Category: Brizzie

Our mammoth long weekend – days 4 & 5

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At 8am the alarm sounded and up we got. Well, up I got. Hubs had a little extra sleep while I showered and started getting ready. We had my Dad’s famous scrambled eggs with the works (speck, mushrooms, parsley, cheese, onion… anything else, Dad???) and some lovely strong coffee to start our day. We then packed madly (as is always the way!) and headed over to Hubs’ Mum’s place to say goodbye. Our flight left on time (10:50am) and arrived in Avalon just after 2pm Melbourne time (daylight savings is a bitch coming home!) As we were making our descent into Avalon, the pilot informed us that it was cloudy and 15 degrees. Wha?…. We just spent 3 days in 25 degree sunshine! Don’t do this to us!!

As we stepped off the plane, we knew we were home. It was cold and windy and gross 🙂 We jumped in the kombi and began the hour-long journey back in to town. I knew my cousin was down in Melbourne for the races, so I thought I’d see if she was free for a coffee, and luckily for us she was. We met her in town and had some great quality time with her which was just such a bonus.

We were talking about arranging to go out to dinner with some other friends, but when I rang our friends who we were staying with (same people as Thursday night) and they mentioned they were cooking a lamb roast, our minds were made up. But we still hadn’t hit the wall! We had a lovely evening with them and slept very well that night.

We didn’t set the alarm for the next morning but the trams woke us up at a very respectable 9am. We had a lovely breakfast with Liza and the boys and plotted our journey for the day – we’ve been looking for centre seats for the kombi for a few months now and Hubs had phoned a couple of wreckers on the (deep) south side of town so we left around 10:45am to go and check them out and hope for the best! It took AGES – we arrived after midday! I think we only went about 35km but that takes a long time in Melbourne traffic. As we drove into the wreckers, another gentleman pulled up and he got chatting to Hubs. He asked what we were looking for, for the kombi and when Hubs said centre seats, he said that we probably wouldn’t find any at the wreckers as he is there every week and hadn’t seen any. BUT he had some at his place which was just around the corner. He gave us his address and we parted ways.

I thought it was a bit weird but Hubs wasn’t the least bit suspicious. Of course we didn’t find any in the wrecking yard (didn’t even find any kombis, even though we were told there were 1 or 2 in the yard!!). We thought, since we had come all this way, we would take a gamble and check out this guy’s offer. And sure enough, he had exactly what we were looking for, in the right condition at the right price.

What are the odds of this chance meeting? Seriously! 5 minutes either way and this wouldn’t have happened. This was definitely a God moment. We then popped in to say hi to Hubs’ aunt and cousin on our way home and were back on the Hume highway around 4:30pm. On our way home we arranged for some friends who were up in Wang from Melbourne for the races the next day, to come on over around 8pm for dessert. We just couldn’t help ourselves!! We arrived home and Hubs went to pick them up as I made some delish blueberry pancakes and we had a lovely evening with them.

And if you think that was the end of our mammoth weekend, you’re wrong. We still had 1 more day to go…

Our mammoth long weekend – day 3

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Saturday morning my body clock woke me up at 6:30am (7:30am Victoria time) and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fall asleep again. So at 7:30am I decided to stop trying and got up and leisurely got ready for my 9am doctor’s appointment. Being almost 37 weeks pregnant at the time, I had to get a letter from a doctor 24 hours before my flight, saying I was fit to fly. I decided to get there a bit early (8:35am) in the hope that I could get in a bit earlier, but didn’t end up going in til 9:05!! Oh well You win some you lose some. After stopping at the shops I headed home and woke Hubs up (lucky bugger) and had some yummy leftovers for brekky. We then started welcoming friends and family whom Mum and I had invited over for the morning. It turned out to be only about a dozen people who arrived and left at all different times so it was really nice to catch up with them.

During all of this, my gorgeous cousins agreed to do my hair for me for the wedding:
And, well, I don’t mean to brag, but as usual I think Hubs and I scrub up okay 🙂

The wedding was absolutely wonderful, and, as I suspected, I needed the waterproof mascara and extra tissues. The service was very traditional and similar to ours, so it was lovely to re-live the vows Hubs and I exchanged in the same place a few years ago. Jess, the bride, looked absolutely stunning, and Matt, the groom, was wearing the biggest, widest grin you could imagine. It was a very personal service that really suited them both and I’m so glad Hubs and I could be there to share it with them.

After the ceremony, we had over 3 hours to kill so we decided on the spur of the moment to head out to our friend’s place in Zilmere (about half an hour north of the CBD), as he was having his 30th birthday party. We turned up as a surprise and it was really nice catching up with them. The party hadn’t officially started so we had them mostly to ourselves for a little while.

