Making Cookies!!

When Dan, Abbey's brother, came into town they thought it'd be fun to make chocolate chip cookies. When they asked me how I make them I told them I buy the Toll house 'Break and Bake' cookies. Needless to say there was some laughing.
I have never made chocolate chip cookies from scratch on my own before. So I did some research (because I wanted them to be amazing!) and found a recipe for 'Soft chocolate chip cookies'.
Now there were some doubts at first because it does have vanilla pudding mix in the recipe (probably to keep them soft) but we decided to go for it! (o and the recipe made like 6 dozen :) )

Recipe:
Ingredients
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 (3.4 ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups chopped walnuts (optional)

Well I do have to admit the cookie dough looked and tasted normal and delicious!!

The boys seemed to enjoy them :)

And luckily the recipe made 6 dozen because yes I am a jinx in the kitchen and ruined the first batch.
I am still not quite sure how to work the oven (there are like 3 knobs, one with no words or numbers just pictures of random stuff, and a switch) and apparently I turned on the grill not the oven so you can say it ended badly :/

Then the second batch I was banned from and Dan got the cookie tray stuck in the oven for like 30 minutes. So second batch ruined as well.

We called those batches the kids cookies :)
(They did not seem to mind)

Then we finally got the hang of it and made some amazing cookies. Which were still soft days later! (thanks to my recipe I found!)

Overall a success if I do say so myself! :)

Cookies were gone in 3 days

Black Mountain Tower

This past weekend Abbey's brother, Dan, came into town from Melbourne. On Saturday we went to Black Mountain Tower.
It is 195 metres above the summit of Black Mountain (and if you are from Phoenix it is kind of like the compass room. It has a restaurant and 360 view of the city!)

It was gorgeous! Cold and windy but a beautiful view of the whole city! You could see the Parliament House, National Art Museum, and all the major attractions and government buildings.

It was just amazing to see how gorgeous the whole city I am living in now is! And all the tree's! Extremely different then Arizona!

Gorgeous view and city!
I will have to go back up at night to take pictures of the city at night all lit up!!

Kanes Birthday!

For my first weekend here it was Kane's 2nd birthday!!

My day started out with Riley bursting into my room at 7am (my first day to sleep in!) and telling me I needed to go say Happy Birthday to Kane right away!
I slowly crawled out of bed to find Kane not even awake yet.

Went to the mall with Abbey to do some last minute birthday shopping, then headed home to make Kane's cake!
Abbey has a really cool cake book. There are some crazy ideas in it. I even want one for my brithday!
She decided to make Kane a moon cake!
Abbey was determined to make this cake perfect because her last cake (for Paul's birthday the wekeend before) was not so great ha.

I was pretty impressed

And I frosted a star and think it turned out nicely :)

We then headed to Yass (pronounced "yes") which is about 30 minutes away. It is a really really small town.

That is where Paul's (fairly large) family lives. We all celebrated Kane's birthday there with family around.

Pretty sure Kane had a fun time!

Then the adults played cranium. It was a little different because it had some Australian things I did not know but me and Bridgette got close to winning!

Overall a great first weekend!

My Arrival!

I arrived in Canberra Sunday May 1^st around noon. It was a 14 hour flight from L.A. to Brisbane and then an almost 2 hour flight from Brisbane to Canberra. The flights were not bad at all. During the long one you had your own personal T.V. and lots of movies to choose from. I am pretty sure I watched about 6.

It was a bright sunny day around 60 degrees when I arrived. I met Abbey, the mother of the family, in the luggage pick up at the airport. We then took a 20-minute drive through the city to a nice little suburb called Dunlop. Pulled into a cute one-story house that is now my home.

When I got to the house 2 little boys were there to greet me. Riley, the red head, is 4 years old and Kane, bright blond hair, is almost 2. They both came up gave me hugs and had the biggest smiles on their faces! Also had gorgeous blue eyes. (I feel like I am the brown eyed girl in this country!)

They were kind enough to give me the master so I have my own closet and bathroom. It is the first room when you walk into the house so it also gives me a bit of privacy since the other rooms are in the rear of the house.

Upon my arrival I learned it was Paul, the dads, birthday! Paul has a very large family and most live in Canberra so I fought through the jet lag and stayed awake through dinner and long conversations. I met about 20 people from his family that night. They were all very welcoming and, thankfully, very understanding that I had just arrived and was not as alert or talkative as I usually am. It was a very fun first night and I was excited to have met a lot of people. I only managed to stay awake till around 7p.m. that night which was good because I had to be up at 6:30 the next day for my first day of work!

A little bit of background behind my trip across the world.

Hello!

So this is my first time writing a blog so bare with me for a while!

As I was approaching graduation from Arizona State University the question “Now what are you going to do?” kept coming up. I had no answer. I could not decide what my next move was. I wanted some time to think and explore. So I followed in my friend Sarah’s footsteps and joined a website called greataupair.com. 

I signed up in October and found a family in Cairns Australia fairly quickly. I was ecstatic. I had always wanted to go to Australia and now it was possible. Unfortunately my visa took longer then expected and I had to postpone my, at that time January trip, till August.

I was devastated. And again the question “Now what are you going to do?” popped up again. I was now in Australia limbo. Just waiting for my visa and having no clue when or even if I would get it.

After 4 long agonizing months I finally received the email that brought me out of limbo. I received it around 5 a.m. and was on the website looking for another family at 5:01.

I was lucky again I found two families that needed me by the end of April till August. Now the hard part came. I had to choose.  If you know me well then you know that making decisions is not something I do best. It took me a week of pro con lists, excel spreadsheets, family and friend advice until I made the decision to go with the family in Canberra Australia.

It is the capital of Australia and a cute little city. It’s 2 hours away from Sydney, 2 hours away from the beaches, 2 hours away from the snowy mountains, and 6 hours from Melbourne. I thought it’d be the perfect city to go to before my 6 month job in the tropical Cairns. This way I can experience all the different aspects of Australia.

So Friday April 29^th my dad and me left Phoenix, AZ and headed to L.A. After stopping at the beach and for dinner we headed to the airport and I boarded the plane for my 10 month Australian adventure.