Monthly Archives: October 2013

Snail Mail Collective | Intan & Reima

I have had the pleasure of doing Melyssa and Chelsea’s Snail Mail Collective for July and August. Thanks to the post offices of the world, packages being lost, and how slow it has taken Royal Mail to get my packages to their final destinations it has taken me until October to be able to do my SMC recap.

I understand the phenomenon around socks disappearing in the wash, not that I know where they go. However I really do not think the same thing should happen when it comes to sending things in the mail. Since moving to England it has happened to me more often than ever other time in my life. I spent a good amount of money to have a Wonder Woman chest piece made for a costume that could be tracked as far as when it left the US but never made to my home in England. My sister had sent a christmas present for the boys that included my favourite H&M jacket that she had and it never made it to my home in England. My mum had made really cute toys that looked like ‘peeps’ for Easter for the boys that again…never made it to England. So when my friend Intan told me her package from me never arrived in Singapore, I was ready hit a wall. I am not sure why the post has a vendetta against me, but it can stop anytime now. Similarly her package never arrived in England but then never left the post office in Singapore either. We tried a second time and thank the powers that be we both just received each other’s Snail Mail Collective packages!

Intan has spoiled me with my favourite candies…white rabbits. I think they were in every package that was included in her envelope. I have not had these since I was in Australia back in 2002 and had forgotten about them. It really put a smile on my face. I have been sharing the rest of the candy with my sons so they wanted to make sure that I told Intan thank you on the blog….THANK YOU! You are just so sweet as well. Thank you for that beautiful card with the B and the Rose, it could not be more perfect for me. I am so sorry we had the worst luck with the post office but so glad we got a happy ending for this mail saga in the end.

Make sure to check out Intan’s blog as it is full of photos not only from Singapore but her travels too!

SYFNZ SAYS: http://syfnzsays.blogspot.co.uk/

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My Snail Mail Collective partner for August was Reima from sunny California. I loved that even though we both had really busy schedules she kept us going in communication with lovely ‘get to know you’ emails. It was so brill to see how much we had in common. From loving dark chocolate, to using coconut oil and she even gave me a neat recipe for a scrub. Which I wanted to share from her to you all today in this post:

Here’s a scrub recipe my friend just gave me and it is so nice.

Makes my skin smooth for days!

3-4 tbsp coconut oil

2 cups sea salt

Zest of one lime

Combine and it should feel similar to snow!

What I love most about Reima is getting to know more about her love of travel. She has a solid sense of adventure and a really brave girl! If you want to know more about what I mean, you will need to check out her post about bicycling on one of the most dangerous roads in the world! I honestly do not think I could or would want to myself. Which makes me more in awe of how gustsy this girl is!

Find out more about this beautiful travel loving free spirit on her blog:
Love a Traveler: http://loveatraveler.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/snail-mail-collective-august.html

Thank you so much to these lovely ladies. You guys are awesome and I so enjoyed getting to know more about you. I am proud to call you my friends and look forward to continue reading your blogs!

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Q: Have you participated in the SMC or a similar penpal project?

Bath Comic & Sci-Fi Weekend

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Something you may or may not know about me is that I am kind of a geek. My one regret from my time in California and the US is that I never had the opportunity to go to ComicCon in San Diego. I did however take the boys to Comic Con in Tucson, AZ in 2010. I worked really hard on sewing myself a She-Ra costume, which is now somewhere lost in one of my in-laws many storage facilities. When we heard about the Comic and Sci-Fi event coming to Bath we were ready to get our cosplay on! Maddox went as Darth Vader, Ronan as Indiana Jones, and I went as Kaylee from Joss Whedon’s Firefly.

The big event we did not want to miss during the weekend’s festivities was the Star Wars panel. My father did not have any sons and I grew up loving to watch Star Wars with him. Plus I have never been to see a panel before so we were all really excited. Included in this line up was Femi Taylor who played Oola, the Twi’lek dancer in Jabba the Hutt’s court, and Rusty Goffe who played various characters in a New Hope, including a Jawa and a gonk droid. Rusty was also in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Willow, and several of the Harry Potter films. He is really charismatic and my boys remarked how he was so funny.

Not a whole lot of questions were asked from the audience so it meant a lot that Ronan spoke up and asked them for their ‘most embarrassing’ memory in their career. I asked them if they had experienced a ‘pinch yourself moment’. Femi answered about getting a call back in 97 to film more scenes to reprise her role in the special edition release of the original film from the 80s. If you remember her costume is basically mostly body paint so it was incredible to see that she still has her dancer body even today. She was friendly and nice and I really liked getting to talk with her afterwards. Rusty talked about being on the set of Harry Potter in the scene where Helena Bonham Carter as Belatrix is pretending to be Hermione. Rusty talked about what an incredible actress Helena is and how everyone on set kept forgetting it was Helena/Belatrix because she just embodied Emma/Hermione so well.

Another panelist who I got to talk to extensively afterwards was John Chapman. John played an X-Wing pilot in the original Star Wars and now has created a really awesome comic book series for children about a character named Jonnie Rocket. I really recommend them if you have children and you find out more about them at http://www.jonnierocket.com/

At the end Ronan participated in the costume contest and he was really proud to get a lot of compliments from the adults on his authentic elements like his hat, jacket, and whip. We met quite a few cosplayers and pretty much the experience exceeded our expectations. I told Ryan before we got there that if one person knew who I was cosplaying as, I would be happy. Sure enough the guy who came cosplaying from my favourite video game, Mass Effect, told me he like my Kaylee costume. Score.

Q: Do you like comics or sci-fi? Ever been to a comic con?

Favourite Travel Photo

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For Travel Tuesday today I asked you to share with you a favourite travel photo for our first every Travel Tuesday prompt. We will do these prompts on first Tuesday of every month.

This is a photo I took in the summer of 2012 when I returned ‘home’ to bella Napoli. I had not been back to Italy since coming to see my friends graduate in the summer of 2001. Napoli, Italy had been my home for 4-6 grade and 9-11 grade but this was my first time to every bring my husband ‘home’ with me. It was a very special trip for both of us. Between the two of us and our cameras and phones we must have taken thousand of photographs while we were there. This photo is a pure favourite however because it is so iconic of my home. The beautiful bay of Napoli, Mt. Vesuvius in the background, and the coastline dotted with so many colours of homes, green trees, and pretty boats in the marina. This is definitely one photograph I would love to have blown up and put up in our family room.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY!
A Weekly Travel Linkup.

Share your Travel stories
and wanderlust addictions.

Here’s how it works:

1. Share a post about travel! From road trips to trips abroad and from past travels to dream vacations. You can write about travel tips and tricks, favorite places to stay, or anything in between! Just make it about traveling somewhere!

2. Grab the lovely button. If you run into trouble, just make sure to mention Bonnie in a link! 😉

3. Linkup goes live every Tuesday at 8 am GMT.

4. Hop around and meet new travel loving bloggers! Link up will be open for a few days, make sure to check back to visit some of the newer travel posts!

5. Please only one linked up post per blogger. Save other posts for future linkups!

6. The First Tuesday of every month will be a themed prompt if you want to join in!

Q: Do you have a favourite travel photograph and why does it mean so much to you?