Games, Lemurs, and Bats

Sometimes a challenge of blogging is do I include everything going on in life or just the most exciting stuff? In the end it all comes down to why I am writing a blog in the first place. I started this blog so I could help people keep up to date with my life (and Matt's of course), but it also works as a sort of journal record for me. Therefore, sometimes it is more important to record life even if it is uneventful.

I am sure at this point you are thinking this must have been an uneventful week, but it was actually a pretty busy week! I'm now behind in some of my favourite TV shows because there is no time to watch them!

It all started pretty usual with a Young Men and Young Women combined mutual activity. We played loads of different games from hitting balls with fur tails, popping balloons tied to our ankles, and trying to tag people with clips. Although we had only one young men and three young women, it was a blast! Unfortunately, the videos are too big too load.

An extra bonus at mutual was that a young woman, Samantha, who hasn't been in church for a while showed up. It was the first time I had seen her at an activity and we were glad to have her there. I found out she really liked Wii games and invited her over to play the next day.

The next morning I had to get up at 5 am so I could get ready and leave to Taronga Zoo to set up our audio and video recording equipment. I met Tim there and all went well although the tigers still hissed at Tim. 

On the way back he needed to stop at his flying fox camp and I got to see thousands of flying foxes hanging from the trees! So cool!

That evening Samantha came over and we played Just Dance and watched Girls Just Want to Have Fun. She is allergic to cats so for the beginning I just kept Shade locked in a room, but I let him out halfway through the movie because he was whining. I then learned that Samantha isn't just allergic, but actually deathly afraid of cats. Her anxiety level increased just when Shade would look at her, come near, or sniff her stuff. Although I tried to tell her just to calm down and Shade would settle down, it was just too much for her and I ended up walking her to the bus stop. Samantha struggled to understand why I couldn't just lock Shade up the whole time. I'm hoping that we will still be able to spend time together in the future, but perhaps not often at home since there is a vicious beast around :). 

The following day we had dinner with the sister missionaries and I made a meal that wiped out my calories for the day. We had caramelised salmon (recipe from my mom) with rice and veggies and cookies and cream ice cream for dessert. It was tasty and even Matt didn't mind the salmon! I don't think it will be a regular meal though as salmon is so expensive and the sugar puts me way over my calories. 

Shortly after that I had to meet with the Young Women presidency - Cate and Racheal so we could talk about our girls and our plans for an upcoming camp. Our original plan of going to the beach tanked, and we decided on a fun slumber party with service and activities the following day. I'm excited and we are only a few weeks away!

Friday I had another all-day workshop on graphing and plotting in the R statistical program. The most interesting thing though was I got an e-mail from Mogo Zoo down South that they are wanting to participate in the study! They also specifically asked to have a staff be a co-author in the paper which I found very odd since only those that have provided significant input to the study are authors and I struggle to see what any zoo staff member could provide at this stage. We'll see - maybe they want to write my thesis for me? 

When I got home that day the elders were there and Matt was cooking dinner. Although we hadn't planned anything with the elders beforehand I was glad we always have hamburgers or something to share!

All of the really eventful stuff happened on Saturday. I missed my morning run with Cate as Matt and I had slept through my alarm, the texts from Cate, and a couple other notifications on my phone. We must have really needed the sleep. So to get my workout I jogged to the church for the soccer game with Matt and some of the other members. Being the only girl and the 11th player I decided to do some workouts outside instead. The boys had a blast though and I at least got to play a little at the end when others left. 

After that Matt and I went to Taronga zoo so I could pick up the SD cards from my equipment. Naturally, we decided to stay and look around. We've already seen pretty much everything so we wandered and saw some adorable seals and penguins. The New Zealand penguin shown below is actually the only one of it's kind in captivity. 

The last thing we did was visit the new Lemur walk where you walk through the lemur habitat! They are so cute and it is awesome to see them just walk right in front of you without a care in the world. It also provides awesome photo opportunities. 

