You Just Know Those Claybourne Brothers Are Trouble

Ok so last week I finished one of Nicole's favourite books, One Pink Rose. It's the first book in the Claybourne Brides series which features four young, single, never to be tamed brothers known as the Claybourne boys. One Pink Rose revolves around Travis, the youngest of the Claybourne's, who at his mothers request has been asked to escort a young girl named Emily up to Montana to be with her new fiancée. Along the way to Montana, the two of them fight a growing attraction to each other and the story culminates with a showdown between Travis and Emily's fiancée.


The story was well written by Julie Garwood, but it just didn't really interest me. The two main characters were unashamedly based on the stereotypes of the rugged man and the smart ditsy blonde, and while their interactions resulted in a lot of drama, it never felt like these two characters could actually exist in reality. I guess that's the point of a romantic novel, to draw readers in with a fantastic love story not based in reality, but in the end its not the type of story for me.


Onto looking for new things to do, Nicole and I have come up with a few different ideas:

• Go vegetarian for a week
• Eat a really hot Chilli
• Eat something gross like frogs legs or lambs brains
• Have a picnic at Hanging Rock
• Hire a sports car and just go driving
• Go to a Sci-Fi / Nerd Convention
• Dress up for a movie premier
• Do a Zumba class
• Be a stereotypical tourist in a city we have never visited
• Fly business class
• Take a language or international cooking class
• Learn a magic trick
• Read a classic book that we haven’t read before
• Try Tai Chi
• Learn how to play a song on an instrument
• Get on a random bus and get lost
• Ride a bike around Newcastle
• Make bread
• See a musical, opera or play
• Take a hot air balloon ride
• Enter something in the local show (Newcastle, Sydney Royal or Canberra)
• Feed a giraffe
• Grow herbs for cooking
• Host a murder mystery night

For this week our challenges will be food related:


Ryan - Learn how to bake a cake from scratch

Nicole - Learn how to make icecream from scratch


Hoepfully we will get some pictures up during the week. If you have any ideas for types of cake or icecream flavours, or if you have any suggestions for something new thats not on the list above, please let us know.


Ryan

Joe Danger - Done!

Nicole's First Challenge Complete!

Tonight I finished my challenge of playing the game Joe Danger and got my 5 trophies! Not being much of a gamer it was harder than I thought it would be (I spent ages trying to get the star I needed and when I still couldn't get it I felt like throwing the Playstation over the balcony..) and needed a bit of help from Ryan to finish the levels but I had more fun than I thought I would. Getting everything I needed to finish each level was fun and it was satisfying to move onto the next thing and see on the screen that I had gotten my trophy's and beaten scores. I can see how people get so involved in gaming, I spent about an hour playing and it felt like minutes. All up it was pretty fun, I wouldn't mind playing Joe Danger again and see how many more trophies I can get :)

Why Try Something New?

Feeling inspired (or more accurately, guilted) after watching the movie Julie & Julia, Nicole and I decided that perhaps we should set ourselves a challenge similar to the challenge Julie Powell set for herself in an attempt to liven up our routine, broaden our horizons and have a bit more fun. Seeing as 524 French cuisine recipes over 365 days has already been done (The Julie/Julia Project), Nicole and I thought we could do something a little different with a broader range of challenges to choose from.

On a weekly basis, we will both be trying something new and documenting the results on this blog. We will be starting off small with easier challenges that can be done within a week before looking at harder challenges that could span multiple weeks. If you have any suggestions or anything you would like us to try, please let us know and we will put it on the list.

Starting off easy, this weeks challenges will involve swapping hobbies:

Ryan - read one of Nicole's favourite romance novels One Pink Rose by Julie Garwood

Nicole - create a Playstation Network ID and earn at least five trophies from one of Ryan's favourite Playstation games Joe Danger.


We will  update our progress during the week to let you know what we think about each others hobbies having finally experienced them first hand.

Ryan