I’m not quite sure when the obsession started or the exact date that I fell in love. I couldn’t tell you what brought it on and to be honest, I probably couldn’t even tell you why it happened, but a very long time ago, the entire Giraffe population well and truly stole my heart.

Somewhere along the way, I had fallen in love with one of the most beautiful creatures to ever walk this earth and yet still, after all of those years of loving them unconditionally, the closest I had ever come to seeing their beauty for myself, was through someone elses images on a computer screen.

Today though, all of that changed.

Today all of my dreams came true.

That little Australian girl who has a bedroom dedicated entirely to Giraffe’s, yet hasn’t ever actually seen one for herself, was finally meeting her absolute favourite animal, for the very first time. She was now half way across the world, standing there in the middle of the Honolulu Zoo, looking wide-eyed at by far the most beautiful creature she had ever seen.

The girl who had dreamed of visiting Hawaii for almost as long as she had dreamed of coming face to face with a real life Giraffe, had just done both of those things with the five people who mean the most to her in this world, all within a matter of days. Finally, after all of those years of patiently waiting, she was in her element.

Finally, it was the day that she had been waiting for, for what seemed to be her whole entire life.

Walking through that magnificent Zoo and seeing their enclosure, nothing else in the world mattered. The ‘No loud noises’ sign was of course completely disregarded as I screamed in excitement the very second I saw him move. He was like nothing I had ever seen before; so tall and yet so graceful, so big and yet so calm.

They were absolutely breathtaking.

Given the extent of my love and the sheer amount of photo’s that I had seen over the years, I of course assumed that they would have been amazing, but I never in a million years imagined that they would have been as amazing as they were.

Standing there in absolute awe of their beauty, hours had passed and yet still, I was nowhere near finished admiring just how breathtakingly beautiful these creatures were. Their giant long necks and their legs that went on for miles, their beautiful big eyes and their cute little bellies. The way that they moved, the way that they ate and the way that they lived so completely carefree; I could’ve watched them for days on end, for an eternity even.

A whole entire Zoo filled with beautiful, exotic animals, animals that we could only dream of having back at home and yet still, the Giraffe enclosure was all that I wanted to look at; I was mesmerised.

Unfortunately though, the way that the enclosure was made had ruled out any form of Giraffe cuddles and so I was forced to admire them from a distance. That didn’t stop me from calling out for hours on end though, trying time and time again to catch their attention. Praying that maybe by some miracle, they would stretch out their extremely long necks, just far enough to let me touch them. Sadly though, they never quite came close enough.

Honestly though, I wasn’t too upset, I was still closer than I ever had been before and I was still loving every single second of it. I was still standing there in one of the most beautiful places in the entire world and after a lifetime of waiting, I was finally meeting my very first Giraffe. I was still completely over the moon and today was still more than perfect. So perfect in fact, that if there was even a slight chance that those Zoo Keepers would have let me, I would have happily spent the rest of my Hawaiian adventure living out my days in that Giraffe enclosure.

Despite being unable to stay there with them though and despite having to say a sad goodbye to my newfound friends, today was still one of the most amazing days of my whole entire life. Today was the day that all of my dreams came true and along with the rest of this Las Vegas/Hawaiian adventure, countless memories were made today that I won’t ever, ever forget; not even for a second.

For someone who has a way with words, despite my lack of trying, nothing could ever come close to expressing the kind of happiness that those Giraffe’s gave me today.

As far as emotions go, today was completely indescribable.

I don’t think I will ever forget just how amazing it felt walking out of that side street and stepping onto the sand of that beautiful Hawaiian beach, for the very first time.

I’m not quite sure what it was that I expected to see, but this had well and truly surpassed any of my wildest expectations, at least one million times over.

In fact, no words could even begin to describe just how beautiful that beach was. Not even a room full of world class photographs could have done it justice, its beauty was something you had to see to believe.

As far as beaches go, it was absolutely breath taking.

Everything from the colour of the sand, right down to the way the palm trees swayed in the breeze was like a scene from a Hollywood movie. The water was so blue and so clear that it glistened like diamonds in the sun, and from the very second that it caught your eye, it made you instantly want to jump in.

So, despite being absolutely terrible in the ocean, that is exactly what I did. It was then, as I was laying there floating across the water in my $8 hire-a-floatie, that I stopped for a moment to take it all in.

After spending years and years dreaming of this exact moment, I was finally here. I was spending the day in Hawaii, relaxing at one of the most beautiful beaches that I had ever laid eyes on. A beach that was so beautiful and so perfect, that even the clouds looked as though they were part of a dream. A dream that I was lucky enough to be living in, with five of the most important people in my life.

A beautiful Hawaiian dream that I never, ever wanted to wake up from.