We then headed back in to town for the reception and were delighted at the table we had been seated at – we met some lovely new people and shared good conversation accompanied by good food and (just a little) good wine. Matt & Jess had hired the same DJ that we had at our wedding, (from our recommendation) so we said hi to him and he remembered us which was really nice. They even played our wedding song during dinner (more tears) which was lovely.

Then it was time for us to hit the dance floor, and, as I already mentioned, we hit it HARD! Hubs was in fine form, pulling out The Robot and a good AC/DC head-bang. I couldn’t pull out my usual moves with my extra cargo, but still had my moments! Alas, all good weddings must come to an end, so at 11:45pm the bride and groom bid us adieu and we headed to the car. As we took off, Hubs looked at me, and I looked at him and we knew what each other was thinking. (Don’t be rude.) Our friends were having a Halloween Party out at Arana Hills (about 15 min from CBD) that night, so we gave them a call to see if they were still kicking on. And sure enough, they were!! So we headed out there and caught up with 4 really good friends of ours (including 2 of Hubs’ groomsmen!)

I truly don’t know where all the energy was coming from but it just didn’t stop! At 2am though, it was time to head home and I was pretty happy to crash into bed at 2:30. A full 20 hours of being awake, and one of the best/most fun/memorable days EVER! I begrudgingly set the alarm for 8am the “next morning” and drifted off into a deeeeeep sleeeeeeep…

Our mammoth long weekend – days 1 & 2

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Well it’s a good thing I have all this energy at the moment, as the 6-day-weekend we just had was not for the faint-hearted! It began on Thursday when we drove the kombi from Wang to Melbourne just after lunch, arriving around afternoon tea time to catch up with the staff at Newman College. It was really nice to see everyone and catch up on all their news, and to share my growing bump with them.

We then headed over to our friend’s place where Hubs and our friends headed out to a photography exhibition while I looked after their 2 & 4 year old sons and their neighbour’s 3 year old daughter. We had a great time in the bath (clearly that was the kids, not me) and had some dinner and then had lots of stories. I had them all in bed by 8pm and was commended for my “baby whispering”! I guess I just wore them all out with all those exciting stories!

We were up at 6am Friday for our 9am flight from Avalon. We drove the kombi to the airport hassle-free and the plane left basically on time. We arrived in Brizzie just after 10am (thanks to daylight savings) and headed over to Nanny and Grandpa’s for a spot of lunch. It was lovely to see them as usual and so good to have yummy Nanny food again! And she was very happy to see us, though she couldn’t help herself and told me I shouldn’t be flying now that I am a “big lady”. 🙂

A snap from lunch:

We then headed to St Andrew’s Uniting Church in town, the location of a very memorable day in December almost 3 years ago, for the wedding rehearsal for “Brisbane’s Wedding of the Year”. Hubs rehearsed walking the lovely bride down the aisle,

and it was a pretty typical wedding rehearsal, other than the pregnant lady sitting in the 3rd row having a little cry. Yes. At the rehearsal. You got something to say about that? I knew that the following day I would have to a) wear water-proof mascara and b) take extra tissues.

We had kept the evening plan-free just in case of a pre-wedding dinner, so when the bride and groom decided to just have a quiet night in, we arranged for Hubs’ Mum, sister and kids to come on over for dinner at my parent’s place. In the mean time, we hung around town for a bit and grabbed a coffee and just chilled out together. It was really lovely being back in our old stomping ground and enjoying the lovely warm weather. We were talking about who we might run in to, as is inevitable whilst in Brisbane. And sure enough, on our way to the rendezvous point to meet my Mum for our lift home, we ran into very good friends of mine and their 6 month old daughter whom I hadn’t met yet!

She. Was. Divine. And her dear parents were very lucky that I’m about to pop out one of our own, or I may have run off with their little cherub. I actually had tears of joy and awe at this gorgeous little girl (seeing a hormonal pattern here people??) I simply had to get some shots with her.

The lovely Henna and the gorgeous little baby Iida

It was SO nice to see our friends and have a little catch up! We headed back to Mum and Dad’s for a feast of seafood marinara and carbonara pasta and Nanny’s apple pie for dessert. And of course, we had to play with the lego as well.

Lego time!
And we had to take some fun photos! Mine’s the biggest!!

