The Land of the Jillie-Villies: Return of the Evil Deceptive Demon, Part 1

Shortly after the release of...

THE LAND OF THE JILLIE-VILLIES- RETURN OF THE EVIL DECEPTIVE DEMON

in 2006, serious planning began for a sequel that was to be longer, full of humour, romance, evil demons, supernatural themes, possibly a little of violence and.... was going to be at least 10 TIMES BETTER THAN THE FiRST ONE. So after 4 years of spasmodic work on the story... it is finally FINISHED! Well at least part one is...and here it is:

*Disclaimer: the following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

After several peaceful years in the land of the Jillie-Villies, the tranquillity was suddenly disturbed by an unknown source of despair and destruction. The first sign of a disturbance was at the annual Royal Ball when Sir Jonathonathon Athonathon's sparkly magnificent medal of specialness was stolen by a person or persons' unknown.

The whole town heard about the unfortunate happenings on JV News and was extremely horrified at such disturbing information. Nothing of this nature had happened since the notorious evil deceptive Deborah Rose was at large. Fearful whispers of her return were beginning to surface. We are yet to receive confirmation on the unknown source, I will say this though... it was not a good time to be in the land of the Jillie-Villies.

*

Meanwhile many, many miles away, Prince Mitchellthon Athitchlethon, brother of the beautiful Princess Laurina Kortina, had just stopped with his Nobel Stead (White Stallion) for a drink at the Lake of Life. They were enjoying the peaceful aura that surrounds the lake when suddenly the once calm water was bubbling like a kid blowing on their milkshake straw and something started to emerge from the water. The site of the rising girl was breathtaking. Prince Mitchellthon Athitchlethon thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on, in fact probably the most beautiful girl in the land. She approached him and asked him to take her back to his village. She looked up at him and the moment their eyes met the Prince felt as though every thought had been wiped from his mind and the most important thing in the world was to take this enchanting unidentified woman back to the Village of the Jillie Villies.

What Prince Mitchellthon Athitchelthon did not realise was that the beautiful woman was really the evil deceptive Deborah Rose, who underneath her deceiving disguise she was as horrible and appalling as Santa forgetting Christmas. With her cold, frozen heart and ridiculously hard bunions on her size 6 feet she was nothing but pure evil. In her monstrous form she may look like your average slime faced villain, but in reality... she is so much more than that.

How is this possible you ask? Well, it just so happened, that the rose bomb everybody thought had destroyed Deborah Rose all those years ago, did not completely erase her from the earth but merely postponed the real destruction she had planned for the land of the Jillie Villies. One windy day after the explosion, her remains were blown far into the west, by a gust of wind some villagers believe was sent by the Devil himself, into the Lake of Life where she was made whole, but not completely whole because she still had an ugly gaping hole in her heart. She was trapped in her liquefied form, waiting until just the right unsuspecting fool drank from the depths of the Lake of Life. This unsuspecting fool, well you know who he was...

When the Prince and this strange mystical woman finally got back to the village (thirty minutes later) Prince Mitchellthon Athitchlethon felt the sudden urge to ask for her hand in marriage! She, of course, said yes because this was undoubtedly part of her evil plan which no doubt was about to wreak havoc amongst the Land of the Jillie-Villies. The Prince introduced his beautiful fiancé to all in the land. Every single, woman who thought they ever had a chance with the Prince were devastated and extremely jealous of the woman's flawless beauty. The women refused to give "Harobed Esor" (Deborah Rose) a chocolate drop hat, which everybody in the village wears as a symbol of unity and friendship because they did not want her to be a part of their village. Clearly, their intuition was telling them this was no normal woman.

Because the Prince wanted his beloved fiancé to have a hat and be an important part of his village he did the only option he had when so many were against him. He went to seek out the O Wise Jillie-Villie, whom the town was named after. He could not understand why even some of the men objected to inducting Harobed Esor into the Village. The O Wise Jillie-Villie would give him insight into this problem.

