for Color Vibe Toowoomba

On the weekend my sister, some friends and I joined the 5000 odd other people to participate in the Color Vibe run.

Pre race piccies where we are all nice and white still! 

Just a couple of people at the start line! 

People dressed up and didn't waste any time smashing each other with colour. Every 5kms (apparently) we ran through a tunnel of colour. The course was a twisting track around the back hills of the show ground that occasionally felt more like a cross country event! 

That's Linny jumping up waving! Lol... Soo many people! 

... And the after photo! We managed to not get too covered but still had a great time!

This is the first time Toowoomba has hosted such an event and given that I know people who live well over 100km away who travelled in for it, I think it's pretty safe to say it was a success! 

Linking up with Essentially Jess for #IBOT!

for a Santa pic.

Kirsty at My Home Truths has asked us to share our Santa pics and given that I don't remember if I ever had a pic with Santa and don't have kids of my own I am stealing this pic from my sister.



She bought the twinnies over to Toowoomba on the weekend shopping and to get their picture with Santa! They are growing up so much and will be 1 year old in about a fortnight. Bradey (on the left) has so many teeth, which he lets his brother know about, and does the most gorgeous little slug crawl to get himself around, absolutely loved Santa and didn't want to get off him. Fletcher (on the right obviously) has only a few teeth and has been crawling hands and knees style for some time now and is pulling himself up on anything and anyone was absolutely not impressed with meeting Santa.

I don't get to see them as much as I would like but it's been so amazing to see them grow and change and see their own little characteristics starting to come through.

Linking up with My Home Truths and One Mother Hen.

for some mini confessions

I must confess.....my brain is fried....

I must confess I sat down to write my blog posts for the week ahead and ..... NOTHING...

I must confess, my brain is in ten million different places right now with many things going on in my world that's making for a stressed out GO.

I must confess I am trying to do too many things at once and don't think I am succeeding at any of them!

I must confess I was going to write this fab post about what to buy your child's teacher for a Christmas gift**

I must confess I will be glad when this week is over (Year 12s will be finished!!)

I must confess the thought of holidays being just a mere 4 weeks away excites and scares me at the same time.

I must confess I hate learning maths and teaching maths (which was Kirsty's prompt this week)

I must confess I have bought all but one of my Christmas presents and it feels damn good to be organised.

I must confess I was a little over all the hype around the G20 but then loved hearing snippets of Obama's speech at UQ.

I must confess that I got a little sick of reading FB status updates about how damn hot it was over the weekend. It was hot! We all felt it! Why do people feel the need to whinge about it!

I must confess it's 10:05pm Sunday night and I should have been in bed ages ago!

Do you have anything to confess.....???

Linking up with Kirsty for I Must Confess and Alicia for Open Slather!

**Vouchers to movies, day spas/beauty salons and book shops, wine, chocolate and jewellery....steer clear of coffee mugs, talcum powder and smelly soaps!

for an Olympic Athlete to visit Toowoomba

On the weekend my sister and I got a little excited when we saw the number 1 item on the Things to do this weekend list.

Olympian Athlete Sally Pearson was in town in support of the St Vincent Hospital Race Day and while she was in town she made an appearance at a local Girl's Private School for a running race against some of the girls and local celebrities (and by celebrities I mean a Member of Parliament and a radio announcer). 

We opted not to line up in the ridiculously long line in 30 something degree hear to actually meet her but I was in awe to see her in person. Say what you will about her and all the drama but you cannot deny her amazing track record and her physical strength! 

Did you do any celebrity spotting over the weekend?? 

Linking up with Essentially Jess for IBOT. 

for dinner at the #1 restaurant in Ho Chi Minh

This week's prompt from Kirsty at My Home Truths was to share our go to recipe....

I must confess I don't do cooking... I don't do recipes... But I do do restaurants so decided to link up a post that I've had sitting in my draft box since not long after I returned from Vietnam.

Recently TripAdvisor released it's best restaurants around the world and I was not surprised to see Ichiban Sushi Restaurant top the list in Ho Chi Minh.

Now I didn't eat at all the restaurants in Ho Chi Minh but I did eat at this one and it was lovely! 

We had had a busy day, we were up early for our flight from DaNang to Ho Chi Minh. Because of our early arrival our hotel wasn't ready for us so we made use of that time by visiting some local attractions. 

First stop was the War Remnants Museum. The museum was opened a mere 6 months after the war ended and primarily contains exhibits relating to the American Phase of the Vietnam War. I was keen to look at the artefacts and find out more about the effects of the war but I must confess I ended up walking out. 

Reading the stories and seeing the effects of Agent Orange was what did it to me. The US military used this horrible concoction of chemicals that they sprayed that caused horrible serious health issues, such as tumours, birth-defects, rashes and cancer, amongst the Vietnamese people but also on the returning US servicemen. I found the photos quite confronting and left to head outside to look at some of the machinery. 

After the Museum we headed into town to check out the French inspired and built 

Cathedral and Post Office.

By this time our hotel was ready so we headed there and, for those if us who had chosen the optional trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels, had a very quick change and lunch and were in our way. That trip is worth a post on it's own so standby for that! Here's a sneak peek.... 

If you follow me on Instagram you've probably already seen that, if you don't, you should.... Click here! 

So after we arrived back from the tunnels eight of us from the group decided to break away and head somewhere different for dinner, it had been a long and pretty full in day and we needed some fun down time! 

One of the girls in my tour group had trusted Tripadvisor previously to decide on a dinner location with great success so we trusted her judgement once again. 

Ichiban came up as being highly recommended and within walking distance of our hotel. 

