All in bloom.

I just wanted to share a few photos of some lovely cherry blossoms that I came across on my walk by the Seawall, they are famous here in Japan and are only in bloom for a few weeks of spring. 

They really are just beautiful! 

It's nice to have some time by yourself here and there, getting away from all the busyness of life, when you stop and enjoy the present it's makes you realise how great life is. 

Spring is in the air

It's finally warming up here in Japan, spring is in the air! The icy chill has gone and the sun has come out to play. 

On my recent two days off I've been seeing sights, enjoying the warm weather by the seawall and even riding on a few thriller roller coasters. 

On Friday we went to a theme park called Fuji Q, it's at the base of the mountains right near Mt Fuji. A group of us woke up bright and early and ventured a couple hours away to arrive at our destination. 

Fuji Q is known for it's world breaking roller coasters, nearly every one has it's own world record for being the fastest, highest and most tumbling of all roller coasters. We waited in long cue's, ate greasy food but it was totally worth it! 

On my second day off we met some friends, got coffee and caught the train to Kasai Rinkai Park. It was another glorious day, having nothing planned turned into a spontaneous one. We sat by the seawall, went to the aquarium, got some Kua-aina for dinner and went to the movies!

A new start.

Welcome back.
I know I haven't blogged for a very long time and I haven't forgotten about it either, but I've been super busy the last few months and now I feel I'm back on track.

So what's new with me??  I've had a very exciting change in my life, I moved to Tokyo!
At the end of last year I got offered a dance contract with Tokyo Disney, I was very excited and couldn't wait to start this great opportunity. It was hard packing up my life in Sydney and saying goodbye to the people I love but it was totally worth it.

I have been here for a little over a month now and have already fallen in love with the generous people, the culture and the city itself. There is so much to see, taste and learn about Japan, the shopping is amazing, everywhere you turn there is another shopping complex.
My cast members are all lovely, such nice people and every time we hang out we get that little bit closer. We've already had some crazy nights out, and experienced the night life of Tokyo.

                           
                                

                                          

                             

            I feel so lucky to have this opportunity, I can't wait to see where my journey leads me!

Blueberry Quinoa Muffins

I finally tried cooking with Quinoa! I've been wanting to try it for a while now and I have heard great things about this fad. Quinoa contains more protein than any other flour and also contains zinc, iron, calcium, vitamin B, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and manganese. I like the sound of that!

Ingredients:

1 cup quinoa

1 cup water 

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 cups of flour 

3/4 cups brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup frozen blueberries 

3/4 milk 

1 egg 

1 teaspoon vanilla     extract

Prep time: 20 mins

Cooking time: 25-30mins

Method:

-Preheat oven to 180 degrees (fan forced)

-Brush a 12 cup muffin pan with oil or use muffin cases

-In a medium saucepan bring quinoa and water to a boil, reduce to simmer and cover until all water has been absorbed. (Around 10 mins but water absorbs quite quickly)

-In a medium bowl mix together flour, baking powder, brown sugar, salt and the cooked quinoa.

-In a another small bowl whisk oil, milk, egg and vanilla extract 

-Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients and stir until combined. Then fold in frozen blueberries.

-Divide mixture into the prepared muffin pan.

-Bake for around 25-30mins, cool muffins in pan for 5mins then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

I was a little nervous trying them, but they were really yummy and turned out great. They taste even better heated up with a little bit of butter!

  

A bug cake

My sister asked me to make my beautiful nephew a cake for his christening party, I was very happy that she asked me and I wanted it to turn out perfect for the occasion. 

I decided to make the cake in shape of a bug sitting on a leaf because when she had her little bump they called it bug. 

Here are some photos of how the cake turned out :) 

Filled with white chocolate butter cream!

Some photos of the little after party...

The Rodger girls and Angus

It always nice to have the family back together on special occasions xx

I wanna thank my sister for helping with the decorations for the cake

 People keep saying that we should start our own little cake business, if I didn't love dancing so much maybe I would...

On the first day of Christmas...

It was the first day of Christmas yesterday and the Rodger family have a tradition of putting the Christmas tree up on December first. Surprisingly everyone was free, so I made a couple of yummy homemade treats, put a broadway version of carols cd on and we partied away! 

Our drinks that taste so good, have been sipping on them since I can remember!

Creaming soda spiders+ Mince pies+Rum balls= A very happy tummy

One of our cute puppy's :)

Wrap me up?

Our beautiful tree!

It was such a lovely night, and I was so happy to be home and spend a joyful night with the family :)

Two members were missing but I'm sure we ate enough for them to! 

Welcome home x

So my parents are back from the wonderful place of the US of A, bringing back lots of presents from all the sights they visited. So for a welcome home celebration me and my sister Lauren decided to bake them a cake because I'm going through an obsession with cooking at the moment and love trying new things! They love their dog Sebastian, so I decided to design a sausage dog  to cut out, and plus I finally got to try fondant! We even made our own fondant from scratch adding in brown food colouring gel and lots of icing sugar, I mean LOTS we were covered in it in the end and so was her kitchen!! But we pulled through and created something special, with coffee cream filling for the dog and white chocolate for the bone. I was pretty proud of ourselves when we were done. They loved it and it tasted awesome :) 

The real life Sebastian <3