Random

You're probably wondering what Jayne and Wendy do everyday while Brighton's at work. Here's some pictures to get an idea of an average day of no school slash no work in Sydney, Australia.

We love to go running, usually along our favorite path from Bronte Beach to Bondi Beach, which is one of the most popular beaches in Sydney. It's so amazing to look out at the beaches, ocean, and all the pretty rock along the whole path. In the picture we're holding the "floppy flyer" that we love to throw around at the park and beach too after a nice run!

We go meet Brighton for lunch a few times a week. (Yet again, we love pictures on benches). In this picture we're eating quiche from a little bakery by her work. We usually go pick something up then eat it at the park right by her work. We all love that park!

This is our new favorite place, Gloria Jeans Coffees. The internet in Australia is horrible so we don't have unlimited internet at our apartment. This means no Youtube or downloading anything. And if you really know us then you know why this is such a struggle. Because that's the only way we can watch So You Think You Can Dance! We suffered without it for the first couple of weeks until we found our greatest discovery of free Wi-fi at Gloria Jeans. Jayne and I go and load all the dances from Youtube, then just shut our computers and bring them home so we can watch them with Brighton. Our lives are complete now!

One of our favorite stops is the candy shop called "Sticky" at Bondi Junction. We watch them make the candy and it's so amazing! Jayne might be a little obsessed? I can't tell if it's with the candy or the guy that works there :) There will be more pictures to come of the candy store.

Right by the candy store and Gloria Jeans is the pet store. I love all the little puppies! I fell in love with this little puppy in the corner that looks just like Chester did when he was a puppy. I was so sad when we walked passed the other day and he was gone. I get attached so easily!

That's all for now on the adventures of mine and Jayne's day. This is a way random picture, but it made me happy. We went into our kitchen one night and Jorge had set up this recycling system. I love recycling!

One Tuesday afternoon Brighton was by herself at work so Jayne and I went and hung out in the office with her!

After that, we thought we'd go see a movie since it was Tuesday, (movies are only $9 on Tuesday instead of $13, ridiculous!) but we still decided it wasn't worth the money. We took this picture before we left because we feel a special connection with Kung Fu Panda or something since we saw Jack Black at the premiere! We decided to go to our favorite place instead, which is Coles, and buy stuff to make tinfoil dinners. Side note- Coles is easily our favorite place in Sydney. We always make sure to make it there at night with all the sweet deals on bread!

Enjoying our tinfoil dinners. It's one of our new favorite meals!

We ended that week with going to a concert of our fellow candy making friend Ben, (the one standing next to me) who Jayne may be strangly attracted too! He's really so cool and gives Jayne lot's of free candy! This is us hanging out with the band after their show.

Manly!

On Saturday June 14th, we ventured over to the cutest little area called Manly. You have to take a 30 minute-ish ferry ride over to get there from the harbour. I seriously loved it. It was really windy and rainy that day, but we still had a lot of fun.

This is a cool surfboard bench. It's probably the closest I'll ever get to surfing so I thought I'd get a picture of it!

We ate this cool little restaurant across the street from the beach. The ocean was a really pretty sea green color and the waves were huge! It was so pretty.

Brighton hurried over to take these pictures of the beach with these pretty colors and the rainbow while Jayne and I stayed at the restaurant to pay.
This shows how cute of a town it is. I wouldn't mind living there! I really did love it.

When Brighton came back from taking the pictures, she had had a little accident. Or I guess the bird flying above her had the accident. Yes, she got pooped on by a bird. Luckily with some water, napkins, and a tide pen, we were able to clean her up.

I wish this showed how pretty it really was. Use your imagination!

No we did not plan on matching this day. But since we did, we thought we'd act like little girls and get a cute picture out of it! These were some way cool benches in the middle of a bunch of shops. We found ourselves hanging out and taking lot's of pictures in this area for quite some time. I think we have an obsession with benches.

It was Jayne's first time at circular quay so when we got off the ferry we stayed and walked around there for a bit. It was my first time there at night. Then we had to get home so Brighton and I could write our talks that we gave in church the next day!

Jayne and I spent the next few days at the beach. We met some nice old men to take this picture for us. They were high on something and just chatted away with us forever. Always a good time. It was such a nice day!

On our walk to and from Bronte Beach, we pass a little playground and this bad boy shown above. We like to call it the "Flying V" aka the "Velocitron" aka "The big green monster". You just sit on it and pedal away and it spins you in circles. It really is the coolest thing ever. West Jordan Park needs to invest in one of these too!

There are Adult Book stores everywhere here! Just to clear up any confusion for all those who have read Brighton or Jayne's blog, I DO NOT enjoy these kind of stores. I like bookstores for kids!

It's a good thing I'm not here during their summer because I think I would die with all the bugs. Luckily we haven't seen many since we moved in. However, just before we were about to leave one night, I innocently went into our kitchen and saw a huge cockroach in our sink. After screaming and quickly excusing myself from the situation, Jayne and Brighton took care of it. I don't know what they did, I just know there was a lot of screaming involved and the cockroach was no longer in the sink. What brave little souls.

Then we headed out for what we now know as one of our most adventurous nights. Unfortunately this is the only picture we captured that night. One of Jayne's friends from home has family out here so we went and met him (Sean) and his friends at Le Chifley. This is a really high-class bar with TONS of people in it...or the exact opposite of that. So after a very interesting taxi driver, we finally found this bar and stood there awkwardly for about 30 minutes while all these creepy old men kept talking to us. That was an adventure. Luckily Sean eventually found us and it ended up being a really fun night.

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.