K and I have needed to get away for quite some time as the last few weeks have been pretty rough on us. It was so good to be able to completely relax and chill out at my parents beach house, and not have to worry about rushing to be somewhere, or do something that required extra thinking! Our brains had earned a well deserved break, and we had an amazing quiet weekend just being together.

My parents beach house is situated in Blairgowrie, in the Mornington Peninsula which is about an hours drive from Melbourne CBD. We've had this house for over 10 years in our family, and I've seen it transform from being pretty horrid inside to something that is very homey. It still has a long way to go, but it has good character and a lot of potential! A diamond in the rough if you may. We got to the house at about 10pm on Friday night, we would have got there earlier, however we made a stop at Chadstone where I purchased my first full frame camera - the Canon 6D! I cannot tell you how much I am loving this camera, the added Wi-fi feature is a real help with uploading to instagram, so I'll be carrying it with me a lot!!
We got up late on Saturday morning - we needed a good sleep in after Burdie, (aka BurdieWood) our baby cat, kept us awake by exploring her new surrounds! Naughty kitty! We headed off to Sorrento, (which is a beach side town about a 5 minutes drive away) just before lunch and chose a cute cafe by the name of 'Buckley's Chance' to dine at. They had these adorable menus, which were made out of 'Little Golden Books', a series of story books that were around when I was very young. I remember I had a huge collection of those books, but now the originals are hard to come by. 

After flicking through the menu, K decided on the slow cooked beef foccacia, and I went for the full Buckley's Breakfast! Both were pretty good, and even though Sorrento is well know to be a little pricey - it wasn't that expensive at all. Around $14-$16 each for what we ate. 

After our bellies were full, we walked the many arty stores that lined the town, and were amazed at some of the art that people had designed. This one particular shop was heavily into wood art - and there was a huge elephant, a pig, and a bull with huge horns made entirely of pieces of wood that were found on the beach. It was just inspiring, but I'm not entirely sure where you would put a massive wooden bull though at your house! I did however, as it was pretty hot, bought some cute handmade burgundy shorts with white lace trim to wear around the house for $12. Not bad!

We made our way down to the beach, stopping at the botanical gardens and taking a few snaps, before heading to the pier and watched the sailboats with their fishermen, the speedboats and even caught a seat plane taking off! It was such a nice day - I really should have listened to my dear husband when he said 'put sunscreen on', which now I'm regretting not doing because my feet and neck are quite burnt! Silly me :( But I'll live (I think). At least my feet and legs got a really good exfoliation walking along the beach though!

I actually enjoyed this weekend a lot, it felt great to just take our time and do what we wanted - and take as many photos as we could with the new camera of course! I am very much looking forward to the Christmas holidays which are just over two weeks away so we can spend more time together, and enjoy the festivities the city has to offer - and not forgetting the Boxing Day sales! Hopefully the next few working weeks go really really fast!

What are you doing for the Christmas holidays?

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They are hereeeeee! We only had our engagement shoot last Saturday and we thought it would take awhile to get them back, but we had them in our hands in record time!
We were told they were ready to be picked up, but as we had other commitments, we wouldn't be able to get them until next weekend. But K, the sneaky thing, surprised me last night when he came over! I can't believe how good they are, and Neiyo did an AMAZING job capturing us. I can't wait for her to do our wedding photography! 
We kept our photos simple, with limited decoration, so we only had vintage books, suitcases and a basket full of iced donuts and cupcakes. (and they were delicious by the way!) So what do you think? Don't we look like a totally loved up couple?!! Enjoy! :)

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K and I finally got to have our engagement photography session today with our very talented wedding photographer Neiyo Sun. (You can view Neiyo's amazing work here on her blog) I was nervous about a week before the session because I was worried all our preparation & hard work finding props, wasn't going to be enough. I needed to have not worried as we had more than enough, and everything looked just as we wanted it to be! 
We wanted our session to be rustic/country/relaxed, as our wedding will be just that - so we wanted to keep things on the same level and not be too formal and boring! I even got up early and went to the local hair salon (which from K's house is 5 minutes away!) and had my hair put into an up-do, I found the style on Pintrest and thought it would suit. I LOVED this hairstyle, and Dee from Madeeka did a fantastic job of recreating it from the image I sent her. I think she'll become my hairdresser when I finally move to Melbourne :)

I should have a sneak peek of our session on either Sunday or Monday, and we won't get the official photos for about 2 weeks. I can't WAIT to see them. So stay tuned!

