The other night when it was a lovely warm clear summer night, we went for a nice walk and had dinner on a Rooftop at a Mexican place, that makes the most fabulous dish,
truffle quesadilla! The place was full of the brightest little decorations, furniture and paintings from Mexico. I would love to go there one day.
Summer nights outdoors, fresh food and cold drinks and a daily swim that's what really makes me happy right now. January you are fabulous! So much more exciting and busy than I ever expected.
And you are my birthday month! One thing we actually don't agree on is Birthdays.
To me birthdays are important and to Dave they are not so much.
And having no family or friends around here just yet the thought of my birthday makes me feel a tiny little bit homesick. Maybe I need some Skype time with my Mum and fabulous friends.

Did I tell you we are camping in our own house right now?
No? Ah well, we are still waiting for our furniture&belongings, which are somewhere on a ship between London and Sydney right now. So we are sleeping on mattresses on the floor, eating from picnic ware and living on a bare minimum of suitcase essentials.It's fun some days, and annoying on others. Somehow cozy and creative but messy at times, we can't wait for our things to arrive.
In the meantime we are going round flea markets, 2nd hand furniture shops and little antique shops trying to find things for the new house that we won't have already and really need.
Other people go to the gym, we go furniture shopping without a car!
Keeping fit, we start to feel like the local gypsies in our rather posh little neighborhood.
David keeps carrying our treasures home. We are so excited to have our own place, and to decorate and renovate the apartment step by step. It feels better than I could have ever imagined, I love our place.
While we are both busy at work, it can feel overwhelming at times to come back to our little camping site, but we know its for limited time only.

Inbetween work and furniture finding we tried and make some room for coffees and dinners together.
Time to focus and talk about our goals and plans for our new life in Sydney.
I noticed how much power there is in focusing. It's easy to get sidetracked, to listen to other peoples opinions and negative beliefs to get caught up in what if's.
But what if I no longer care about what others fear or think I can't do? I focus on what I know I can do and on what I want to achieve and things are starting to fall into place. There are endless opportunities everywhere.
Sending all of you some focus and happiness for this exciting new year.
We will post some pictures of the house, once it's all done ;)

Happy New year to everyone!

Thank you all for reading our little blog.
We are incredible happy to have every single one of you here, and it has been great sharing our adventures with you.

2012 has been good to us.
We had a beautiful holiday in Croatia, we had great work projects, Dave has been traveling around the world for work, we spent a lot of time with our friends in London, sightseeing before we moved on the other side of the world to Sydney, where I had my first summer Christmas.What a year!

I am excited about 2013. I set a few goals for myself for this year in terms of my work.
Mainly that I am giving my best every day.
Being open to all good things, to listen to others and to follow my dreams.
To be patient but never lazy. To be loving and supportive to others.
To be happy and grateful for what I have got. That's it! Especially for my bearded beloved man.
Do you have any resolutions for 2013?
We had a fabulous time watching the fireworks in Sydney, camping out in the park all day to secure a spot. These Australians really love their fireworks and all sights are crowded from mid day already.
So we were waiting and waiting and waiting and... for 12 hours! We made a picnic, played cards and watched the air shows. Sydney, you have great fireworks, but I don't think I will wait a whole day again ;)

2013 started with a bang, and we didn't had a chance of blogging a little earlier, as we had so much work coming up. My freelance makeup work is booming and I am preparing for the amazing creative wedding fair One Fine Day which is very exciting, check out their website here. I am so looking forward to it. Somehow I expected January to be a little more quiet, but I like it this way.

While I was writing this in the first place we were having a serious heat wave in Australia, it is 43 degree Celsius (= 109.4 degree Fahrenheit)
I actually started feeling a little dizzy while I was writing this. And a few hours later I had a heat stroke, with fever, sickness, shivering and completely blurred eyesight. That wasn't fun.
That's the reason this post wasn't long up...I am recovered and the temperature is back to normal.

