Start Your Week Off With..

• On Being Vain & Weird & Silly by Sometimes Sweet
• Five Things To Avoid When Drunk by Five A Day
• One Day Without Shoes by The Chevron Rose
• Silver Chevron Nails by Jar Of Feathers

I didn't have to work this Friday just past, which gave me a whole day to catch up on some things I haven't been able to do lately because I've been so busy. I haven't been able to read any new blogs lately, or spend much of my free time blogging. Last night after I finished a custom illustration I came across a handful of new blogs, a couple of which I've linked this week. 

What I Wore Today

Cardigan + bag: Kmart / Blouse: Valleygirl

Skirt: Cocolatte / Boots: Random shoe shop

Nail polish: Revlon 721 'Raven Red' / Coffee: A French patisserie near my house

The week before last I posted a vlog for the first time, so I thought I'd cross off another first - an outfit post. Although I really love looking at other bloggers' outfit posts, and I love clothes, I've never really thought to go down the whole 'outfit post' route. Either way, I'm making a conscious effort to post about more things rather than daily adventures and illustrations. Also, I've never worn this top before and its quite possibly my new favourite! I had a similar blouse years ago in black and white that I foolishly gave to Vinnie's one too many house moves ago.

Today Luke & I had a late start to the day with a well deserved sleep in, and then we did some groceries, paid rent, bought a throw rug and Scooby Doo 'the lochness monster' movie, and some coffees. We decided on a whim to go to the movies late this afternoon to watch 'Mirror Mirror', which turned out to be a great decision because its such an amazing movie! There was so many random scenes and awesome costumes, I would definitely watch it again!

Start Your Week Off With..

• The Power Of Introverts by Little Tranquility
• On Identity by Nicola Lynde
• One Year! by Ever So Juliet
• Woozy With Cider by Hat Full Of Sky
• Learning To Make Bread by Life Like Honey

This ones a little late because I've been so busy with work lately. The Easter long weekend was crazy at my work, we were busy every day. I've been working so much lately that I've only just had a hint of spare time to share my second part to my Fiji holiday post this evening. However, Luke & I both have the day off tomorrow, so we are going to hopefully have a little adventure, and I'll have time to work on some illustrations. The past couple of nights it has started to get really cold, and it was cold for most of today. So after work, I went to the shops to get some new house slippers. I also picked up some much needed new cardigans. I can't wait for winter, the clothes are always so much better!

Make sure you check out these lovely ladies! I love doing these posts and sharing a handful of posts by a handful of lovely bloggers that I have discovered throughout the week, or read usually and want you to do so too! I've found so many amazing blogs through 'weekend links' or 'what blogs i love wednesday' type posts, and that is the main reason I do this feature every week so that hopefully you'll find a new blog to read too. I hope you're all having an awesome week so far!

My Family Fiji Holiday Pt. 2

1. On our way to the cave 2 + 3. Ash & Luke drinking Kava 4. Village lunch

So. The much anticipated 'cave tour'. Last year when we got our hands on some Fijian travel brochures, the cave tour immediately stuck out for Luke. That was the one thing he was definitely psyched for. So a few days into our stay at the resort, we sussed it out and booked it. I specifically asked the tourism agent at the resort if wearing thongs would be appropriate foot wear as I had only brought them. The gift store was across the hall and had reef shoes that I would have happily bought to wear to the caves had I been assured thongs were not a good choice. However, I was told thongs would be fine to wear. In hindsight, that nice lady that booked the tour for us has clearly never been on this tour. 

We left for our cave adventures around 10 and it was quite a trek to the village where the caves were located. Before we embarked on the cave exploration, we had a Kava ceremony at the villages' Grandmother's house to ask permission to look at their historic caves. This was my first time tasting Kava, I wasn't too into it, but the Fijians love it! After the ceremony and lunch, we were told about some village history and culture, and then we boarded a water raft to cross the river to start our journey to the cave. I was slightly freaking out before sitting on the raft because I was sure I was going to fall in the water and have spiders crawl over me! The trek to the caves was pretty interesting with little stops to observe Fijian flora and their uses in natural medicine over there. It was also really frustrating because it had previously been raining the week before and it was muddy and my thongs kept getting stuck in the mud and I kept falling over. One of the tour guides gave me his shoes to wear, which was a lovely, sweet gesture, however they were oversized black crocs. This was the first and only time I will ever wear crocs, especially in front of anyone. 

After a 30 minute walk we got to the caves and were told about the historical importance of the cave before we entered. It was super dark, cold, slippery and wet inside the cave. But it was quite nice to see something that magnificent with thousand year old rock formations, and more importantly, it was definitely an experience to see a cannibal oven! Yep, cannibal oven! Way back when, a local village didn't want to cross over to Christianity so they hid in the caves and fought off their enemies, cooked them in the caves in their cannibal ovens, and ate them! It was a weird feeling to be in a cave where once upon a time such things like village captivity and cannibalism happened. As bad as most of the day was (getting there, wearing crocs, being covered in water and mud, falling over every second step I took), it was worth the experience of seeing such a unique historical environment. 

1. Reading and relaxing 2. Luke & I 3. Subo for seafood 4. Family dinner

5. Ash & Al 6. Epic seafood platter

After our hectic adventures the day before, everyone had a really laid back day. Ash & I read books on beach chairs outside by the water, and we had casual lunch and dinner dates together. Night six we all went out for dinner to the super nice seafood restaurant that looked like it could be in a Scooby Doo mystery. They served amazing fresh seafood, well, so I was told as I don't eat seafood. My family ate these crazy hectic seafood platters that could have been for a small gathering. The restaurant was on a little man made island so you could see sea creatures going about their business while you ate your dinner.  So Luke & I finally got to see a sea snake, after everyone had seen them almost every night that they were there. I hate all snakes, they freak me out, and sea snakes were the worst looking. They were black and white striped and long, and poisonous looking. I shudder thinking about them.

1. Air hockey semi final 2. Drinks by the pool 3. Feet in the pool 4. Aww, Luke!

5. Parental supervision 6 + 7. Last cocktails 8. Last photos in Fiji 9. Crumping 10 +11. Last Fijian Sunset

Our last full day in Fiji was spent playing air hockey, ping pong, drinks by the pool, afternoon cocktails, packing, last chance to cling to HBO, dinner at an Italian restaurant and finishing our evening off with a filming funny things on my parents video camera so when they watched the footage back the last thing they saw would be funny. I didn't take a single photo the very last morning we were there on day eight. We left the resort around 11 am, but before we left for the airport, we spent our morning finishing off our continuing air hockey tournament that my sister ended up winning. I'm pretty sure an air hockey table will be purchased as a result of this victory! It was a pretty fantastic holiday, and it was especially lovely getting to have memorable adventures with my family!

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!