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Yesterday K and I were advised when we got home from shopping in Mongkok, that the Hong Kong Observatory had put out a level 1 warning. Typhoon Krosa is about 800km away and may or may not affect us. It was a little overcast in the afternoon we got back, but at night it was very very still, which probably isn't the best sign, though I have never experienced typhoon weather before!
It has only just started to spit with rain, and I was able to capture amazing colored sky above from K's mums bedroom, which I've been told is what typhoon weather looks like. 
Apparently its the first typhoon that Hong Kong has had in 7 years in the month of November, and looks like it could rain a fair bit tonight. I hope not too much as we have a wedding tomorrow to go to!

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Sorry I haven't blogged for a few days, I've been rather unwell, and I haven't had the energy to really get off the couch. Needless to say I have more doctors appointments coming up, so I am hoping I will have some answers by the end of the week. I'm feeling a lot better, but still not 100% so please don't hold it against me! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ K and I had decided a few weeks back that we'd do a day trip to Echuca, we hadn't been back there since last year, so it was a well deserved little road trip to take our minds off things. 
There was a Heritage Family Festival going on, and fire works later on in the night, so there were quite a few people around the town. Horse carriage rides, face painting, fairy floss vendors and a petting zoo were some of the family activities to do. It was actually a really sunny day, the best we've had yet and I think it got up to about 27'C, which was the kind of weather I like - not too hot and not too cold! It took us just under an hour to get to Echuca, and we arrived right on lunchtime and we were sooo hungry! One of the reasons we decided to do this road trip was to visit one of the best voted fish and chip shop in the state. We enjoyed it so much last time, we couldn't pass it up their fish are battered in beer batter! So after waiting about 20 minutes for our food, we went and sat on a park bench in the centre of the Port, and watched the festivities. 

We didn't go on any of the river cruises or on the paddle steamer boat, it would have been nice, but the attraction had definitely gone up in price since I last went on it, so we gave it a miss. However, I used this day to spend some quality time with my love, and improve on my photography skills by the time we go to Hong Kong in just over 2 weeks time. I think I've improved a lot in the last few months from not knowing how to use a Canon in the manual setting, to knowing how to use it has been pretty awesome. Though I have a very patient (and cute) teacher!

K took these photos of me in amoungst the flowers, I think they turned out quite pretty! Although I did get some funny ones of K when he least expected it, and his facial expressions are just hilarious!

We drove back mid afternoon, as we were making a stop to visit my Nan and my mum who is now her carer for the time being at her new unit, so mum hasn't been in some time. It was really good to see her, and catch up. Hopefully she'll be back at home with us by Christmas! 
Well that was my weekend, what did you guys get up to this weekend? :-)

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NEUTRALS, NEUTRALS, NEUTRALS! For a girl with my complexion, there is no such thing as owning too many neutral palettes, especially when this one could be the best dupes for Urban Decay's 'Naked' eyeshadow palette which unfortunately for us Aussies - isn't available here. (Unless you want to pay $70+ on eBay for something that is probably fake! But I won't take my chances thanks!)
I saw this in Myer in my hometown a few weekends ago and I didn't fully catch on that it was very similar to Naked, though after doing some research when I got home - I got excited. It was lucky for me the weekend just passed, I was able to pick this little baby up for HALF price. Yup, $17. So I was pretty happy!
The colors are similar to the Naked palette, but not all are spot on. I've already done the research and the pigmentation of these are a little less than I see when people use the Naked palette, but they are still pretty. I'm not one for hugely pigmented eyeshadows, I find them messy, and I think for me being so pale, I'd rather stick with light, natural eyeshadows. 
It's a lovely little palette and I can't wait to try it all out, especially in 26 days when K & I go to Hong Kong again! 
So guys, what do you think of Chi Chi's nude palette? Do you find it to be one of the best dupes for Urban Decay's Naked Palette? Let me know in the comments below!

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