We had the best family & food time on Christmas.
The weather was unexpectedly bad, it rained and stormed all day, but we had the coziest time indoors with the family. We started with a big Pancake and Champagne breakfast with loads of fresh fruit and ice cream unwrapping all the great Secret Santa Gifts.
If you have read our blog for a while you probably noticed before how much I love a good big long breakfast and going out for breakfasts.
All our presents were striped and for the beach, so we are properly set up for Summer!
Dave's parents got me a Christmas ornament made with my name on it, like everyone else in the family. I guess that means I am officially part of the family ;)
The only thing that was missing was my family, and I hope that in the future they will be able to come down to Sydney to celebrate with us.
We were watching old super8 videos from when Dave and his siblings were little on a big screen.
It was so magical and reminded me again how important it is to document life with photos and videos, because it's so much fun to look back. We played with little baby nephew Marcus, took pictures and in the afternoon we had Christmas BBQ with the probably worlds best homemade Passionfruit Cheesecake & Cannoli from Daves brother Adrian.
We played Scattegories until we were too tired to go back home and fell asleep on the couch.
Success!

All our presents were striped beach things, so we are properly set up for Summer!
Our boxing day we spent right there, next to our house on the little habour beach.
Swimming and relaxing with all our stripey gifts.

After all this Christmas made me realize that it really doesn't matter, what season or weather or food you are having on the day it's just about spending time with your loved ones and remembering the spirit. I am already looking forward to the next one, with much more decoration and Christmas cookies in our house. (more on our new house and the move very soon!)

I hope you all had a wonderful time, wherever you are in the world!
Happy New Year! We will be watching the fireworks, what are you up to?

These photos were taken on the last day we stayed with Dave's family, in their beautiful garden.
That day was filled with packing and organizing but we sneaked in some time for laps in the local pool and an hour of sunshine in the garden.
That's what makes Australia so special, the work/life balance.
Living the good life, and getting things done at the same time.
This is my idea of living the Liv life ;)

I wrapped up Christmas presents today and put them under the tree.
It's really around the corner now and I am looking forward to having everyone around and spent the day together with some lovely food, probably in my new vintage swimsuit!
Besides the gifts I ordered for others there was a special little surprise in the post today from the amazing Sydney based swimwear designers Sirens Swimwear, I had to put it on straight away.
And I already know, I will wear this one A LOT. Hooray for local designers!
The amazing Alex from the photographers collective Gentlemen Take Pictures happened to have a minute, got his camera out and snapped a few shots for me in the garden.
(We are all living together in the house right now, one wonderful big creative family Dave has!)
I can't wait to collaborate with them soon for some editorial makeup shoots.


When you are reading this we would have moved into our new place.
Happy Christmas everyone and catch you soon! (as soon as our internet will be connected)

Time has been flying by, we are preparing for our move into the new flat,
have both been working a lot and falling into bed very very tired afterwards.
I caught a cold somehow and feel my body needed some more rest to cope with all the changes.
We did squeeze in a few after work swims, which is the best thing ever.
It's not long to Christmas now, gifts needed to be bought and wrapped and wishlists needed to be written. We didn't really take the camera out this week, juggling tasks and trying to find a little routine, but I did snap some photos on my phone at least.
We probably won't have internet for two weeks in the new apartment, but at least that little break will
keep us focused on spending our time doing the place up nicely.
We are so excited to move in and are collecting ideas for our new home.
The highlight of my week was meeting the fluffy furball above randomly on the road.
His owner came up to me straight away, probably seeing the big smile on my face when I saw the dog asking me if I wanted to hold him!  I can't wait for us to get a dog. I have got puppy fever!

We had some great nights lately at a colourful wild little pop up vintage store in Surry Hills.
That's where we met up with the lovely Trishie, were discovering quite some talented Sydney
bands (playing live in front of the store) and finding some really fun vintage bargains.
We have been enjoying the warm summer nights, chatting along to just met friends and no longer strangers.
Thanks everyone, for being so inviting and so much fun to hang out with!

Did I say I wasn't quite in Christmas mood yet?
Srsly, how on earth could I not be with all this incredible colours around?
There are red trees blossoming everywhere, and I came across a giant Christmas tree in the center of the city too.
I am actually very excited about this Christmas in Summer, and I will
try and make my own and first ever Pavlova!
So if any of you have any tips or recipes how to get it right, feel free and drop them down in the comment box! I would love to hear your suggestions.
I am collecting ideas for a wonderful Summer Christmas and bells are already jingel-lingel-lingin' in my head.