cairns number 3

21 and invicible

i will post another entry about cairns later.. but, for now..





i'm 21!!!




happy birddayyy to meeee!! it's the 22nd here in sydney but the 21st back home so i got 2 birthdays this year! :D
birthday night (20th)..

me on my birthday(21st) in The Rocks, NSW

cairns continued

so, the next day in cairns was another dream come true.
i skydived!!!
it was the best thing i've ever done in. my. life.
we fell 14,000 feet from the sky. 10, 000 of that was free falling which was only 60 seconds long. the rest was a lot smoother of a ride. when the parachute was pulled, he gave me the handles and i steered us in circles around Mission Beach. it was so gorgeous and i'm so blessed to say that i was able to sky dive. skydiving for my 21st birthday was on my bucket list and, although it was a week prior to my actually birthday, i still consider it my present to myself.

i dove with a man named Jean from South Africa. he was really awesome and helped me feel 100% at ease. as we were acending into the air, i was grabbing on to his ankles and i could feel my palms getting sweaty. he was perfectly okay with it and kept asking if i was okay. not only 2 hours before did he dive with my friend, Will, and fall out of the plane.. backwards!! he was a very versatile diver and i'm very glad i got him. i feel like all of the divers would have been the same way. i felt at complete ease and they really love their jobs and it showed. Jean also told me that he has dived with famous people. one of them being Prince Harry!!! he's my favorite prince so when he told me, i was like "i've just touched Prince Harry!" :)

the free fall was unreal. i can't even begin to try to explain it. if you could have the feeling of not feeling anything, that is it. i felt the feeling of nothing. i wasn't scared or worried that my parachute wouldn't deploy, i just couldn't help but smile. there are no words to give it justice but, i felt like a bird looking down on the earth. when i close my eyes i can still see the view. beautiful doesn't give the experience justice but it was beautiful. i was awe stricken.

when i was in the sky it felt like eternity. when i landed it felt like 2 seconds had gone by. the whole thing, from free fall to landing, took a total of 6 minutes. i will definitely be investing in that adventure again.

i got a video to go along with it, so if you'd like to watch it, just ask.
for now, enjoy the pictures :)
xoxox
dustialynn

great barrier reef pt. 1

so, this weekend was the weekend of. my. life.
absolutely, breathtakingly, amazing.
i went to the great barrier reef!! it was beyond words. it's pathetic even trying to put this down on "paper."
i will need to post a couple of entries because there is so so much to tell.
we left on thursday afternoon and arrived in the gorgeous, tropical city that night. we didn't have anything planned so we just hung out and some friends and i went to dinner. it was the most fun i've had in a long time. we ate dinner and talked for about 3 hours, then found a water park nearby where we splashed in a "lagoon" by the ocean. it was a lot of fun. a fun that can only be discribed as what you would've done in high school on a friday night when you were still a minor and participated in wholesome activities :) so. fun.

friday was the actual trip to the great barrier reef.
i can't even begin to put this is to words to do this experience justice. it's like nothing i've ever experienced before. i was in complete awe all day. looking out from the boat at the dark blue water which expanded infinitely in all directions, meeting up with the mountains of trees somewhere far off in the distance which expanded themselves into places beyond view. we rode to the reef where we would have an introduction scuba diving class. that's right, i scuba dived. never, ever in my life would i have pictured myself scuba diving. 1. because, before this trip i HATED the idea of getting in an ocean full of dangerous animals. 2. because, before this trip, i didn't realize i could scuba dive. i didn't know it was in me. well, it was and it was an awesome awesome awesome experience. i fed a sea turtle, i petted another one. i swim right next to a few schools of fishes.. it was breath taking. well, i couldn't stop breathing because if i did, my lungs would explode but, sometimes i forgot to breathe due to my breath being taken from me..
the coral was GORGEOUS and i was in absolute amazement of all the different kinds of coral that i was looking at from a bird's eye perspective.
i took a ton of pictures under water but i must get them developed. until then, watch Finding Nemo and know that i was there this weekend swimming with Nemo, Dory, and Crush. :)
pictures to come asap.
xoxox
dustialynn

