Harry
Left this world Saturday 12th December 2009, in search of his next adventure!
Farewell Harry
Category: Photos
Day Trippers
We have been fortunate enough to have access to a car the last few weeks (thanks to Lsl buying herself a Ute from down here, so we have to road trip it back to Brisbane starting this Friday!) so we decided to take it for a spin down to Torquay a few Saturdays ago. The weather was so lovely in the morning, that I insisted we get out of Newman for the day. The thing about Melbourne weather though, is that it seems to incorporate the surrounds as well. On our way down the sun vanished, but we were determined! (Well, I was determined. Hubs was in a making-Wifey-happy mood which suited me just fine!)
We arrived and went for a walk down the beach. It wasn’t actually as cold as I expected, and the bay water was pretty nice too.
And now for a game of “how much you think I pay?”
(Back story: My Grandpa is a bargain shopper and becomes very pleased with himself when he saves lots of money, and he likes to pose the question “how much you think I pay?” and is chuffed when we name a price WAY higher than what he paid! It’s good fun!)
So I bought this purpley-pink top from a Kathmandu sale
and I pose the question: How much you think I pay? Now, I SHOULD leave it at that and tell you the price after you guess, but I’m not that patient, so I’ll put the price right at the end of my post and you can tell me how WRONG you were in your guesses 🙂
After our walk on the beach we went and checked out the Rivers clothing store and got a few bargains there as well! (A post for another day.) While we were inside it started pouring down so we shopped until it eased off. We left and dropped our stuff off into the car and as we were doing so it started to pour down again so we ran to the cafe we had decided to eat at, but not before we got quite soaked 🙁
It was pretty funny! But it still wasn’t too cold which was lucky!
It was a lovely little hippie cafe with a great view!
We ordered a lamb shank pie, some avo, cheese and tomato toasties and a couple glasses of red wine.
Absolutely delish! It was then time to go home, so we decided to take the “scenic” route. In these here parts of town, this must include some evidence of hooliganism!
(That wasn’t us BTW. Hubs wanted to be a bogan but I’m such a party-pooper!)
We made it home by 5:30pm, ready for some home-made Wifey roo burgers. A delicacy in these here parts of town!
Full price $74.95 (who would PAY that???)
What Wifey paid: $6.95 (yes, I’m a bargain shopper too!!)
ANZAC bikkie
One of the enormous ANZAC bikkies I made a few months ago.
I didn’t eat it all. I shared it with Hubs and DLB. It was DE-LISH!
What belongs to who?
When I look at my feet, I see my Dad. I have his feet. Our feet seriously look SO alike. I’ll take a photo some time and show you. It got me thinking about what features I inherited from which parent, or side of the family, and here’s what I’ve come up with, going from the bottom (my feet!) to the top!
Feet – Dad
Calf muscles – my Nanny (Dad’s side)
Body shape (short legs, long body) – Dad
Child-bearing hips – Mum 🙂
Chin – Mum
Mouth – Mum
Nose – Dad
Eyes – Mum
Hair – Mum
Voice – Mum
Hands and fingers – Dad
And a few other things:
Stubbornness – Dad
Practicality – Mum
Sentimentality – Dad
Organisational skills – Mum
Sexy legs – Mum 🙂
Use of hand gestures when telling a story – Dad
Karaoke skills – Mum and her side of the family (R-E-S-P-E-C-T!!)
Squeemishness – Dad (you know it’s true!)
My social nature – Mum and Dad
And of course here are some comparison pictures. In case you can’t tell, these were taken at our wedding and I LOVE our wedding photos so I like to take every opportunity I can to show them off!
Can you see the resemblance?? Looking at these photos I reckon Mum and I have a similar posture and Dad and I have a similar cheeky grin! I’m sure I could come up with many more things my parents gave me, in appearance, personality, and the values and morals they instilled in me. I think I’ve turned out all right 🙂
(And you know, a photo of Hubs too, at our wedding, which has nothing to do with the post, really. Did I mention I love our wedding photos???)
Happy Anniversary Nanny and Grandpa!
Today is not only my Mum’s birthday (Happy Birthday Mum!!!) but it’s also the 60th Anniversary of when my grandparents landed in Australia. They were refugees from WWII and had a choice to come to either Canada or Australia, and luckily for me, they chose Australia! (Lucky, cos, you know, otherwise I wouldn’t exist. So maybe it’s lucky for ALL OF YOU!!! Ha!)
Mum and Dad wanted to commemorate this milestone by throwing Nanny and Grandpa a party, and Mum took it upon herself to make the coolest cake EVER!
Mum hired the cake tin from a cake shop and bought the accessories to put this creation together. When she first emailed it to me, I thought it was a picture from a magazine that she wanted to copy, but no! It was the real deal! I showed all the ladies here at work and they went berserk over it as I did!
Mum has made many of our cakes over the years, mainly from the Woman’s Day Birthday Cake Book. You know the one. I had the doll cake, the bunny, the monster, the piano (it was purple cos purple is my favourite colour and Mum would do anything for me), the sewing basket, a few numbers (like ONE – 3 cakes spelling it out!), the cricket bat (yes, I had the cricket bat) and a few more I’m sure. This is a bit of a hobby of Mums, but I reckon she could turn professional!
