Sydney and Alexisonfire Concert

Tuesday Luke and I went down to Sydney to see the band Alexisonfire, on their Farewell Tour! For those of you who do not know, Alexisonfire is the old band to Dallas Green (vocalist) . His new band is City and Color which I am walking down the Isle to. 


Luke was feeling very unwell and should have probably staid at home, which is why we decided not to explore Sydney on this trip. We went to Sydney 3 months after we met, so we have done all of the touristy things already anyway. We stayed in a Hotel in the heart of Sydney, so getting around was pretty easy (although Sydney is a pretty big City and can be confusing). 
The Concert was amazing and I am so glad we decided to travel all the way to Sydney just to see a band! Warming up was House VS Hurricane (another awesome Metal Band!) :D

Write Soon ! 

Xx

<3

Wallace!

So we took a break from the house today and went down to the Gold Coast.

As Wally lives there, we decided to visit for a few minutes to get some more photos of him.

So ofcourse I am sharing the photos with you! He is starting to get a little bit bigger now :D

We have the cutest puppy in the whole world, I am sure of it ;)

 
Write soon! xx
 

House renovation update

Hi all, just time to give some more renovation photos, as you seem to like them.

Can I just start by complaining a little bit? And YES we all saw this coming, EVERYONE complains a little bit when renovating. The previous house owners really didn't care about their walls. We have to patch and sand hundreds of small holes and dents, before being able to start painting.

Which you can imagine, is starting to get a bit of a pain, as there are plenty of walls in the house. You can look at the photo which shows you one wall that I have patched. Can you see how many spots that needs to be fixed before painting? And this is just one part of one wall!

We are aiming to paint the 3 bedrooms this weekend; hopefully we will have prepared the last bedroom before then. I have fixed all walls in 2 of the bedrooms, and painted an undercoat, so it is ready to be painted. Just wanted to post a before and after photo of one of the rooms, looks way better with an undercoat hey?

Before:

After:

Looks much better already, and this is just after removing the horrible wardrobe doors and with one undercoat.

Write soon.
Xx

Fixing walls!

As you know all of our walls need to be fixed and patched before painting.

My amazing fiancé has been fixing the big holes and errors with the walls while I have been patching over 100 small dents in the walls. I just thought it might be fun to give you some photos of before and after of Lukes’ work :)

This is how it looked like before Luke started. Clearly we do not want to paint over such a poor plastering job.

This is after Luke had cut out the poorly plastered bit and it is now ready to be fixed.

This is a fixed wall, ready to be sanded before putting on new power points.

Write soon, Xx

Our house, renovation project.

Last week the settlement came through and we are officially house owners.
As it is a renovation project we need to work on it as much as possible so that we can move in as soon as possible. So hope you like renovation photos, because it's going to be a lot of it from now on.

We started renovating this weekend, and I can tell you right now, it is hard work. The house needs so much work and it is hard to know where to start. It's almost impossible to calculate when it will be ready for us to move in, and we might have to move in before it is in the state we want it in.

We decided to focus on the bedrooms, for us to move in quicker and we started on it straight away. We started fixing all the holes in the walls and preping it for painting. We decided on the wall colour after a bit back and forth to the store. We ended up buying 3 colour samples and of cours 3 was our lucky number.

I took a photo of our sample wall, although it's hard to see the different colours on this picture.

Please keep in mind the photo makes the colours look lighter than they actually are. And the horrid colour around (the yellow) is the clolour the old owners had in their living room.

The first colour we tried was a bit purple and it's the sample on top right. After that we tried a green ish colour which you can see on the left side. The colour we ended up choosing  is a cold white, with a bit of blue in it. You can see this colour underneath the first colour on the right side.

If you look closely you might si a TINY square with a blue colour just left of the tile, which will be the colour for our feature wall behind the TV in the living room and behind our bed in our bedroom.

We already had purchased the tiles before settlement day, risky but it worked out. In order to see how they will look like in this house, we set them up in a corner. Looks nice hey? 

I will write soon!

Xx

Wally the dog!

Since last weekend we started to research where to get a Westie and it turns our out it is very rare at the moment. We found one male pup in Queensland, and a couple in Victoria and New South Wales.

