"Birdland on fifty-three, The street sounds like a symphony"

Fifty three has always been a favourite number of mine. When my sister and I were little we would generally be watching T.V at night time, while Mum cooked dinner. During this time the 'Daily-Keno' number draw would be played. At one stage, the numbers that were drawn, were accompanied by pictures, of said number from different signs and shops from around the country. The number fifty-three was always accompanied by a picture of the State Highway 53 sign, which is found in Martinborough - where we lived, until I was almost Nine years old.

Even now, when I catch the Keno results, I always hope that my fifty-three comes up.



'In my shoes' now has reached 53 posts.  I am excited! Actually this post will make 54, so I have officially crossed my personal little finish line. To celebrate, I am changing things up a bit, gettign a little 'crazy' if you will.



You may notice that the name of this post, has taken a different path to my usual post headers. Yes folks, that's right, This post title is a song lyric, not a song title.



From here on in, for the next fifty three posts all post titles will now take their inspiration from song lyrics, not titles. I hope that you enjoy figuring out which songs they come from, or enjoy using Goggle to cheat, at the very least.

'This Christmas'

Christmas 2009, was a very special day for me. It was a time for reflection, family, sharing and an oppurtunity to breathe after a hectic few months.

I had huge hopes of decorating up large, however time nor money...nor fate it turns out, were on my side.  So...I made do with what I had and what I could rummage up. I think our table was still very pretty, and there's always next year for improvment.

The party store ran out of red vilene, so I had to make do with the little that I had. Which as you'll see in the pictures, resulted in the runner being a little short. I cringe every time I look at the pictures. Please do not judge.

After misisoning through the shops on Christmas Eve, I finally found two very cute, identical vases, for Pohutukawa blooms to sit it. *GLEE*. Christmas morning packing everything for operation "3 Christmases in One day"...Brad dropped the one and only breakable's bag and broke one. A little piece of my heart died knowing that they would not be matching. A shed a little tear, and attempts made by both Brad & my Father to convince me that, "it will be ok" and that "no one will even notice" just fuelled my rage. However, being it Christmas and considering I had just applied lashings of mascara, I sucked it up, and got on with it.

I left two out of four of my white paper lanterns at home. Huge fail.

Anywhooooo....Martha wouldn't have been impressed but my family were appreciative and thought it looked nice so, that is (barely) good enough for me. I'll let the picture's do the talking.

Presents that we bought, under our tree.

Bradley on Christmas day at his parents house. 

My sister Kelsey, opening her present from Brad & I.

My Pohutukawa & Ice, Champagne holder.

Picture's of the table.

I got some awesome gifts this year including perfume, a boardgame, a digital photo frame, jewellery, a wallet & DVD's & CD's. I also got money. I must have been a very good girl this past year.

'Land Down Under' Part Three (& Final)

   

Some highlights from the remainder of the trip:

• Going to a theme park for the first time. I was scared and excited. I haven't felt that way for a long time, so it was great to feel like a big kid again. Rollercoasters are so so cool!

• 
  The 'wild'-life. At DreamWorld I got to cuddle with a cute Koala named Suzy! It was so cool! Later in the week we went to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, where we got the chance to hold a snake, a baby croc & Kangaroo's. Naturally, I passed on the snake.
  
  

• Brad took me out to dinner, on our last night at an awesome resturaunt in Broadbeach. The food at Mama Roma's was awesome, and It was nice to have some quality time by ourselves.

• Getting a spray on tattoo at the markets was fun. I will probably never get a real tattoo, but it was fun to pretend for at least a week.

• Seeing real Frangipani's for the first time! So excited! So beautiful!
  












• The shopping. It has to be said people. Pacific Fare alone, was intense! We shopped pretty much every day. We hit the DFO, Harbour Town, Pacific Fare & Surfers Paradise for Shopping. Shopping hihglight was most probably walking in to the GUESS store in Sufer's to find a 50% off sale. I got a bag. Brads sister Laura bought me a wallet their as a Christmas present also.

