Horses

For those of you who haven't read my previous posts, I mentioned earlier during the summer that my parents said it would be alright to get a horse. It's ironic how they'll allow me to get a horse but I can't get a cat or dog like every other person :P Anyway, I'm happy to announce that there have been a few new additions to the family :D We finally decided on what horses to buy! We ended up buying a few, and yes that means more than 1, 2, or 5, haha. We have a few adults and a couple foals (baby horses) who came with their mothers. I took quite a few photos which are below:

Selle Francais horses Coco (female) and Marceau (male)

More Selle Francais horses

Same horses as before

Reining horses Lenoir (male) and Etoile (female meaning star)  

Friesian male named Minuit (meaning midnight) 

Mom Cherie and son Charlot

Female foal named Roulette (meaning a game of chance) 

Female Paso Fino foal named Janvier (January in French)

Male foal named Beauchamp 

Male Quarter Horse named Frisou 

A female Paso Fino named Neige (meaning snow)

Baby Paso Fino named Bordeaux (a city in France)

These are most of our horses although there are a couple more that I haven't taken pictures of yet. I also had a little "photo shoot" with myself by the stables which I will post soon!

It's been getting quite a bit colder each day here. I know I have a few followers from the Southern hemisphere where it's Spring and the weather's getting warmer! I'm starting to dread Winter. I know it's still far away and the weather's still above 17 degrees most of the time but still... I'm already getting excited for Christmas! Hahaha :D I had a cold last week and I had to go to school before I was 100% better and that's why I think I'm still a little sick. I really dislike having a runny nose and I always forget to bring a tissue box to school :( My voice has been really weird too since my nose is all clogged. Anyway, hopefully you'll all be dressing a little more now a days (not including those of you in warm climates, lucky you :P ) so you don't end up with a cold like me. 

~ Aurelia Maude  

The Sunshine Award

Thank you so much Kath of iam_kbc for awarding me with The Sunshine Award :D !! This is my second award so far, after the One Lovely Blogger Award. I'm so happy :D !!

The Rules: 
1. Thank the person who gave you this award and write a post about it 
2. Answer the following questions
3. Pass it on to ten fabulous bloggers and send them a message to let them know 


Favourite Colour:  Coral pink 
Favourite Animal: Foxes or penguins
Favourite Number: 24 (that's also my birth date) 
Favourite Drink: Bubble tea!
Facebook or Twitter: Facebook, I don't have a Twitter
Your Passion: Probably fashion or other types of design
Giving or Getting Presents: Both of course!
Favourite Pattern: Damask for wallpaper and some types of plaid for clothing
Favourite Day: Christmas Day :D ! 
Favourite Flowers: Cherry blossoms, orchids and roses (I know I can never choose just one thing :P ) 


I would like to present these fabulous blogs with this award:
- Sous ta Chaussure
- Autumnal Fever
- Frills and Thrills
- The Diary of Miss Raj 


I know there should be more and I know I'm breaking the rules... Again. These were the only Bloggers I could think of who didn't already have the award and who I knew well enough to give them an award :) Well, congratulations to those who received it! I would just like to give some recognition to fellow Bloggers and let you see what they have to say on their blogs. I guess I'm more of a follower than a followee (can you say that :P ?). Thanks to my 9 followers, you give me excitement each and every day and you're all the reason to why I still blog :)   

