Jayne's here!

(Yes, Jayne has really been here for 2 and a half weeks, but just pretend this is up to date.) So Jayne flew in on a Tuesday morning. Jorge and I rode the bus down to the airport to meet her. After getting to our flat and Jayne taking a little nap, we went to Brighton's work to meet her for lunch. What a reunion that was! This is us eating lunch at the cafe right across from Brighton's work. Brighton and I got the chicken and pumpkin wrap. They put pumpkin in everything here and I love it!

Jayne and I then went to Darling Harbour to wait for Brighton to get off work. We walked around and played on this amazing playground. I think we had a little too much fun and maybe got a few weird looks! PS- This was the coolest toy. West Jordan Park definitely needs to invest in one.

We think we're so cute because almost everynight we make a fun little dinner with our cheap foods. And for some reason we love to always take a picture of our 3 matching plates.

On Monday June 9, it was a holiday here in Australia. It's when they celebrate the queen's birthday I guess. All we knew is that Brighton didn't have to go to work so we ventured around Sydney. This is Darling Harbour, which is in the city and has tons of shops, restaurants, parks, and everthing! It was raining, of course, but it was still really fun and pretty. They even had a bunch of jazz bands playing around the harbour because of the holiday.

Brighton was playing around with the settings on her camera and my yellow umbrella. But it shows how pretty it is there!

I was so happy to see this snowman! I know I'm weird.

Yes, this is Jack Black. That night, we went and walked and shopped a little around Martin Place. We were walking passed a theater and noticed that all the tv stations and a small crowd were starting to form around some red carpet. So of course we decided to wait around and see what was going on. We found out it was the premiere for the movie Kung Fu Panda and Jack Black was coming. When he got there, he came right over to all the fans and was just taking pictures and such. He was so close that we even touched him! He was way chill. I was expecting him to be in a suit or something, but nope, he was wearing sweats, a t-shirt with a panda on it, and this yellow jacket. Does that surprise you?

We got lot's of picture's and video's of him. That was a great ending to our day!

First couple weeks

You're wondering why I would post a picture of this building? Oh, it's just our church. We have a little section on the 3rd level with a chapel and a few rooms. It's weird because it looks just like a church inside. It has the same carpet, couches, and everything. It feels like home! We were a little nervous about how we'd find it inside that first day, but saw 2 missionaries out on the street that helped us out.

This is outside the Commonwealth Bank after opening an account. Kind of cool that we have an account in Australia!

Our apartment is FREEZING!!! I think it's even warmer outside then it is inside. There's no heaters so this is how you'd find me on an average night. Brighton doesen't seem to think it's as cold, considering these pictures were taken right after each other and she doesn't even have socks or a jacket on. I even have multiple layers. I'm pretty sure she's the abnormal one, not me! Luckily Jayne came to the rescue and brought over a huge can of Stephens hot cocoa. What a lifesaver!

This is what it looks like on our walk over to the beach. It's amazing!

We hung out at the beach our 2nd Saturday here. The weather was perfect! This name-in-the-sand thing is a lot harder then it looks. Notice the lady in the background staring at us, probably trying not to laugh because we looked like such dorks trying to get a picture before the water came to destroy it.

Here's some views of Bronte Beach, about a 10 minute walk from where we live. I seriously can just sit there everyday and not get sick of it. (As long as it's not raining!) I even get to go jogging along the beach. I've always wanted to do that and I love it! Minus the part where I see lot's of overly-tan old men in speedo's.

This is our first night that we really went out on our own to do something fun. It was quite exciting! We made it to a pizza restaurant and found ourselves spending the rest of the night at our now favorite place, Coles. This may or may not just be the grocery store. Don't judge us. I know it doesn't sound very exciting, but of course we made it fun!

We have to remember that it is winter here. Even though it's still pretty warm, it rained all day every day for a over a week. It was the hardest rain and it seemed to never stop. You know those people you laugh at when it's really windy and their umbrella's flip the opposite way? Well, let's just say Brighton's umbrella struggles a little bit and we're those people that get laughed at. We always get a good laugh ourselves. One night we got home and we were both completely soaked through even though it's hard to see it in the picture. It still rains pretty much everyday so we spend a lot of time with these umbrella's! We're getting really attached so it's a good thing we won't have to part with them when we get home because we'll be just in time for another winter!

The first weekend in June we had a convention for all the young single adult stakes in the Sydney area. Friday night was a dance thing that was way fun and Saturday night everyone performed skits. Our stake just did a few funny dance numbers that we had been practicing for. It was actually really fun. This is Graeme in the picture with us. Don't worry, he's just one of the finalists for the Australian So You Think You Can Dance. We're slightly obsessed with that show. He's in our stake and was one of the judges for the skit night. After watching us practice, he told everyone to dance more like the "American girls" aka Brighton and Wendy. You can only imagine how happy that made us!

We're really here

I know I'm a little behind, but last Saturday we stopped at the famous Sydney Opera House and the bridge. It made me realize that we're really in Australia. That's kind of weird. We were there at a perfect time of night and it was so pretty! It was perfect.

We also went and found the building where Brighton's doing her internship. 35 Buckingham street. She's all grown up and professional!

This is Bronte Road. It's the main street by where we live. This is the road we get to the bus and train stops, the grocery store, the mall, and probably anything else we need. And yes, they are driving on the wrong side of the road. I don't think I'll ever get used to it. Everything is opposite here! Literally everything. It's so weird.

Spiders

So within the first hour of being in our apartment, Brighton and I found 3 spiders. We all know how I react to spiders. They're not small either! I don't go near those creepy things so luckily I have a good friend like Brighton. They were all in webs though so we searched for the vacuum and had to play like we were insect killers for a bit. (My job was to turn the vacuum on and off...Brighton took care of the rest) PS- Sorry Jill, I just had to share the misery I'm going through.

A few hours after this horrible discovery, our flat mate Jorge showed us where we walk to get to the bus and train everyday. A whole tree of these spiders and their webs are on the way. Lovely.

Luckily this is what else we see on our walk to our apartment. Yep, that's the ocean. So pretty!



We didn't think we'd have too much trouble with jet lag because we had such irregular sleeping schedules already, but it hit us. This is us chillin on our top bunk that first night trying with all our might to stay awake. It was the most miserable thing! We only made it till 9:00. That can go down in history as the earliest the 2 of us have ever gone to bed!

Off to Australia!

Brighton's been waiting for me to realize that we were really going to the opposite side of the world for the next 3 months. Well, this face of mine isn't pretending. It finally hit when I said bye to my parents and we were waiting to get on the plane. We had a little anxiety, I'm not gonna lie! Once we were on the plane we seemed to be fine though.

Pretty sunset above the clouds before landing in L.A. (side note- L.A's not my favorite place to be during the final few minutes of a close Lakers playoff game. Brighton had to keep reminding me we might lose our lives if I kept expressing my hatred for them outloud. It was rough.)

Sorry, this is the only picture that can be exposed from the plane ride over. You can't imagine what 18 hours of traveling can do to the 2 of us! But this is what we looked at for way too much time. The ride actually wasn't too bad. We just did a lot of sleeping and eating. And some more sleeping and eating. They fed us so much!

Here's some pictures of where we live. The balcony is definitely my favorite part. We just need a porch swing to go on it and it'd be perfect!

When we got there, the guy we're renting from had the bed spreads on our beds and all. He even had 2 of his old cell phones sitting on our desk charging for us. He and the equadorian couple that lives with us are helping us so much, we'd be so stressed without them.