Brick Event 2016

July 9, 2016 / Renae / 1 Comment

Oh wow. You know when you have little expectation of something (little as opposed to low) and you are just blown away by it!? I love when that happens. Those little surprises in life make me happy, especially when they also make my kids happy.

I took the kids to Rocky’s Brick Event this morning, along with a babysitter to help out, and it was one of the best things I’ve ever taken the kids to.

The reasons for my expectation level, is due to this event that we went to last year. Looking back, I can’t believe how little I wrote about it! I think that’s quite telling. As I did mention, I was hoping that there would be more interactive things for the kids, other than the trays of bricks at the end. That’s where this event was different.

The displays were AMAZING and had heaps of moving parts.

Retro train set! Wooooo wooooooooooo!

There was SO much Star Wars Lego. My kids were so excited.

See?

We were among the first to arrive to beat the crowds (which was my plan) and it was great as it meant I could put Darby in the stroller (he took some convincing!!) and he could still see everything without other people getting in the way. By the time we left, there were crowds 3 or 4 people deep at each display so it would have been impossible for him to see. He loved it!

So busy!

There were probably about 40?? displays, but this was my favourite by far.

I couldn’t stop watching it! So amazing.

After seeing all the displays, there were a bunch of tables for building Lego! And not just any Lego; the kids could build their own train carriage to be put on the back of a running train! The kids thought this was so awesome. Here’s Chance and Quinn’s efforts (the 2 end carriages). (Gotta love Quinn’s comment at the end!!)

There was a staff member there the whole time, taking carriages off and putting new ones on to go for a spin. All the kids were so proud of their creations being shown off like that.

And that’s not all! There were a few towers like this with heaps of different shaped Lego for kids to make their names. Quinny had some help, but Chance did his all by himself. Such a great idea.

Sooooo much Lego. Almost as much as our collection at home!

And of course, because I’m a massive softy, I couldn’t not buy the kids some Lego to take home. I had told them not to ask me to buy any, and they honoured that, so I surprised them at the end. Of course they wanted to go straight home to build it.

Quinn chose Cinderella (quite fitting, as one of her nick-names is Quinderella) and Chance chose the Ambulance rescue plane.

We were only there for an hour and a half, and if it wasn’t so crowded, I would have loved to go back and look at the displays again, but it was just too crazy and the kids were ready to leave. I’m glad I had our friend there to help with Darby as I didn’t want to just keep him in the stroller the whole time. There was a Duplo table for him to play at while the kids were building their creations, but he was more interested in running around.

I think the biggest difference between this expo and the last one, was this was really aimed at kids. The one in Brisbane was more about showing the design side of things, and showing off creations, which were really impressive, but not that exciting for kids after about 10 minutes. This one was all about showing what you could do with Lego and really encouraging kids’ participation and creativity. 10 thumbs up from this crew. Will definitely keep an eye out for more events in the future!

Today I’m playing with Lego

May 4, 2015 / Renae / 2 Comments

I decided pretty early on that I’m not adulting today. I just need to play and be with my kids. Or just play, and let the kids do their own thang. So this was my first couple of hours:

I know it’s hard to tell, but this will eventually be a helicopter, if I can find all the damn pieces. But since I “sorted” the Lego a little while ago, I now have to sift through all the pieces to find the parts for each model. From now on, each model will stay on it’s own in a zip-lock bag. I wish I had thought of that a few months ago…

So the washing shan’t be done today. We are eating lots of easy things like crackers and tomato and cheese, fruit and sultanas. I’m just letting the kids dictate the direction of the day, and not worrying about getting adult things done. Just lots of sitting around and just being. I’ll deal with the adult things once the kids are in bed. I’m glad I made the decision this morning, because the only other way today would have gone, is me moping about the house “knowing” I “should” be adulting but not wanting to.

This way, everybody wins.

I love Melbourne

November 1, 2014 / Renae / Leave a comment

Number one on my “to do” list should be “enable ability to blog from my mobile”. There have been numerous occasions in the last fortnight that I’ve wanted to share, but just haven’t been near a computer, and to be honest, I haven’t even tried to blog from my phone with the new format.

I’m writing this particular post from the very comfy couch at my brother and his partner’s house in Melbourne. Aaaaah Melbourne. How I have missed thee. K & K have recently moved down and in to their new house and we were lucky enough to be their first guests. The place is huge and amazing, and I can’t tell you how lovely it is to be back in Melbs. And as much as we love our kids (love love love!) it is really nice to just be here with Hubs. He is here for PAX Aus and in between playing video games and attending panel discussions on various topics, we have been wandering through the city, eating at our old favourite places and drinking delicious coffee. We’ve even run into a few students from Newman who remember us which is quite lovely.

