Yes, I am still here!

Whew, it's been a while! Just wanted to let everyone know that I AM still alive :)

So, I'm probably not going to get time to properly update about Yosemite or Arnie, but Andrew blogged about both, so have a read on his blog if you're interested :)

A couple of weekend ago we went to Pacifica which is a town near San Francisco which has a beach, so we met friends there and went boogie boarding. This is a Californian beach in summer - looks lovely huh?? :)




The weekend before last a friend of ours who has his pilot's license flew us to Reno, Nevada in a little 4 seater plane for air races/an air show that was on out there. It was great fun - the plane trip and the air show were both fantastic!!!






We got home from that and I had a message from my mum saying my new nephew had decided it was time to come out, so say hello to the gorgeous Mason Derek Roper.



Speaking of babies, our neighbours Christina and Gavin had their baby on September 12, and he is just gorgeous also! When we first had them around for dinner, Christina said she couldn't drink because she was pregnant and very excited, and if I remember correctly, they'd only just found out, so we've been able to see her grow over the time which has been nice!

Uni-wise, I had my third online test for accounting last week, and am currently doing an essay due in a couple of weeks, and have another online test due in a month, then end of year exams start on November 6, so I'll be kept very busy!

Work is still very busy as well, and keeps me run off my feet. I study when I get home, but feel exhausted when I get home, and don't get my second wind study wise until 8/9pm, so by 11pm, I feel as though I'm just in the middle of everything and don't want to go to bed. Unfortunately, at work I support the East Coast sales team, so if I don't get in to work until 9am, it's midday on the East Coast, and half their day is already gone! So, it's all a bit crazy!

Our friends Kynan and Shona have now arrived in the US - Kynan scored a job with Google also, so we've been been showing them the local sights, and all the important things such as the good grocery stores, and how this crazy country works :) It's fun playing tour guide!!

Our little foster kitten Smudge is doing very well. Her first week was rough, and she lost an ounce, whereas kittens should be gaining about 4 ounces a week (I don't know what this equates to in grams, this is just what the shelter people told me...). she was also about half the size she should have been. They thought she had some sort of congenital defect that was stopping her from processing food, because she was eating fine, just not gaining weight. They didn't think she was going to make it, and I was very upset! But they wormed her then, and I changed her diet to a mix of human childrens elecrolyte replacing fluid mixed with Kitten Milk Replacement, tinned cat food, dry kitten food, human baby food, high calorie kitten supplement and Bene-Bac - a tube of stuff tht contains beneficial bacteria to help with the diarrhea she was having. She had this 3 times a day, and she started looking better, and then every day she seemed healthier and stronger. It was very exciting to see her change from a weak, sickly kitten, to a strong, happy kitten.

She's now gaining 4 ounces a week, but is still about 2 weeks behind growth wise, so we'll keep her for another 3 weeks or so before she's old enough to go back to the shelter to be spayed and put up for adoption. She's a great kitten - very playful, very cuddly - LOVES people, and is very well behaved. She'll definitely make an amazing pet for someone :)





I think that's about all that's happening with us at the moment. Coming up, we have our trip to Australia planned, and will be spending 5 days at Heron Island on the Barrier Reed which will be LOVELY, and we've also just planned christmas in Las Vegas with our friends Craig and Sarah who live in Phoenix, Arizona which will be fun!

I'll update again in another few weeks probably :)

The last week in photos

Long weekend at Yosemite



Picked up new tiny foster kitten on Thursday



Went to a Republican rally promoting Arnie and got to shake his hand!



More details when I get time!

General update

Just an update since it's been a while! I did my first Accounting exam last week, and all went well. It was an online exam, so obviously open book, and only worth 5%, but I got 90.7% which was nice. There's 4 of those though, so altogether worth 20%, so definitely worth trying to do well at!

I thought it was fairly easy and a little disappointed at "only" getting 91%, but I have a few contacts from my class that I speak to, and two got in the 60% range, one got 88%, and one of them has dropped the subject (she's full time) because it was too much, so I certainly feel pretty pleased! I was really scared of this subject, and while I realise I NEVER want to be an accountant, and it requires a lot of work, it's not as bad as I thought it would be, and I'm kind of enjoying it.

