Get Busy

I feel like I'm neglecting the blog a little bit lately...I'm averaging a new post like once every 3-4 days and I don't like that. I'm waiting, as always, for Boyfriend to resize photos so I can put them up without waiting 20 minutes for each picture to load!Anyway, here's a rundown on what's been happening around here...On Tuesday, we picked up Boyfriends two young second cousins who were visiting from Queensland and took them for a walk at the beach. We explored the rock pools and found tons of starfish, jelly fish, bluebottles/portugese man-of wars, and a huge octopus! I nearly put my hand on top of the octopus until I saw its leg move and then I was freaking out thinking "What if I had very nearly just touched a blue ringed (aka super deadly) octopus?". Luckily it wasn't and I didn't!

On Saturday night I got bitten by some kind of spider while I was asleep and part of my arm turned a very angry red and was hot to the touch. I was kind of worried because both my head and body were achey. It's now not so red, except for a ring around it and it keeps blistering. Boyfriend's Mom is wondering if I should go to the doctor, but I'm going to wait and see. I'm just glad I didn't wake up to see what was on me and biting me or else I probably would've freaked out because most spiders here are pretty big and pretty ugly!

On Sunday, Boyfriend's Nan celebrated her 80th birthday so we went over for a big party at her place and hung out with a lot of Steve's cousins (10 of them plus their boyfriends, girlfriends, and kids). We hung out til about 12:30am and then decided to have a sleep over with the two little Queensland cousins so they packed a bag and came back to our place with us. They were so stoked at all the American sour candy Boyfriend had and let them take home. In the morning we harassed Peter the Possum and got him to come out of his home so the girls could see him and feed him some bread with jam on it and a bit of Pop Tart then we took the girls for a walk next to the lake before dropping them back off at Nan and Pop's. We were utterly exhausted after that and it definitely solidified in my mind how unready for kids I really am at this point!

Today I did my weekly weigh in and I'm down 5 pounds, which is a lot for a week so I'm hoping it's not all water weight and it's just my body getting used to all the exercise and healthy eating I've been doing. I've actually just come in from weed whacking the front and back lawns for an hour and tomorrow is a bootcamp morning for Boyfriend so I'll go walking while he does that, then Thursday I plan to mow the front and back lawns and those will be my workouts for the week-at least they aren't monotonous!

This Saturday we were planning to have all of our friends over and now we've invited the cousins over, too, so I've got to plan what I'm going to do that will be relatively cheap and easy to make for 25 people! I think I might do different types of pasta and then for dessert I'm making ice cream sandwiches and Oreo truffles that I first saw on Elsja's blog, except I'm going to dip them in milk chocolate instead of white. It will be nice to hang out with everyone one last time before I go away.

Other than that I'm just counting down the days until I fly home. Our house went on the market last week and has already had an offer on it so we are waiting to hear back about whether or not the deal has gone through and whether or not the new owners want tenants in the house or not and dependent on that, Boyfriend will either stay in the house while I'm away or we will have to move all of our stuff in to storage before I go and then he will stay with his parents until he joins me and the fam in California for two months, starting at the beginning of December. Couple that with my need to find a bunch of supporting documents (character references, invites with both of our names on it, pictures, flight ticket stubs, etc.) so that we can apply for a de facto spouse visa and I think I'm in for a very busy two weeks! (The deal is I will only be moving back to Australia if I am engaged, but an engagement visa is only good for 9 months and if we do get engaged it'll be like a 2 year long deal so the de facto visa is the one that makes the most sense, but does come with a steep processing fee-$1,700!)

I'll try and be more present here on the blog over the next two weeks because I'd like to get all the Aussie photos up before I head back to my other home, Santa Cruz, and get piled up with pictures from there and I'll let you know how the weight loss is going as well as whether or not my arm falls off from the bite.

Here are some Santa Cruz pictures that Boyfriend took on his first trip to the States to get you in the mood for our trip there soon!

I cannot wait until this pizza is in my belly. If you are ever in Santa Cruz you have to stop in at Pizza My Heart for the best slices, plus you can get the Slice deal which is one huge slice, plus a Pizza My Heart t-shirt for $5!