I Heart My Followers

~ Aurelia Maude 

New School

    Sorry for my absence! Last week was my first week at my new school, in my new country! Haha, so many news... Now that I've finally gotten into the school habit I can start writing more often since last week was kind of a "getting used to" period.
    My high school is a lot bigger than the other schools I've been to so I got lost quite a bit during my first few days. I got a lot of strange looks when I accidentally walked into grade 12 classes, haha. It's both a boarding school and a day school but I go to the day school only. Thus it being both types, the campus is reeaally big... I made a couple new friends and I'm hoping to making more the next few weeks. It's also an English school so just about everyone speaks English and all the classes are taught in English except art and French (obviously for the last one).
    I have eight courses since my school isn't semestered. They are: math, English, science, art, French, history, civics and careers, and business. All of them are compulsory except for French, art and business which I got to choose. I chose to take Enriched French which is harder than Academic which is harder than Applied and on top of all that I got the strictest French teacher in the school... We were writing the conjugations of irregular verbs and I had to write the past tense of Connaître for all the pronouns on the board. I thought I knew how to do it until I got to the board and then I totally panicked and forgot what to write! I ended up writing the wrong endings and I forgot this other thing you have to add between the pronoun and verb (avoir conjugated for those of you who know) and I was sooo embarrassed!!! She came up to me and was like "you really have to review your verb conjugations. This is all wrong!" and then she drew a huge X through my work "if this was on a test I would take 5 marks off each question!". It was like the worst thing! I used to be the "smart" one in my French class last year and now I'm like the "not-so-smart" one... I don't know if I should switch classes so I can be back in Academic or should I continue..? (Crying :( ) I've also got a Math Quiz tomorrow... I know right? On the second week of school... 
    Well that's about it for now. I'll try not to talk about school too much in my later posts, it's just a big part of my life so it's hard not to. Maybe after a few weeks things will start to get a bit easier as I get used to everything... I hope. 


~ Aurelia Maude        

I'm Back

I'm finally back from England! Sorry about not being able to blog for so long. The weddings I went to were pretty fun and I had a blast! I'll write more a little later, but for now, here are a few pictures from the past couple of days:

Wedding Number 2

Getting my makeup done before bridesmaiding

Perfection with the lipstick! 

Me in the bridesmaid dress

The next pictures are me practicing my photography skills:

I took a lot more photos but these were the ones that I thought looked the best. I was still learning my camera's functions so determining the focus and light balance was still hard for me to do. The bridesmaids dresses were a little different than what I thought they were going to be but they weren't that bad. I really didn't like the hairstyle though... There's nothing you can do about it since it's the bride's decision and it's her day, not yours :) If she likes it, then isn't that what really matters? Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the pictures!  

~ Aurelia Maude 

Wedding Season

    The Wedding Season is almost over (May to end of August?) but to me it's just begun! I will be attending 3 weddings within the next couple of days and they're all going to be in England. We're going to take the train from Paris to London, and apparently the Eurostar train goes underwater? I think I heard something like that... That must be pretty scary. I think it takes around 2 hours so it's not that long. Hopefully I won't start feeling claustrophobic while we're under water, haha.    
    This will be my first time at a wedding and I'm pretty excited! The first one is a family friend's wedding, the second is my Uncle's wedding and the third is my Grandfather's wedding (his second marriage). I'm a guest for the first two weddings but I'm a bride's maid for the last! Luckily I'm bridesmaiding (yes I made it into a verb, hahaha) for the last wedding and not the first since I would have no idea what to do; this being my first time at a wedding and everything. At least this way I'll have some experience before my "big" role. At first I didn't really know what to wear to each wedding but luckily they each had a very descriptive pamphlet regarding what guests are expected to wear. The dresses for the bridesmaids were already picked out too and I'll be seeing it for the first time once we get to London. 
    For now here's a glimpse at me making weird faces (I don't know why...) and a part of the dress I'm wearing to the first black and white themed wedding:

    The bottom of this dress was kind of short so we took it to alterations today to add some stuff to the bottom to make it knee length; more suitable for a church setting, and as stated in the detailed pamphlet I mentioned earlier. Anyway, I'll blog again in a of couple days with pictures from the weddings. Until then, hope you all have a wonderful weekend!   

~ Aurelia Maude

Moving

    My father's work forces us to move every year or two and it's always to some far away place where I have no friends and I haven't even visited before. Therefore, I've moved quite a lot of times in my life and almost always to a different country. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have lived in 7 different countries: Canada, The United States, England, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and now France. Fortunately all the countries we moved to spoke mostly English so there wasn't much of a language barrier until we moved to France. My father's Russian and my mother's Swede but I don't know how to speak either of their native languages! All I know is English and a bit of French, haha. 

    

    I was born in Monaco (I kind of counted Monaco as France so I said 7 countries but Monaco is its own principality so I guess I've actually lived in 8 countries, not 7) and the first time we moved from there was when I was 3 to London, England. We moved from London to Cape Town, South Africa when I was 5 then from South Africa to Cottesloe near Perth, Australia when I was still 5 (a few months later). We moved away to New York when I was 8 and then to Anchorage, Alaska when I was 10. We moved to Tauranga, New Zealand when I was 13 and then to Toronto, Canada when I was 14. Finally, we moved to France about a month ago at 15.  

