Second time going to Ed Sheeran's concert.
We accidentally found ourselves in the moshpit, despite deliberating choosing seated tickets.

Nothing will ever beat the first time, but he was still pretty dang amazing.
Such an entertainer.

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I had a bad bout of the cramps last Tuesday, so I decided to avoid throwing up by skipping out on running.
Instead, I decided to go for a brisk walk through the middle of Centennial Park while mentally supporting my running group - you go guys!
The park was really beautiful! Who knew?

Then afterwards (without running), we finally went to Naruone after weeks and months of anticipation at their reopening. Of course we had to order the original chicken, and it was was sooooo good.

I miss running though :(

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3 hour return hike to The Tofu Rock.
It was great.
Lunch picnic with best wraps ever, courtesy of Dom.
2 hours kayaking under the direction of Dom and Jan.
So awesome.
But so struggle.
Especially towards the end, where me and Jess were legit...struggling.
Then we had some really nice warm showers before second picnic.
When The Burn occurred (see video evidence).

Overall, a success!

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So Janice's birthday was coming up and every year, without fail, she would get an idea to surprise one of the PhD peeps.
This year, we thought we would turn the tables on her instead.
I can't remember exactly whose idea it was - Dom's? Michelle's?
Anyway the seeds were sown and we told Jan that we were all headed towards Cabramatta for a food day.

The secret almost leaked multiple times, but thanks to quick thinking and the obliviousness of our target, it never came to light.
Mission: to kidnap The Target and take her on a 3 hour hike and 2 hour kayaking session in Bundeena, Royal National Park

Everyone had slept late the night before, and had to wake up early - it wasn't the greatest lol. In addition, our team leaders kept stressing over things so we kept wondering whether we'd be able to pull it off.
Regardless, I woke at 6:30am. Took my time packing and getting everything ready.
I had told Jan that I would pick her up at 8am, in actual fact, I had organized with her family days in advance to drop by slightly earlier to pick up her outdoor gear, so she wouldn't suspect anything.

As I left my house, I sent her a message to tell her I had "just woken up".
Halfway to her house, I sent another message to say that I was "on my way".
BAM! INCEPTION!

At around 7:30 I parked a little bit down to street, just in case she spotted my inconspicuous red beetle. It took a few tumbles and low level walking to grab her bag (which had been placed perfectly outside the front door as her family had said it would be) but I legged it out of there without being caught, despite a wide open window.

After some final checks with the main group, I called Jan after checking I had waited the appropriate amount of time to reach her place since "leaving my house".
She came down into the car, not suspecting a thing.
My first task was complete.

We drove about 45 minutes to Dom's place and when we got there he was flying around like a headless chicken. My second task was to move everything from my boot to Dom's boot without Jan noticing. We went inside the house and met the Fam, all the while Dom and I kept exchanging silent looks. How were we going to make this work?
Dom managed to sneak me his keys, I just had to figure out a way to get outside again.
To this end, I tried to fake going to the bathroom, but Jan kept standing in the doorway so it would have been clear that I was sneaking out, instead, I gave the good ol' "I left something outside" line and went outside in the hopes Dom could keep her inside.
Task two complete.

Then the "Google maps" fiasco happened with Jade, Michelle and Jess being "lost".
Jan got really Agro at this section, and we feared she would figure something out.
But nope :P

Then Dom came up with this situation where we would run an errand for his dad, and pick up something from his dad's friend???
We ran with it anyway.
So in we packed into Dom's car and onwards to the Royal National Park we went.
At this point, Jan was just like....okay.

Minutes passed and we entered some pretty bushy roads.
At one point, we stopped right at the entrance of the RNP with a huge street sign pointing, but Dom and I got Jan playing word associations and she was completely entranced in the game.
Justin...timberlake.

It wasn't until we reached the ranger station that Jan became suspicious.
What are we doing at the RNP?

And thus begins the next portion of our mission.

