Tomorrow When the War Began

If you are looking for some good books to read I would recommend the Tomorrow series. I was reading one book a day I couldn't put them down. The movie just doesn't give them justice.

The Tomorrow series is a series of seven young adult invasion novels written by Australian writer John Marsden, detailing a high-intensity invasion and occupation of Australia by a foreign power. The novels are related from thefirst person perspective by the main character, Ellie Linton, a part of a small band of teenagers waging a guerrillawar on the enemy soldiers in the region around their fictional home town of Wirrawee. The name of the series is derived from the title of the first book, Tomorrow, When The War Began.

Lazer Skirmish

Outdoor Lazer Skirmish.

Heaps of fun

Barefoot Bowls

Today I thought I would try out barefoot bowls. It was actually quite fun and not as easy as it may look

My Bowling team

My Gold Coast besties

Rewarding our effots at the bar

Friday night - 10 September 2010

Courtney wasn't working so we decided to go out for a few drinks.

Us in the VIP area getting our drinks made for us! One bottle of Grey Goose Down

Photo op on the way to a new bar

Kayaking Adventure

Today I went on a Half Day Dolphin & Straddie Tour.

We paddled across the tranquil waters of the broadwater, snorkled at Wavebreak Island and then paddled across to South Stradbroke Island before heading back.

Snake tracks

Fishie

Adventure Parc

Adventure Parc is situated in the lovely Mount Tamborine. Its not for the faint hearted and those dam horse stirrups were tough! Am proud to say I made it though through and had a great time doing it!

Adventure Parc™ is a High Ropes course which is designed to be progressively more challenging as you move through the different levels : 2 green, 2 red and 1 black (easy, moderate, & difficult). The height throughout the course varies with the terrain and ranges between 2m and 20m above the ground. There are 83 games in total throughout the 5 courses including 11 flying foxes ranging between 20m and 125m long, bridges, a Tarzan swing, barrels you have to crawl through and nets you must climb across, etc

Rock Climbing

Attempting to make it up the pole, unfortunately my shoes were too slippery. Next time!

Toffee - Updated pictures

Here are some updated pictures of the cutest puppy ever!

Saturday Nights on the Gold Coast

Few pictures of silly Saturday nights on the Gold Coast with some new friends

Courtney and I - me and my friend "shot"

Swingin' Safari last Sat night - those curls stayed in for all of five minutes!

Friends birthday party in Surfers

Couple of Saturdays ago with some girls from my netball team.

Surfer's Jets

For Mum's birthday she wanted to go Jet Boating!

So on Saturday we headed into Surfers Paradise and jumped on the Surfers Jets. It was actually really fun and there wasn't a dry seat in the house, the spins were cool and we got nice guided tour of the broadwater.

Seeing Eye Dog Puppie

Hi All

I would like you to meet Austin. Austin is mine and Courtney's puppie that we sponsor for Seeing Eye Dogs Australia.

We writes us letters and he sent us this photo of him sitting on the grass. Hopefully we will get to meet him in October.

He even made it onto the webpage - www.seda.org.au.

Toni

Gold Coast Marathon

I was a bit into running after the Mother's Day Classic and thought I would try the 5km challenge in the Gold Coast marathon as after breaking my leg that was about as far as I could go pain free.

I had been running it up on the treadmill and was hoping to get in around 30 minutes.

I managed to finish in 30.07 which I was pleased about.

If you click this link you can see me running it, I am 844.

My Trophies

I was so excited that I won these I had to do a post ASAP!

We were in the grand finals for netball tonight and unfortunately we lost by one measly goal! but we still got a trophy for runner up and I WON the PLAYER of the match trophy so, totally stoked!!

Left one: Runner up

Right one: Player of the match!

Scuba Diving

I recently joined an Adventure group on the Gold Coast to meet new people and do fun adventure stuff. My first adventure was scuba diving. Something I always wanted to do. It was good fun, but not sure the Gold Coast Broadwater compares to the Blue Hole. Maybe I might try next time up the Great Barrier Reef!

Flash Mob Performance

I am wearing pink on the right.

As part of the Surfers Paradise Festival the Common People Dance Project were doing a Flash Mob performance and were looking for participants. Sara and I decided to join the bandwagon and spent the next three weeks learning the performance. We finally performed it in Surfers Paradise on Saturday and even made it in the Gold Coast Bulletin. Was heaps of fun and sad its now over.

I am wearing pink on the right.

RSPCA Million Paws Walk

The Annual RSPCA Millions Paws Walk was today and actually having a dog this year I decided to take Toffee along. Toffee dressed up for the occassion and off we went.

The Million Paws Walk is the biggest fundraiser the RSPCA has. It costs $12.00 to enter and you can do the 1.5 or 3km walk. Toffee's little legs managed to walk it around the full course and we had so much fun with all the other puppies!

Toffee wasn't the only one that dressed up though!

That guy in the white shirt, third from the left, Lincoln Lewis aka Geoff from Home and Away

All pooped after our walk, what a great day!