After having already spent seven days in Vegas, seven days which went way, way too fast might I add, we had reached the halfway mark and it was time to change hotels. Before we get to hotel number two though, let me first tell you a little bit about hotel one.

It may not have been one of the famous well known types, but The Polo Towers was by far the most beautiful, elegant, breathtaking hotel that I have ever stayed in and trust me, I have seen more than my fair share of beautiful hotels and resorts in my twenty-one years of living. I guess you could say I’ve been a little bit spoilt.

Unfortunately for this story though, our first hotel was quite possibly the one and only thing in the whole of Vegas that I did not take photos of. Probably because The Polo Towers was our very first stop since leaving the airport and to be quite honest, I think I was still in awe of just how beautiful Vegas was. I’m not overly worried though, considering I still remember every little detail like it were yesterday. Everything from the timeless decor right down to the biggest, most beautiful double sink marble stone bathroom that I have ever laid eyes on; it was breathtaking.

Hotel one however, was sadly the hotel in which my brother and Kristin had won the rock off for the bedroom, leaving Boyfriend and I with a lovely little fold out sofa. I wasn’t at all complaining though, regardless of whether we slept in a beautiful bedroom or on a sofa bed in the middle of the living room, we were still in Las Vegas and I was still the luckiest girl in the world. Besides, we were on our way to hotel number two and the tables would be turned soon enough.

So this morning, after hours and hours of trying to pack every little thing we had accumulated over the last seven days into our already full suitcases, we said a tearful goodbye to our room at The Polo Towers and we made our way to what would be our new home for the next seven days; The Jockey Club.

Now, when I said ‘this morning’ you probably assumed that I meant we finished packing and left the hotel at a reasonable hour. You would have assumed wrong.

At around 4:00am this morning, after finally zipping up the last and final bag, we had found ourselves in a little bit of a dilemma. With five people, six had Kristin not already left for Hawaii and atleast fifteen bags between us, how exactly where we going to fit ourselves and our bags into a taxi, in a town where maxi-taxi’s as such did not exist?

Compliments of the extremely friendly staff at the front desk, we managed to get our hands on the number of what we thought would be some kind of maxi-taxi. What soon arrived however, was something none of us were expecting.

Parked right there in front of our gorgeous hotel stood a beautiful, big, sparkling black ‘Entertainment Limousine’. What we thought would be your average every day people mover had turned out to be a shiny black party bus with multi-coloured disco lights, a flat screen TV, extremely loud music and just to top it all off, a stripper pole. I don’t think I have ever laughed so hard at 4:00am in all my life.

So here we all were, outside of our hotel at 4:00am in the middle of Vegas, climbing our way into the back of an ‘Entertainment Limousine’ with all fifteen of our bags, ready to make our way to hotel number two. However, despite travelling in an actual bus sized vehicle, it was still a little bit more of a squeeze than we had hoped. It appeared that we may have slightly over packed. Not to worry though, fifteen bags and all, we were still travelling in style.

Now the boys, they loved it. In fact I don’t think brother left that stripper pole from the moment he walked in until the moment he walked out, and Boyfriend, well he was just as bad. Mumma and I on the other hand, we could hardly breathe we were laughing so hard and just between you and I, I think even Dadda had a little bit of a chuckle to himself.

So although we may not have set out to have our own private little party at 4:00am this morning, it seems that where my family is concerned, plans often have a way of changing. The fact that the party was held in the early hours of the morning though, I guess you could say that was just part of the Vegas charm. In a City this beautiful, you really do lose all track of time.

Dearest week two; if this mornings little ‘party bus’ incident is anything to go by, then you are definately looking to be more and more amazing by the second.

Today Mumma, Kristin and I spent the day wandering the shopping outlets in Downtown Las Vegas, while the boys went in search of bargains at the ‘Gold and Silver Pawn Shop’ and of course, like every other day in Vegas, there were a few little highlights along the way.

Maybe not your average highlights though, considering Mumma and I aren’t exactly the best at this whole ‘being on the opposite side of the world’ idea, but they were entertaining highlights to say the least.

1. Spending well over three hours in Dress Barn, buying Mumma a whole new wardrobe. Now by a whole new wardrobe I don’t just mean a few bits and pieces, I mean she basically bought everything in the store. In her defence though, everything that she tried on was amazingly beautiful and they did all appear to be made just for her.

2. Finding out that Kristin had looked through the entire shopping outlet and was already on a bus back to the Hotel, all in the same amount of time that it had taken Mumma and I to look in one single shop.

3. Eating my first ice block in about two years. One that was completely natural and made entirely out of strawberries – it was amazing.

4. Losing Mumma’s mobile phone.

5. Talking to a complete stranger like they’re your Mumma, only to find out that it’s actually the Sales Assistant from the Carters Store, calling to inform you that your Mumma’s phone was no longer lost.