O wise Jillie-Villie lived in a mansion on a hill next to the hill on which the Royal families servants lived, which was next to the hill on which the Royal family themselves, lived. A Wise-O-Wall, invented by O Wise Jillie-Ville, protected her house, which made the mansion invisible to the unwise eye.

Now because the Prince and the whole Royal family are so wise they can usually see the castle. But alas, Prince Mitchellthon Athitchlethon was utterly disturbed to discover that he could not find the mansion anywhere. He knew where it should be and was standing on the exact spot but it was as if he was just standing on a normal green hill with a completely flat surface. There was no sign of a massive mansion anywhere (duh!). Yet again, the Prince did not know that the reason he could not see through the Wise-O-Wall was because he was being unknowingly unwise. Marrying Deborah Rose who he thought was 'Harobed Esor' was going to be a very, very unwise decision according to the O Wise Jillie-Villie. Deborah Rose was controlling the Prince with her secret mind powers. She had put a spell over the Lake of Life, which affected him when he drank from it and wiped his mind of anything that might have distracted him from her.

It was quite late now and the Prince just wanted to rest. His beautiful fiancé, aka evil deceptive Deborah Rose, suggested that they go to her cottage for the night so they didn't have to be disturbed by the others at the Palace. Prince Mitchelthon Athitchelthon obliged and they headed off to the Valley where her beautiful white cottage was.

When they got to the cottage Prince Mitchelthon Athitchelthon was slightly surprised to see that the cottage was absolutely beautiful. It was so clean and sparkly looking, with a nice evergreen, flowering garden. However, when he stepped inside he was outright horrified to see what a mess it was. It was disgusting with a thick layer of dust covering the floor, fungus, and grime growing on everything he could see, and rats nosing in the piles of rubbish littering the hallway. He wondered how something so nice on the outside could be so, so terribly horrible on the inside.

*

Next morning when Prince Mitchelthon Athitchelthon expressed his feelings of disgust about the house to his dear fiancé, he told her he would give her the funds to get it cleaned up and redecorated, she was not happy at first (because she likes filth, because she is an evil monster...) but agreed saying if it made him happy. The Prince thought that surely there was no way anyone could live like this without getting some sort of disease. The Prince then left for the Palace to announce his wedding and left the evil, deceptive Deborah Rose to call for the painter in the village to come to fix up the inside of her house.

She was calling Paton the Painter from 'Painton', the only painter in the land, who guarantees that he will "paint-on" your paint, well that's what the add says anyway.

Paton said he would come as soon as possible, anything for a member of the Royal family, or future member mind you. Deborah Rose used her magic to clean up all the rubbish and fungi but decided to leave the rats, thinking they gave the house some character.

*

Now back to the real story, Sir Jonathon Athonathon was weeping in the Sheriff's office because they still had not managed to find the culprit of this unspeakable crime. Sir Jonathon Athonathon was so distressed and very tired due to the lack of sleep he had had since his medal was so cruelly taken. He felt so lost without his medal of specialness hanging around his neck, without it he was of course not so special. Sheriff Willough tried to reassure Sir Jonathon by telling him that they were doing everything they could to try and find the thief and he would be severely punished. Also, Sheriff Willough had received a tip-off that Bradley Gadley Clown man/Gift stealer was back in business. He had been spotted all over town at several children's parties, fleeing the scenes with giant bags filled with what we can only assume were presents, as there have been no missing children. Sir Jonathon Athonathon was going to sleep easy tonight knowing that the Sheriff had Bella Caramella, Wonder Sniffer Dog out helping all the troupes.

As soon as this peaceful thought came to mind, Sir Jonathon Athonathon was pulled back from his reverie by an ear-splitting; crashing noise from outside. They ran out to see what all the commotion was about only to discover that it was just the village idiot, Jedi Night who was trying to impress some very scared looking schoolgirls. By the looks of the debris, he had tried to ride his unicycle to show off his impressive skills (because girls only like guys who have great skills!). However, he only managed to ride a little way when he lost his balance and crashed into a number of dustbins by the alley. The girls screamed as he got up and made advances towards them. One of them managed to come to their senses and shouted for them to run and they all went sprinting off around the corner.