Actually the thing I'm enjoying is reading through the last page of each module first which has everything you should know by the end of the chapter, and understanding nothing, then doing the module, reading through it again, and actually knowing and understanding all of the objectives for that module. It's kind of proof at how much I'm learning each week, and it amazes me how much new stuff I can cram into my brain each week :) It's kind of feedback that what I'm doing is well worth it.

Anyway, so in other news, next weekend is a long weekend over here, so we're off to Yosemite National Park and we'll camp there for 2 nights, so we're really looking forward to that! We bought a book last weekend which had the 100 best hikes of Yosemite, so we'll have a good look through that and figure out what we really want to see.

We've also booked flights back to Australia for the end of November/start of December. I think we arrive on November 24th or something like that, and come back on December 8th. We'll spend a night in Sydney, the first weekend in Brisbane catching up with Andrew's family, the week at somewhere nice and relaxing (as in an actual holiday!!!!), the next weekend in Brisbane with my side of the family, a few weekdays in Canberra catching up with people there, then come home. So keep your diaries free!! :)

Coolest. Film clip. Ever.

Go to this website of Swedish bank OK Go and check out the film clip for the song "Here it goes again" which is on the front page.

It's so well done! So original, fun to watch, cleverly choreographed and the song is really catchy as well. I've already watched it about 5 times today and I'm sure I'll watch it a few more times tomorrow :)

The website in general is fun for a browse if you have some spare time. :)

Ho hum

Very busy. Working, studying, working, studying... Both are taking up a lot of time! Then, in between that I fit in some kitty playing time. That's about my entire life at the moment!

Awwwwww

Lily posing :)

Introducing Lily

Here's the latest addition to the family - Lily, a 10 week old kitten we adopted from the shelter. The poor little baby ended up at the shelter after she rode about 40k's in the undercarriage of a car before the people driving the car parked and discovered her! She was quite dehydrated and absolutely terrified.

Stumpy had been driving me nuts last week when I start working - trying to play at all hours when I was trying to sleep. And play involves attacking my legs, putting her paws under the sheets and trying to claw my back... Not very pleasant! So I was exhausted from working again, and spending all evening studying, then getting barely any sleep - certainly not much quality sleep! I mean, Stumpy is an awesome cat, she's a simply wonderful companion, she walks on a leash, plays fetch and generally is just a lovely cat, but this was too much. She's in her "terrible two's" stage, and has lots of energy to burn!

So we adopted a little friend for her on the weekend :) There was a couple of kittens who'd been there for a while who I really liked, but they'd all been adopted (even the ones that weren't at the top of my adoption list!), and there was barely any kittens there.

I was thinking that maybe we would have to wait and endure more sleepless nights, but they mentioned a really shy kitten who couldn't come out of her cage since she was so shy. I looked in her cage and saw this little face staring out at me with big eyes. I put my hand in, and she immediately rolled over so I could rub her belly, and started purring. I pulled my hand back, and she stood up and walked toward me while purring and rubbing up against my hand. She did the same for Andrew, and I knew this was our girl!

So the introductions have gone really well. We've had Lily for only 5 days, and while Lily often sleeps in her safe place in the spare room where she was confined for the first couple of days, she comes downstairs or we bring her downstairs, she spends ages going nuts playing with toys and running around and being chased by Stumpy :)

They've started wrestling, and we were a bit worried that Stumpy was being too rough, but today Lily was kicking Stumpy in the head back, and batting out at Stumpy's legs as she walks by :) And Lily walks up to Stumpy and rubs against her, and Stumpy licks her in return.

So they certainly seem pretty happy with each other, and I think Stumpy is enjoying having a new little sister! I haven't been woken up to her attacking me the last couple of nights, so that's excellent!! I do wake to her chasing Lily around, but that's just my mothering instinct :) My sleep is improving dramatically!