Today I was slowed down but refused to be stopped.  Stu had been wanting to go out for breakfast, so we went to Black Pepper.  It was very crowded, and after nearly getting blown away outside, we only got rained on a little bit.  But the food was yummy yum.

Went down to the lake and photographed some swallows and a blue dragonfly.

Then went to the other side of the lake to feed the swans/ducks/coots etc.

Home via Gem Aquatics.

This arvo I didn't do much, really just read news feeds and started working on my 3000 Ravensburger jigsaw (which I've never actually done myself - I lent it to Marylon once and I helped a bit then).  And photographed all the Harry Potter Lego from last year.

Tonight scanned 69 photos, mostly from 1994.  Photos included a series on Snowy, my budgie, my 21st birthday and some miscellaneous photos.

This was my budgie, Snowy, that I got for Christmas (or thereabouts) in 1993.  Had him (her? - Dad always thought it was a girl and called it a Widgie) for five years.

My 21st Birthday Cake, with Alphie (sequel cockatoo to Alphie, the Alphatech mascot at my Dad's work which got shipped off to South East Asia or some such convoluted story)

This is looking down the maintenance shaft of Sydney Tower.  My mother and I climbed Sydney Tower's steps - all 1385 of them!

Aftermath of an "Oops" at Waterfall

So not a bad year all up :)

Let's see.  Where to begin.

The year started with me away from the sweetie - I was visiting old Sydney friends.  First year since we met that we weren't together on New Years, which was a bit sad.

Did a fair bit of other travelling during the year.  

The big trip of course was to Japan and the UK in September.  It wasn't the best holiday I've ever been on.  Japan was 34C for five days in a row, and I didn't have shorts.  And the UK was grey and/or raining for a good chunk of the time we were there, plus we missed out on going to Legoland which was pretty devastating for me.  But on the plus side, everything "worked" in terms of bookings.  We didn't get robbed.  We didn't crash the car.  We didn't miss any planes or trains.  We did see heaps of cool stuff.  So really I can't complain too much heh.

Had quite a few smaller trips as well.  Spent a couple of days in January at the coast with all of Stu's family.  Would have been better if I'd brought stuff to entertain myself with heh.  Went to Mogo Zoo then.  There was a quick trip to Sydney for my parents' 40th wedding anniversary.  Went down the coast to DaveC's house three times in March, August over my birthday and October where we had a great whale sighting.  Went to Melbourne over the Easter weekend to see Cats with Nat&Andrew.  That was a cool weekend, we'd love to go back and do more Melbourney things.  In July we went to Queensland for a long weekend to visit Chay and David.  Decided that July/August is definitely the time to go to Brisbane, so will probably do that again this year.  And another quick visit to Sydney on Boxing Day. 

Had a very busy year at work.  Rolled out new proxies at the beginning of the year, but they were fraught with problems from the start and it was very stressful.  After several patches during the year, they finally settled down, only to have the upstream proxies start playing up.  Blah!   

Semi work-related were a ball in March where I managed to squeeze into a ten year old dress, but only just barely!   I also made a slightly drunken bet that I'd wear a dress to a Melbourne Cup lunch if all the boys wore suits.  Our director unfortunately decided to take it seriously and made all the boys wear suits.  Reluctantly I had to go buy a dress and wear it.  We also ran a trivia night that I think went really well.  And attended work drinks pretty much every week I was in the country ;)

One of the big projects at work took several months and was so stressful I'm sure it led to a high blood pressure reading in July.  I've been working on relaxing at work (and at home) and subsequent readings have been a lot more normal.

Otherwise healthwise I had a great year - just a cold early in the year but nothing else.

Spent a lot of time with Nat and Andrew during the year.  Those guys are always so much fun to be around, we really enjoy their company.  Also did a few Singstar nights with Windy and DaveO and saw Damien and Amanda a few times as well.  JamesC came to visit a few times, and the whole family stayed with us a couple of weeks ago.  The Hokins clan came to visit, as did the parents a couple of times and the little brother a few times.  We've spent a lot more time with DaveC in the second half of this year.  Seems I get on with him a whole lot better now that we're not working together heh.  

