Christmas

This Christmas was my first Christmas at home in two years so I was super excited for it. Normally, our family has a tradition where we'll all head to Christmas Eve mass then go back to my aunt's house for a massive Christmas dinner. The next day we'd all wake up early and head over to another aunt's house to celebrate Christmas Day and my little cousin's birthday AND then we'd all head to the beach on boxing day for a family BBQ. For some reason this year it didn't happen *cue 1000 tears*

I ended up having an amazing Christmas anyway though filled with food and family and love and just good vibes in general. On Christmas Day, we were invited over for lunch by some family friends and then dinner by some other family friends so we did that instead. Hopefully next year the family tradition will resume but until then, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and that 2017 will be amazing for you. 

(Also I know I'm yet to post about Japan and Taiwan but I don't want to until I get some photos from Caleb and Oliver first which might take a while.)

The fam heading off to Chrismas Eve mass

We were taking selfies and when my older sister realised, she pulled up her teddy bear so that it could also be in our photo. I actually laughed so hard at this (and so did my other sisters as you can see from the changes in our smiles between the first and second photo).

They own five doggos!!! FIVE!!!!

On the 28th, Alice, Dat, Oliver and I headed down to Springbrook National Park for a hike and swim in the waterfalls there. The waterfalls didn't look as inviting as they used to though so we decided to go to the beach after our hike. Cannot explain how much I love the beach. We wanted to catch a beach sunset but thanks to the Australian summer, that didn't happen till 6:40 and by then, Alice's parking time would have been waaay up. So we decided to head back early and instead caught the sunset while we were heading back to Brisbane.

I spent the last few days of 2016 with my family, going out for breakfasts, scrapbooking and spending time by myself. It's literally been one of the most significant years of my life so far, especially with exchange and everything else that has happened. I'm so glad to say that I ended 2016 feeling happy, something that I haven't been able to say for quite a while. Peace.