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We ended the previous night around 2am after an in depth what would you rather: 75% chance of an intruder versus 25% chance of a ghost.
Needless to say, I did not sleep alone in Jenny's room last night.
Instead I shared the couch with Dom who had to bear with my teeth grinding. Sorry Dom!

The next day we woke up to an overcast sky, with plans to snorkel. hmph.
As it started to rain, we decided to drag out our saturday brunch for as long as we could
The service and food at Globe in coogee were okay, it took awhile to get our orders right and it was pretty busy. I had the guacamole special with poached eggs and...you know, same old same old.
The company made it worthwhile though :)






By the time we finished brunch, the light drizzle had stopped so we thought we might as well brave Clovelly.
Jade and I were super super super reluctant to get into the water, which was really cold. The type of cold your body never fully warms up to. Also, the waters were choppy as anything, which was in direct contrast to what I had been told about Clovelly.
Anyway, Pickelle volunteered herself to go first while Jade and I watched from the sidelines. At one point, she started laughing and we thought maybe Jan and Dom had broken her. But apparently she was just having heaps of fun?
Jade was kind enough to hold my hand and slowly brave the cold waters (before quickly diving back out again haha)
Thus, my first adult snorkelling experience happened. And you know what? I didn't hate it.

There was heaps of seaweed and algae as a result of the waves and currents, but it was actually really exciting see the schools of fish. My favourite of the day was probably mr. stripey.
Towards the end, I had a little bit of a scary moment when the water went down my breathing pipe and I couldn't get it all back out. So I stood up (thankful for the shallow waters), but the waves were so relentless I kept getting pushed back into the rocks.
But phew, we all made it out of there in one piece!

Thanks to Dom and Jan, our experienced and knowledgable instructors of the day for making me feel safe at all (most) times!

Then after surviving the Australian coast, we went back to Coogee for a feed at Moo Burgers

I had to make a mad dash because a miscommunication meant adam had left his house to come pick me up before our meal had even arrived. 

So I went over to adam's for some herby chicken and chocolate fountain fondue, before heading back to Pickelle's to find the kids playing Pandemic and then it was out to Dove and Olive to catch up with a friend heading to Brown University for a postdoc position. There were spiders and pear ciders. 

Got home around 12, completely and utterly knackered. 

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I had an epic weekend, so taking monday off to recover and recharge

 Friday night, we had an nice little chinese new year gathering at pickelle's
 We gave ourselvs a little early mark after throwing berry bliss lollies at each other, and scraping knees
First, we headed off to coles and the asian store to pick up groceries before going over to pickelle's apartment for cooking
She pulled off a yummy meal for the eight of us (the spare ribs were ultra yumyum in my tumtum) and we even made tong yuan
Tab's were the most consistent and rounded, followed by mine, and then pickelle went for a "marbled" effect, if you get what i'm saying

I think we must have downed 3 bottles of moscarto
And we caught glimpses of a game of Cards Against Humanity as we rolled the glutinous flour 

Highlight of the night goes to Jan's fingering card in response to women's best friend, which opened up a whole new level of intimacy
Love these crazies.

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We've started a running club - unbelievable! Well when we started talking about it is was only a handful of us and then, nekminnit, there's nine of us running the centennial park circuit.

Here are some pre-run photos:

Here we are post-run: 

Silly me.

I've been using the Couch-to-5K app for tracking my running and was up to Week 6 Day 3, so when I started running with Janice at the same time I was expecting us to keep time since we're on the same day.

Forward to about 10 minutes in when I'm struggling and I check my phone and there was still another 17min! Gave up on the spot!

Turns out I accidentally clicked on Week 8 Day 3 - in Jan's words - what an idiot!

It was really hard today, and I really got to work on my stitches :(

Afterwards we all piled into the cars, stinky and sweaty and headed towards NARUONE which still wasn't open. Ended up somewhere random and had the most random D&M sesh with out half of the table. It was v nice.

Also, immaculate reception?

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<3

 

donna.