After the zoo and a mini-nap in the car, we headed off to Gordon, NSW where Tim had told me about a bat event going on. We got to see how incredibly cute grey headed flying foxes are up close. Unfortunately only those vaccinated for a specific disease carried by some bats can hold them, but I got plenty of pics with Tim and his babies. After some presentations we headed to the bridge where 20,000 flying foxes nearby fly over to get food. It only takes about 20 minutes for all of them to have left the nearby camp and it was such an amazing sight! It was dark so my pictures don't do it justice. 

After our eventful weekend we got to relax the next morning and enjoy church meetings. Since I also conduct the choir right after church I have started getting up early on Sunday to cook a special treat for choir. I've started listening to October's General Conference while I cook and it has really helped me to enjoy my Sunday mornings! I'm hoping to listen to all of the last conference before the next one which we will watch April 12-13 here in Australia. 

So its back to regular life starting with FHE with Brock & Kaytlin last night. This week I need to go through all the audio and video files from Taronga Zoo to see what I have and hopefully I got something of the big tiger fight that happened last Friday. I have great news from Matt who after posting an add on gumtree (Australia's craigslist) got called last night for a painting job! He just texted me this morning saying it might take a few days to so all is well for a little while!

I hope all have a great week and for those in the US that you enjoy conference this weekend!

Every Day Life

After a short streak of doing a blog weekly I have failed! Nevertheless that just means I have to start again and keep trying just like every day life.

Here are some highlights over the last couple of weeks:

1. FHE with Brock & Kaytlin

One week we played apples to apples where we decided to play until everyone (specifically me) had at least obtained one card. Who knew that would be such a daunting task? After something like 24 rounds I finally got a card and we could end the game...epic fail for me!

The next week we had another couple (Tom and Jessica Frost) join us and I did a lesson on family history and challenged everyone to explore the family search website (familysearch.org) and obtain their four-generation chart. We are still working on getting Matt's and I definitely recommend all of you out there to do the same!

Four Generation Fan Chart - I'm working on getting the missing data fixed.

2. Young Women Activities

Due to a very small amount of young women for mutual we decided to do a fun movie night at my house. We chose Sherlock (the UK version) in the end and it was just a nice night with popcorn and laughs with our two young women.

The next week we only had one young woman for mutual, but went ahead with our cake/cupcake decorating activity. We had fun using the different tips and tools to create new designs and in the end were glad the young men could help us eat them since we had a lot of cupcakes.

Sarah Scott decorating cupcakes

The few that I made

3. Relief Society Birthday

Not too long ago was the Relief Society birthday weekend filled with multiple stake activities. It all started Saturday morning with a trip to the temple. I went with Cate Lynch and although we got there 30 minutes before the next endowment session the temple worker let us know that there may not be enough seats! We stood in line hoping to make it and in the end we were just two spots away from the cutoff! It was a huge blessing I think because I got to see some new things this time and had a wonderful and spiritual experience.

Later that evening was a pajama (spelled pyjama here) party with all the stake relief society. If I hadn't mentioned it before, my stake is mostly Polynesian which led to quite a wild party. I was looking forward to spending time with some of my ward relief society, but when we got there they split us up into even groups. My group was the purple lilies and although we had some awesome women, not everyone was willing to participate in the activities. Naturally as a younger member of the group I was volunteered for nearly all the activities. I'm glad I went, but it certainly wasn't what I expected and some of the Polynesian woman were absolutely hilarious!

Had to move an oreo from your forehead to your mouth

One woman wearing a balloon tower

To complete the weekend we had a musical fireside the following evening. The talks and musical numbers were amazing! I was also grateful we ended up having a great turnout for our small ward and our song Search, Ponder, and Pray with all sisters sounded great!

4. Searching for....

The rest of the two weeks has been full of searching. Matt is still searching for work, and tomorrow he has been 3 weeks without work! He hasn't been actively searching that much either since it is so easy to just hang around home and watch Netflix shows including Digimon and Pokemon. This week he hopes to really make an effort and visit all the local real estate companies.

I am still searching for other tiger sites for my master's thesis and have not yet had responses to my e-mails. The good news is that I am no longer searching for a desk and can start working in the lab room again. Additionally, today I just confirmed that we can go set up our equipment at Taronga Zoo! I have to leave at 6:30 am to get there by 8:30 am, but at least that leaves me the rest of the day.