Had another heat wave early in the year which meant us putting quite a bit of ice into the four foot tank to try and keep the temperature down.  Seemed to work and we didn't lose any fish from it.  I'd moved the danios downstairs so they wouldn't overheat, and found a couple of months later some baby danios that had been surviving quite happily unattented.  When I later moved the danios back upstairs, there were more babies in the downstairs tank.  Win!  Stu got a colony of duboisis for the four foot, which are great fun, and will follow you around when you go to look at them in hopes that you'll feed them!  Stu's also gotten back into killifish and has been diligent at looking after his fish again.  We're back up to fourteen habitated fish tanks now!

On the opposite end of the weather spectrum, we had a very cold winter.  This year the pool froze over probably a dozen times (it only froze over twice last year).  One of the days the ice was a full 3mm thick in places!  We even had snow in October.  Go figure!

On the Lego front, a whole stack of Toy Story Lego was released so had to get all of that.  And six new Harry Potter sets as well, although really only one of those is "new".  There's a few other cool sets I want to get too.  Went to BrickExpo in August which was very cool, and made me wonder if I should put anything in one of these years.

Other toys included an iPhone for me, a Blackberry for Stu, a video camera for Stu, a Canon 500D for me and a PS3.  

So I've had the 500D for four and a bit months and have already taken 15000 photos on it!  The majority of those in the UK of course ;)  I still haven't sorted my UK photos *at all*.  I did however manage to sort enough of our Japan 2009 and Europe 2008 photos to get the highlights into the blog entries.  One of my next projects will be making photo books of those trips.  I did make a photo book of our wedding as a Christmas present for parents.  Having seen the finished result (which I was stoked with) there's a few little changes I want to make and need to fix up some of the images before we get our copy printed.

Around the house, we bought a whole stack of bookshelves for the downstairs room and set those up.  So that room is quite well setup now.  The garden has gone slightly feral though, especially with all the rain we've had recently.

Shows seen this year:

Movies seen this year:

Books read this year:

And a few other bits and pieces:

Phewf.  Yup, busy year :)  I'm actually amazed I got this thing written *before* the end of the year - that never happens!! :)

Six hours to go.  Have a great 2011 peoples!  Happy New Year!!

Thursday morning (1st July) we had a bit of a sleep in. An hour before we had to leave I thought I'd better pack heh. Left on time and arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare.

We had an Embraer E190 which is one of the smallest commercial jets flying. Two seats each side of the aisle. And surrounded by screaming kids. Yay. So a very noisy trip. And no music to listen to either - no headphone sockets. There was cloud cover over Eastern Australia so didn't have much of a view so ended up just reading the Virgin Blue magazine which kept me occupied the whole trip.

Our Embraer E-190

This sticky tape on the wing tip was a little disturbing

Canberra

Interior of the E-190

Brisbane

Brisbane Air Traffic Control Tower

Arrived just before 2pm and went and picked up our hire care. Took the scenic route through Brisbane so we could drive past Stu's old flat. There's so many new bridges and tunnels here now it was a little bit freaky!

New overpass being built near the airport

Stu's old flat

Go Between Bridge - opening the next Monday

Got to Chay and David's around 3pm and then we chatted for ages before going on a booze run. Had beer and ordered pizza and ended up watching V for Vendetta. Then the others went to bed and David and I stayed up til a bit after 1am Singstarring.

Friday had a huge sleep in (10:30!!) and got to up to find we'd kept everyone awake :( Decided to go out for coffee and shopping. Went down to the lake for coffee and other drinks. Then went to the Orion shopping centre. I got a couple of Singstars for $20 each. One of these days we'll have to get a Playstation...  Had a look in BigW at Lego prices and wandered round looking at other things too. Had a sushi snack. Looked in the Reject Shop. Then did some food shopping in Woollies. Got home at 15:45 oops :)

Boats being raced on the lake

Kailyn on a mall ride

Feeding the guinea pigs

So David and Daemon cooked a roast chicken for dinner which was highly nom. Started watching The Backup Plan but lost interest in that and ended up just playing Mario Kart and then some Singstar til midnight.

Miss Mog

Saturday had another reasonable sleep in. Went out with Chay to a few garage sales so she could look for books, but they were all pretty crap. Mostly clothes.