6. Stopping to talk to the charming beauty product salesman and leaving with over $100 of products, just so we could stop him from talking and maybe still have a chance at catching our bus and making our show on time.

7. Speed walking back to the bus stop with a million and one bags praying that we wouldn’t miss our bus, only to change our mind and decide on catching a taxi after we had just set a world record time for speed walking.

8. Watching Mumma attemp to hail a taxi

Now, just so you know, this is about where things start to get interesting.

Last time I checked, you weren’t actually meant to run across the road in the middle of on coming traffic to hail a taxi, regardless of what country you may be in. Apparently Mumma must have missed that memo though, because that’s exactly what she did.

One minute we’re both standing by the bus stop, patiently waiting for the next bus to arrive and the next minute I look up to see a crazy lady who looks an awful lot like my Mumma, running across the road and waving her arms madly through the air, trying to catch the attention of the passing taxi drivers.

Now I’m still not certain what happened, but either her wild antics had paid off and she’d caught someone’s attention or this particular driver was just slowing down because he didn’t want to run over the crazy lady standing in the middle of the road. Either way, somehow she had managed to stop a taxi.

Believe it or not, that wasn’t the worst part though. The running, the waving, the standing in the middle of the road, that was nothing compared to what came next.

Not only was she now standing in the middle of the road staring at the taxi driver she’d just stopped, but his door was obviously locked, probably for situations exactly like this and she was unable to ask him if he could please take us home.

Instead of acting like a normal person though and waiting for him to realise she wasn’t crazy and let her in, she continued on her road rampage and was now banging on his window, yelling that she wanted him to take us home. He of course was foreign and had no idea what she was saying, so she continued to stand there waving and yelling like a crazy person, while I continued pretending I didn’t know her.

Eventually he caught on to the idea and must have nodded, because the next thing I know Mumma was running back across the road towards me, waving her arms at me to come over. Hesitantly, I made my way across the road dodging the on coming traffic and I climbed into the back left passenger seat. Mumma though, she must have been a bit confused after her road rampage and had somehow forgotten where we were, because instead of following my lead and climbing into the back right hand side seat beside me or even the front right hand side seat for that matter, she insisted on opening the drivers side door and trying her best to sit on the taxi drivers lap.

So here we are, still in the middle of the road where everything has now fallen out of the drivers side door, the taxi driver is in complete shock with absolutely no idea what is going on and Mumma and I are in absolute hysterics. Not only had she just ran across the street like an absolute lunatic, but now the whole bus stop full of people probably thought she was trying to highjack this poor mans taxi.

Strangely enough, going by the expression on the drivers face as Mumma opened his door and tried to sit down, I don’t think that sort of thing happens too often over here. Despite the fact that Mumma and I were obviously two hopeless Australian Tourists who had forgotten the American road rules, I’m certain he thought we were trying to rob him and drive away in his car.

By the time he had calmed down, caught his breath and realised we really were just crazy tourists and that we weren’t actually out to rob him and steal his taxi, I think he started to see the humour in the whole situation. I couldn’t tell for sure, but going by the animation in his voice and the fact that he called quite a few different people on the way back to our Hotel, I would say that “The two crazy Australians” were the talk of the town that afternoon.

Don’t worry though, those ‘Two crazy Australians’ thought it was pretty funny too. So funny in fact, that the back seat of that taxi was filled with laughter the entire drive back to the hotel.

As I’m sure all of you are already aware, I myself love to laugh and after living twenty one years with an amateur comedian as a big brother, it’s probably just as well.

With that being said, it should come as no surprise that of all of the weird and wonderful shows we have seen here in Las Vegas, it was the comedian with bright red hair that was the clear favourite.

Although I have spent twenty one years with an amateur comedian as a big brother and although I have watched each of Carl Barrons DVD’s countless times, I have never in all my life laughed as hard as I did last night.

Now, I’m sure majority of you have heard me laugh at one point or another, but unless you have heard my ‘eyes closed, can’t hardly breathe, sounds like a hyena, full on belly laugh’ then you might not quite understand.

This man had me laughing so hard that my own Boyfriend almost smothered me, just to stop the noise. At one point it got so bad, that I didn’t think I was ever going to be able to stop, he was just that funny. My eyes were watering to the point that I couldn’t see a thing and I was laughing so hard that I almost forgot to breathe, but I was having the time of my life.

Then when I finally did stop to take a breath, I managed to open my eyes again only to see my comedian of a big brother in exactly the same fit of laughter that I was and just like that it started all over again.

If you asked me now though to remember a few of his jokes, I doubt I could tell you even a single one. Not because they weren’t worth remembering, but because they were so funny that my brain was too busy laughing to remember them. He was so hilarious in fact, that I’m almost certain I could go to his show every single night and you would still find me laughing just as hard as I did the very first time.

Mr. Carrot Top, you were amazing.