Matt and I also had some fun one rainy Sunday morning as we went on an investigator hunt. We had agreed to pick up two investigators for the sister missionaries. The first one we couldn't find the right building but right when we decided to leave and find the next one I decided to try one more building and found the investigator! Unfortunately she was sick and couldn't come, but at least she knows we didn't abandon her. The second investigator we never found as the GPS took us to a bunch of shops and after driving around we had to give up and got to church late.

Small cubby accessorised for cats in the side of an apartment building

Now I am just searching for time to get everything done that I need to such as taxes, prepping the audio equipment, meeting with Young Women, planning a Young Women camp, and more. I've also been really good at working out daily and completed another 7km jog/walk with some strength exercises on Saturday with Cate Lynch! I am still quite sore and apparently need new running shoes.

Bay run sunrise - not edited!

And of course the best way to end any blog is with cute cat photos! Have a good week peeps!

Shade wedged between us on the couch

Shade loves cups

Matt's 30th Birthday Thrill

This last week I have spent a lot of time at Uni trying to get things done. Since I don't have a desk I have been working in my supervisor's room which she kindly set up space for me complete with a tiger picture. Not much to say about my work except that I now know how to work a SM2+ recording device and even read the entire manual!

Meanwhile, Matt was told he wasn't needed at the job site he was at and is now officially out of work. He's been taking advantage of sleeping in and is finally finishing painting our home. We now have the kitchen and laundry painted and parts of the entry and stairwell! I was skeptical the paint was too brown, but now I can definitely say he picked the perfect colour. The light cream from before almost looked orange-pink because of the pink carpet, but the beige doesn't have that affect at all. He also painted our new hall table that we picked up from the side of the road!

Last Tuesday we had the opportunity to go to the temple with the youth to do baptisms for the dead. Instead of doing baptisms I got to help be a temple worker which was new and fun since I got to watch all our four or five youth do the baptisms. Matt was also a temple worker and helped with displaying the name for the person baptising and marking the names off once completed. It was a wonderful evening!

Wednesday I went to a fun seminar on huntsman spiders! Apparently some huntsman's are quite social and live in communities underneath peeling bark. When I got home Matt had captured his own huntsman spider that was hanging out in the shower. Not so much of a fun discovery as you're about to take a shower, but I'm glad Matt thought to capture him to show me later.

We also had the elder's over who also enjoyed our temporary spider friend. Luckily we didn't serve it for dinner and instead had some yummy hamburgers. Lately we have been having so much fun chatting that we always keep them way too long! Luckily they live across the street basically and can still make their curfew!

The next day I went to a special launch meeting at uni for the new genes to geoscience modules (workshops) for staff and postgraduate students. This year they are doing three modules alone on the R program, which I think will soon become the most popular statistical program! It may sound crazy but I'm really excited for those because R is really hard to learn at first, but it has so many uses for any kind of statistics you need to do.

That night Matt and I watched the Amazing Race, which I highly recommend since this season is with tons of awesome teams who didn't win from previous years. We were really sad that one of the teams we really liked didn't make it! There was just the classic case of unfortunate events.

Every second Friday night is the ward game night or "feeding friendzy" at church and Matt and I had missed the last couple so we made sure to be present this time. Well cooking the chicken broccoli casserole took longer than expected and Matt had to give a painting quote to a neighbour so we showed up half an hour late. To our surprise, no one was there! I started calling tons of people with no luck of what was going on. The elders said they were on their way so I just told them to come to our place to have some of the casserole. It was more of a mini ward game night and we played Martian Fluxx which due to the lack of time we had to call it quits before anyone officially won.

To add to more fun for the weekend it was finally time to celebrate Matt's birthday (March 9th)! I had planned for over a month for us to go skydiving and had asked missionaries and others to pray we would have good weather! Well the prayers had been heard because despite constant threat of rain on Saturday it was a BEAUTIFUL day! Matt had no idea what I had planned and assumed it was surfing so I let him think that and we took tons of beach stuff and a packed lunch. I figured if we couldn't do it at least we could go to the beach.