I hope you have a lovely birthday Mum! And I trust the Anniversary celebrations were a blast! 🙂
Updated: And here’s Nanny and Grandpa enjoying themselves on their special day:
A weekend visitor
A few weeks ago, our friend Ian came down for a visit. He’s been threatening to come down for a year and phoned us on a Wednesday to tell us he’d be here Friday night til Sunday! So we booked him in for Saturday afternoon and evening and looked forward to it with great anticipation.
About a year ago, Hubs and I went on a winery tour with our friend Nate, and one of the bottles we bought was a Verdhelo from Sticks Winery. We had been saving it for Ian’s visit as we knew that was one of his favourite varieties of wine so of course, we had to buy some cheese and bikkies to go with it!
We headed out to Hardware Lane, as Ian is our jazz buddy and there’s live jazz at Hardware Lane most nights. There are also LOTS of restaurants and way too many spruikers. Business is obviously slow EVERYWHERE as we were offered free bottles of wine, Cosmopolitans, beers and bourbon to try and convince us to dine at a number of places. We opted for a place called Pop.
It had no Pop.
The free bottle of wine was actually really nice, and about $40 on the menu, but we were right in the middle of the 2 groups playing jazz so we couldn’t really hear either of them which was disappointing. The food and service weren’t really up to scratch so we decided to look for somewhere else for dessert.
We went down to Block Place which is a neat little lane way in between the Collins Streets (little and big) and went to Caffe e Biscotti for a night cap. Hubs wanted “something different” to drink so the bartender took full advantage and made him a Frangelico, Kahlua and lime. I won’t disclose the cost, but it was a delicious drink! Ian had a liquer coffee with Cointreau and I had a port.
The drinks really were lovely but not something we could afford regularly!! We also ordered a stack of pancakes to share which were delicious, but the best thing about this place was the little jazz band outside! They were great and really added to the atmosphere of the place. The service was good and it’s somewhere I’d like to go back to try the meals. But definitely only for a special occasion.
A great night out in Melbourne!
A comedy of errors with a happy ending
Hubs and I try to have a designated “date night” every week or 2 and it usually occurs on a Wednesday night. A few weeks ago, life was hectic and the only day we could do was the Tuesday, so we put it aside. Hubs planned to cook up his famous pumpkin and mushroom rissoto, so before he got home from uni, I got a few things ready for him. I had frozen some leftover stock from the last time we’d made rissoto, so that was all thawed out and ready to go. I chopped up all the mushrooms and put them in the steamer part of our saucepan set to rinse before setting them aside. Then I chopped up the pumpkin and got the rice out ready for Hubs to come home and make some magic.
So Hubs comes home, tired after a long day of studying and slowly gets to work. First of all, he grabs the “saucepan” of mushrooms, puts it on the bench and proceeds to pour the defrosted stock “into” the saucepan, all in one go, before I realise what he’s doing. You can guess what happened to the stock….
(This photo was taken AFTER the mushrooms were put into a “proper” saucepan)
Chicken stock – 1
Hubs – 0
Somehow this was my fault for putting the mushrooms in a saucepan with holes in the bottom and not telling him. I wasn’t so convinced and started to get a bit cranky, but tried to see the funny side.
Not a happy Hubs. So I helped him clean that up while he continued preparing. Now it was time for the rice. As we had some leftover, again, from the last rissoto he’d made, I had rolled up the packet and put it in a re-sealable glad bag, but as he went to take it out, he grabbed the “wrong” end.
And you can guess what happened to the rice…
Rice – 1
Hubs – 0
It went all over the counter, on the floor, beside the oven, EVERYWHERE! And that was my fault too. I was laughing quite hard at this stage, but Hubs wasn’t ready to see the funny side, so I decided it would be best to leave him to it and go and read my new favourite comic book.
We had a couple of glasses of wine over dinner and a DVD and started to relax a little and try not to take it all too seriously. Dinner was absolutely delicious and looking at these photos now (and having the sense to take them at the time) I can’t help but laugh. A lot. It really was a hilarious date night, and we have learnt that Tuesday nights are NO GOOD for date nights any more, and we should stick to Wednesdays from now on!
Maybe I should have learnt from last time, although, this might be another one of his ploys to do things “enthusiastically and badly” in the hope of not being asked to do it again!!
Guilty pleasure
Growing up, we didn’t really eat that much junk food (well, I wouldn’t consider it to be much junk anyway) but over the school holidays, we were allowed to pick a treat-type brekky cereal, and I usually chose Coco Pops or Froot Loops, i.e. bowls of sugary goodness. We were talking about this over lunch at college the other day and I said how much I used to LOVE Froot Loops. A few days later, an anonymous good Samaritan had left a box of Froot Loops on our doorstep! Now, I have my suspicions who it might have been, but I know this person would want to stay anonymous, so I have been quietly enjoying them as a tasty treat.
How can something so pretty and colourful be so bad for you! I haven’t even been eating them at breakfast time, as I like to get the day started on a much more nutritious note. I’ve been eating small bowls, like the one seen above, with a small spoon, while Hubs is at his tutorials at night! Tee hee! What a guilty pleasure!