• 
  Dracula's. If you havn't heard of Dracula's - it is a cabaret resteraunt. It was awesome! I was impressed by every element of the evening.  From the characters, the music, the ghost train the drinks, and the food..it was all amazing!
  
  

Overall it was an amazing trip. I cannot wait to go back there. I am so thankful that Brad's family enabled us to have such a trip and we had such a fantastic time.

'Land down under' (Part two)

OK, better late than never...



...The rest of the trip to Aussie was in-cred-ible. We filled the week with shoping, swimming, more shopping and yes even MORE shopping. I think Brad, and subsequently, our banking consultant's, weren't too happy about this.



One our first full day in Australia we were suprised to be woken up at 6.00am by the sun and of course the heat. We got up at 6.30am and went for a long swim in the pool and took some photo's with Brad's sisters new flashy-bling-bling underweater digital camera.



After the whole breakfast/shower/washing thing, went packed in to the people mover and headed towards the beach. We had a mosey around the morning markets, which was neat. I bought some HUGE earrings. We got very sunburnt at the markets.We than had lunch at the Broadbeach surf club, which is way flasher than anything you see on 'Home and Away', the meals were so cheap and so HUGE. I had a kids meal and could not finish it all. After lunch we waddled down to the changing rooms, then sunbathed and swam in the sea. I thought it was really powerful, as it was hard to stay standing even in thigh deep water. Apparenly that was a calm day.

 

After the beach we made yet another trip to Pacific Fare, then headed home to relax and glam up a bit, before going out to dinner. Brads parents had decided to take us to their favourite Thai resturaunt 'Changmai Thai' for dinner. We had a reservation for 7.00pm, but it felt much later as it gets so dark early over there! Regardless of the time the heat was still cranking. The food at Changmai Thai was fantastic - probably the best Thai food i've personally ever eaten. The resturaunt was just as neat, with all the waiters and waitresses dressed in traditional Thai costume's. The walls were adorned with intricate wooden carvings and there were fairy lights in the tree's. We were seated outside, next to a table of people, roughly my age, who were celebrating a birthday. It was hilarious, when right before bursting in to song, we heard a girl call "Toru,  wha..." There are Kiwi's everywhere!

After dinner, I dared Brad to eat a whole Chilli out of one of the banquet pots. As Brad hummed and haaa'd over the challenge, Brad's Dad, who puts the beat down on Chillis' and other spicy foods all the time, thought he would show his son a thing or two. Turns out this Chilli, was like no other, and had John in a fit of sweat. It was scary as we were asking if he was ok and he couldn't answer. His eye's just kept getting wider and more watery. We quickly explained what had happened to the waiter and he promptly brought out some cucumber. It worked. Thank goodness! I felt bad, as it was my idea. We headed home for some rest, as the following days would bring more shopping and a theme park...

                                        

                                                 

                                             

...Part 3 will be hugely condensed, so I can get to the goodies, that were Christmas, and the best ever New Years holiday.

'Land down under' (Part 1)

So...I have not blogged in what seems like forever. Sorry about that. I know that last time I published a post, that I vowed to post again from Australia. Turns out I was faaaar too busy and having too much to fun to find time to update.



So here it is, bits and bobs from my first oversea's trip to the Gold Coast.



Saturday Dec 5th



We left the Coast at 4.15am, on an airport shuttle. We had a cooked breakfast at Wellington airport, and boarded our Pacific Blue flight around 7.00am NZ time.



The flight was longer than I had thought it would be at 3 hours and 45 minutes. Luckily I had my ipod. Not so lucky that Brad didn't bring his, meaning I had to share one headphone with him. Also noted, not so lucky that we also have vastly different tastes in music and that through my un-headphoned ear I had to listen to him complain about my 'flight playlist'. Once we got in to Australian air-space ther was free T.V though, so I watched 'Everyday Italian' with Giada de Laurentis. It made me hungry.



Getting off of the plane was a shock. When we hit the joining-us-to-the-building-tunnel-thingy I felt the heat. Boy did I feel the heat. At that point I was unsure of how I would survive the 26 degree temperature, keeping in mind that it was only 9.45am in Australia. What the heck was midday going to bring?