The Sheriff sighed and muttered, 'every afternoon, freaking village idiot!' as he hurried off to put him in the cell for an hour or so, knowing full well that his attempts at teaching the idiot a lesson are futile, at least gets him out of the way for a bit.

Sir Jonathon Athonathon had now lost hope and decided to go for a long walk to clear his head and then maybe he would drown his sorrows later with a big bucket of double chocolate, chocolate chip ice-cream.

He decided to walk around the valley and see the beautiful Lake of Life to help calm him down, it usually always works. On his way to the lake, he noticed Paton the Painter from "Painton" the only painter in the land, who guarantees that he would 'paint-on' your paint, drive past in his "Painton" paint truck. Jonathon Athonathon became quite curious as to why Paton would be driving to that side of town to the valley, seeing as no one lived in that area he would not have anything to paint.

The valley was just that, a valley, no one lived in the valley. The people of Jillie-Villie for years have been trying to make their Valley as clean and beautiful so that it would create a reason for tourists to come and visit, they loved visitors. Their want for visitors was also due to fact that the oracle confessed last year the Village was to go into a time of great poverty sometime in the near future because everyone was so kind and giving to neighbouring villages.

Sir Jonathon Athonathon decided to think nothing of Paton the painter's suspicious acts and continue his journey to the lake of life. After all, he did have more important things to think about.

When he finally got there, the peaceful aura surrounding the lake calmed him down straight away. Sir Jonathon was comforted just by seeing the lakes beauty and breathing in all the fresh air.

As he was basking in the sunshine, the look of a beautiful white cottage was noticeable through the gaps in the trees. Sir Jonathon Athonathon knew every part of this valley like the back of his hand and he had never before seen such a cottage right in the middle of the valley.

Sir Jonathon Athonathon felt a sudden rush of fury. Who gave permission for someone to build a house in his carefully preserved vegetation? He thought he would sort this out straight away and was already on his way up to the house to ask the owner what possessed them to ruin his town's greatest attraction when he saw that Paton's 'Paint-on' truck was parked outside of the house and the front door was ajar.

So this is why Paton was heading this way but what could he have to do with this serious breach of justice? He decided to go for the secret ninja approach so he could find out as much as possible before revealing himself.

Sir Jonathon Athonathon quietly crept up to the white picket fence surrounding the area of the house where he was luckily concealed behind a large Flutterby bush. At that moment none other than Paton the Painter from "Painton" emerged from the house followed by a woman so beautiful that he had completely forgotten where he was for a couple of minutes before he snapped out of it. Sir Jonathon Athonathon noticed the pair were acting very friendly, too friendly if you asked him. They were definitely most obviously flirting. This was an outrage.

As Jonathon Athonathon very well knew Paton the Painter from "Painton" has been happily married to his wife Tahneeti for three long years and they were actually expecting a baby girl.

Paton the Painter from "Painton" walked to his truck to get some supplies, two large pots of paint and a couple of brushes and the woman went back inside. Jonathon Athonathon assumed that Paton was here to paint the inside of this goddess's house. As he went inside, the woman walked outside with some gardening tools and a watering can. She must be going to prune her garden thought Jonathon Athonathon.

Sir Jonathon sat behind the Flutterby bush for nearly an hour before Paton the Painter from "Painton" came out of the house with his stuff and put it back in the truck. He had obviously finished for the day.

Sir Jonathon Athonathon thought he must not have done much work in only an hour; usually, Paton is sufficient and gets the job done without wasting time. The woman put down her pruning scissors and walked over to Paton to talk to him. They were talking for about fifteen minutes. Jonathon Athonathon was disappointed that he could not hear exactly what they were saying but he did hear the odd occasional words like thank you, wrong and sweet. Then he saw them kiss! They kissed! Well, that was just not on! Married men do not kiss other women, Sir Jonathon thought to himself, making a mental note to give Paton a talking too. In Jonathon Athonathons haste to get back to the village to investigate more about this mystery woman, he failed to see the most important thing that came out of the, quite literally, deadly kiss. From the eyes of any other third party observer on the scene, they would have noticed that almost instantly after the kiss occurred Paton the Painter from "Painton" painters fell to the ground as his lips turned the poison colour of a poisonous kiss, and was seen dragged into the house by a spell of the evil. deceptive. Deborah Rose.