  

    Here's a simpler version:

1. 1996 - Monte-Carlo, Monaco    
2. 1999 - London, England
3. 2001 - Cape Town, South Africa
4. 2001 - Perth, Australia
5. 2004 - New York, USA
6. 2006 - Anchorage, USA
7. 2009 - Tauranga, New Zealand 
8. 2010- Toronto, Canada
9. 2011 - France

    I know reading all this you must be like "Oh my gosh doesn't she ever get to rest!?" well it's not as bad as it sounds; I mean 2 years is enough time to settle in. The worst part of having to move so often is that you never get to make any close friends. I've been the "new girl" my entire life which isn't always a bad thing but I never get to talk about things we've done in the past together with my friends. It's always a clean new slate each and every time. There's always someone asking about your weird North American-British-South African-Australian-New Zealand accent, hahaha. Moving isn't completely awful though. It's fun to move into different houses with a new atmosphere, and by the time you're starting to get bored of it... We move again!     


~ Aurelia Maude

                

My First Award

Jumping for joy!

    I would like to thank sweet CutestPrincess of It's A Girl Thing for presenting me with my first and only blog award: The 'One Lovely Blog Award'!! I can't believe I'm already winning awards and my blog is barely a month old. I was actually kind of scared when I found out I was nominated because I had no idea what to do!   Thank you so much CutestPrincess, what a surprise! 

    

The Rules Are: 

- Link back to the person who gave you the award

- Complete the form below

- Tell seven random things about yourself 

- Nominate 15 bloggers


Questions:

Name your favourite colour: I don't really have a favourite colour but if I had to choose one I guess it would  be light coral pink. 

Name your favourite song: Well my favourite artist is Martin Solveig, and if I had to choose my favourite song by him... It would probably be "Hello", you can watch the music video of it here. 

Name your favourite dessert: My favourite dessert is chocolate souffle. I love almost all desserts though, like: pumpkin pie, mango custard, chocolate mousse and more.

What pisses you off: I really hate it when people borrow your things promising that they'll take good care of it and then they ruin or break them. This isn't only once though, they make you forgive them and then they repeatedly do harm.

When you're upset: When I'm upset I can cry, write in my diary, think about the hard lives people in poor countries live (if I'm selfishly upset), or lye on my bed and possibly take a short nap.

Your favourite pet: My favourite pet is a Coton De Tulear. They're so white and fluffy!

Your biggest fear: My biggest fear is to not be able to fulfill my dreams before I grow old.

Your best feature: I think my best feature is my eyes. I've been told many times that they appear to be violet (I think they're a blue-grey). Maybe because I'm a redhead, the lack of pigmentation in my skin affects my eyes too? 

A picture a friend took of me and photo shopped the background so my eyes stood out more 

Everyday attitude: I always try to see a silver lining to every cloud. Which also means that I try to make the best of any situation. 

What is perfection: I think perfection is being beautiful inside and out, getting outstanding grades at school, having loving friends and family, and most of all: being happy.   

Guilty pleasure: My guilty pleasure is dark chocolate and spicy foods. I know they both cause pimples but I have to have a bit of both each day! 

7 Random Things About Me: 

1. I dream of becoming an architect or fashion designer some day.
2. I am extremely terrified of spiders, but I don't mind mice and non-poisonous snakes, hahaha. 
3. My Hollywood crush is Daniel Craig 
4. I love sauces and I can't properly enjoy a homemade meal without Tabasco Sauce (original, chipotle, or Asian), spicy ketchup (if there's potato fries or hamburgers), salad dressing (I really like Renée's Italian or Mediterranean), and soy sauce (on rice usually).     
5.  I love to cook and my favourite dish is Pad Thai. 
6. I'm actually surprisingly good with technical things like fixing computers. 
7. I've lived in 7 different countries.    

The blogs I nominate for the 'One Lovely Blog Award' are:

Sous Ta Chaussure  

Opium Poppies 

Nina Says Hello

Frills and Thrills

I know I should nominate 15 blogs, but I don't know that many since I'm still pretty new! I hope you all enjoyed learning a little more about me and congratulations to those I nominated!  

~ Aurelia Maude