HOME

Wow. I am finally home, it is so good to be home. But sleeping is all messed up. I can go to sleep at night for like 3 hours so its more like a nap and then I wake up at 3 and eat (because it's dinner time in NZ) and then I can't go to sleep until 7:30 and sleep all day. Its horrible and because I have the flu its messed up even more. I'm still trying to figure out how to fix it. Okay, so the last night there the farewell dinner was amazing. we ate in the sky tower, the dessert was way better than the food because it was mostly seafood and I'm not a huge fan. Then part of the group went back to the hotel and just talked about the trip and laughed til about 12:30 then we packed and went to bed. I had been coughing all that day and my head started to hurt so I took medicine and went to bed. The next day we went to a lecture and watched netball before heading to the airport. Net ball is so weird. Its like basketball, but you can't dribble and there is absolutely NO contact. It kinda drove me crazy. They would shoot and the defense would just watch them. Then we went to the airport, and got on our 12 hour flight back home. It was the longest plane ride of my life. I couldn't sleep the whole time because I was coughing too much. Let me tell ya, being sick on an airplane is no fun. My ears were clogged and it was just bad. Then I had to get on another flight to Houston from LA. It was just horrible. The longest day of my life...literally. because I relived saturday. Finally got home and slept and that's basically what I have been doing. I feel better now, but still sick. And I am over it. Its only Monday, but it feels like Tuesday.

I Learned so much going to Australia. I know who I am and where I am going. I think a lot of people don't and that's why they do what they do. I also can't let other peoples actions define who I am, or destroy the vision of the person I want to be. I know the Lord is always there for me and because I obey Him not only am I blessed physically, but I have His spirit with me always. Feeling His spirit and knowing how to act on it, is the greatest feeling that no one can take from me. I know that one of our purposes here on earth is to love others no matter what type of person they are. I know that we were also sent here to find a companion and get married eternally and bring children into the world to raise them up righteously. When I do what's right it is easier for me to see my weaknesses and fix them, and to realize that the wickedness of the world could never bring me complete happiness. I Realize how much I Love my family. They truly are my best friends. I don't know what I would do without them. My parents are always there for me encouraging me to be better and to do my best. Randi, who is so caring and so loving it just flows out of her. She always makes us laugh and is a true peacemaker. Chris, who can always makes me laugh and I know I can go to him for anything and he will listen. Sammie, who I don't know what I would do without her. She is always there listening even when she doesn't want to and who makes me smile just thinking about her. She is the perfect college room mate and I know she will never faulter, but will ALWAYS be there. Adison, who knows how to cheer up anyone, I will miss him when he leaves on his mission, but he will be a great missionary. He is so spiritual and is a great example to me. I know that I already knew all of this, but I think I was just missing it, and now it is just more profound. I will never forget going to Australia. It was an awesome experience and adventure. However, my adventures are not over! I have so much more coming!!!!

Last Post in NZ

Okay so this will be my last post. Mom, my plane leaves tomorrow at 2:30 and I get in at 7:35 in the morning in LA I will call you when I land, but except to hear from me then. Okay, so yesterday we went to an Island called Waieki or something and it was SOOO pretty like breath takingly beautiful. Like people who live there do not have to ever go on vacation. I loved it. We spent some time there and then we came back and did a little shopping. Allison got some sheep skin. It is soo soft. We would all lay on it anytime we saw it. Then last night we went to this theatre show it was weird, but also really cool. It is a lot different here than in America. Esp. the interaptive dance. It was hard not to keep from laughing. Then we ate at this Little Italy resturant that was SOOO good. It was the best thing I have had since I have been here. Then I went to bed, but today we got to sleep in for the first time since I have been here. HOWEVER. I did not because at 3 in the morning the fire alarm went off in our hotel. I was like what the heck, my first reaction was it will go off. Then I realized that it was serious. So we evacuted the whole hotel. We had to go down 10 floors of stairs first. It was nothing though. Just some drunk idiot who set it off. I was so mad. And a lot of our people were drunk and had no idea what was going on....OH DEAR. Then at 6 in the morning ADISON calls me. Twice. and leaves messages of him working in the background. Adison did you know that you accidentally called me twice this morning? UGH! it was funny. Then we got 4 phone calls in our room this morning from 8:30 to 9:30 so I just got up. No sleep for me. lol. Tae and I laughed about it this morning. Then today we went to The Luge. Its like go carting, but not. More like sledding on concrete. It was so much fun. We all raced down the hills. Then we went to this ice bar. Its a bar totally made of ice. Its really cool. (no pun intended). LOL. and tonight we are going to the sky tower to look out over Auckland and eat our farwell dinner. It should be fun. Tomorrow we have a lecture in the morning and then we are going to watch netball which I am really excited for. It is a spin off of basketball. Then we fly home. It will be a long day. because I live it twice. But I can't wait to see all of you. Mom I will call you as soon as I land. sorry I have so many grammar problems (sam and Chris), but I only had 15 min. and was typing fast. Love you all!!! See you soon!!!! 