Yesterday was a balmy 30 degrees, and today got up to only 16. And it felt like about 10 with the windchill. I even had to buy myself a beanie!! I came completely unprepared. We are catching up with a bunch of med friends tomorrow which I’m really looking forward to, and then the countdown back to reality (well, mostly) will be on. May I share with you what the next month or 2 looks like for us?

On Monday we fly back to Brisbane
We spend the week in and around Brizzy, having more catch ups
Hubs flies back down to Melbourne next weekend for a one week placement at the Alfred Hospital down here
Hubs flies back the following weekend
We pack up in the next day or 2 and head north to Rocky to check out the town and some living possibilities
We somehow make our way back to Mount Isa with me crossing my legs, trying not to give birth! (I think I’ll be around the 38.5 week mark by this stage!)
Celebrate Chanbe’s 4th birthday on the 27th November
The baby is due on the 1st of December so… yeah… who knows what will be happening around that time

And then of course the fun really begins! Hubs has a week of paternity leave some time in early December, and he is working over Christmas/New Year. And then, you know, we move to Rocky sometime in mid January. Happy Birthday to me!

But for the next 48 hours, I will continue to love and live Melbourne. I’m so exhausted from all of the walking, and my feet are screaming at me, but I can say 100% that it’s worth a little discomfort. This is the most relaxed I’ve seen Hubs all year, and it’s nice to be surrounded by a bit of culture and people just doing their own thing. Oh, and I won’t even complain about the weather.

Technology can be a bitch

November 18, 2010 / Renae / 2 Comments

So as you know, I’ve had my run-ins with various technological gadgets and gizmos, with mixed results. I think I’m pretty open-minded when it comes to trying new programs, e.g. for our music and photos, and if I’m shown how to use something once or twice (sometimes 3 or 4 times) I can usually pick it up pretty easily. And out of all the gadgets in my life that were going to be the next to potentially cause me grief, the last thing I expected it to be was my mobile phone.

I like my phone. It’s a slidey Nokia that I acquired off Hubs when I gave him the iPhone I got with my plan 2 years ago. I didn’t think I had much need for an iPhone and I knew Hubs really wanted one, so we swapped. This phone has been so good to me. I can use it with my eyes closed it’s so simple.

So yesterday I decided, for some reason, (maybe cos I have all this time on my hands) to make my phone more “adult”, particularly my contacts list. Instead of having contact names like “Hubs Mob” or separating “Mum & Dad Mob” and “Mum and Dad Home” I grouped all the numbers together and got rid of duplicates. I also changed names like “Erika Med” (hello!!!) to her full name, and for some people, if I thought I would wonder in a few months who on earth they were, I put a little note with their contact. Like for our Real Estate agent, I put “Real Estate” in her notes section. I also made sure all the mobile numbers were listed as mobile numbers, and home numbers as such. It took about 2 hours all up and I was so happy with my work.

As I was going to bed last night, I thought about how all my contacts are stored on my phone, and how if I lost my phone, the contacts would be lost too. So I decided to move them over to my sim card instead, as Optus backs up your sim card for you on their database so if you lose your phone, you don’t lose your data. Great idea right? RIGHT??? Wrong.

What I should have done is told Hubs what I was about to do and he would have said “sim cards can only hold 1 number for each contact so if you do that, it will split them all up again.” Why oh WHY did I not tell Hubs I was about to be clever and do this! I pressed “OK” thinking I was so clever, only to be horrified 5 minutes later when I browsed through my contacts. Instead of having, for example “Mum & Dad” I had “Mum & Dad1”, “Mum & Dad2” and that was for everyone with more than 1 contact detail, including the notes. All the mobile phone numbers had been changed to general numbers. All my notes were attached to contacts separately. I just couldn’t believe all my hard work had been tossed out the window.

In my despair I told Hubs I wanted a new phone. This may have been a little over-dramatic, but it was late and I was annoyed. I think the worse thing about this situation is that I thought I was being really clever, you know? I thought I was making my life easier. I should have known better.

Technology 1, Wifey 0.

Nuts about Peanuts

July 8, 2010 / Renae / 2 Comments

I’ve mentioned my love of Peanuts before (here and here), and my desire to own the complete Peanuts series of comic books (they are still being released!!) and the fact that I am currently ~~struggling through~~ reading a biography about Charles Schulz (that I think I’m going to give up on to be honest). What was my point again? Oh yeah, I love Peanuts. So when we were in Minotaur the other day, and came across the Peanuts 60th Anniversary Book, I went, well, a little nuts 🙂

But I didn’t actually really consider buying it. It was a bit pricey, and such frivolousness at this point in time wasn’t on my mind. But it was on Hubs’ mind. He said something like “Go onnnnnnnn. Let’s just get it. If you REALLY want it, we can say it was a birthday present since I didn’t get you one.” This isn’t really true – Hubs made me a beautiful photo album that didn’t cost much, but that took him hours to put together. Still, who was I to argue?? And since I got to get a new comic book, so did Hubs! (Perhaps that was his plan all along! 🙂 He wanted Strange Girl and the whole series (5 books) was available at a very good price so it was a done deal.

