So the year began with a small pool party at our house, with beer, pizza, games and good friends.

We didn't travel much this year.  Well, we did a bit, but no big international holidays.  We did a long weekend trip to Queensland in July to visit Chay and David which is always nice.  The only other flying I did was for some training for work in Melbourne.  We went to Dave's coast house in February, April, June and November.  Again, always great weekends away.  

Did several trips to Sydney throughout the year:  

And a few smaller trips - to Yarrangobilly Caves, Parkes for The Dish 50th Anniversary open day, and Jindabyne to see the dam spilling.

At work I actually had a good beginning of the year.  We got some new staff and for a few months I had time to step back from project work and get some operational stuff done.  But then Phil went away for three months and it got super busy again - doh!  Had a bowling night in June where I *didn't* come last!  Team Blank went to three trivia nights: we came third in April, second in August and first in November!  Of course that means we need to plan the next one!  Planning to have that in March next year.  Had a Hollywood-themed ball in October that I was sick for and was pretty miserable the whole night.

Speaking of sickness, it was one of the worst years I've ever had.  Had a cold in February, with an ear infection and conjunctivitis as well.  Got pretty severe gastro from Violet in March.  Another cold in May and another in August.  And then two months of various colds/flus/ear/eye infections from September to November.  Finally healthy at the moment, but it hasn't been a great year :(

Didn't see as much of Nat and Andrew this year.  The default activity for Saturday nights was watching Buffy and Angel with DaveC, so it took energy to do anything different, hence it didn't happen very often.  We did have a couple of Singstar/video/games nights though.

Not a lot has changed on the fish front.  We (I) made a rule some time back that we wouldn't buy any new fish until after Stu's Japan trip next year.  So numbers have been slowly dwindling there.  We had another heat wave that required regular dumpings of ice to keep tank temperatures down.  

Although we had a couple of record lows in winter, the days were generally warmer, and the pool only froze over a couple of times.

The only new Lego this year was a few Harry Potter sets.  Just trying to remember if the Toy Story 3 Lego came out this year or last year.  It certainly didn't all get put away until just the other week!  We went to the Lego Brick Expo in Woden which was pretty awesome.  Also saw Nathan Sawaya's "Art of the Brick" exhibition in Sydney this week.  And an unexpected bonus of lots of Lego displays at the Aquarium yesterday.

Only real toys this year were a new random camera, and a little Eee PC for use when travelling (and in fact I'm using it now!).  I had a play with a macro lens and an L series lens.  Still using my original lens though.  On my phone I played with HDR and Instagram apps, as well as doing my first time lapse videos of Lego building, jigsaw building and clouds.

I had a lot of fun with origami this year - making several "phizz" balls of various sizes.  Also some smaller geometric shapes (technically not origami).  

I did some big jigsaws this year (and a stack of little ones).  I did my 3000-piece one that I've had for years but never made.  And then the first quarter of an amazing 24000 piece jigsaw!  Hoping to do the next quarter early in the new year.

After the big La Niña of last summer, got to see Bendora Dam overflowing in January, as well as the aftermath of the floods at Coppins Crossing.  Watched the progress of Cotter Dam and went to an open day in April (didn't go to another open day in November because it looked like they weren't preselling time slots and that didn't work very well at the first open day I went to).

In culinary adventures this year, I tried my hand at quite a few new recipes (and a few old ones).  These were mostly desserts - Anzac Biscuits, Violet Crumble cheesecake slice, Apple pie, Caramel slice, Melting moments, Chocolate dipped fruit, Christmas cookies, Gingerbread.  That was a lot of fun and will continue next year.  Also did quite a few slow-cooked dishes, and rediscovered the simplicity of roast vegetables.  Another new favourite of ours this year was okonomiyaki, thanks to Lisa.  I also tried crocodile for the first time (it was a bit tough) and had my first McFeast (pretty good).  Our favourite restaurants are still Black Pepper, the Dumpling Inn and Bella Vista.  Tried a few new places as well including Courgette for our anniversary, Rice, Alice's and Kingsley's.

Shows seen this year:

Movies seen this year (at the movies):

Books read this year:

Other Stuff:

As usual I don't really make new years resolutions.  I think if anything I'd still like to try and spend less time on the computer - eg two hour chunks in the evenings.