Short

Thanks guys. I was very proud for trying something new! I am so T. I. red. (as Adison would say). All I want to do is sleep. Although tomorrow we don't start til 9:30 so that is good news. Today we went to another sports center and had some lectures. It was really interesting. The set up of sports is just so different here it really amazes me sometimes, but I am ALL lectured OUT. Then we went to a museum and saw the Haku performed by real Mauri people. It was way cool. I got some on video. Then we went shopping around. I found a nice jacket. I love it! Tonight we have off. We might go swimming in the pool in our hotel. We are all excited that home is coming. I love it here, but I am ready for home. There wasn't much going on today. I think Friday will be the last day I blog and then I fly home on Saturday. Sorry tonight is so short. Miss you all!

New Zealand

Yesterday we visited the outback, which was exciting to see, but we were on a bus for 7 hours yesterday, which was not fun. It took us 2.5 hours to get there and we just looked around and then we had a lecture and ate lunch, which wasn't that good. Afterwards I had a Golden Gaytime ice cream bar. They are sooo good. I would bring them home if I could. The name is really weird too, we made fun of it. We also made fun of the fact that we were in a bus all day. Then we drove to this waterhole which was beautiful, but it took 3.5 hours to get there. OMG it was so long. Then we came home and ate. We went to this seafood place and I had Kangaroo which taste exactly like steak, but maybe a little more tender. Then I had Crocodile which taste exactly like chicken, but a little more chewy. Then I had baramundi which is a type of fish. I don't think it taste any better than fish, but I don't really like fish. Then we went to bed because we had to pack and get up at 3:30 the next morning to catch our 5:30 flight to NEW ZEALAND. We left at 4 this morning, so we were going on 5 hours of sleep. We spent the whole day traveling. We got to Brisbane at 9:00 and on the way there I got checked for bombs. At Brisbane I didn't have my boarding pass because the machines broke down so we had to fix that and I had to pee so bad. Then They dumped my makeup bag all out when going through security. What a day. Then we drove on the bus for an hour. It was just a long day, but we are here and it is soo pretty. Its kinda cold, but also nice. We are going to more sports places tomorrow, it should be fun!!! Miss you all!! Oh and tonight we went to Wendy's because they have one here and they have NO CHOCOLATE frosties only vanilla. what the heck?

Busy!

Wow! I have been so busy the past two days. Yesterday was our adventure sports day! It was fun. First I went ATV in the outback. It was really pretty and really fun! We went kinda slow at first because we had this Japanese lady and a mom in our group, but half way through we were like we want to go faster, so he let us go ahead. It was way fun. On the way up there we had to go up the mountains and our bus driver was an ATV bike rider because she was going so fast up the mountain and its all these turns. Its crazy! It was a ride in and of itself. I want a four wheeler now! Then we came back and we were suppose to go cable skiing, but I didn't go because it was too much, but Tae and Allison and Phil went. Adison would love that place. They said it was lots of fun. I walked around and did some souvenir shopping which I think I am offically done with! YAY!!! Then we played cards last night. Fast nertz, I taught them how to play it since no one at home will play with me!!! So the hoodie I bought was white, and I told Tae that I should NOT have bought it because I would get something on it! and sure enough tonight I got tomato sauce on it. Out of all things that's what I get on it! UGH. I tried using a tide pen, but it didn't really work. Today we woke up early and went to the Great Barrier Reef. It was so cool, we snorkelled and went scuba diving. It was so pretty. Scuba diving is really fun. My ears only hurt a little bit. We got lots of pictures with our underwater camera. I saw Nemo! and a sting ray, some people saw sharks, but I didnt. There were these chinese people that were on the boat but they just slept all day. they didn't do anything. I can't believe they payed all the money to sleep. On the way back it was really rocky and I felt really sick. It was hard. I have a lot of salt water in me and I can still taste it in my mouth. I hate it! Tomorrow is another long day!!! But exciting. We are going to the outback!