Wallace the dog!

As we live in Queensland we chose to call up the people with one pup left and they invited us to come around and have a look. The lady on the phone said they had a lot of people interested and one lady to come and have a look tomorrow morning, which is why we went to have a look straight away. We drove for over an hour down to the Gold Coast to have a look and both Luke and I loved the parents of the pup so we decided to put a deposit in for the dog until we get to pick it up. We bought a dog!
A Scottish breed should have a Scottish name, so of course we will name our new family member Wally aka Wallace. 

I'll write soon! xx

New Family member?

As most of you will know, I had to give my dog away in order to move to Australia and live with Luke. And as you also might know I have been wanting to get a new dog since.

I had set my mind on a King Charles Cavalier but I have now changed my mind. A couple of days ago I found the perfect breed for both Luke and I, West Highland White Terrier.

Decription from a website:

Known to many people as the "Westie," this breed is a small dog but is very well balanced and hardy.

The Westie is a very intelligent dog who loves human companionship both indoors and outdoors. Happy, curious, and always trying to get into the middle of everything, they are considered one of the most affectionate of all the terriers with their also demanding personality-yet can still feel jealousy if their homeland is threatened. . Due to a high need to stay active when awake, sleeping about 13 hours a day is required by the little Westie when they finally collapse.

Intelligent as the West Highland White Terrier is, it is important to understand the whole concept of the Westie personality and essence of who they are. One article says it all, "The Westie is really a big dog inside a small dog's body." The dog has the personality that is spunky, intelligent, bold, independent, lots of self-esteem--and stubborn. These varied qualities of the little Westie terrier breed in mind, will help prepare a person for the beginning "fun of training a Westie."

See a funny movie below, of the little terrier playing with a German Shepherd.

Write soon!
Xx

Bridesmaid dresses, check!

I have finally ordered the bridesmaid dresses! I chose to order from the same website I got my wedding dress from, www.jjshouse.com. This website offers you a great range of dresses for weddings and special occasions as well as AMAZING customer service. I have dealt with their customer service team a few times now and they go the extra mile for my satisfaction just like in a real store. My wedding dress was delivered very fast and looks great with high quality. I can barely wait to see the bridesmaid dresses when they come in the mail.

My Maid of Honor: Ina
My 1 Bridesmaid: June
My 2 Bridesmaid: Laura

Big thanks to all of you and a special thanks for the two traveling all the way from Norway to be with me and take part on our special day!

Write soon! xx

My first day at work!



What I was wearing for my first day, very office like =)

My first day at work went very well. I didn’t do much, as they know how overwhelming a first week is. The most important thing I learned today was that I now have a free parking spot for me in the city at all times, which can come in handy. Haha.

Basically my during my day I was introduced to two out of three offices that I will be working at. I will be trained in all data programs when MY work laptop is all set up and ready, which they hope will be buy Wednesday morning. Till then I will continue filing, copying and other easy tasks, as well as getting to know the people better.

I’ll write soon.

XoXo

Xtra Xtra, read all about it!

Lot to cheer for this week as I have 2 great news.

Celebration snack.

First; I have been offered a contract job as an administrator for a big international company. I am super excited about the opportunity and I am looking forward to start my new career on Monday 15^th. I will of course let you know after the first week what I think about the job, so pop in to read about it in a couple of weeks. I have given Novo my 1 week notice of leave, and although I will be sad to go, this is the best news I have had in a long time. My visa is jet to be instated so I am thrilled that the company is allowing me to join their team while I am on my bridging visa.

Second news I have is bigger than the first news so read!

Second: Luke and I have been looking around for a while now, looking for our first home to buy. Yesterday we made an offer on a renovation project and today we signed the house contract! We bought a house! The house is located in Rochedale South which is located south of Brisbane. As I said there’s a lot of work to do with it and we might not be able to move inn before after Christmas. First we well have to get everything needed for the settlement to go through and we have 14 days to figure it out. I promise to keep you updated and to upload photos when it's finally ours.

Cheers!

Wedding weekend

We drove down to Inverell this weekend, to witness Ruben and Rachel become husband and wife! It’s the first church wedding in Australia I have been to and I really liked it. The last wedding we went to was a garden wedding and I am super happy we chose a chapel wedding.  The Chapel will make it feel like a church and it’s on our venue which is perfect.

