This week has been a very family oriented one for me… Friday night was a small engagement party in Hobart with my family-which was LOADS of fun.  I’m really close to my family here, and love catching up with all my aunts, uncles and cousins!

Then on Sunday it was my Mum’s 60th birthday.  We surprised her with a delightful cruise down the Derwent River to a wonderful venue called Peppermint Bay.  As my sisters Kath, Emma and I worked on the speech, we discovered she had packed over 7,200 lunchboxes in her time… WHOA!

The rest of the week was looking at wedding venues for our own Big Day in January.  Oh my Lord.  I’m in the events industry, but I’m telling you… finding a wedding venue is no mean feat.  I’ll let you know how we progress.

It honestly rocks to be able to take some time to spend with family like this though. Make it a mission to create a SUPERLATIVE LIFESTYLE BUSINESS!  You’ll never regret it!

What with a wedding coming up, I’ve just ‘had’ to do some shopping!  And who better to go shopping with than personal branding expert and style guru, Ben Angel.  Greg, Ben and I spent a great day out choosing some new clothes. Ben was just awesome.  He even got Greg to agree to wearing skinny ties and if you ask me he looks super hot in them! Being on the road means you to tend to wear your clothes out so this shopping trip was well over-due….

Talking of traveling, this weekend we got back to the UK and during the 5 hours we had to wait to check into our apartment we started the wedding planning.  I much preferred ignorance.  Did you know there is a formula for who you should invite!  Hilarious!

It just so happened the weekend we’ve arrived here in the UK is the Thames Festival, so we spent Saturday afternoon listening to the gypsy band near Tower Bridge and watching this groovy lady carve up the lawn!  I did have a bit of a boogie too!

As of next week, Greg and I are heading off on a much needed holiday, first to Turkey for a short cruise and then over to Thailand for Greg’s brother’s wedding.  I promise lots of lovely snaps on my return!  In the meantime, the newsletter will be taken care of by various members of the lovely Shift team so I’ll be leaving you in safe hands.  Plus it’s also a chance for you to see some little known behind the scenes secrets of Shift….

Well, it’s been over a week of now of being an engaged woman and I did what all newly engaged daughters do – go back home to show my parents the sparkly ring!
 
My fiance and I (I just love saying that!!) went back to Hobart.  That’s in Tasmania for all you non-Aussies.  It’s so cold this time of year we could only manage 4 days.  But that was enough time for my ma to ask when the kiddies were due…..

Anyway, we spent a lovely weekend with my family.  See the piccies!  Father’s Day was the highlight – check us out outside the local hardware store.  That’s dad’s for you.

Apart from some quality family time, the other great thing that happened this week was an amazing coaching session and event critique with my MDM Diamond member, Michael Sheargold.  Investing in a mentor really does pay off in terms of creating some beautiful results. 

I’ve just had the most amazing weekend…

On Saturday night, Greg popped the question… it’s true … he’s making an honest woman of me.  I have to admit it was such a surprise, as it happened on the day of his brother’s bucks night…and it caught me totally off guard.

He proposed at a little cafe off the famous Lygon st in Mebourne… called Brunetti’s.  Which means nothing to anyone else… but for Greg and I it’s where we fell in love over Italian Hot Chocolate.  He proceeded to blind me with the most gorgeous ring I have ever seen.  I was telling him it is so much better than anything I could ever have picked. He’s certainly very clever!

Then he whisked me away to a new Art Hotel in Melbourne called “The Olsen” where we spent the night in the Penthouse with a view overlooking Melbourne city, and sipped champagne in the hot tub on the balcony under the moon.  How lovely huh!?

In case this wasn’t enough, he had also booked a “Couples Massage” at my favourite spa the following day… and the girls there were so excited for us.   To top it all off we had a gorgeous dinner at the restaurant of our first date, but this time with all our family to share the exciting news.

So I have to say I was overwhelmed with romance, and feel so humbled and spoiled.  I still catch the sparkles of the ring out the corner of my eye and have to pinch myself to know it’s true.  

But as I was saying to a friend of mine yesterday, it feels like a little corner of my soul has relaxed.  It’s so divine.

To all of you who have left us beautiful messages on facebook and in the inbox… thank you so much.  Your support over the last three years has been wonderful, and we really do feel that this is a celebration not just of our love of each other, but all the wonderful people who are a part of our community.  You guys make it all worthwhile and special!

Here’s to partnership, love and magic!

Well, here I am now, safely back home in Australia after a fabulous week in New York with my good friend, Laila Seewang.  I have to say she’s a brilliant architect so keep an eye on the international architecture scene for her!

It was my first time in New York in Summer and the hot and humid weather was an eye-opener.  I didn’t do too many touristy things.  It’s fun sometimes to just ‘be’ in a city and live like the locals, rather than try to explore the hell out of it.  I like the different feel you get.  So I’ve been hanging out in local Brooklyn cafes, I even went to a spa and Laila and I just had to try out a few yummy Manhattan restaurants.  It was a fun week and exactly what I needed.

Oh, and here’s a piccie of the Empire State Building I snapped!