My Family Fiji Holiday

1. Breakfast at the airport 2. Just about to board the plane 3. Plane ride 4. Just arrived!

Day One of our holiday was basically spent travelling and drinking over priced lattes at the airport. We left my parent's house at 5 am for the Sydney airport. Hung around there for a couple of hours until our flight, had some nanna naps on the plane, waited in line at the Fiji airport and then made the two our drive to the resort. Our first night we all had dinner together, drinks afterwards and had an early night.

1. View from our room 2. A haunted Scooby Doo looking shake/awesome seafood restaurant 

3. Mid morning drinks 4. Post snorkelling 5. Luke looking super imposed 6. Afternoon put-put

Breakfast at the resort was from 6am - 10am, and a fun fact about Luke & I - we're the biggest sleeper inners! Infact, we didn't go to bed the night before we flew out because we were certain we'd sleep through our alarms and not get up in time to go. So making this four hour breakfast window was something we had to work on. Our first morning we woke up a little later and made the last hour of breakfast. Afterwards we went on a little walk around the resort to find everyone and see what their plans for the day were. My mum (Ju), my sister (Ashleigh) & brother in law (Allan) all had booked massages, so we took heed and booked after them. To fill the time in before hand we had some mid morning drinks, unpacked and sussed out things around the resort. We had a late lunch, and then our massages. They were amazing, I've only had a couple of massages previous to this one and every time I have one I'm puzzled as to why I don't have them more often! Post massages we played put-put until dinner.

1. On the tour bus 2. Walking around Sigatoka 3. Shopping in Sigatoka 4. Frank The Tank

We decided to do all the activities and touristy things at the beginning so we could spend the last couple of days just taking it easy before we went home. So on day three we went into Sigatoka to do shopping and see their 'city'. There were a couple of gift stores at the resort, and the shops in Sigatoka had 90% of the same things. I bought some awesome 1920's looking one piece navy striped swimmers, $5 floral material peep toe mary janes, a wooden turtle & some Fijian tea. When we got back to the resort we unpacked our touristy trinkets, had some lunch, and then went up to the bar for some cocktails before dinner. After dinner most nights the resort had some sort of show around 8pm, and on the third night we were there we saw some fire walking and throwing and dancing, it was all pretty impressive. After we watched that we had some drinks up on the deck, and then Luke & I went night swimming.

1. Our first game of ping pong 2. Hitting up the gift store 3. Lunch 4. Drinks & put-put 

5. Our 'Romantic Dinner' 6. Luke's main meal 7. Ricotta cheesecake 8. Luke's desert 

We'd put off ping pong until after we had finished our game of put-put that we drew out over two sessions. Ping pong is one of my favourite things in the whole entire world, and I get pretty competitive about it too! So we spent most of the morning playing ping pong and table tennis, and I was getting cross with Luke because he kept changing between ping pong and table tennis. I take it seriously, clearly. It started to rain so we went inside and booked the much anticipated cave tour that was in the travel brochure we got with our tickets for Christmas. After we booked that we went into the air conditioned gift store and had a look around and bumped into my parents. They decided to come along on the cave tour also, and booked Ash & Allan in also. After lunch we made some drinks up and went down and played some put-put and video taped ourself with running sarcastic commentary. My dad has no vision when it comes to the video camera, he was filming us just having dinner and walking along the beach -  really boring shit. So we took charge of the camera and turned it around with a competitive game of put-put! It started to rain mid game, so we sat under a cute little gazebo and drank our drinks. After we finished our game, we went to our room and watched a movie that was on HBO. We had booked a 'Romantic Dinner' for that evening that was on a private island gazebo set up. We had wine and a three course meal and got to spend some quality time together. After dinner we went swimming, and had an early night in preparation for our epic cave tour the following day. 

I've broken my holiday post into two instalments because I wanted to share so many photos. I've been meaning to post about my holiday for over a week now, but I've just been so busy since I got home. We arrived home really late last Monday night, had a sleep in Tuesday and got unpacked and organised (and vlogged!), and I've worked almost every day since. And now I have an awesome case of the flu. I'll post the second holiday post in the next couple of days. I hope everyone has a lovely little Easter.

Over The Weekend

Over the weekend Luke & I dogsat for my boss & her gf while they went away. Their dog was an endless source of entertainment for us, and many belly rubs were given! Looking after Taj only made us want a dog even more. We stayed over at Taj's house Friday & Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon Luke & I met up with our friends for Tapas & cocktails. And they brought their son also, who is seriously the cutest little friend. To keep himself occupied he played games on his parents iPhone! He totally got how to slide and touch on the screen and pause the game to have something to eat and play again. It blew my mind! We went to the same cocktail bar that we went to a couple of weeks ago, and again it was pretty close to a perfect experience! The cocktails were delicious, and the food was amazing. I already can't wait to go back there again soon! 

Start Your Week Off With..

• Custom Printed Labels DIY by Susannahbean
• If You Don't Know Where You're Going by Follow Your Dreams
• 7 Things I Learned At The Grand Canyon by Musings
• Stepping Away From Technology by Wake Up, Lovely

I hope you're all having a lovely Monday, I woke up this morning and the first thing I did was break my one personal rule - don't answer the phone before 9 am because it's never good. I answered my phone at 6.30am, and ended up picking up an extra shift. I've worked every day since I got home from holidays and have had almost no time to read any blogs. I'm super sorry to my April sponsors for only just getting around to putting your buttons up today. I'm really excited for my day off tomorrow so I can finally upload my Fiji photos and share them all with you!

