STILL WE'VE GOT US!

Two years ago, I flew across the globe to move to Australia. I sat on the plane for some sixteen hours in a combination of reading a book, sleeping and letting the man sitting next to me out of the row. I was excited. I was nervous. I left everything I knew behind, filled a suitcase full of clothes and set off to a new life in a new world. And I did it all alone. 

It's funny how things just work out sometimes. I was getting settled into my new apartment and had gone to a meeting about my teaching job. The others who had flown with me knew there was someone else from Canada in our same position. We wanted to meet her. We didn't know who she was, what she looked like, we just knew she was somewhere within the Melbourne CBD and by chance, we obtained her phone number!

The three of us went to some BBQ joint and had invited her along. Every time someone walked into the shop, I played the game of 'is that her?' in my mind. Soon enough, she did show up and we all enjoyed a BBQ feast followed by a super dodgy non-karaoke karaoke bar in Chinatown..haha! The four of us were now friends. 

As a few days go on, we are all getting more familiar with each other. We all bonded over some wine before going out for a walk. I made up this goofy dance walk, called it prancercise and demanded that it be done whenever crossing the street. 

As our friendship grew, so did the prancercising. Everyone we ever met knew about the prancercising. Sure, it is ridiculous, but it is always funny to us and everyone always wanted to get in on it once we started! 

I won't get into every detail of our friendship because that would clearly take ages. The purpose of my writing is that in a city of four million people, I found my best friend. We were only a short walk away and, for a year had seen each other nearly every day. Now, we are miles apart living in different places in Canada. On my sixteen some hour plane ride home, I wasn't alone, I now had so many friends and people I consider family. Most importantly, I had my prancercising buddy! Through all our adventures and all of our miles apart, still we've got us! 

Over the Easter break, I met up with my darling best friend and we headed to Vancouver, to do what we do best. Explore and prancercise! It was the best time and a much needed vacation! As always, we made a video to document our excitement. This is something that we enjoy making and we love, love looking back on the memories! We may be a little foolish and crazy, but that's us! 

Happy Birthday, Sister!

The craziest thing happened the other day, someone had asked me why my sister is my best friend. That is actually a lie because no one has ever asked me that, but if they had, here is what I would say.

She trusts me, sometimes too much. Even when I say, "Lets go camping near the ocean, we won't need more than a fleece blanket in fall!" Whoops on that, but I am usually right otherwise and so she puts her trust in me.

She is terrified of most living things, which is unfortunate for her but great for me. Shahaha...

She has a death grip on me.

We have the same sense of humor which really works out in our favour because it means we have the best time together. Even when we (okay, I) stall the camper car in the middle of the campground DURING dinnertime and everyone is watching, we just laugh it off and set up camp rather than become ashamed and try to drive away.

And by the middle of the campground, I literally mean the middle
as in I am pretty sure that table was supposed to be communal!

She has the WORST sense of direction but don't be fooled into thinking this is a bad thing. Nooo-ho-ho, this, my friend is awesome because getting lost is such an adventure. Even went you are taking a small car down a 4x4 road (ahem, trail). Thanks for getting lost with me, sister. 

We are similar in that when we do something we do it right! Even though "right" might look different in each of our minds. Cleaning for us isn't just 'tidying.' It is ripping everything apart and completely giving the space a makeover. Label makers are often used in this process. 

She poses the exact same in every picture which is truly a testament to the confidence that shines from her. It is hilarious taking a photo of her, it's like an art form and she has the rhythm down.. the shoulder roll, the slight tilt of her head, chin down.. you go girl. 

She is so helpful. She comes and helps me at the school and gives up her weekend to do so. She will put in hours of cutting, stuffing binders, hanging bulletin boards and listens to me complain about how I think she is doing it wrong through my perfectionist eyes. But I will let you decide if she is REALLY that helpful..JK!!

We truly have a good relationship and you know that when you work with each other for 8 hours everyday and still get along after that..somedays. I also use the term 'work' very lightly. We spent two summers having paint fights, driving around using only the safest of the right hand turns, washing trucks, making food for the boys, sniffing cherry bomb and racing the buggy in the mud and boneyard. The best.

She understands me when I say, "I can't drive down that hill because we probably won't make it back up" and supports my idea to walk. She also understands and supports me on many other levels because she is an incredible individual. 

We laugh until the tears roll down our cheeks and we can barely breathe.

And because of moments like these (and more) that I can say I shared with my best friend:

Happy Birthday there Candace! Have the most beautiful day! I am so lucky to have you as my sister. That is actually an understatement. We have many adventures ahead of us and I can not wait! You are the best. Have a gorgeous day, my friend.

MELBOURNE MONOPOLY

It's been a quick minute since I've last posted on here but I've got a story to tell.

Within the first two months that we were living in Melbourne, we had a craving to play board games. We had a deck of cards and had exhausted nearly every card game we could think of. We even handcrafted (with very limited supplies) our own games of 'Things in a Box' and 'Scattergories.' But we wanted more (mostly because of Eric's competitiveness and absurd rules). 

One night, we decided to take the plunge and head on down to the Big Dub (aka Big W) to purchase a board game. We were set on Monopoly. However we were so poor that seeing the price of $25 made us cringe. Out of the corners of our eyes, there is was, a Star Wars version of Monopoly heavily discounted! It made no nevermind that it was Star Wars, we just wanted Monopoly. Sure enough, we pay for it at the checkout and start dealing out cash to split the cost. We walk the half block back up to my apartment, open the game in pure excitement only to find out the two essential pieces of the game were missing: the dice and the playing tokens. 

Within minutes, we took the game back to return in and get our money back for the useless game. It was a struggle though as the clerk was trying to tell us that we are the ones who had taken the pieces. After everything was cleared up and we meandered through the game section one last time, we settled on Scrabble. Scrabble was our go to game for the next eight months and yet I can't think of a time where we either played the game properly or finished it.  

Our time in Melbourne had come and gone and like most people who return 'home' after calling another place 'home,' you become rather nostalgic about the places you've visited and, in general, the memories had.

One day I had an idea and decided to smash a bunch of my thoughts together to make Melbourne Monopoly. I started plotting out which places we've been that have similar characteristics to those of Melbourne properties. I'm a list maker and I have lists of lists for this thing. I was too excited.

I got started straight away in creating and customizing property cards, chance cards and community chest type cards. The game board is what took the longest, but I do love it. I included things that pertained to the experiences we had and the icons of Melbourne that could never be forgotten! 

On the board I included things that we used the most such as trains, trams, and their maps as well as Ferderation Square and the gorgeous city skyline!

Making the little houses on the property cards proved to be a bit tedious, but I think they turned out great!

After months of putting this together and waiting to send it off, I finally had the opportunity to give this to my mate, Eric, in person! Not only did I have so much fun making this customize board game, I also love the way it turned out! I love it so much that I am off to make one for myself! 

I made the train graphic to match the symbols that Melbourne Metro used. It worked out perfectly that I could use all four of the stations we used the most!

Trish was our agent and even when she would ring us at 6am it was always great to hear her
voice saying "Hi Doll, it's Trish." 

The chance cards have the Dumb Ways to Die characters on them as we would see these
dudes everywhere at the train stations.