Feeding the guinea pigs again

Played through the 50cc Mario Kart cups to unlock all the locked ones for them then played a few rounds with the kids.

Chay made a fantastic lasagna for dinner - better than any of the lasagnas I've ever made.

Then we went out and saw Toy Story 3 which was pretty awesome but a bit dark for a G rating I thought. Came back then played some Buzz. First the general one which I was an epic loser at, then the music one which I was still a bit crap at but at least the scores were a lot closer. Then the others went to bed and David and I stayed up and did a couple of ten-course Mario Kart cups.

Sunday we got up at a more normal time, dropped Kailyn off at a friend's place and the four of us grown-ups went to breakfast at Ascot Provisions (Stu got random breath tested on the way which was a bit.. random). I tried the "breakfast pizza" because its toppings of cheese kransky, hashbrowns, cheese, egg and onion relish intrigued me. It was pretty good actually :) 

Clem 7 Tunnel

Breakfast pizza at Ascot provisions

Next we headed to South Bank. Went on a bit if a scenic tour if Brisbane cause we didn't have a real GPS but even if we did, so much has changed recently it probably wouldn't have worked anyway. So we got there and managed to find parking in one of the parking stations. Unfortunately it's a flat rate $15 which is a bit rude if you only plan to be there for a couple of hours :(

Victoria Bridge, Brisbane

Anyway, wandered our way past a Scottish festival and up to the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) to see the Ron Mueck exhibition. It was pretty awesome, I'll post pics in a separate post.

Kurilpa Bridge

Scottish Festival

We were all pretty tired and peopled out at this point so headed for home (via a short detour past The Jazzy Cat Cafe where I first met Stu five years ago but it wasn't there anymore!)

David and I went and picked up Kailyn and then to Coles for supplies. Came back and reheated the leftover lasagne with some pan bread and we made up a salad too. Watched Merlin and then Waynes World (party time, excellent) which the kids didn't appreciate nearly enough ;) Played some Mario Kart then some Singstar Eighties.

We dressed up Wallace in Kailyn's clothes

Monday morning Chay cooked up a pretty awesome breakfast of bacon, tomatoes and cheese, spaghetti and toast. Then we played a little Mario Kart before packing up our stuff and saying goodbye.

Gateway Bridge(s)  (didn't realise a second one had opened earlier this year)

Returned the rental car to the airport then caught the first of two planes of the afternoon. Was a bit bummed that our seats were over the wing (I couldn't get anything further back - looks like a young sporting team had already booked out most of the back of the plane). Then someone from my old job said "Karen" and then just stared at me. Most awkward. I of course was a bit thrown, and she wasn't any help reminding me who she was. Hrmmmmm. People. They suck sometimes.

Qantas 767

View of a wing, and the Brisbane River

Gold Coast

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sydney CBD

Had a snack in the Qantas Lounge in Sydney but the creamy sauce I put on my salad was actually really really hot horseradish. Hurt my mouth :( Sigh.

Last plane home was a 737 and we were right near the back, but it was too dark for photos. And the flight was so short that they'd only just come round with snacks/drinks before we had to put up our tray tables. Oops. In the end I brought the little bottle of wine home unopened.

These beetroot chips were cool, but they make your poo purple - which is pretty darned freaky!

So had a really nice trip. It was very relaxing and *warm*!! Winter is definitely the time to visit Brisbane! Really not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow though.. The stress is a little bit ridiculous at the moment....

Really not looking forward to the next week and a bit.  Stress at work, work on the weekend, the parents coming this weekend, as well as being on call til next Thursday means no real downtime (aside from the obvious "down" time).  I don't like that.

Had an epic crap week at work.  The stress is going to kill me I'm sure :(

Attempted to make a pasta sauce on Friday night, but didn't have nearly enough tomatoes.  So used it in a lasagna tonight and it worked really well.

Did lots of tidying in the garage.  Should have taken some before and after photos..

Did a very easy 500 piece jigsaw.  

Didn't do much UK planning.  Although have a bit of a rough itinerary.  At the moment based on flights, car hire options and a Stone Circle Access visit to Stonehenge.

Very excited by the Masterchef visit to London.  We'll be there in two and a bit months!

Other than that, we only left the house this weekend to do our food shopping.