Sir Jonathon Athonathon practically ran all the way back to the village, mustering all the energy he had. When he entered the Village square he found lots of posters and signs that had been roughly stuck on every pole, shop window, and bin he could see. Sir Jonathon moved closer to examine one of the posters. He felt a pang of annoyance as he read the invitation was for the wedding of Prince Mitchelthon Athitchelthon, Princess Laurina Kortina's brother, to a woman whose name he did not recognise. Sir Jonathon knew there was definitely something wrong here. Sir Jonathon Athonathon was very close to the Prince and knew for a fact that the Prince would at least tell him about this engagement before he told the whole town and he was not even aware the Prince was dating anyone, especially someone so obviously foreign. All he knew now was that he was going to get to the bottom of this mystery if it was the last thing he did.

Sir Jonathon Athonathon went home feeling a little irritated that he did not know where this girl came from and how long she had even been here for. He thought he knew everyone and everything about the town. He was at least glad to see he had an invite waiting for him in his letterbox.

To be continued...

The Adventure of the beautiful town of Jillie-Villie: ATTACK OF THE DEMON.

Way back in 2006 Laura Korte and I put our minds together and came up with this wondrous story...

It was a quiet day in Jillie-Villie and Mitchy Hitchy one of the pixie fairy villagers was walking peacefully admiring the beauty of the town when all of a sudden an evil demon with horns carrying a pitchfork, named Deborah Rose grabbed him and bound him in strong cords then brought him back to her evil lair where she forced him to marry her. After the marriage, she threw him into a cage where all her other many husbands were locked up never to escape except for the very odd occasion when she felt alone and depressed or needed them to massage the bunions on her size 6 feet.

Two and a half years later a red-headed pixie fairy, named Jonathon Athonathon was walking along in Jillie-Villie minding his own business when he saw the evil demon Deborah Rose flying past evilly cackling her evil cackle. Soon after Jonathon Athonathon heard screams nearby that sounded like they were coming from the fairy princess Laurina Kortina’s castle. Jonathon Athonathon then saw the evil demon Deborah Rose holding the beautiful fairy princess Laurina Kortina with long blonde wavy hair tied up in strong cords. Jonathon Athonathon tried to stop Deborah Rose from escaping Jillie-Villie with their much-admired fairy princess but he wasn’t quick enough. With the thought of losing Jillie-Villie’s fairy princess forever, Jonathon Athonathon secretly and carefully flew after the evil demon as speedily as he could with hopes to get the fairy princess safely back to her glorious castle in Jillie-Villie.

He followed them all the way to the evil, cunning, deceptive Deborah Rose’s lair way out in the dark, deserted valley beyond.

He carefully and quietly watched through the window and waited for the right time to save Princess Laurina Kortina.

Jonathon Athonathon was then horrified to see Deborah Rose throw the still bound fairy princess into a large, dirty, black cauldron.

Princess Laurina Kortina was desperately crying out for help while Deborah Rose went into another room to gather poisonous ingredients to add to her soup in her cauldron. On the way to get her ingredients she passed her many husbands that were locked away in a large cage and Mitchy Hitchy the poor Jillie-Villie villager that was captured two and a half years ago, and many of the others locked away screamed, “LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT!” But Deborah Rose just laughed her evil deceiving laugh, “MWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HAH” and went on her way.

Jonathon Athonathon seized the opportunity to save the fair maiden and flew through the window, grabbed Princess Laurina Kortina and flew straight back out the window. As he did so Deborah Rose walked into the room and started screeching, “HOW DARE YOU MESS WITH MY PLANS, BRING HER BACK!” Before Deborah Rose could do anything to stop Jonathon Athonathon, he quickly and forcefully threw one of his flower bombs filled with love and rose thorns (that were guaranteed to destroy any evil thing) at the evil demon and at an instant the evil demon Deborah Rose was destroyed utterly and completely.