We drooled over the menu and the 'buy 1 get 2 free beers' and ordered up big! 

 

The waitresses relished at the opportunity to practice their English, which was already pretty good. It wasn't a long wait before our table was completely filled with amazing food.

We took our time eating and sharing entrees, mains and some even had dessert, before asking for the bill. 

Even though it was coming to the end of my trip I was still trying to wrap my head around the whole currency thing in Vietnam and had a giggle when the bill arrived and it being announced to the table that the total amount owing was 3.6million dong! 

Now that's about $190 Aussie Dollars which I think is bloody awesome for drinks and pretty much a 3 course meal for 8 people! 

The money counting begins!

So would I agree with TripAdvisor and recommend Ichiban Sushi Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City.... Damn right I would!!

Linking up with Kirsty from My Home Truths for I Must Confess and Alicia from One Mother Hen for Open Slather.

for a $50 outfit challenge

So this weekend I got a jump start on the event planning by seeing the 10 things to do this weekend on Friday night via a link on Facebook and was a little disappointed to find little there that interested me! Three of the 10 suggestions were markets and I really couldn't do that to you again (I swear there are more to do in Toowoomba on a weekend then go to Markets!)

Sunday morning my sister and I did head down to the Margaret Street Markets to visit Scarf Girl to pick up a few Christmas gifts. 

Afterwards we headed to the main shopping centre in Toowoomba, Grand Central, as I had decided that this weekend we would complete the Ms Mystery Case $50 outfit challenge! 

 

The challenge set by Ms Mystery Case is to buy a complete outfit under $50 and I decided to rope my sister in and make it a challenge within ourselves. 

I set the rules that all items had to be bought from within Grand Central and that we only had an hour to do it. 

So we synchronised watches and headed our separate ways in search of the perfect (aka bargain) outfit! 

We had discussed tactics first and thought the bottom half of the outfit would be the most expensive and difficult to find. I headed straight for Temt. Dresses are very difficult to find when you have a body shape like mine and I knew that would take way too long so I opted for some pants and a skirt, and I was shocked to find that a skirt I never thought I would ever wear fit perfectly and, if I do say so myself, looks pretty darn good! But this took me a good half hour to discover leaving my just another half hour to find the whole rest of the outfit! 

I decided my next biggest expense would be shoes so I bolted to the opposite end of the centre to Target as a friend had mentioned they were having a shoe sale. What I didn't calculate into the one hour time limit plan was the queues at the checkouts which were a bit crazy.

After getting some shoes I went on the hunt for a top! I had just 15 minutes left! I couldn't believe how hard and under pressure I felt! 

I dashed in and out of shoes but ended up back at Temt grabbing a top and some bracelets and before I knew it time was up, actually, I confess I went 5 minutes over time as Linda was already back at our meeting spot waiting for me! 

She did however let me go and grab some earrings as I still had $8 left! 

We hid our bags from each other, dropped them in the car and then went to a new cafe that has opened across the road from the shopping centre.

Primal Pantry is a new health food cafe with a full Paleo menu and we were keen to check it out! 

We both opted for the Monkey Fuel Smoothie (banana, cinnamon, nutmeg and almond milk), I grabbed the choc caramel slice and Linda chose the banana bread. It was so good!! 

After morning tea we headed home to compare outfits......

Linda used Derby Day as her inspiration after spotting this gorgeous skirt and I think she did a fab job! 

The breakdown: 

- Top from Valleygirl $14.95

- Skirt from Paper Scissors $16

- Shoes from Target $10

- Earrings from Target $2.50

- Head chain from Equip $5

Total = $48.45

My outfit:

The breakdown:

- Top from Temt $9.95

- Skirt from Temt $14.95

- Shoes from Target $7.00

- Bangles from Temt $9.95

- Ring and Earrings from Equip $2 & $5.99

(The earrings actually came in a set of 3 pairs and were the only things not on sale)

Total = $49.85

We were both pretty chuffed with our outfits and impressed with our bargain buys! It really was a lot of fun! I was especially chuffed at how good I felt in a high waisted figure hugging skirt!!

What do you think? Who wins your vote? 

Head over to Ms Mystery Case to check out other people who have attempted the $50 outfit challenge and link up your own attempt!

Also linking up with Essentially Jess for IBOT! 

to confess..

I have a secret....

Well by definition it's not technically a secret as some people do know..

It's more I suppose that I am withholding information from certain people. 

I have a plan, something I'm working on behind the scenes, something I've been researching and plotting and preparing for for some months now that mostly only my nearest and dearests know about so far. 

But it's getting harder and harder to continue to withhold this information. 

I must confess I've probably spent hours thinking about when and how I'm going to share this information and wondering why it is taking me so long to just say it and what all the fuss is about.

I must confess I think it's because once it's out there, there is no turning back, it will become real and I am worried people will start to treat me differently. I know that people will have questions that I don't have the answers to, I know they will want to know why and I think they will judge me and think that I am crazy, irresponsible..or both! I think it's fear mostly. At the end of the day I have to remember that this is about me and me alone, not them.

I know once it's done there will be a big weight lifted off my shoulders and people probably won't even care and it won't affect them as much as I think it will but for some reason that is not helping the words come out of my mouth.

How do you handle sharing difficult news? Hold on as long as possible or blurt it out and get it over and done with? 

Linking up with Kirsty from My Home Truths for I must confess** and Alicia from One Mother Hen for Open Slather! Check them out while you're here! 

**Kirsty had asked us to confess our pet tales this week... I must confess I am a terrible pet owner, have had a dog and a cat in my time and neither have lived to tell the tale :( 

And now I do not have a life conducive to owning a pet :(