this blog is mostly for me but welcome to anyone who wants to read..
School is stressing me out. i'm leaving for the Great Barrier Reef tomorrow and that means i'm missing a stupid tutorial and so when i emailed my professor he told me i should have gone to one last week if i knew i was going to be gone. well, how was i suppose to know!?!?! this tutorial thing is stupid and just makes school THAT much harder. and, if the schedule wasn't every "fortnight" and i knew what times the other tutorials were!!! alsdjfa;lsdfjkasd. aaahhhh! so so frustrating! that means i can only miss 1 more and i'm not too happy about that. i also missed one history tutorial because i didn't know when it was. screw this tutorial thing!! just let me have lectures, i'll learn that way. sheesh.
anyway, i'm suppose to be going to the museum with a friend, but she hasn't called. surprise surprise..
this weekend will be amazing! you are in for a treat! :D

anyway, that felt good to vent. i hope all is well to anyone who read this.
talk to you all soon soon soon.
xoxox
dustialynn

just hello

g'day everyone..
i'm just here to drop a line & let everyone know that i'm a bit upset that t.o. was cut after his third (?) season and after a 4 year contract had just been signed! but, i hope roy williams will prove to be a good replacement. i also have my bets on the dolphins or the chiefs to draft him :)
if the dolphins take him, they'll come back up from the shadows that they have retreated to..
also, i think tony romo is a little girl & cried to jerry jones because he couldn't handle t.o.
all in all though, the only one that matters is miriam barber & we all know that. :)
anyway, that is my opinion on these matters.
tomorrow is mardi gras. i canNOT wait.
i hope all is well.
cheers mates
xoxox
dustialynn.

all suited up & ready to surf..
me, katie, maxium, & kailyn LOVE to surf.

this past weekend a group of about 32 of us went to a surf camp out in the middle of now where. it was unreal and absolutely amazing. i finally conquered my fear of the ocean, and sharks, anddd crossed another thing off my bucket list: i learned to surf!! we were suppose to leave campus at 7:30 on friday but, we didn't end up leaving until around 8:30ish. this was to mark the beginning of a veryyy interesting weekend. because we had too many people. there were to be two buses. however, the second bus, which was driven by the owner of the camp and contained an additional 60 passengers, was wayyy late so we had to wait for him to get there. after we finally set off on our journey, driving for about an hour, we stop at a truck stop to get food. this takes about 45 minutes due to the large number of people. we finally get on the road again and drove for about 2 hours until we arrived at camp. we get settled in our bunks after a long journey.. we were greeted by an "opossum" (not so sure that's what it was) outside our window. it intrigued my roommates and i so much we actually sat still and watched the animal for like 20 minutes. :) the next morning we all head out to our different beaches. our group is lead by joel, rhys, and marty. we were also joined by a camp helper from norway. her name was tuna and she was on holiday from her job at a psych ward (she's passing the time between work & her doctorate.) we drove for about 3o minutes to the beaches and then joel, marty, rhys, and tuna had to check out the waves to make sure there was surf on the beach. the first beach we stopped at didn't have surf but there was a pack of dolphins swimming! too far away to get pictures but i still got to see their fins bobbing in and out of the water :) after that excitement, we drove to our final destination, Elizabeth "Lizzy," beach. it was beyond words beautiful. it was perfect for learning on, i decided. not too heavy of waves. we have a lesson for about 20 minutes about the different parts of the board and how to stand and then, it's off into the water. i conquered my fear! it was so awesome. when i got in the water i was not overcome by fear like i normally am. i was one with the ocean and it was overwhelming. the warm water splashed me in my face, carrying me with the current over a thousand times and i felt what it was like to live in God's greatest masterpeice. i was a helpless jellyfish being thrown on the shore with the whitewash of the waves and i didn't care. i got up, grabbed my board, and went in for it again. i'm no where near amazing but i will definitely be picking this up as a hobbie. i have never been interested in board sports, i hate skateboarding, snowboarding was scary, wakeboarding is not my thing but surfing is AWESOME! when i come back to the states, i just might move to cali! it truly was an amazing experience being in the water and getting lost in the waves. it might sound out there, but it's a feeling you will not understand unless you experience it yourself. it is out-of-this-world, priceless to be one with God's beautiful, frightening creation.
seals rock, nsw