Cairns

Sorry I missed a day. We changed hotels last night and there was one computer and it was 2 dollars for 10 mins. so I was like no way! And we had to get up at four this morning so I just went to bed. Oh and the day before yesterday we watched the sun rise and it was SOOO pretty. I took lots of pictures. I loved it! Yesterday we went to the Koala Pine Sanctuary. We got to take pictures and cuddle with a Koala. However, I would NOT call it cuddling because we couldn't really touch it, it could only just sit in our hands, but it was so cute and mine really liked me. We also fed kanagroos they are cute, but the ones we fed were kinda ugly and they were so use to people feeding them, they were just kinda like feed me!!! as they layed there. LAZY! We saw some tasmaian devils and dingeos. And craig, (our australian tour guide) said a dingeo ate my baby. it was so funny. True Australian accent. We took a cruise to get there, it was really long and a little boring, but really pretty and interesting. It was just a little long. Then we took a tour of downtown Brisbane which is SOOO pretty. i got lots of pictures of that too. We ate at this place called Amici's which is Italian the food was good, but we all ordered milk shakes and they tasted like milk, there was no ice cream in those. it was horrible. Australia is NOT known for their food. Then this morning we left on a plane REALLY early and flew to Carins. Then we went to the Rain Forest Station where we took an aqua duck through the rain forest it was really pretty and cool. Then we learned how to throw a spear and boomarang. and learned how to play a digeridoo. they are really hard to play and really cool. Then we took the longest sky rail over the rain forest. It was really cool and pretty. That was a really long day. Then we toured downtown Carins. The weather is really nice here. its perfect. Tomorrow we are going ATV biking and then water skiing. But on a wire for our adventure sports. I'm really excited. This is one of the days I have been looking forward too. I am so tired though and probably going to go to bed early again. I can't believe that we already hit the half way mark. I do miss America though. :) I miss you all!!!

Free Day!

Today was our free day, well first we went to a couple lectures for basketball which was good. Then we went to the beach for a couple hours. It was really nice. We passed around the footie. Yesterday, when we went surfing I had to put on a wet suit which was so hard, but it kept me really warm. When we got back from the beach we ate and then went shopping. It was a nice relaxing day. We leave in the morning to go to a hotel closer to the airport because we have to wake up at 4 the next day to catch a plane to Cairns. I found a hoodie today!!! It's not my dream one, but I really liked it, it was pretty cheap too. Tonight there is a game here called The State of Origin. It is one of the biggest games here in Australia like the super bowl is in USA. We are all going to watch it, it should be fun. I don't really have much else to say. I'm loving it here, and we are half way through the trip. It has acutally gone by really slow though. It feels like we have been here for weeks! But I love it! Miss you all!

Surfing

I have to type fast tonight because I only have ten mintues left. ;). SO today was a good day. We first went to a bowling club and learned about how they do it and the history of it and stuff. It was cool. And its not like bowling back home its different. I'll have to explain it later. A bunch of old people play, its fun, but a slow game. Then we went to the beach and we had surfing lessons for about 1 1/2 hours. It was sooo fun. Hard, but fun. I have lots of pictures. I got up 3 or 4 times. The salt water KILLS. It was burning my eyes and I felt like I had swallowed a whole gallon of it. Our instructor was really hott. We all got photos of him. Then we came back and showered and went to the Outback Spectacular show and dinner. It was really cool. They had horses and camels and sheep, and did a whole story about the history of australia and did some tricks and stuff. It was cool. The food was really good too, but the dessert was so weird and gross. It was like a huge marshmallow with whip cream and some nasty nasty....I don't even know what it was, but it was gross. Now we are going to bed early because I didn't get up this morning to watch the sun rise, so I am tomorrow. I woke up sick this morning, which was not fun, I took some dayquil and lots of other medicine so I am feeling a lot better now. Its sad that our trip is already half way over, but I'm having lots of fun. I hope everything is going well back home, and in Oklahoma. I'm going to try and call you tomorrow mom to see how things are going. I miss you all lots!!! I don't have any time now! Laters!!!