We left at an early 6am to drive to Tuggerah on the central coast. The drive proved to be a special treat with a gorgeous sunrise filling the whole sky!

When we got to the turn off Matt saw the sign and said "We are going skydiving?." After I confirmed he was a little nervous, but excited. We had to wait till about 8am before we drove to the plane and took off. This was my second time so I wasn't nervous at all and surprisingly Matt didn't seem nervous either. The plane ride is awesome because you could see the coast and tree-filled hills and nearby lakes of the area. Some people pay hundreds just to get views like that, but we get it two fold because we got the views from the plane and then jumped out of it for even better views! I won't go into major details of the whole experience, but let's just say there is nothing quite like and you truly feel like a bird for a little while.

After the rush and maybe a little bit of motion sickness we ate snacks and rested a bit before heading home to have a real nap. It was so nice to take things easy and relax! I showed matt a game on my phone called Disco Zoo and next thing you know he downloaded it and was obsessed! We spent the afternoon talking about the different animals we caught. It's amazing how much enjoyment we can get out of the simple things.

Later that evening we had our friends Josie and Lachie Mackie over for some fun. You know you have good friends when you can spend loads of time just chatting! While we were sitting on the couches the power suddenly went out! Josie happened to have a wind-up flashlight and I used Matt's phone to find our giant flashlights. Apparently it was affecting most of our suburb. It didn't deter our night at all and we ended up playing Martian Fluxx by flashlight!

On Sunday was Matt's actual birthday and so we had a nice big breakfast with ebelskivers, bacon, eggs, and chocolate milk. It was so filling we didn't even need lunch! After church and choir we were finally ready to eat again and we made a nice chicken alfredo that was also SUPER filling. We had the McComb family over later which was a lot of fun. Their two young boys enjoyed pretty much everything they could find from our large exercise ball, the cat, and cat toys. I was amazed at how good Shade was with the two youngsters although I think he was very confused why the one boy was playing with his singing stuffed reindeer. Eleanor helped me cut and peel apples for apple crisp while Matt and Kyle played Martian Fluxx (it's just a Fluxx weekend). Finally when dessert was cooking we were able to all play Star Wars Epic Duels. After Matt and Eleanor one with Yoda and Anakin, we topped the night off with some apple crisp and ice cream!

It was a very fun filled weekend and now it is back to regular life!

March Planning

I would love to say that last week has been fairly eventful, but lets be honest....it wasn't. Since I don't believe there is some unwritten rule that every week of your life must be absolutely amazing in order for you to write a blog, here are some small events of the last week.

No one seems to mention that when you are working on getting a Master's or PhD that you will spend a good chunk of your time filling out and waiting on paperwork in order to even do your research. Although I'm lucky I only had a couple of forms instead of many licenses and permits that wildlife researchers need, the waiting is still a pain.

So what form is the most painful? The animal ethics approval is in my opinion the most annoying, but is also the most important. In this form you have to explain all the details of what you plan to do with the animals and also explain why this research is necessary, why you couldn't do any other way, etc. I really dislike these because some of the questions aren't really applicable for the extremely non-invasive nature of my research. What am I doing? Putting audio and video recording devices in an area the tigers can't get to and recording the tigers. How will this affect the animals? It won't. In fact, this research is so non-invasive that Taronga zoo, where I am doing the study, doesn't require ethics and they call this opportunistic sampling. As annoying as ethics forms and their questions are, they are very important in assuring all research is taking into consideration the welfare of the animals and other alternatives that may be available.

Not really relevant, but still awesome!

At Macquarie University the animal ethics committee meets once a month to discuss all the applications so it is important to get in the forms as early as possible. This is all done electronically for the first time at Macquarie and this presented many frustrations. Although my supervisor filled out the online application in January, we found out in February they wanted some revisions and details. That's when we discovered that the website had some major flaws. It took me over an hour just to log in to the program and get to the correct page, then of course it would log me out and not save what I had just typed. Luckily I got it all done the day the committee was meeting!