And our friend Ian popped over around dessert time as well, so that was another bonus! So that was the first 2 days of our awesome weekend – and they were the most restful days! So much more to come…

I’ve still got it

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Yesterday we went to Brisbane’s “wedding of the year” (blog post to come) and I don’t like to brag, but Hubs and I shook our groove thing on the dancefloor at the reception for almost 2 hours with only a few drink/toilet/not-our-kind-of-music breaks. Let me remind you, ladies and gents, that I’m 37 weeks pregnant AND I was wearing heels. Heels people! I was pretty impressed with my efforts to be honest. I’ve been a little nervous about losing energy at times when energy is needed, but my Duracel batteries just kept going and going – from 6:30am when I woke up (not on purpose – my body clock was being a pain) til my head hit the pillow at 2:35am this morning (we decided it would be fun to go to our friend’s Halloween party after we left the wedding last night – totally worth it!)

Needless to say I cannot WAIT to get into bed tonight as I’m sure it’s going to be the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a week. And maybe, just maybe I’m not going to have as much trouble with the upcoming sleep-deprivation as I thought I might?! (One can hope!)

Another baby shower!

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I headed up to Brizzie a few weeks ago to visit with my family and friends to share this whole “growing a baby inside my belly thing” with them. A few of my girlfriends were really keen to throw me a baby shower, so how could I possibly say no? Hubs wasn’t able to come up with me for this visit, so I went solo. It takes longer (obviously) to get to Brizzie from Wang, than it does from Melbs. Throw in a cancelled flight and more delays, and you have one tired Wifey arriving in Brisbane at 6:30pm, after getting on the bus from Wang (to Melbs) at 6:30am. It was totally worth it though!

We went and visited Nanny in hospital (she’s much better now) on the Thursday night after I arrived, then I had a lovely sleeeeeeep in on Friday and had a nice day with Kate and Alex (mmmm….. baby cuddles) and then had a nice relaxed evening at home with Mum and Dad. Dad and I watched the footy and had an early night. Then I had brunch with Ma and came back to Mum and Dad’s place for lunch before the showering began!

It was so lovely, as always, to see all my girlfriends and rellies. We played a couple of games, but mostly I just got to hang out with the most amazing women I know. There were lots of belly rubs (which, as you know, I don’t mind!) and oooohing and aaaaaahing over delightful gifts. I felt quite overwhelmed by all the love and support, and it certainly made leaving the next day harder.

Some happy snaps from the day:

The Belly Shot

Two Mums

Another 2 Mums! (Nanny’s still not happy that we live in “Victoria”)
With Ah-del and Bethie
The Nappy Cake (guess how many nappies!!)
(Bethie, you’ll have to leave the answer in the comments section cos I can’t remember!!)
I have some other photos but am having uploading issues, so I’ll hopefully share them another time! (And if you have any shots from the day, please feel free to email them to me!)

We then headed over to my bro’s birthday party at his place which was lots of fun. I got to catch up with a few of his friends whom I haven’t seen in a long time, and I met some lovely new people as well. It wasn’t a late night, and I was certainly ready for bed when we got home.

The next morning I had a leisurely brekky with Mum and Dad and then I had to sort through the 4 vacuum-sealed bags of clothes that Kate had left for me! That was quite a task! I picked out a few things that I thought might come in handy early on, and left the rest for when we stay in Brizzie over Christmas. There was just so much!! We left for the airport for my 1pm flight and arrived with plenty of time to spare. I was trying not to think about the actual leaving side of things, but as we walked to the security gates I lost it. I couldn’t stop crying and didn’t want to let go of Mum and Dad. The security guards told them to come through with me, which just meant I had to go through it all again once I had to board the plane!!

I managed to somewhat keep it together until I got on the plane, and then the waterworks began again. I was trying to be discreet, but it obviously wasn’t working as a flight attendant came over to me while everyone else was boarding to see if she could do anything for me. I just told her I was just a little bit sad and she looked at my bulging belly and said she understood.

Anyway, I made it home safe and sound around 10:30pm that night and was utterly emotionally and physically exhausted, but oh so happy as well. Hubs had texted me to say he had made me something and this is what greeted me on my arrival home:

I do love this man oh so much. If I remember correctly, it may have started the tears again, but in a really lovely way. Thanks again to everyone who came along on Saturday and sent their best wishes for our family. We know we’re a long way away, but I feel so close to you all and can’t wait to share more special times with you.

Gone shootin’

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Okay. So this is a post that I started writing on the 2nd of February 2009 (yes, 2009) about an activity that took place on the 2nd of January 2009 (yes, 2009). I know I know. I’ve been busy! So the story goes: Hubs wanted to do some shooting at the rifle range while we were on in Brisbane for Christmas holidays almost 2 years ago, so Dad offered to take us. He owns a few (registered, legal) hunting rifles, so we invited Lsl and NephNath along and headed down to The Queensland Rifle Range at Belmont.