Jonathon Athonathon then untied the beautiful fairy princess Laurina Kortina, and was just about to fly the princess back to her glorious castle when he heard the desperate cries and pleas of Deborah Rose’s many husbands, he was filled with compassion and quickly released them all and brought them back to the wonderful town of Jillie-Villie with Princess Laurina Kortina.

When they all arrived in Jillie-Villie the fairy princess Laurina Kortina held a great town gathering and in front of the whole town she said to Jonathon Athonathon, “Thank you, oh red-headed one, for not only saving me but for saving all the many others the evil demon Deborah Rose had locked away in her evil lair”. Princess Laurina Kortina then awarded Jonathon Athonathon a sparkly, magnificent medal of specialness and was dubbed Sir Jonathon Athonathon. Then because Jonathon Athonathon was the hero of all Jillie-Villie he was praised by the Jillie-Villie pixie fairy villagers, who had blue eyes, and hats like chocolate drops.

Everyone from Jillie-Villie lived happily ever after, thanks to Sir Jonathon Athonathon.

End of a Season, Start of Another... (Take Two)

OK, so it turned out that I was wrong about the netball season for the women's team being over, they split the division in half so we ended up getting into the finals which amazed us all. We played the team we played against most of the time (every time we played them it was always pretty close but we had never actually won against them), again it was a very close game but even more so this time as we ended up having a draw. Due to it being a final we couldn't end on a draw so it went into extended time, the pressure was on but our team couldn't quite handle the intensity of it all and ended up losing by 3 goals. Despite losing it was a really good game and one we were quite happy to end the season with.

During the week we were yet again surprised to find out that the season still wasn't over for us and that we would be playing in the grand final! It turned out that team that was meant to be playing the team we lost against all pulled out as they all decided it would be better to go to the Pink concert instead, so we would have to play that team again. The day of the grand final came and everyone was really excited and pumped for the game, as we would have never thought we would ever make it to the grand final winning only one game. We all excitedly put our bibs on and got into our positions waiting for the other team to do so and for the game to begin. However, the other team were just sitting on the bench as it turned out that some of their players didn't rock up, leaving them with only 4 players when the minimum required is 5. The umpires gave them 5 minutes to try and find another player or else they would have to forfeit the game as it was the grand final. The other team frantically made phone calls trying to bring in another player at the last second, the 5 minutes ran out and still they had no fifth player so our team were declared the winners of the grand final. Our team were all pretty happy to hear this news and thought it was quite humorous that we had only ever properly won one game, miraculously got into the finals, got into the grand final by default and then won by default, classic!

Even though we had won the grand final we weren't quite satisfied as we had all psyched ourselves up for the game so we decided that it would be good to have a scratch match, the other team were good sports about the whole situation and agreed to the scratch match with Sarah (Alex's sister) playing for them. It was a good relaxed game, I got play shooter which was a bit a of change from my usual positions in defence which was fun and afterwards there was a presentation and our team were given blue water bottles that said Premiers on them. I kinda felt bad for the other team because they were only given small red water bottles that said runner-up but I suppose at least they got something.

Well anyway, now on to Chocolate Thunder... We have now played four games, it is lots of fun probably even more fun than women's netball and each game is always quite entertaining. We aren't overly good and haven't won any games yet but we are still getting used to the whole mixed netball thing and sorting out positions, mixed netball is quite a lot faster than women's so that means we are constantly moving. After the first game, Seth Mutton who was our backup enjoyed playing and now plays every game which is handy because Dane isn't available most of the time due to mutual. We have had one training but not everyone could make it and we didn't really take it as seriously as we could have, but yeah I guess we'll have to work on that. I now play in goals as GS or GA most of the time as none of us can really shoot which is probably one of our downfalls but I am slowly getting the hang of it. The last game we played was at 9:30 so Dane was able to play, this was probably our best game yet as we all worked well, my shooting was probably the best that is has been so far and the score was actually sort of close, although we did learn that because we didn't have a scorer the other team automatically got 5 goals put onto their score. So yeah we just have to get a scorer, figure out all our positions and maybe have another practice and I'm sure we'll improve and maybe even be able to win a game...if not then it doesn't matter too much because it is lots of fun.