Aimed to leave the hotel at 9am this time (since it was "really" 10am), giving us an extra hour in Melbourne :)

Decided that we were going to go do the super duper expensive hotel restaurant.  Turns out it was an all you can eat buffet for $35 each.  I only managed to get two plates worth of food in (I never get good value out of all you can eats!)

Went back to our room and packed up, then checked out and left our bags with the concierge, and Nat and I did a quick photoshoot of the hotel.

Went for a wander up Exhibition St.  Saw sushi burgers and a sign saying nothing happened.

Then wandered up through Exhibition gardens (Carlton Gardens) to the Exhibition Building.

I was most surprised when we got around to the north side of the building because there was a whole museum that wasn't there fifteen years ago!  Made taking photos from the north a little difficult heh.

Decided that we'd actually go into the museum and have a look.

Pygmy blue whale skeleton

Flutterbies?

Big taxidermy room "Wild" .. at least a lot better organised than the one in Japan

And we have a thylacine too!

I had a long wander through the body exhibit, and then a quick run through the mind exhibit (would love to have spent longer there) before meeting up with the others to decide on a plan.  While everyone decided what we were doing next, I raced up to take some photos of Phar Lap (would liked to have looked through the whole Victoria exhibit there as well)....

So went back to the others and we walked up to Lygon Street.  Although we didn't have time to sit down and eat, Nat got some take away pasta from one place.  Next time we'll organise ourselves better to actually eat here properly.

And then it was back to the hotel to pick up our bags, and hop in a taxi to head off to the airport. 

Our plane back - Virgin Blue 737-8Q8 (VH-VOU)

We didn't get much of a view during the flight because it was dark, but we did get a nice sunset from the plane on the tarmac

So arrived back in Canberra and Andrew drove us home.

Totally great weekend away, lots of fun, and even a decent amount of exercise :)  

We want to come again next year and organise ourselves better to see some of the comedy festival and have a proper meal on Lygon Street :)

Arrived around lunch time, and made ourselves some toasted sandwiches.  The house is huge - lots of living space, three full bathrooms, but only four bedrooms.  Very well equipped though.

Some time after lunch some of us headed down to the local beach (the little one at the north end of Malua Bay area).  Went for a snorkel and saw lots of cool fish, and then had a good long swim with a giant stingray - was awesome!  Then it decided to swim away, so I couldn't keep up with it :)

Came back for beer o'clock, and had a couple of awesome roasts (pork and lamb) for dinner.  Unlocked all the cups on Noah's DS, and later we watched Star Trek.

On Thursday it was quite overcast.  It was Lily's birthday so we went to Mogo Zoo (see separate link for pictures).  Note to self:  don't try to go to any of the keeper talks next time!  All the hoards of people were mostly doing the same thing in the same order, so you just couldn't move in the place.  The pathways are all so narrow and it was stiflingly humid and a bit rainy and so we all got peopled out very quickly.  So much so that we didn't even have the energy to see all of the zoo.  Headed back to the house for a big lunch of stirfry and chicken kebabs.

Got completely bored out of my brain in the afternoon.  Was totally kicking myself that I didn't bring jigsaws or other things for me to do.  And whenever I went anywhere near the Wii, all the kids would jump up and want to play too (even when they were all otherwise occupied).  Since there were only two wiimotes, it wasn't very practical to play with more than two.  It was all a bit frustrating.  Had a bit of a meltdown and went and hid for a while.  

Later in the afternoon sat around and nibbled junk food while having a little party for Lily.

Had some beer, then they got chinese takeaway, but we were all still full from lunch and the party that we didn't get much.  Tried to teach Potty Monty Python Fluxx but he just didn't "get" it so that was a bit of a fizzer.  Had some wine and watched some of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and started to feel better.

Friday we headed down to the Tomaga River with the boat.  Except Stu and Annie kept on driving past the turn off, so we thought they'd missed it.  Waited and waited for them to realise they'd lost us and turn around but they never did.  So we went driving to try and find them.  Eventually we saw them and thought they were following us, but then they turned off *again*.  We couldn't understand it and it was very frustrating.  Eventually we gave up and went to the river.  The others turned up shortly after - turns out they'd just decided to go for a drive.  It would have been nice if they'd told us they were going to do this so we didn't stress out about it :/  Not happy Jan!