My First Vlog!

Just wanted to do a quick little post to say hello and that I arrived home safely from my holiday. Luke & I had a productive day today, we did like six loads of washing, cleaned out our food cupboards and fridge, went food shopping, Luke made an awesome Indian curry from scratch, we bought season 2 of How I Met Your Mother, went out for breakfast, did some banking and unpacked our suitcases. And on top of that Luke stepped up and helped me with my first vlog! I've been wanting to do one, but I've been way too nervous to do it on my own! I'll be posting about my Fiji holiday later in the week when I upload my photos and get organised. Hope you're all having an awesome little start to the week!

My Collection / Tea

A month or so ago I posted about my blogs direction and how I wanted to post about other things aside from my daily adventures and illustrations. When I had a think about the things/topics I could share/explore, I thought doing an occasional 'my collection' feature would be cool just to shake things up some. My first thought was to show off my tea collection. These are just my tea bags(aside from the T2), I have a container with all sorts of loose leaf teas. 

The teas in my cupboard are: Peppermint + English toffee, French Earl Grey, Madagascan Vanilla, Red Leaf, Sleepytime, Green Tea + Cranberry, Earl Grey, Green Tea + Chai, Australian Afternoon Tea, Irish Breakfast, Lady Grey, Russian Caravan, Green Tea + Peppermint, Jasmine + Pear Green Tea, Traditional Afternoon Tea, Chamomile, English Breakfast, Morocco Mint + Spices, Moroccan Mint Green Tea, Pomegranate + Blueberry + Cranberry Tea

Lime Cheesecake Recipe Illustration

My design for the Appliances Online 

Newworld Colours Collection Rainbow Cook Book

I am extremely delighted to be involved with the Appliances Online British Ovens Rainbow Cookbook. The cookbook is a collaboration between seven food bloggers and seven creative bloggers who illustrated a recipe inspired by the rainbow. I was paired with food blogger Helen from The Crazy Kitchen, and our colour was green. Helen used her delicious double chocolate & lime cheesecake recipe, and I illustrated the recipe focusing on the limes. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, and think its one of my favourite illustrations I've done so far!

Guest Post / Pursuit Of Felicity

Hello there tasteslikelove readers, My name is Felicity and I run the blog Pursuit of Felicity. I live on the Gold Coast of Australia with my partner of 3+ years and best friend of 8+ years, Ben. I'm currently studying to be a Primary School Teacher and have just over a year left to go. I have a huge fixation with sausage dogs, particularly with my own miniature dachshund, Phoebe. If I had to choose between having a real baby or a furbaby, furbabies would win everytime.. just kidding!

What inspired you to start your blog, and how did you settle on Pursuit Of Felicity for your blog name?

I originally started blogging as a way to escape the boredom of Uni and being unemployed. At first I simply posted photos and little snippets about what I was getting up to at the time, but after a few short months of reading other blogs I quickly became aware of just how diverse and widespread the blog world really is. From that point on I started putting the utmost time and effort into the presentation of my blog, and before I knew it I was completely transfixed with both blogging and blog design. I guess you could say I found my niche. :)

As for naming my blog Pursuit of Felicity, I came up with that name many years ago when I needed a handle for another social networking platform. You see, my parents chose to name me Felicity because according to the dictionary, Felicity means happiness. So having just finished watching the movie 'The Pursuit of Happyness' I figured what better handle than Pursuit of Felicity. Besides, when I really think about, that's exactly why I started blogging in the first place.. to pursue happiness. :)

How do you spend most of your time?

As I no longer live with, or even close to the majority of my family and friends, I spend a lot of my free time online, blogging and trying to source out clients for my new blog design business. I also enjoy baking, D.I.Y crafts and spending quality time with Ben.. that is of course when Ben and I aren't bogged down with a tonne of Uni work. :(

You've recently started your custom blog design service, how did you get into blog design?

I started my custom blog design service in January of this year, but I have been designing blogs, websites and other social networking layouts ever since I first got the internet back when I was 13 years old. I received my first copy of Adobe Photoshop when I was 15 (thanks to Ben actually!) and that ultimately took my passion for design to a whole new level. Now whilst I am by no means a qualified professional designer, I am a hardworking, enthusiastic and passionate one! There's not a lot that I enjoy more than creating that perfect design a blogger has always been longing for. :)

What has been the most exciting/notable thing to happen to you so far in 2012?

Definitely opening up my custom blog design service. I had my first paying client just the other day, and after not working for over a year it was the most incredible feeling for me! :D I was also pretty excited when Lauren completed a custom illustration for Ben and myself in early February. ;)

What is one your favourite photographs?

My favourite photograph that I have ever taken is probably this one of Phoebe with her new best friend Joey. Joey is the maltese X papillon puppy that my brother gave my mum for Christmas last year, and I took this photograph on the first day that Phoebe met Joey. They were, and still are, so cute together. Looking at this photograph it's almost as though they've known each other for years!

Felicity is super awesome, and I'm glad we've become blogging buddies! She helped me out with my new blog layout last week. If you're thinking about refreshing your blog layout and design, you should definitely consider Felicity for the job! I featured on Felicity's blog last week, check it out.