No Worries!!

There are some pictures for you. I have so many it was hard to choose which ones. The ones of the city are down town Sydney which is really pretty. It was kind of cloudy that day. And I know one is crooked, but I didn't want to fix it. The one where me, Tae, and Allison are running with our hands up we are running onto the feild of the Olympic stadium. I am standing on one of the little poles outside the arena. Allison and I are on one of the cliffs of the blue mountains with the blue mountains in the background. The food is my Kebab that was really good, and they are SOO popular here. More so in Sydney. The guy I'm standing with is the hot Aussie that plays professional rugby here, his name is Ben. Me and Tae are standing by the Sydney Harbor bridge and Opera house. A group of us are on the field after the Footie game, and in the stands at the footie game. I found that shirt at the mall and Miley was playing in the background. Sam I almost bought it for you. :). NOT REALLY. The one of the beach is Bondi beach in Sydney, its really small, but really pretty. I am standing in front of it in the other one.
That's it for the pictures. I hope you enjoy. It took a while to upload.

So, yesterday since I got cut short. We went to the blue mountains and it was so pretty. We rode a skyway and a cable car and a railway. They were all really high and steep, but it was fun. We also saw these mountains called the Three sisters and there is this whole story behind it and its really pretty and I was all excited to see it, but when we got there it just like these three rocks, nothing too exciting. It was funny. We saw some Kanagroos in the wild when we got there. I have tons of pictures of it, we got really close to it too. We will see more at the zoo. That's all we really did yesterday, but it took all day to tour them. It was BEAUTIFUL. I turned in early for the night because I was so tired and we had to pack. This morning we got on a plane to Surfer's Paradise. The weather is SOOO nice here. I love it. The beach is pretty too. We did a few lectures when we got here today and then we walked around the beach. The water is cold though. I think a group of us are going out tonight, but I'm not sure. Some of us want to get up early and run on the beach. So this whole time I have been looking for my dream hoodie and I have yet to find it. I have tried on so many and I don't like them. I want to LOVE IT. It is me and Tae's mission. I am destined to find it!!! More luck tomorrow. Tomorrow we are taking surfing lessons, I'm really excited and nervous. And then tomorrow night we are going to the Outback Spectacular show!!! I'm way excited for that. I'll tell you how it goes!!! Miss ya!!!

Pictures....for real!!!

Pictures!

Okay. So I am trying to upload pictures, but it is taking forever so It may not happen. We are leaving tomorrow for Surfer's paradise, so hopefully the computers will be better there. I can't talk long today because I just got a message to phone home and I am freaking out. I will write a lot tomorrow and see if I can post some pictures. I love and miss you all lots!!!

FOOTIE!!

So today we went to the market place and I got tons of stuff. It was fun. Its like this big flea market place, but I would say a slight upgrade. Then we went and ate meat pies for lunch. They are very popular here, but I don't really like them at all. I think they taste like frozen food. There are some candy bars here that are like snickers, well its actually a type of snickers, but I think it is so much better. I have had like 4 already. I'm going to bring some home so you guys can try them. Also, I brought my camera cord and everything, but the place that we decided to go to get on the internet tonight, because there are like 50 around our hotel, doesn't have USB connection. I was a little irritated. :). After we went shopping we went to the Aussie's Rules Football or as they call it Footie. It is my new favorite sport. It is nothing like football I think, but it is so fun to watch. I love it. I wish we had it. I bought myself a footie, and I will teach you all how to play. :). After the game is over they blow this horn and everyone can rush the field. It is crazy. Everyone and their mom goes out and kicks their footies and runs around like hooligans. Tomorrow we are going to tour the Blue Mountains. We might see some wild Kangeroos. On Monday we fly to Surfer's Paradise and I am very excited for that. I'm ready to get out of the city. The guys in Australia all smell really good. Whenever you pass them, you can smell them and its so good. We all try to smell them. :)

RANCH!!