Went for a little putter up the river on the boat with Potty

Stu and I swam across the river to get to the sand flats on the other side, but hadn't considered how hard the shallow muddy reed beds would be to get across.. oops.  But saw lots of shell fishy thingies, and a soldier crab (a dog had scared all the birds away).  Crossed the river again downstream where there were no reeds :)

We left some time before the others, and couldn't get the key to work on the front door (it does work, but is very fiddly).  Wandered around the back of the house to see if there was another lock it would work on, only to find the back bathroom door wide open .. oops..

Nibbled on some random food.  Later in the afternoon Potty and I went snorkelling again, but it was quite rough, and lots of churned up gunk in the water, so couldn't see much (not that there was that much to see anyway - most of the fishies must have been in hiding).

Finished off the beer.  Kerry made pizzas for dinner, but none of us were particularly hungry.  Watched Flightplan on tv.

Saturday morning was pack up and go home.  The fridge was still *full* of food - probably enough for another week :/  So of course half of it got thrown out :/  I won't mention the dishwasher incident.  *sigh*  Was only too glad to go home basically.  Although we did stop into The Scottish Restaurant so Stu could get some brunch.  Finally home around lunch time.

Just putting a placeholder here cause MT is pretty crap at back dating across months.

..

So. 2009.  

Certainly not as *big* a year as 2008.

We've been in our house over a year now, but it's still not really "settled".  We did buy a nice big dining table, but that's about it.  We still haven't fully organised the rumpus room (although shelves are finally on order!!), and so "my" hobby room has been held up because of that (and because I've been too lazy to try and Freecycle all the crap that's been dumped in there).  We've only put hooks in the wall for one thing (my big Lego mosaic) so most of our pictures are still waiting for somewhere to go.  The spare bedroom has continued to be really really useful, and we've had a steady stream of people staying the night (mostly my brother heh).  The pool has been *brilliant*.  Mostly got the hang of taking care of it, so hopefully we don't get any algal blooms this year.

Work has been variable again this year.  The first half of the year feels like a bit of a blur.  I got a couple of big projects completed mostly on schedule.  The second half of the year was mostly working on the one thing, which we tried but failed to get into production by Christmas.  All through the year it was just insanely busy.  Not as insane as Stu's work though.  He was essentially doing three people's work and the stress of it all was taking a toll on his health.  So when an ex colleague had a positition advertised, she said he should apply.  Which he did, and he got it.  So a new year and a new job for the sweetie.

Our big holiday of the year was a trip to Japan for two weeks.  It was a significant challenge to try and organise because we went with a total of six people.  In the end Nat and I did the majority of the planning which worked reasonably well.  The holiday was *fantastic*!! - had a really great time.  Wish we could have stayed longer - at least twice as long would have been the bare minimum I think.

Went to Sydney a few times - in January over the long weekend while Stu played in Cancon - just caught up with lots of my friends and family.  Also in October for a primarily touristy weekend - even stayed in a hotel!  And then for Christmas and again for New Years.  Went down to Malua Bay with DC three times in March, April and October.  Mostly just us and him, but we did get Neil down for the October weekend.  And to Kangaroo Valley for Chris B's 50th which was a lot of fun.

Our fish tank numbers remained stable at seven.  We did lose a huge number of fish in the heatwave in February (where we had three consecutive 40C days with no cooling down at night).  All the julis, all but one of the adult multis, and all the tetras and the other little fish died.  The young multies and my angel were the only upstairs survivors.  I replaced the tetties with some leopard danios.  The multis grew up and have been breeding like rabbits.  Stu brought home the three julis he had at work and got some leleupies too.  The kribs downstairs I think need to have their tank rearranged, as they just sit there and do *nothing* all day.  Guppy breeding has slowed down dramatically too, not sure what's going on there, maybe needs some new genes..

Fairly quiet Lego year.  Made a nice big mosaic of Australia, and now my mosaics have a hanging place in the spare room.  I dug out and sold a bunch of Space Lego which cleared a little space - but have a long way to go!  And over Christmas built the Star Destroyer and Millennium Falcon to have them on display together.