The wedding was beautiful and the Bride was absolutely Gorgeous! Unfortunately it rained on the day, but they had an inside wedding so it turned out good. The venue looked great and I might steal some ideas from the day.

Inverell is 5 hours away from Brisbane so it’s a long drive! We drove down on Friday and back on a Monday so it turned out Ok. Also I took travel sickness tablets so I slept for most of the way.



Luke and I at the church! <3

Write soon Xx

2 years with Luke!

I can barely believe it’s been 2 years since I met Luke. I remember the moment our eyes met as it was yesterday, and I remember the feeling just as well. There’s no denial that something was in the air from the moment we saw each other, and our feelings grew fast as we got to know each other.

To celebrate Luke had booked a surprise dinner at a pricy French restaurant in one of the better suburb of Brisbane. The food was amazing and I feel so lucky to have Luke to spoil me on our day. We decided that we will try a new restaurant each year to celebrate the 25^th of September.

I had a little surprise for Luke too,! I gave him a present to continue his collection of mini guitars I started for him one year ago!

OH and I had my hair coloured a couple of days ago and promised mum a pic, so here it is. Looks good hey?

Have a great day!

Write soon, XX

Update



Me and Kristine a long time ago. Glad i deg <3

My sweetest cousin Kristine requested me to write more often on my blog, so I have decided to do so. It’s funny because I didn’t even now she was reading it in the first place. (Love a bit of comment if I’m going to be inspired to keep on writing you know).

So here’s a little update on my life in Australia.



I am working 3 times a week at Novo shoes, and I love my job. I have been going to work every day last week even with a very bad cold (which I wouldn’t have if I didn’t enjoy my work). When I haven’t been working I have been bed resting, so not very much to say about it. Oh and yes, I still have a very bad cold, been going on for a week now, but should only last one more week (Luke had it for 2 weeks).

I am being relocated for my Volunteer work, as you know I have been volunteering for Anglicare in their HR department 1 minute from home. As of next Friday I will be traveling to the city twice a week to help out it the Marketing and Donation department, witch suites my degree a bit better (who knows they might need paid staff some day).

Weather in Brisbane = SUN. It haven’t been raining since mid June, and they don’t think it will start any time soon. It’s spring here now, so starting to get really worm. Love summer clothing so going to be great =)

Hope everyone is well, write soon.

Xx

My New Job!

I know I haven’t been writing in a while, but sometimes you just need a break.

I am writing to day as I want to tell you about my new job! As I am still in a visa situation on paper, I have had a lot of challenges when it comes to getting a job, but last week my luck turned. I decided to try and get a retail job, so I walked around handing out my resumes at the shopping mall I worked at over Christmas.  It seemed hopeless, so I walked in to my old job asking if I could get a casual job over this Christmas. My old boss told me he would hire me when the season starts. I got very happy and texted Luke, and then I saw a sign in the shop opposite to SDS. Novo shoes (link to website) were looking for part time, so I went in to talk to the manager. She asked if I had time for an interview and 2 hours later she called me to let me know that I was hired. I god a JOB! I will be working 3 days a week and volunteering the remaining 2. I started my first shift the day after the interview and I have now worked there one week.

Also some wedding news! My wedding dress has arrived my local post office, and I will be trying it on tomorrow with some help from Laura. I will let you know how it looks and how it fits.

xX

Fire in my street!

I woke up today by Luke running up the stairs telling me to come an have a look at something. I went down stairs and realized that all the sirens I had heard had stopped in our street (often hear the sound of sirens as a hospital is close by). Our street war full of fire trucks and ambulances and police cars and I could see tall flames from a house further down the street. Dan walked over there and found out one elderly man was in one of the ambulances and that they didn’t think there had been anyone else in the house. Half of our street was blocked off with a police line bond. This was at 6 AM this morning, and it’s now 12.40 PM. The house looks totally damaged and there’s still a fire truck and a police care at the house, but the street is open again.

To read it on the news, click here!