End of a Season, Start of Another...

Alright, to sum up how this netball season went let's just say we never did end up having a training, our team was quite inconsistent with Ellen moving after the first game and just other players being unavailable some weeks making it so we never had the same people each week and constantly having to get fill-ins. However we did end up winning one game with the score being 13-16, we recruited two players who had never played a proper game of netball before, Tahnee Granger and Jaclyn (Jacy) Crosley, and we did have a lot of fun despite losing the majority of the time.

Well this Tuesday just gone was our last game of the season and prior to that we decided we would like to continue playing because it has been quite fun, except this time play mixed netball instead of just women's, so after we finished the game we filled out a registration form for a mixed netball team. Our new team will consist of Deborah, Jacy, Tahnee, Sarah Willoughby, Dane Granger, Jared Willoughby, Mitchell Herrick, and myself with our backups being Lauren, Eleazar (Ezz) Quinto and Seth Mutton. We were struggling to come up with a name so thanks to me we will be called CHOCOLATE THUNDERRR as this was the one most people agreed on...they didn't like the idea of Humpback Whales or White Lightning so Chocolate Thunder was the winner. Our season starts on the 11th of August so hopefully this season our team will be more consistent than before, we will be able to get on well, play well together, have as much fun if not more fun than before, and be able to achieve the things that I wasn't able to able achieve last season.

Well anyways, getting off the topic of netball I recently received another cousin that I forgot to mention previously, Olivia Mahoney born 12:01 on the 19th of May, daughter of Mel Kelly and Andrew Mahoney. This makes her my 18th cousin on the Mahoney side of the family and my 31st cousin all up. We saw her the other day when Aunty Mel dropped Charlotte at our house and brought Olivia with her. Olivia has grown a fair bit from when we first saw her at the hospital, she is looking pretty healthy and is quite pretty so you can tell she will be attractive when she gets older. Despite Olivia's growth, this hasn't really changed mum's first reaction to her, I think mum wants to steal her...

Well, I think this will be all for now, although I shall have to keep you updated on how CHOCOLATE THUNDERRRR goes this season.

Got That Netball Feeling..

Recently I have joined a netball team, consisting of Alex Crosley, Alex's older sister, Ellen Soininen, Sarah Granger, my sister Melanie, Deborah Clements, Deborah's school friend Sophia and possibly her other friend Veronica (Vonni), and myself.... (we may also recruit my younger sister Lauren).

We play at the Turramurra Rec Centre on Tuesday Nights in a 'social' competition against 7 other teams. We had our first game last week and I think it's safe to say that all of us were a bit rusty and needed to work on our 'gameplay'. Our first game went alright, we did lose, not by a whole lot but it wasn't quite as social as we had expected, as the other team were quite serious about what was going on and were a bit catty even though they were clearly winning. As a result, we decided that we needed to have a couple of trainings where would work on improving general fitness and our 'gameplay', even though we haven't actually got around to doing this yet.

Yesterday night we played our 2nd game of the season, Mel and Ellen were away because they went on a trip to Canberra, Soph was also away for some reason so Vonni replaced her. I got Lauren to replace Ellen, we went to the temple beforehand and other unfortunate events occurred making us extremely late and missing the first quarter. Mel and Soph play shooter and Ellen and I play defence, so for the first quarter we had no players that played shooter or defence as well as some missing positions, so I guess you could say our team was struggling, finishing the first quarter on something like 0-14. Lauren and I finally made our way there, running straight from the car park onto the court in time for the second quarter. Deb was playing GK and Alex was playing GD, they called time and went to swap with Lauren and myself but the umpire said that we couldn't do that and that Deb and Alex had to stay in those positions and that Lauren and I had to fill in the missing positions. These positions were a little foreign to Lauren and I, with Lauren going WD and me going WA, so the second quarter was still a little bad, however, we did at least score. Third-quarter we swapped and got into our usual positions which made things a little better apart from the fact that our shooters couldn't shoot overly well, but it was none the less entertaining. Fourth-quarter Alex had a go at shooter which was quite the change from her usual positions but she did eventually get a goal so that was good. We finished up the game with a total of 5 goals...which was kind of funny in comparison to the other teams 42 or so goals.

