Prepare Yourself... Aussie Land

Ok, so daddy dearest has been naggin me about putting up a blog of my trip to Australia. I was wanting to wait till I got the rest of the pics from Cristy, but as I started this blog today, it's prob better I do this is two bunches because I have a lot of pics. So this blog is going to have everything we did with a few pics and I'll put up more pics later when Cristy gets around to sending them to me :)
Australia was amazing!! I loved it. Although the weather was not all I had hoped for the first couple days, it still was an amazing trip and no regrets going. So the Roger family drove me to the airport Christmas day and after a great lil meal, I was on the plane headed for paradise. I arrived in Aussie Land early Saturday morning and Cristy Duce was tehre to pick me up with a friend, Daniel, who she had met a few days before. I was pretty pooped, but Daniel really wanted to be a great tour guide. I did my best to keep my eyes open and listen as we headed from Sydney to Wollongong (I know cool name), which is where Cristy lived and went to school for 6 months. During my awake time of the drove, I was in awe of the beautiful, lush scenery. Everything was so green adn beautiful. It actually looked kind of fake. Here's a pic of Daniel driving on the 'wrong' side of the road and his steering wheel on the 'wrong' side too :)

We finally arrived at the Stuart's house, which is the family Cristy lived with while she lived in Australia. The family includes Murray, Katrina, Kya, Dean, and baby Cailin. They were so incredibly friendly and made my stay VERY comfortable and fun.
So Saturday was a pretty chill day as both Cristy and I were exhausted from travelling, so we just hung out and I was able to get to know the fam a lil better. On Sunday, we went to church and then relaxed, helped Katrina make dinner, and started making plans for our week. We also met Michael, who is the guy who is living with the Stuarts. He got home from his mission last June and is the nicest, most sincere guy I've ever met! Great guy!
On Monday, Cristy, Michael and I headed to Sydney on the train. We went to Sydney harbor and walked around the botanic gardens. Of course, I had to get some pictures with the opera house and Sydney bridge too! Then we decided to walk from Sydney harbor to Darling Harbor. Cristy said it was just past the bridge...NOT!!! :) We walked for a good hour or hour and a half and finally got to Darling Harbor just as it was getting a lil dark. It was beautiful and full of restaurants and people. Michael and I grabbed some fish and chips and Cristy settled for some subway and we sat on the steps overlooking the harbor and chowed down. Afterwards, we headed back to Wollongong and packed in for the night.

No big deal... just me and the opera house!!

They had the coolest looking trees!!

The Sydney bridge!

Oh, and we also did a little bit of shopping with Katrina on Monday!! I did.... okay :)

On Tuesday, Murray, Cristy, Michael, Kya and I headed to Batheist (Michael's hometown) to pick up some more seats to put in his hippie van we were taking up to Brisbane. On the way to Batheist, we saw the Blue Mountains and also stopped to see the 3 sisters! It was incredibly busy with tons of tourists, so we decided to stop by on our way home that night. I finally got to see a few kangaroos on the way out, but not many. I totally thought kangaroos were like pets in people's hards, but taht definately was not the case. They were a lot smaller than I had expected too. They are kind of like our deer back home, but not as many.

So at Michael's farm, we were greeted by 13 huge Saint Bernards. Now, I love dogs, but this was quite overwhelming and a little frightening. They wre very friendly though, so it was all okay. There were a lot of different animals on his farm and it was fun to see where he grew up and to hear some stories from his past.

On the way home, we stopped again at the 3 sisters and my goodness was it a neat sight! Soooo incredibly beautiful! We got some cute pics (most on Cris' cam) and had some fun going on a little hike too.

This was a cool tree we found on our hike and decided to take a cool pic on the way! I'm pretty sure we pulled the roots out a little more cuz we're soooo incredibly buff!! :)

I also had a blast from the past moment as I sprained my ankle pretty good while climbing down some stairs... darn ankles!

On Wednesday, Michael, Cristy, myself and 6 other ysa packed up in Michael's hippie van and headed up the coast for the national ysa convention. Michael and YoLana are in the front, Cris and I on the second bench, Rachel, Christian and Rafael on the 3rd and Doras and Stef in the back. Cristy and I definately had the best seats of the bunch :)

Cristy and I got a little creative on the way up. We bought a grapefruit and decided to try to make some grapefruit juice and using the skin to create it... didn't work so well.. it was pretty bitter :)

So we drove half way and stopped in a place thats name has left my mind. Michael had made plans for us to stay at a farm about a hour away from the town. We stopped at a beach and Cristy and I immediately were on teh same waveline. We put up the idea of sleeping on the beach and we were pumped! Michael and Raf were game, but the rest of the group was a bit uneasy. So Cristy and I devised a plan to make them a lil more comfortable with our genius idea. We had a bbq on the beach with hot dogs and speghetti that Michael had brought. I was great. During the bbq, we smoothly led the girls to agree with our brilliant plan. So... the boys set out a huge mat for us girls and we had our sleeping bags while the boys laid out 3 body boards to sleep on! It was AWESOME!!!

Mike, Raf, Cristy and I woke up to the waves crashing and went body boarding!! It was amazing and soooo much fun! After playing in the water for a few hours, we packed up and headed the rest of the way to Brisbane.

So I had a bit of an incident with the foot shower. See there were two shower heads... one for your feet and one for your hair. Well I thought I had pushed the foot one, but I had actually hit the head one and I got a lil drenched :) A bit of a mama moment!!

Our BBQ

We headed straight to the university they had rented out for the convention. It was huge!! There were over 1600 ysa members there! It took quite a while for Cristy and I to get all signed up. We decided to just go to a couple of the activities. We also had Murray working some magic for Cris adn I as we had no where to sleep because the rest of the crew were staying in dorms. He had his brother, Peter, drive a horse trailer with bunk beds to us! It was awesome!!

So Thursday night, there was a dance and it kinda stunk, but there were a lot of good looking men to gaze at! Here's Cristy and I all dolled up for the occasion.

On Friday, Crsity and I took a ferry to a beach adn spent the day there. It was beautiful and we had great weather! We headed back later and got ready for the big ball!! Here's the beach though, and no Lynz that is not us in our bikinis :)

So for the ball, lots of girls were dressed as though they were going to grad. Cristy and I looked classy, but defiantely not prom mode! We had a lot of fun this night! They had a band playing and they were stellar!! We mingled with different groups and had a blast!

Saturday, Cris and I went back to the beach and went shopping for dresses for Cristy. We headed back to hit up the talent show afterwards and it was a lot of fun! They had some really good acts! So that's the bulk of my trip!! I didn't find the Australian man of my dreams, but I met some great people and new friends and was also able to create a deeper friendship with Miss Cristy! We had such a great time together and I would definately choose her to be a travelling buddy again!!

Michael and Cristy drove me to the airport Sunday morning and it was a sad goodbye! I was not ready to leave that gorgeous place and every time I think of it, I want to go back!! I will defintaely be making a trip back someday hopefully sooner rather than later!!