After a (very brief) safety demonstration, we waited for a break in the “traffic” and set our targets up.

Ready Hubs?
Ready Wifey?
Ready Lsl?
Aim NephNath and Dad, and FIRE!
We even managed to hit some targets! I think this was one of mine?
I didn’t like to use the animal-looking ones… That’s so mean!
All the gun shots left me quite on edge and to be honest, I was quite happy to leave. We had a great time though!

Cutie cuties

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So just because I can, I would like to show off my gorgeous Godson and his super-cute new baby brother. Hubs took these photos while we were visiting Brizzie a couple of weekends ago and I can’t stop looking at them!!!

Mmmmmm…. babies….. Alex was 1 month old when we went to visit, and just so damn cute.

 Liam acting all serious in between giggle-fits! How gorgeous is my Godson!?

It was so easy looking after Alex! I really don’t know what all the fuss is about. 
(Ha ha ha ha ha ha! I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough!!)

It was so nice hanging out with the boys and Mama and Papa as well. We had a cruisey morning with only a little bit of spew and poop, and LOTS of baby cuddles and toddler giggles. Thanks guys! T’was so much fun!

Spy vs Spy

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We recently went up to Bribane for my good friend Ah-del’s 30th and she had a spy party! Hubs and I threw around a few ideas for costumes including a “Get Smart” combo and “Mr and Mrs Smith” and then Hubs suggested “Spy vs Spy”. (Actually, he wanted to dress up with our friend Nate, but I had a little tanty and got my own way! Ha!) Of course, not being a nerd myself, I had to ask what it was, and after reading into it and looking at some pictures, I decided it would be a fun project to undertake!

Cos, you know, when we visit Brisbane we always have plenty of time to kill…

So I got to work and with the help of my cousins and Godson and Billy-Bob’s Mum (mainly direction from her!) I put it together. Through all of this, Hubs was helping a friend of his put finishing touches on his bar, so it was a solo effort by yours-truly. I did, however, ring Hubs just as I was leaving, to tell him I had worked very hard on our costumes and that he needed to go ape-sh*t over them. Cos if you know my Hubsband, you’ll know it takes a bit for him to go ape-sh*t over anything, so it was just a friendly warning that I needed a VERY enthusiastic response from him!

And I got it, of course, cos check out these costumes:

My favourite bit was the dynamite, also home-made! I was quite worried that no one would know what the heck we were but we had quite a few people recognise the characters, so I fel that all my hard work had paid off. The party was a great success with the birthday girl looking absolutely spy-a-licious!

In both costumes!
And here is Bethie, Ah-del and Myself. We have celebrated 18 years of birthdays together! Incredible!!
We had a great time catching up with friends and celebrating this occasion. We hope you had a great night birthday girl (I know you did!) and looking forward to celebrating many many more with you. x x x

The Wedding of 2009

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This is really quite overdue, but I figure, it’s better late than never! Hubs and I attended my cousin’s wedding last October and it was just delightful. We headed over to Kturtle and Khicken’s place to get ready in the afternoon, after a few home brewskies, and headed to West End for the service.

It was just divine. I had a little cry as I watched my “baby cousin” who, along with her twin, are the sisters I always wanted. The service was really lovely and personal, and I had a little cry when they were making their promises to each other.

Here’s A&A, the happy couple, after the service
Kturtle, Khicken, Dad, Mum, Wifey, Hubs (red was the order of the day!)
A&E – Another happy (and stunning) couple!
And another…
And another!!
Pro Photo. Aren’t they just gorgeous!

And then it was off to the reception! Via the Spring Hill Hotel with the cousins, that is. I thought to myself, “I’ll just have a champagne or 2 and that will do me” but what I’d forgotten was that we were with my brother and his Kturtle so the drinks were flowing freely. Oh boy. We finally made it to the reception, in a jovial mood and were ready to par-tay!

The speeches were really special, and when Crolly recited a poem he had written, to his bride, there was not a dry eye in the house. And don’t get me STARTED on his rendition of “The Horses” by Daryl Braithwaite. “That’s the way it’s gonna beeeeeee little darlin'”. Oh my goodness. SO MUCH FUN!!!

And of course, you can’t have all the cousins together, without getting a cousin shot!

I’m so happy for you guys, and I know you have embarked on an amazing journey together that you will share whole-heartedly. So much love to you both.