Unfortunately, not too long after we were informed our approval was denied and we would have to make more revisions and turn it in for the next month! My supervisor was very angry that they would deny "the most non-invasive research" she has ever done. Later, I had a full day animal ethics workshop (required for all newbies doing animal ethics forms and research) and was able to ask the main ethics dude why it was denied. It turns out some of my edits on the form did not get saved and therefore the committee didn't see that we had fixed issues. Additionally, we still needed a license from Taronga Zoo showing that they have the authority to have tigers on exhibit. If I could make the edits and get the license he said he would get it approved and I wouldn't have to wait another month. After many calls and e-mails to people at Taronga Zoo we finally got the correct form and I was informed on Friday it had been approved! This was a gruelling experience that I hope to never repeat again! At least now I know that the ethics site doesn't have issues on PC's!

Whew! During all the paperwork fun, I was also able to get a job! I was told about a coaching/tutoring job for 5 hrs/wk helping a student with some animal related courses. One of the courses is taught by my supervisor Jennifer who referred me to the job. I love tutoring so I'm excited to help and it's not too many hours to overwhelm me and it pays $45/hr!

On a different note Matt and I were able to go to the temple on Thursday night. It had been a long time since we just kept forgetting about it. When we got there we were asked if we wanted to do sealings and I am glad we did! It was nice to do something a little different and also be reminded of the commitments we made to each other when we first got married.

Over the weekend I did some much needed cleaning and was even able to pin Matt down to do a planning meeting! We scheduled in the next month's temple day and other important dates, discussed our monthly goals, and important things we needed to get done. It was great and this was part of the result:

I know have LOTS of calendars and lists, but whatever works to get things done! Matt now has a white board full of long list of to-dos that I will no doubt keep regularly stocked. Unfortunately he just happened to marry someone that is not so great at sitting still, but at least we were able to end our day with a nice movie called Princess Mononoke and some Tim Tam Slams (click here for some Tim Tam wikipedia info - apparently you can do this with a twix)!

Speaking of important things to get done....US taxes are due just next month! This has been an extremely frustrating process for me since our tax forms showed up at different places and I had to track them all down, and some things were missing. It turns out even though I qualify for education credits at Macquarie, they don't file the typical forms that US institutions do. After contacting IRS tax offices, H&R Block tax consultants, our personal tax consultant, and reading about all the details on the IRS website I finally figured it all out. Basically I just need the university to give me a filled out unofficial form with supporting documents so I have them on file if the IRS needs further documentation. Not to mention I just found out we can claim moving expenses, so that's yet another thing I have to calculate. This is certainly a complicated process.

Yesterday was also surprisingly eventful as I decided to work from home and found out that the researcher who's desk I was using came back! He'll be around for the next two weeks so I guess I'm back to being a nomad. I'm crossing my fingers I can officially claim the desk and then start redecorating the area with tiger stuff. Luckily, I was able to still get work done at home and used a new pomodairo app to help me stay on task by working for 25 minutes than taking short 5 minute breaks.

Later that day I went to have my skin appointment to help treat all my acne scars and discolouration. This was the first time I had this treatment and it is kind of painful, but it was the smell that got to me. I told the woman doing it that the device smelled awful like it was burning, and she laughed and said actually that's your skin! So now I know what burning flesh smells like and it looks like I got a bad sunburn just on my face. I'm glad I've worked with these people for months so that when I got to this point I trust them!  Here are some progression photos (I couldn't find my before photos which are awful!) and yes I look terrible, but the point is to show that it is getting better!

After first few treatments

After about 5 months

Right after my last treatment 

Surprisingly no one commented on my weird blotchy red face when I went to our second "Come Dine with Me" dinner at Mike and Erika Barnett's place. They did a fantastic job! They made multiple sliders (mini-hamburgers) placed on plates out of pieces of wood which they had burned letters into to signify which one was Chicken, Pork, and Beef. They were quite tasty as well as the cole-slaw, potato and sweet-potato wedges to accompany them. For desert we had a slice of chocolate pie with fresh berries and cream. Yumm!! Of course not just the food was great, but the company was just as fun. It was a great night full of good food, friends, and plenty of laughter!