I haven’t even opened it yet. I’m saving it til we move to Wang. The anticipation is kind of killing me, but in a really awesome way. It’s going to be SO goooooood….

Spy vs Spy

March 29, 2010 / Renae / 2 Comments

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

New stuff on my blog

November 17, 2009 / Renae / Leave a comment

I’ve been having a little bit of fun with all the new gizmos and gadgets available on blogger (I accidentally typed blooger! Tee hee!) .com. I am particularly LOVING the new search tool (see left sidebar at the bottom) so I can check and make sure I haven’t already blogged about stuff before I start a new post. (Bad memory). Turns out the search window in the Navbar is fairly useless. Oh well. I do love my new look blog!

Plus, you can see what I’m up to with my TO DO list! Riveting, I know!

I do realise that many of my readers use Google Reader to read blogs (as I often do) but feel free to come over here and visit from time to time to check it all out. Who knows? You might want to know what I’m up to this Friday night in Brisbane!

Learning something new every day

November 2, 2009 / Renae / 4 Comments

We were at our friend’s place for dinner a few weeks ago, and Hubs was having a great time playing with their eldest son (who’s 3 years old), building fun things out of Duplo. Hubs finished his project and showed me:

I was impressed and said

“Honey, that’s a lovely pyramid you’ve made there!”

To which Hubs responded

“It’s not a pyramid. It’s clearly a ziggurat.”

Wifey: “A ziga-what? Stop making up words.”

About 5 seconds later, my friend’s husband walks in, sees Hubs’ creation, and exclaims

“Aaaah. A ziggurat!”

I kid you not.

I was convinced he had heard us talking but he was adament that he was mearly stating the obvious. Yeah. Real obvious. Who the hell has heard of a ziggurat!!??

Little Book of Calm

September 24, 2009 / Renae / Leave a comment

In the past, I have blogged about getting in touch with my nerdy side, but the problem is, most of the time I just fluke it when I get technical things right.

I was having a particularly non-nerdy time the other night when I was trying to watch Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith on our big screen and I couldn’t get it to work. To be honest, I didn’t try THAT hard, and I ended up just watching it on the laptop, when Hubs came home from his tutorial and wondered what on earth I was doing.

I explained (in an appropriately whiney voice) that I, once again, could not work the awesome technology that he had set up. He set it up for me, stating very nicely that I’d seen him do it a hundred times, to which I (whingely) replied “but I don’t have to pay attention when you’re around!!!!”

The next day, Hubs had a present for me:

Seriously? This is one of the most thoughtful, wonderful presents I’ve ever been given. And it’s not only step-by-step instructions, but it also has explanations about how things work and how to fix problems.

Hubs is a problem-solving kinda guy.
Problem: Wifey is getting upset that she can never remember or doesn’t know how to work gadgets and gizmos.
Solution: Write Wifey a guide to help her to learn new things and feel useful around technological things.

Hubs, you always know how to help me out. Even if it’s just listening to me whinge, you always know what to do and what’s best. I am in awe of you. x x x

(Oh! And I can’t WAIT for Part 2!)

Happy Serenity Day!

September 23, 2009 / Renae / 3 Comments

Since Hubs and I finished watching the Battlestar Galactica series, we have moved on to Firefly. We LOVED BG. And that’s a big call coming from someone who doesn’t generally like sci-fi, but that’s the good thing about being married to someone with certain different interests and tastes to my own. I get to try new things! It took a little while for me to get into it, but I really started liking the characters and the writing got better as the show progressed. We got through all 4 seasons in about 8 months and as we were running out of episodes, we started considering our next show to start watching.

Enter Firefly. A friend who likes BG recommended it to us, but said not to get to attached as they only made 1 season due to low ratings. We gave it a go and we LOVE it! We only have 2 episodes left to watch (only 14 in total) so we’re savouring them. There’s also a movie that was made after the show got canned called Serenity that Hubs tried to get me to watch about 2 years ago but I thought it was boring. Now that I know all the characters, I’m keen to give it another go! I also like to think I’m a bit more open-minded than I used to be…

Often when we watch a TV series or a movie, Hubs likes to do a Wiki search and read all about the cast and characters and back stories. We were reading about Joss Whedon and it turns out that he and Hubs share the same birthday! There was cheering and excitment all round when Wiki informed us of this fact!

If there was ANYone that Hubs would be happy to share a birthday with, it’s a famous power-nerd!