Mothers Day Classic

Earlier in the year I decided to set a few goals for myself and one of them was the 8km fun run in the Mother's Day Classic.

I had been running about 5km's on average on the treadmill and only managed to do two 8km runs, but I was still hoping to run in a relatively good time.

A week before the run, I got the Chicken Pox so I couldn't do any more preparation for the run, so fingers crossed.

On the day, I was feeling less itchy and less spotty and was really looking forward to the run and doing it in a good time.

The run went relatively well, luckily I ended up running with another girl who ran at the same pace as me, because otherwise I don't think I would have made it. Being sick and not training and also with my dodgy ankle was making my life hell.

I did however manage to finish the run and was pleasantly surprised that I managed to do it in under 1 hour which was my goal.

I don't think I will do another 8km run as my ankle was just not coming to the party and due to my ice skating injury doesn't work the same any more. I have however signed up for a more manageable 5km run in July which I am hoping to do in around 30 - 35 minutes.

I really want to thank everyone below and was stoked to have raised $140.00 to help breast cancer research. Thanks heaps guys xoxo

Casey Macfarlane (Sun 7th Mar 2010 13:01)	I love your strict training diet - beer & gelati! Good luck, my friend!	$20.00
Justine Turner (Mon 8th Mar 2010 06:24)	Go you! I'm a hater of cancer so in support of all things anti! tehehe.... And because you're a star for running! Luck lil miss xx	$10.00
Louisa Strange (Tue 9th Mar 2010 12:20)		$15.00
Rachel and Cam Jordan (Wed 24th Mar 2010 23:04)	Go Toni!! This is for all those out there who have or maybe effect with breast cancer.	$15.00
Zac Rutledge (Mon 3rd May 2010 05:38)		$10.00
Emma Robinson (Mon 3rd May 2010 20:49)	Great cause Toni, good luck on the run!!	$15.00
Hayley & Niki Laban (Wed 5th May 2010 06:44)	Go You Good Thing! Hope those pox don't slow you down chicky xx	$10.00
Donna Jobson (Mon 10th May 2010 08:36)	You made it.Wow. 40km next lets see how u handle that. Mum	$20.00
Donna Roycroft (Sun 16th May 2010 08:51)	Well done!	$10.00
CAITLIN ALLEN (Tue 25th May 2010 01:26)	HAVE FUN ON THE RUN. :)	$15.00

Raised so far: $140.00

Toni's 27

Few pictures from my 27th birthday - dancing in Surfers Paradise.

There isn't that many because most of them were blurry.

Thanks to everyone for their text and messages!

Toni xoxo

Last days in New Zealand

Sunday 3 April 2010

After my exhilirating Bungy jump I said goodbye to Jason and Juliet again not knowing when I would see them again and headed back to the batch to have a shower before heading out of town. Before leaving Taupo though we went for a quick walk to view Huka Falls.

After our tourist stop we headed on to Auckland to stay with Daniel for the night before I flew out the next day back to Aussie.

Daniel was staying house sitting (they obviously didn't know Daniel that well! :)) in an oh so fancy house so Zac and I rocked up

with booze on hand and as it so happens Pam was around so the four of us sat around in the spa for hours, and hours and hours, drinking, reimising about the old times and generally having a great catch up.

There were a few minor spa incidents but nothing that couldn't be handled by four drunk people, plastic cups and the first aid kit!!

The camera unfotuantely didn't come out, but maybe thats not such a bad thing ....

It did make me miss my life back in New Zealand though and my old friends, but I look forward to the next one - maybe you could all come over here!

New Zealand - Part 4 - Taupo Bungy

Sunday 3 April 2010

After saying goodbye to Debra, Jason, Juliet, Zac and I headed to Taupo Bungy!

I had always wanted to do a Bungy Jump, but with my leg never thought I could, I decided to give it a try anyway. As Jason didn't want to do it and Juliet having already done one, me and Zac paid up and waited our turn in line.

As the line got shorter the more nervous I got, OMG what am I doing, ok so I jumped out of a plane - well helicopter actually - I can do this. But the thing with skydiving is that you don't have to push yourself your instructor does.

As I go up there, I was feeling even more nervous, as I got closer to the edge and looked down I thought WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING. One count down goes by with a little nudge from the instructor, before I grab onto the rail, ok, ok I can do this, give me a minute. She tells me its only going to get harder the longer I stand there, but when you are looking down at a little elastic band that is supposedly going to hold your weight and not let you die, the harder it is to convince yourself to jump off the edge.

After a couple of minutes I told myself to stop being so stupid and I couldn't back out, what would my friends say - Wussss - so I sucked it up, did the countdown, she pushed me a little harder this time and wwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee - well if you watch the video you know that is not what I said - but it was fantastic, great, excellent and would totally recommend it!!

The videos I have below - one is from the pack I brought and the other one is kindly taken by Jason and Juliet.

This movie is me at the top, getting ready to jump

This is me jumping - from spectators view

This is Zac jumping - not quite taking as long as I did!