How many states?
Even though we didn’t stay in all of these states, we did cross the borders (and got photos of most!)
California (I can’t believe we missed California!!)
Arizona
(okay, so we cheated with that one. We kind of missed the shot:)
New Mexico
Texas
Oklahoma
Missouri
Arkansas
Tennessee
Mississippi
Louisiana
Alabama
Georgia (taken out the back window as we were leaving Georgia!
North Carolina
Virgina
We miss the last few as we were on the train!!
D.C.
Maryland
New Jersey
New York
So there you have it. 18 states. We probably visited more states than a lot of Americans ever have, but not as many as, well… some other people.
Since September only has 30 days (I had to check), that just about wraps up another NaBloPoMo for me. I think you’ve all figured out by now that we had a fantastic time, and we wouldn’t have changed a thing. We got to do everything we wanted to do, and more. We got to try Junior Mints, grits, milk duds, s’mores, Hersheys chocolate, American coffee with free refills, an American McDonald’s cheeseburger, ribs, crawfish, Po’boys, a meatball sub, beef jerky, a bagel in New York, a giant pretzel, NY style pizza, Cracker Barrell, Burger King, Wendy’s, and sweet potato fries. Next time we go back we’ll have to grab some Taco Bell and IHop!
But it wasn’t all about the food! We had good conversations with interesting people we met along the way, we got to drive a brand new awesome sexy car, we caught up with my dear friend Kimberley and BJ on the lakes, we pretended we knew famous people at ComicCon and we met some family in San Diego. America is full of diversity – both in their culture from west to east and north to south, and the constantly-changing landscapes. Hubs and I took some magical photos that we can’t wait to put up in our home, and we’ll hold on to these memories for a lifetime.
Day 29 – Say goodbye to Hollywood. Say goodbye, my baby.
Friday 24th July, 2009 until Sunday 26th July, 2009
San Diego to Los Angeles by train – 120 miles
Los Angeles to Brisbane by plane – 7183 miles
I LOVE the lines in this song that say
Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes
I’m afraid it’s time for goodbye again
I remember feeling this way when I was travelling around the UK and Europe. I was constantly meeting people, only to have to say goodbye indefinitely. That’s how I felt about America. I loved it SO MUCH and I really would have loved another month over there (or 2 or 3) but I know we’ll get back there some day.
Anyway, back to our last day! The adventures aren’t finished yet!
Charlene took us down to the “drug store” as we had decided to buy our duty free booze there. We got a 1.75L bottle of Bombay Sapphire Gin for $30USD!!! BARGAIN!!! And we got 750ml bottles of Bacardi, Lemon Smirnoff and Raspberry Smirnoff for $10USD each. Crazy! We headed back for some brekky and a final pack to fit in the booze, and a final weigh-in. 1 bag was 50lb (22.6kg) and the other was 60lb (27.2kg) so we were luckily under the 30kg each weight limit.
Charlene was keen to show us around a bit in the morning and we were lucky enough to be able to push our train trip back to 3pm instead of 1pm. This was great as it meant we didn’t have to wait around at the other end (LA) and amuse ourselve. Charlene took us to the Cabrillo National Monument lookout and there was a beautiful view of the bay, the ocean, and the city.
Charlene and Wifey enjoying the view. (I forgot to bring in a photo of the city view, OKAY?)
There is a US Navy port as well as a Marine Corps in San Diego, so it is a very military city. And we were in for a real treat, seeing:
A battleship…
…a submarine (I’d never seen one in action before!)
…AND a fighter jet! (or whatever it is!)
The trifecta! It was really cool! Hubs and I really like San Diego – we reckon out of all the places we visited, that would be the city we could happily live in.
And then it was time to say goodbye to Charlene. Thanks so much for showing us such a great time! We look forward to visiting again one day.
We jumped on the train and it was the start of our journey home. And what a beautiful start it was! It was the most stunning, scenic train trip I’ve ever taken – right on the shoreline!
I kept interrupting Hubs saying “ooooh look at thaaaaaat!” until he finally put his comic book down and just relaxed and enjoyed the view with me. It really was an amazing end to what was a brilliant trip and I would recommend the train to anyone!
We arrived at Union Station in LA and waited for our shuttle to the airport which was late but I’d booked a super early one so it was no big deal. We got our last look at LA and that was fine by us. Got to LAX and if I haven’t already said it, V AUSTRALIA ROCKS!! They checked us in (we were about 4 hours early) and it was smoooooooth sailing! Oh, but then we had to go through dumb security again but we were on the home stretch so it didn’t phase Hubs so much this time.
The flight left on time (11pm) and since it was an overnight flight, I actually slept for about half of it. We skipped Saturday cos, you know, Saturday the 25th of July is like SO overrated, and arrived in Brisbane 5am Sunday morning. Ma picked us up and we waited for the family to arrived! Had a lovely morning tea (as usual) and told some stories, before getting on our 1pm flight back home.
I seem to have run out of days! I wonder what tomorrow will bring…. 🙂