We're having a quiet party in our hotel room tonight.  Just a little champagne and nibblies in our room.  The thought is to watch the 9pm fireworks from the hotel pool, and maybe go out at 11pm to see the main fireworks from Lavender Bay....

Happy New Year!!

A Tardis

A barbeque

Latish on Friday morning we headed down to Springfield Lake for brunch.  Although someone misheard it as Bugger Lake and so that's what it then became known as :)

I had a reasonable caesar salad, although all the pieces were in separate sections..

Dropped into the Springfield aquarium and got a new heater for the aquarium, and Chay got a good deal on some plants on logs and a big sunken ship.

Headed out again after setting up the fish tank and went to a few different aquariums looking for fish.  We ended up getting eight ghost mollies, six male guppies, four sucking catfish and a betta.

Dinner was lots of Pizza Capers pizza.  Then we played Buzz (they have some different Buzzes we don't have, must go looking for them) and SingStar.  

Saturday morning is garage sale time!  Mainly looking for books for Chay's business, but picked up a few other bits and pieces as well.  Got some sushi for lunch and saw Batman on a segway!!  

Headed back out again in the afternoon and ended up getting some female guppies, and another betta for K (who had picked up a small fish tank at one of the garage sales that morning).

Dinner was chicken pies with mac&cheese - yumm!

After dinner we attempted to watch Seven Samurai but I was restless (so was Chay, who couldn't actually sit there) and then David had to go drop some stuff off at Chay's mum's, so we gave up.  Sorry sweetie, I'll watch it with you one day..

So played Buzz again, and more Singstar.  Not as late that night, and I set some pretty insane scores (9720 for Where the Wild Roses Grow, 9727 for Come As You Are and a whopping 9837 for Heaven is a Place on Earth!!).  Helped being mostly sober I suppose heh.

Headed out to our favourite Brisbane cafe for brunch - Ascot Provisions.  Driving around I was actually surprised how everything had recovered from the floods.  In a lot of places you'd really never know there'd ever been any flooding there at all.  Amazing stuff.

I had the big breakfast.  They're still doing the mini cheese kranskys (I preferred the bigger ones they used to do).

Saw some interesting things on the drive back.

A staircase to nowhere..

Brisbane CBD from the Story Bridge

And a human aquarium.  This is a swimming pool at the top of a building opposite the Gabba, with windows so you can see into it!

Dropped into Hardly Normal to look for Buzz games (didn't find any, but did find this sign)

Did some more shopping at Orion.  Found a couple of Buzzes.  Also did some food shopping for dinner.  

Dinner was a super awesome roast pork and veggies with an amazing apple sauce.  I swear David can cook about ten times as well as I can :/  I did my (fake) violet crumble cheesecake for dessert.

Night three of Buzz (the new ones) and Singstar.

Much of Monday was just chilling out, watching Big Bang Theory, reading news feeds etc.  Did a Bunnings run to get some new runners for the front sliding door.  Then packed up and left.

Again made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.  Which was a good thing, because all the new works around the airport terminals, and a truck going down the wrong way towards us in the lane we were trying to drive down, meant we missed the sign to the rental car return (because the truck was in the way).  Second loop around we went to a different part of the parking (luckily didn't get charged for the long stay carpark).  But we did see the sign this time (after it was too late to change).  Third time around we finally got it right.  Lame lame lame.  Returned the car ok and used the electronic bag drop gizmos for the first time.  Took a lot longer than handing them to a human, but I imagine it'd get a lot quicker once you got the hang of what you need to do.

So the plane was delayed.  Again.  What else is new.  We had an hour wait in Sydney on the way back, but as the plane got later and later it was looking like we wouldn't make the connection.  So they got us onto the preceeding flight, but even that was going to be cutting it fine.  They brought out a beef teriyaki for dinner.  We got a lovely view of Sydney as we flew past it, then flew waaaayyyyyy out to sea before finally swinging around and landing from the south on 34R.  We finally arrived at the terminal pretty much as the other plane was due to leave. Fortunately it was only four gates down, and several other people were transferring too.  So we raced down and got on the plane at the very last minute - they closed the doors a couple of minutes later.  I was thinking there was no way our bags possibly could have made it..