Overall it was a good game, lots of fun was had, lots of non-stop running occurred especially for Lauren and I as a result of our inexperienced shooters, the team we played against had a good time and were more relaxed than the team we first played, however, we decided we still need to have a training to work on some things and get to the netball game about 15 minutes beforehand.

From this netball season, I hope to able to have some good fun, improve my general fitness, and be able to get back into the whole netball thing. So once we we've sorted out some things and got our team to a similar standard as the other teams it should be all good, I'll have to keep you updated on how we go.

Easter Weekend

This Easter weekend Mel and I ventured over to Melbourne as there were a fair few other YSA's heading over there the annual basketball competition... but mainly because I had never been to Melbourne before. We left early Friday morning with about 3 or so hours of sleep, we didn't leave on Thursday because it was Emily King's 18th birthday party and I had promised her that I would be attending and bringing along an awesome present. The present I got Emily was a gumball machine...well really a jelly belly dispenser filled with gumballs because I searched far and wide and the only proper gumball machine I was able to find was this AFL one which would not do at all...well anyways Emily loved it.

The early morning travels were great, with lack of sleep not being a problem as our travels were filled with candy and a bunch of Cd's I made the night before containing many classics by various artists such as Prince, UB40, Backstreet Boys, The Cure, R.E.M., The Killers and other randoms, making for some awesome car karaoke. We made our first stop in Horsham at Maccas where we met up with Mike, Jonny, Simon, and Adam who were enjoying a nice breakfast...we missed Maccas breakfast so we resorted McCafe hot cross buns n frappes, which was a good change from candy. We then went our separate ways and continued our journey to the land of Melbourne.

After several more stops we finally made our way into Melbourne and as we travelled down the east link I noticed that Melbourne has a fair few random statues such as a huge crow eating a french fry or a square worm, a hotel, and something that looks like a large piece of farm machinery with leaves all over it or something. When we came to the Kannar's household where we were apparently going to be staying...they weren't home but they left the doors unlocked so we could shower and stuff. As we entered the house it felt so weird, like we were intruding because neither one of us had been there before and we had to search the house in order to find the bathrooms. Once we had showered and were dressed the Kannar's had returned home and I finally got to meet my 2nd cousin, Sally and her husband(Mel had met them before on a previous trip to Melbourne). They then informed us that we would not be staying with them but around the corner at my dad's other cousin, Craig Tennant's place. After we finished getting ready we followed Sally to the Tennant's and were amazed to see how huge their house was. Inside was really nice as well and we later found out that Craig's wife, Lesley was an interior designer, thus explaining why it was so nice.

Our Great Aunty Pat(Grandpa Foster's sister) was also staying at the Tennant's for the Easter weekend so we got to know her a bit better. We had hot Milo's and watched a bit of TV with her and she randomly got a buttered roll and started dipping it in her Milo which we thought was a bit weird..so yes we discovered that she's pretty much a girl version of grandpa which was hilarious. She told us many stories about grandpa when they were younger, like him wanting to help around the house by weeding..but instead pulling out all his dad's bean plants. She also showed us a picture of Nana with her friends when she was younger which was interesting.

We headed off for the dance and found that everything Melbourne takes forever to get to which was annoying. The dance was held in a random hall which was a bit weird and proved a challenge to find, but once we got there wasn't too bad. After the dance, a bunch of us went to Krispy Kreme's which made my night. Jonny discovered that we were able to get a free sample of a fresh, hot doughnut which was quite nice...and while experiencing the Krispy Kremes, Jonny took the chance to share a few of his token jokes(I had heard the majority of them before so they weren't quite as funny as the first time but still quality).

