then Paul picked us up to go to Priya and Tim's place for Bible study. After Bible study, we were all just talking and there seemed to be a particular interest in Tim's work. He designs submarines. It became a bit of a game of asking him questions and seeing what was classified. Then I went back with Greg.

The Power of Skype

Last night Rohan gave me his key because I was going to get to his place before he left for lunch. I got there around 11:30. Rohan came home a little after 12. We were having a Skype meeting with Craig, the pastor performing our wedding, to start our pre-marriage counseling. We weren't sure how we were going to do it because we originally thought of doing it over Christmas time because we were both supposed to be in Perth, but that didn't happen because of all the visa problems. We are the first couple that he's ever counselled over Skype so that makes us extra special.

After the counselling, Rohan and I ate lunch and then he quickly went back to work because he had to write a presentation.

During the afternoon, Rohan's flatmate was moving out. She is an exchange student from France and will be in Australia for another month, but she is going to stay with some of her friends from church for the last month. I helped her to bring some of her stuff downstairs and then she gave me the key. It was exciting to finally have my own key to Rohan's (and my soon to be) apartment. It was a pretty exciting thing!

I spent the rest of the afternoon watching tv and doing my nails. These ones are coral and jellyfish. The jellyfish glow and are pretty awesome.

Rohan was at work really late because he had to get his presentation done. He texted me to ask me to start with the dinner prep. I suck at cooking, but I chopped an onion and the pumpkin, which Americans would call butternut squash. I discovered that pumpkin is very difficult to cut and peel. Luckily Rohan got back before I had to do anything too difficult and stressful!

The other day, Rohan's mum sent him a DVD on the Princess Bride. I had never seen it and that's really surprising among nerds, so we watched that. (Now I get a lot more of the nerd culture references.) We started it while Rohan was still cooking and we saw most of it, but we didn't get to finish. The reason being that Nathan, one of Rohan's best friends in WA, was having his 21st birthday party. It's oddly celebrated here even though 21 doesn't mean anything here, but it's very common to have big parties and people give speeches. Rohan Skyped in around 10pm to give a speech and then we stayed around to hear the rest of the speeches and talk to people for a couple of minutes. The internet is a pretty awesome thing.

We only had a little bit of time to continue watching the movie but have about 15 minutes left because I had to leave to catch the bus. It'll be really nice to not have to leave every night once we're married. Only 2.5 weeks!