Sorry I didn't write yesterday, I was so tired when we got back that I went straight to bed. Yesterday was a VERY long day. We went to the Olympic Stadium which was really cool and big and we saw THE ENTIRE THING because we toured it before we saw the rugby game. We got there at 4 and the game wasn't til 7:30 and then it got pushed back til 8. OMG, it was the longest tour of my life. The tour guide was so funny. He had huge buck teeth, I know its mean, but it was funny and he talked THE ENTIRE TIME. He stopped us like every 50 feet to tell us something. He even told us about the rubbish (trash) and how much they get and all that stuff. It was crazy. But me and Allison and Tae were just making fun of him the whole time. We had a bunch of lectures before that at some sports institutes. It was interesting, but it was kind of redundant of the day before. We have a free weekend though. I'm excited. At lunch we went to Subway and I got a chicken bacon ranch and they had ranch. YEEEEAAAHHHHH! Craig said that was the first time he had ever seen ranch in Australia. It was like a taste of home. Also, whenever you order water here. There is NO ice and it comes in the smallest cups, and they do not refill them, so its a good thing they don't tip here. When I get home I am having a JAR full of ICE COLD water, but I will give them props on there water. It is WAY good. Today we have a free morning and a group of us are heading to Paddy's which is a souvenior shop, so if you want something comment on my blog. LOL!!! ...but no really. Then we are going to a footie game, or Australin Rules football. It is way different than in the U.S. and I'm excited to see it. Yesterday the rugby game was Rugby League which is different than rugby union that we play in the U.S. it isn't as fun to watch, but it was good. The game is so fast though. It was like an hour long. The tour was longer than the actual game. I missed half of it to eat and get souveniours. Well I'm out of time, I will post tonight and I'm probably going to post pictures because we have free time. Miss ya lots!!!!

Academic Side...BLAH!!

Okay so I forgot my camera again, but I promise to post pictures by Sunday. Today was mostly an Academic day. We went to Camberra which is like 3 1/2 hours from Sydney. It was way fun. I learned SOOOO much about how Australia sports work. It is really different from the USA and soo interesting. It also made me miss basketball. We also toured another professional sports rugby team. That was cool. On the way back home from Camberra we were suppose to stop for dinner, but there are some weird rules here that the bus drivers can only be out for so long, so we were not able to stop. We were all SOO hungry. We ate at like 12 for lunch and it was 6:30 and we still had another 3 1/2 hour drive. We were NOT happy. This morning we stopped at Mackers (aka Mcdonald's). The Mcdonalds here are sooo nice, nicer than half the resturants around here. It is a huge resturant too, and the food comes so fast. They were like preparing it as I was speaking my order. It was crazy. Our old bus driver left and we have this new one that no one likes because he is not funny and he didn't feed us on the way home. We saw some Kangaroos today in the field as we were driving, I can't wait to see them at the zoo. Tomorrow we are going to see a rugby game and I'm actually really excited. Learning about it has made me want to train for it. Plus there are sooo many injuries :)!!!! I will talk to you guys tomorrow!! GOOD NIGHT!!! Or Good Morning!!

One day is NOT enough

Whoa Chris! One day is NOT enough!!! And sleep is VERY important. There are some pictures on facebook. Sam can you tell mom about those. I would post some now, but we have to go like down the street to find Internet and we have to pay for it and they do not have a place where I can put my card reader and I forgot my cord at the hotel. Maybe I'll do it later tonight or probably tomorrow. But the one's on facebook are good!!! Today we went to two sports arenas I guess you could call them. We learned about rugby and football and they both are played so differently here. Its weird. We all still are lost on the rules, but we are slowly figuring them out. In football they have a round field, no time outs, and they kick the ball and do bounce passes when passing it to each other. Its cool. We are going to one of the games on Saturday and we are seeing a Rugby game on Friday. We also went to Bondi Beach today which is SOOO pretty, and the water is actually warmer than the air its weird. And it is FREEZING. Its like 60 degrees, and tomorrow we are going like 3 hours out of the city and its suppose to be like 50s or something. I didn't bring very heavy clothes. LOL. We saw some of the famous players here today when we went to the sports places. One of them is VERY hott and I got a picture with him and his autograph. I will def. post that picture. And NO martina I did not pay him to take a picture with me. ;)!!! We got a lot of free stuff today at the sports places! I also had a really good Kebab. They are soo popular here and really good and really big. I took a picture. I went to sleep at like 8 last night and then got up at 4:30 and was wide awake, but I made myself sleep longer. It was hard. Its so weird that you guys sleep while I'm awake and vice versa. Okay I'm going to go now because my time is running short. But I will leave you with some Australian lingo:
Christmas Tree: Chrisse
Relatives: Rels
Presents: Pressies
Decorations: Decos
They shorten everything here, and they make new names for everything, but they are not clever. I will try to post pictures tomorrow. Miss you all!!!