This just makes me realize how lucky we are that we have our health, a place to live, all of our possessions and what’s stronger than anything, a life filled with love. I appreciate my life a little extra today, and just so you know, it’s exactly 6 months since Luke proposed.

Stay safe and love life.

Xx

The Perfect Day?

Being unemployed and looking for a job to start my career isn’t easy at all. Making it even harder is my visa situation, as my current visa will expire next month and the bridging visa will kick in. It won’t probably be much easier once that has happened, as I am looking for something permanent without full work rights. I sure am looking forward to the day my Partner Visa will be instated. Until then I will try my best to get work experience within Admin, perhaps doing some volunteering while I am at it.  I am happy that Luke supports me as much as he can until I am established here in Brisbane.

As I have heaps of spare time on my hands I have been researching and planning our wedding! I have now managed to book the only Scandinavian celebrant in Brisbane to marry us, which I am soo excited about! I got a good impression of him on the phone, and he seems like a great guy! We will meet up for a coffee and go over details of the ceremony when he gets back from Russia and Alaska in October :D

I got a hit in the face yesterday as I realized how fast my dream wedding can turn around. After all my guest will have to use a lot of money and get time off work or schools to attend our wedding. I Know most of my family will be there, which is really important to me and I am beyond grateful. But I just realized how much I am asking of my best friends, and how much I need them to be there. None of them can guarantee anything, due to schools and finance, which is highly understandable! It’s just that I realized that I might not have any Bridesmaids here. That will surly ruin my day. Luckily I will know more when they doo and I will let you know.

Xx

We slept over at Mt Gambier, which isn’t really a mountain at all :P   The town was ok, but as it was the queen’s birthday (public holiday in Australia), everything seemed to be closed. We started driving, and we were going to stop in Hahndorf (settled by the Germans) before our final destination, Adelaide. Hahndorf was great, and it really reminded me of a typical German town. It looked cool, don’t you think? The food was to no surprise old German recipes and it tasted delicious. 

After spending some hours in Hahndorf we drive the last bit to reach Adelaide, and we checked in at our hostel at Glenelg harbor. Luke gave Glenelg a 8 out of 10 ad he was “disappointed” of the lack of elg (moose in Norwegian). =P  Early next morning we traveled to Barossa Valley, the most famous wine region on Australia. We went to a private guided tour with wine tasting at the famous Jacob’s Creek. It was different to anything I have ever done, and it was quite romantic. Vineyards as far as eye can see, so we decided to do some free tasting at some of the other vineyards. We ended up buying a sparkling white wine and a red wine to enjoy with some cheese later that evening. Dinner was delicious and expensive at the place we were staying for the night, but oh so romantic!

The last day we spent in Adelaide (radelaide). The city is smaller than Oslo, so not too much to do here. It was cold but the sun was out, so it wasn’t too bad for our last day. We went to see the Port and as that wasn’t too excited we went too Largs Bay because it was mentioned in our tour-guide. The funniest thing was when we discovered that the picture on the tour-guide was of the public toilet’s wall. Sooo, not much to see here. We walked from here to Semaphore which was a step up from the last place. We had coffee at a Swedish café; they had old Viking books so it was pretty cool. At night we went out to a pizzeria before heading back to the hostel for a good night sleep.

The morning after we went to the airport and we arrived Brisbane at noon Brisbane time. I had a great trip and I hope you enjoy the pictures.

xx

Luke has wanted a vacation for a while now, so we decided to go on The Great Ocean Road as it is voted to be one of the Best Road Trip in the world. So after three days of being jetlagged and sleepy from my last visit to Norway, it was time to go to the airport again. This time to the domestic terminal as we were heading down to Melbourne.

Melbourne was cold and grey, but it is such an interesting city. Getting around in Melbourne is easy, as they have trams going all over the place, and we had heaps fun exploring the city. Luke took me to very interesting places where not many tourists would go as it’s mostly locals who knows about them. We had dinner one night, and ended up going out and drinking; just the two of us and it was great. Luke showed me one of the weirdest pubs which is so hidden so even most locals wouldn’t find it. It looks like a creepy hospital, with an old ambulance bed in the girls bathroom, and you get your drinks with a syringe! To be honest, I loved the place!