We went through customs, and even though I am a good girl, I still found it scary. Chapelle Corby situation sprung to mind at the time. Until I was met at the customs desk by a typical Aussie 'Sheila'. She straight up made me laugh (in my head) and reminded me of what Kim from Kath & Kim will look like in her late fifties and Magda from 'There's somthing about Mary'



After that, we picked up the rental van and headed straight to the DFO. Ooooooh shopping. I was running round the outlet like a mad woman, when suddenly my shoe broke. It was so embarassing. I had to limp in to a shoe store, buy some sandles, and hurry on my way. We only had an hour there, so by the end I was literally runnnnnnning! I ended up buying a few tops, some sunglasses, a few belts and a black maxi dress...and of course the shoes.



We then drove from Brisbane to Broadbeach, which is just a few minutes from surfers.



We then stopped at Pacific Fare, to do some more shopping and pick up some groceries.



The place Brad's parents had rented for us to stay at was amazing! It had a pool. Need I say more?



We unloaded the car, got changed and headed straight for the cooling comfort of the water.

After a long day we cooked dinner at the house and all had a pretty early night. I was so excited to be on holiday. The weather was awesome, the house was awesome and we had lots more awesome stuff planned for the next nine days.

Tune in tomorrow, for more adventure's from Kanga Counrty.

'They don't know'

I am officially blogging to you from Australia! How exciting, I am overseas for the first time!



I will post about the flight and the trip so far after a few days.



I will be here for ten whole days. So for each day that I will be here, I thought I would let you in on a few secrets.



Here are ten quirks or useless bits of information you probably didn't know about me...



1) I suck my thumb when I sleep. I've been doing it since I was in the womb - seriously.



2) When I was 12 years old, up to when I was about 15, I would hum the entire tune of Christina Aguleira's 'Genie in a bottle' whilst I brushed my teeth.



3) I hate ants. I am so afraid of them.



4) I give the impression of being really organised. Those who know me well, know that this is merely an illusion.



5) I feel naked if I'm not wearing mascara.



6) I have forty-three pairs of shoes in my wardrobe



7) Although I'm not, what many people would call, 'religious', I feel closer to God at the beach, than I do anywhere else.



8) I have been exhibiting & selling my art works since the age of sixteen



9) Bad smells (such as cat food) or horrifically gory images make me dry retch.



10) When I fall in love with a song, I play it on repeat constantly until I get it out of my system a little bit. The longest ones so far are Salmonella Dub's 'Love your ways' at 3hours 17 minutes & Del Amitri's 'Tell her this' at 2 hours 45 minutes.

'Part of the list'

After the amazing *weekend i've had, I came home and had to update my list.



This is the list of musicians i've seen play live. Now alot of these acts were at Music festivals, so weren't by choice. Please don't be fooled into thinking I paid money to see Slipknot *shudder*.



NZ ACTS



Tadpole x3



Che Fu & The Krates x2

The Feelers x 4

Rubicon X2

Zed x3

Nesian Mystik x3

Carly Binding

Elemeno P

Shihad/Pacifier

Scribe

Blindspott x3

Steriogram x2

P-Money x3

Fast Crew

Dei Hamo x2

Misfits of Science

Savage

Goodnight Nurse x3

The Black Seeds

Concord Dawn

The D4

Deceptikonz
Evermore

Shapeshifter

DJ Sir-vere

Liam Finn

Neil Finn





INTERNATIONAL ACTS

UB40

Eskimo Joe

Tool
Muse

Violent Femmes

The Killers

Kasabian

My Chemical Romance

Lupe Fiasco
Jet

John Butler Trio x2

Beastie Boys

Chemical Brothers

System of a Down

The Donnas

The Streets x2

Freestylers

Slipknot

The Hives

Polyphonic Spree

Rise Against

Powderfinger

P!NK

Black Eyed Peas

48 May

Jameilia

Alien Ant Farm
Yellowcard

Good Charlotte

Taxi Ride

Silverchair

Chingy

*Ben Harper

*Pearl Jam



I am going to seriously work on this list over the next year.