On Saturday we woke up later than planned so we just got ready and headed off to the DFO in the city where Katie works and met up with Laura and Emma Korte. We spent the majority of the day looking around the shops and even though I didn't actually buy anything was still good fun...but exhausting. Mel and I then checked out Federation Square and the Ferris wheel..or should I say 'The GIANT Wheel'...we also saw some weird statue that we couldn't actually come to the conclusion of what it was, and some bell display thing. We then headed up to Elliot Rancie's party where there was a small fire, in which we toasted marshmallows..the night was good fun.

On Sunday we hit up conference at the Tennant's ward and then after went to a Family Easter lunch/dinner where a lot of extended family and friends of the family were present... we didn't really know many people but there was good food..there were also a few interesting dishes such as a jelly dish which apparently didn't turn out as planned and as a result was given the name of 'alien vomit'. Afterwards we went back to the Kannar's and watched a bit of One Tree Hill, then Mel and I went to the Murphy's place. There wasn't as many Adelaide people at this gathering(well Jonny was there with his jokes again), so we got to met a few people from Melbourne we hadn't met before... and was introduced to the 'Awkward Turtle' which a hand signal made when you are in an awkward situation so friends will come and rescue you...this then evolved from a hand signal to a full body movement...I am yet to use this...but when I do it will be epic.

On the Monday before returning home we went with the Tennant's and the Kannar's to a beach at Sorrento for most of the day where we had a picnic lunch and played a variation of volleyball that then turned into a game of catch standing in the shallow water..if you failed to catch the ball then everyone else was obligated to splash you... as a result many became soaked.

At about 6ish we finally made our way back to Adelaide. We had already listened to the Cd's I made so we decided to explore my old CD collection and I must say...'there ain't no party like an sclub party!'

Overall, from my first trip to Melbourne I thought it was a nice place with nice people, despite the random statues and the travelling distance between places, and I enjoyed getting to know my extended family.

Finally...

Alright, I think like a week or so ago the idea of keeping a blog was presented to me. At first ill admit I wasn't overly keen on the idea but then I remembered how when I was younger I used to have a sort of blog thing happening on the MSN space thing and when I went back and read all the things I wrote I was able to remember the circumstances in which I wrote each entry which was quite entertaining for myself. Hence I concluded that I couldn't actually come up with any real reason for not writing a blog and that it couldn't hurt...so here goes.



(For all those people reading this blog I would like you to have absolutely no expectations...that way whenever I get around to writing blog entries, anything I write will be good.)



At the moment I am in the process of making a recipe book. I have been meaning to make this recipe book for some time now...2 years I think. The idea of making a recipe book came to me after one of my favourite brownie recipes was lost when my younger sister Lauren took the recipe book containing the magical brownie recipe to school for Home Ec and the Home Ec teacher (Mrs Mason) stole it from her and never returned it. From this horrible event, I decided that I didn't want any more of my favourite recipes to be lost so I would make a recipe book containing all of them. This recipe book is not only a compilation of my favourite recipes but also random recipes from magazines and other various places that I thought sounded nice or would be interesting to see how they turn out. Funny enough most of the recipes I have so far have been desserts...as I am quite the fan of all things sweet. I do however plan to build up the savoury section.

Once the recipe book is completed I have decided I will make copies for certain people... Laura, because she is quite the fussy eater and I want her to be able to have a variety of recipes to turn to once she eventually gets married so her husband will not have to suffer, even though she probably won't eat them herself. Mel, because she and her old housemate were given a recipe book to share as a birthday present...but that housemate has since moved out and is married, taking with her the recipe book leaving Mel with none. Levi, because he is going on a mission soon and will need to know how to make some nutrition yet simple and quick meals.


Even though at first they may not appreciate my amazing recipe book, they will one day be in need of one of my magical recipes and forever be thankful for the wonders that Jfo's Recipe book offers.