During our stay we also met up with Ryan and Yasmin and we joined some more people out for a Korean meal. The food was great, and the people too. I quite enjoyed that night out. It was our last night in Melbourne and when we came back to the hostel we realized that we wouldn’t be able to sleep until 3 AM! Reason being our room was placed over the entertaining stage of the pub downstairs!

Our first day driving was good. The weather was ok, not too sunny, but the view from the car was great. We stopped ad Apollo Bay for lunch and we slept at Prince town (which isn’t really big enough to be called a town).  The next morning the weather was perfect, no clouds to be seen! I was so excited that we were going to have the best part of the drive in the best weather!  We took off and after only a couple of KM we were at The Twelve Apostles! Doesn’t it look awesome? We stopped several times to see the breathtaking view, and I couldn’t stop taking photos. =)

View from the car during our drive.

12 apostles!

London Bridge

I will write more about the trip later. We are only half way and it’s really too much to write on one blog post. Hope you enjoyed the photos.

Xx <3

My stay in Norway was great. It was amazing seeing my friends and family again, although I didn’t get to see all of my friends, as I simply didn’t have enough time. Nothing better than having a great family, with such and understanding of my choice to move to Australia for the one I fell in love with.

It is important that they all know how hard all of this is for me. It’s incredible hard seeing how emotional some got when they saw me again, with tiers and endless hugs. What’s weird is that moving to Australia has in one way been the toughest choice in my life, at the same time the easiest.

I had a great time in Norway, and I was extremely lucky with the summer weather (28 degrees C). Nothing beats hanging with Ina again, playing games and reading for exams as well as being able to hug mum whenever I feel like, taking care of Dollie, and living with Dad and Synøve. I also had a great time seeing Sissel, Inger Christine, Cathrine and Glenn, June and all the people I have forgotten to write down (sorry =P ).

My family and friends know how hard it is for me to leave them, every time. I think we’ll be sharing tiers every time I leave, as we have done so far. Although leaving them is terrible hard, not leaving would be harder. I am really looking forward to seeing them all next Easter for our wedding, and I am grateful how understanding they are of my choice of getting married in Australia.

Thank you to all of you who made my stay perfect <3 Love you all xx

In Norway

As you all know, I am now in Norway! The trip here was long and I have been struggling with the jet lagged ever since I arrived. I have been here a almost two weeks now and I have been studying for my exam most of the time, and every day I would fall asleep at 3 PM, which is 11 PM at home in Australia! I have also met Ina and my best mate Fredrik, and it was great seeing them both again. They have both gotten their wedding invitation, so the first invitations are now given out! I am so excited about our wedding, but there’s a long way there.

Maria had her confirmation last weekend, here's a photo of me and my mum in our Bunad's. (Mine is made by my grandmother).

Today I am going to have an MRI to figure out if I need to operate (new doctor new demands), and if I need to operate I will be signed in the 29^th of May. I do however hope that I can avoid the operation of my ankle and travel back home to my beloved Luke.

I am going to My dad’s town tomorrow, and I am staying there for a week before I will be back in Kristiansand. Really looking forward to seeing my dad again, been a long time now! <3

As you might know I am going to Norway in less than a week!

I will be writing some on my blog next month as I will have more time than I have at the moment. Luke and I have finally gathered all the evidence and lodged our Visa application, (all we need to do now is to wait ONE YEAR for our application to be assigned to a caseworker). I can’t believe that our application will be untouched for one year, and then they will use months to approve my visa. Too long! Applying for a partner visa is nothing I recommend to anyone. It takes a long time to gather all the evidence (including evidence that your relationship is genuine).

I have also been working on my assignment which is due the day after I arrive Norway, as well as my presentation! Also I quit my job, but keeping in touch with most of the girls. So as you can see, I have been pretty busy and I will be my last week here before I leave, as I will need to finish my assessment and my presentation! I am looking forward to Tuesday though, girls arvo with my friends from the Café.I am going to bake cupcakes, and all the othr girls are contributing with food and snacks, and wine ;)

Going to Norway means many things to me, seeing family and friends is the up part, then there’s my ankle operation, a presentation of my assignment, and two exams! And then I am planning to come back to my perfect fiancé!