The time has come...

Tomorrow is the day! Tomorrow Sian, Matt, Joe, Shanh, Mike and I are jumping on a plane and heading to Japan!!

We've got 4 days in Tokyo, followed by 6 days skiing in Niseko!!

I put off packing until today and procrastinated my way through the day, but I finally got everything together.

Because we are flying Jetstar we have very little luggage allowance so I had to try and keep everything to a minimum. Here is a photo of my luggage waiting, ready to go!!

Hope everyone has a fabulous 12 days... See you on the other side :)

xx love Breanna

It's getting closer!

That's right kids, this time next week I will be slumber partying at my beautiful friend Sian and her hubby Matt's place prior to our AM departure to Coolangatta Airport. Japan here we come!!

xx love Breanna

How things change...

As some of you may know, I was a competitive swimmer for most of my life to date. When I was about 14 I started at a new club, a bigger club. Prior to that I had been training at the local pool down the road from. It was a 25m school pool, that was leased out to my favourite coach ever! Her name was Mary!

I started doing squad at this small club when I was about 6 and stayed there until I was about 12/13. I then had a season training at another small school pool which was also close to home, but not as close. Unfortunately that coach stopped coaching and so after that I was on a mission to find a new squad.

I decided the time was right to start a fresh, in a bigger squad with what I was hoping would be a better support network. I spent a good 5 or so years training there and made some fabulous friends. I should tell you about how I became friends with one of my good friends Tom one day, remind me!

Anyway, the purpose of this post was to highlight how things change.

Anyway, I developed a bit of a crush on (read: became totally smitten with) one of the guys there. He was older, super buff and kinda (read: very) cute. Nothing ever happened between the two of us! If you were to ask me to picture him, I would still picture him as he was back then...

Today that image was shattered! hahaha!

One of the joys of facebook is seeing mutual friends photos. Through the mutual friends we have from all those years of training together I saw some photos of him today.

Just to be clear it has been about 4 or so years since I have seen him and seeing the photos today did absolutely nothing, nothing at all for me!

It is weird how things change... I was also very smitten with a certain football player as a 16 year old... He shall remain nameless, but all of my high school friends will know exactly who I am talking about... Now though, I wouldn't give him a second thought.

It makes me wonder how you can be "so into" someone at one point in time, yet so "blah" about them at another. It is also kind of scary that things can change that much in such a relatively short period of time...

Anyway, I just thought I'd share today's story with you! Needless to say I had a few giggles, and reminisced and wondered how on earth I was so smitten... But I guess that is the fun "mistakes" or whatever you want to call them, that you get to look back on later in life and laugh at!

Just to entertain you all, here is a photo of me from when I was 16. This was my sweet sixteen birthday, which also doubled as the TAS Swimming Carnival. (TAS was my high school's version of GPS... Basically it was the inter-school swimming carnival between schools such as JPC, Redeemer, West Mac,  Loretto, Stuartholme, St Columbans etc) [that is my beautiful dog Jedda in the photo with me. RIP Beautiful Angel!]

Promise not to laugh too hard ;)

xx love Breanna

The Countdown

Today was my last Monday at my current job... only 4 days to go...

When I come back from Japan at the end of the month, I will be working towards making my dreams come true. It is all very exciting.

Bring it on I say!!

xx love Breanna

Things I Love: Iceworks

Since the very first time Mellie and I went to Iceworks, almost 2 years ago now, I have loved it!

I love the atmosphere and the staff there are fab! I have spent so much time there over the last few years that there have been a few jokes running around. Mellie and I used to like to say to people the first time we took them there "welcome to our lounge room" or "welcome to our home". Over the last few years I've sort of become a permanent fixture!

It also fits in with one of my other "things I love" and that is the Broncos. Given that Iceworks is across the road from the Broncos home ground, nothing beats a live game of football followed by cocktails at Iceworks!

Given that I've been a fan for so long now, a lot of staff have come and gone. Unfortunately 2 of my favourite bar staff no longer work there. A third works more day shifts than night shifts and the fourth, well he isn't working very much at the moment while it is uni holidays! Hopefully he'll be back soon - he makes the best Cosmos EVER!

The girls and I headed there this afternoon and had a good chat, laugh and a few drinks! It was fab!
There is nothing better than heading there for some fabulous cocktails and a good old girlie catch up with my best girlfriends.

Here is a photo of the girls and I celebrating Mellie's 23rd and my 22nd birthdays last year!

With football season fast approaching, I am sure I will spending plenty more time there in the coming months!! Can't wait!!!

xx love Breanna

Finally made it!

After 5 years at uni, a bachelor's degree, a grad dip in legal practice and a stint in a law firm, I finally achieved what I'd set out to achieve all those years prior...

I GOT ADMITTED TO THE ROLL OF LEGAL PRACTITIONERS!!!

On Monday I fronted up to the Supreme Court and sat patiently until my gorgeous friend D stood up to move my admission! Basically she had to stand up in front of the Chief Justice and 2 other Judges, plus about 30 other barristers/solicitors etc and tell the Court that I'm awesome and have done everything I need to do to be admitted onto the roll!

Lucky for me it all went smoothly and D did a fantastic job!!

After the Chief Justice accepted our application to be admitted, we had to swear ourselves in. After the 30 or so new lawyers had mumbled their way through the oath, we went outside to sign the roll!!

Dad took this photo of me whilst I was signing the roll! D was able to give us the heads up that the signing took place in a particular little room and that there were glass panels so Dad got in nice and early to make sure he captured the moment!!

After that we took some photos outside the Court room!!

It is obligatory to have a photo with the statue below when you become admitted! D told me that her and her boss took a photo with both their hands up in the air after her admission a few years back and that it is now hanging on their notice board at work!

She convinced me that I needed to do the same :)

After the ceremony, D and I went to lunch to celebrate. It was also a little way for me to say thank you to her for jumping up in front of the Court and applying for me!

That night Mum, Dad, my pseudo Mum Elaine and I went to Gambaros to celebrate my admission!

My pseudo Mum Elaine and my pseudo Dad Pete (whom you may have read about below) liked to impart knowledge, wisdom, experiences and habits on to my brother and I! One such habit is the calling of Crepes Suzette as Creepy Suzies!! We've been to Gambaros many times before and their creepy suzies are amazing!!

When the waitress asked what I wanted for desert I said "creepy suzies" not even thinking about the fact that that is not what they're actually called. She had no idea what I was talking about and I, for the life of me, could not remember what they're really called!! OOPS! How embarrassing!! Needless to say pseudo mummy thought it was HILARIOUSLY FUNNY!!

They certainly lived up to expectations!! I even took a photo and sent it to my brother who is currently on holidays in Canada!! He wasn't very impressed!! haha

This is the outfit I wore to dinner:

Please note the shoes!! They are the new loves of my life and that was their first outing!! A close up of my newly purchased DVF's:

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!! CANNOT GET ENOUGH!! And they were sooooo cheap! So double score!!

I will do a follow up post at some point on these babies... after all shoes definitely fall into the category of "Things I Love". Stay tuned!

xx love Breanna