I Made it!

I made it. It took forever to get here, but it happened!!! The plane ride wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it was still 14 hours on a flight. When we got here it was Tuesday. It's still weird to me that Monday never exisited. We are all SOOOO tired. We just got done eating dinner and I think we are all going to bed. It has been a long, but VERY GOOD day. We toured like all of downtown sydney and the harbor. We have the coolest bus driver. He is so funny and he teaches us all the lingo here in Aussie. Its like a whole different language. I'm getting to know the people in my group pretty well. We all seemed to get along pretty good....so far. :). Sydney is HUGE and there are people everywhere. The streets are so busy all the time and so small. We also went to the Sydney Aquarium, it was really cool seeing new animals. They are interesting, but the battery in my camera died so I only got half of them. We all got pictures with the Sydney bridge and the Opera house which is one of the most popular sites here in Australia. Our hotel rooms are SOO small. We all started laughing at them when we saw them. There are 3 people to a TINY room and there are three beds just shoved in there. You have to use your key card for everything. To use the elevator or LIFT and to turn on the lights. It took us 20 minutes to figure out how to do that. It was so funny. We were trying to switch it every which way and it just wasn't working. Sam they also call restrooms toilets here. I saw that and it made me think of you. Sorry if none of this makes since I am soo tired. Its like six in the morning there. And I have decided that there is NO WAY I could live in Australia because ranch does NOT exisit here! WHAT THE CRAP!!! No ranch. I know, I about had a heart attack. I will try to post pictures in a couple days. I already have lots, but I am just WAY too tired to do it now. Sorry its not very detailed. Love and miss you all lots!!!!

Departure

I am leaving TOMORROW!!! I am SoOoOooOOOoooOo Excited! My flight leaves tomorrow evening for LA and then not til 11:50pm for Australia. I won't get to Australia until 7:30 on Tuesday morning. I skip a WHOLE day. Weird. Australia is also 13 hours ahead of Texas and then when I go to New Zealand, it is 15 hours ahead. I am almost all the way done packing. I still don't feel like I am leaving yet though. The plane ride is 14.5 hours long. I am so not looking forward to that, and I am a little nervous about it. Hopefully you guys will hear from me on Tuesday. Check my blog and you can hear all about my Adventures DOWN UNDER. LOL. I will take lots of pictures and try to post them. I hope everyone has a happy fourth!!!! I will post in a couple of days. HOOROO!!! ( in Australia that means good-bye)
Here are some other interesting slang words: I haven't even left and I'm already speaking the lingo!!! :)
-Lippy, Lipstick
-Barbie, Bar-b-que
-No drama, no worries
-Oz, Australia
-Dill, Idiot
-Polly, Politician
-Pommy, Englishman
There are a lot more! Almost everything has ie or y added to the end.
AUSTRALIA HERE I COME!!! :)

Thanks America, Sam and Mauren for the going away party! It was fun! Even the part where I almost caught on fire ;)!!!! LOL!!!

Australian Prep

I am slowly getting my packing done. It's a process. This is my Australian Itinerary. I can't wait!

2 Days

I am leaving for Australia in 2 days!!! I am way excited and I am starting this blog so ALL my friends and family can look and see my adventures while I am in AUSTRALIA for the next 3 weeks!!! I will be getting ready for the next 2 days and I haven't even started packing yet. :)