Introducing...

Monday, May 31, 2010

"Littlefoot"


Bub is due in November
Wifey is over the moon and not feeling as nauseous, but is still ravenously hungry ALL THE TIME
Hubs is wrapped and looks forward to the many sleepless nights to come. Hee hee!
What a fun year this is going to be. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Skype

Friday, May 28, 2010

Okay, so I'll be the first to admit, I'm often a little behind the times when it comes to certain things. Sometimes it takes me ages to give something new a go. And then when I try it and love it, I want to tell everyone how amazing it is.

Take Skype for example. Now, I know that Skype has been around since about 2003 (thanks Wiki) and it's been something I've been meaning to set up, but just never got around to it. Calling cards from Australia are always so cheap so I've never bothered much about other forms of communication. Until the stupid calling cards, in their infinite wisdom, changed the validity of the card from 12 months to 6 months, and now 3 months! I went to call my dear friend in the States a couple of weeks ago, only to be told the $8 remaining on my $10 card (my last 45 minute phone call had cost a mere $2) had expired a week before.

Enough was enough. I asked Hubs (very nicely of course) if he could please install Skype on our computer (well, one of them). And it was done! A week later (yesterday), I was chatting to my dear friend in the States and it was as if we were in the same room! We were only using the voice function as we don't have a webcam, but that will change soon, as Hubs is on the case!

So the verdict: Skype is awesome! You should give it a try some time!!!!*


*Expected response to this last statement: "Uh yeah Wifey, we've been using Skype for 5 years dude. Weren't we the ones who told you to try it ages ago?"

Mondegreen

Hubs: "Mystery Love come back some time"
Wifey: "Uh, honey, I think you mean Miss Freelove"
Hubs: "What are you talking about? It's Mystery Love...... isn't it?"
Wifey: "Uh, yeah, sure it is honey" *snicker snicker*

And away we go!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

He called! They accepted our offer!! :-) We are now waiting for the contract for the house to come through and are in the midst of applying for a loan. We got pre-approval from one place, but that really doesn't mean that much. This is the real deal now. And we are hoping and praying like crazy that we get the loan and it all comes together. It's a very exciting time, and it should be more stressful than we're finding it, I'm sure! But we know we're in good hands, in so many ways, so there seems to be more of a peace surrounding our situation which is really lovely. We should know in the next couple of weeks how the loan application goes, and if all goes according to plan, we might be home owners by the end of June!

WOO HOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Not that we're getting our hopes up or anything... HA!

I just feel so damn grown up.

The waiting game...

Monday, May 24, 2010

We put an offer in on a house in Wang yesterday and we're just waiting to hear if it got accepted. It's so nerve-wracking. It's like when you just start seeing someone and you're waiting on their call or text, but all the while trying to play it cool.

"Why won't he caaaaaaaaaaalllll???"

Breakfast in bed

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

I remember reading in a magazing years ago (in the Doctor's waiting room - I wouldn't waste my own money!) and I came across an article about the then happily married couple, Paul McCartney and Heather Mills. It stated that they shared breakfast in bed every morning, and vowed that it helped them to stay connected and have a great start to each day.

Although it didn't work out so well for them, I loved the idea of breakfast in bed with Hubs every day, so it began. I'm not sure when exactly - maybe February last year? In any case, it's been going on for over a year now. And it's great. I get up a wee bit earlier, go and make us brekky (only cereal - toast is too crumby!) and a cup of tea for Hubs and glass of juice for me, and bring it back to bed. And sometimes Hubs does it for me too which is so nice. It's just the best way to start our day. We can discuss our plans - what's going on at work (usually not much), what Hubs' uni timetable is looking like, whether he has any exams, and whether or not he can meet me for lunch at college that day.

It really is such a special "tradition" that I hope to continue for a long long time.

Chocolate fixes all

Monday, May 17, 2010

Today has not been a good day for a number of silly, insignificant reasons. So what does Hubs do? He wraps up 2 Lindt balls and a handful of almonds in a tissue, and ties it with a ribbon and drops it off to me at work. That's what he does.

Best. Hubs. Ever.

Jersey Boys

We went to see Jersey Boys - the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons - last night, and it was just fabulous! In retrospect, I  realised that we had the understudy for Frankie Valli, but you wouldn't have known! He was incredible! And to think that there are 2 people out there with Frankie's voice!?

We sang along (quietly to avoid too much embarrassment) to songs like Sheree, Big Girls Don't Cry, Walk Like a Man (fave!), You're just too good to be true, Oh what a night, and more! It really was an entertaining show that I would highly recommend.

Gone Fishin'

Saturday, May 15, 2010

A couple of weekends ago, we organised for a group of us to go on a fishing charter with Hubs' Uncle Wayne. Uncle Wayne and Aunty Alida have been running this business for years (decades??) and we have been meaning to go on a charter with Wayne since we got here. So we FINALLY got around to setting a date aside. My friend Beth was visiting for the weekend, so I tentatively invited her along. I say tentatively, as the last time Beth and I went on a fishing charter, we spent most of the 4 hours hanging over the side of the boat, providing burley for the rest of the fishermen/women. But we weren't perturbed by our last experience (I'm not sure how!), even after receiving a call from Wayne in the morning saying it was a bit rough out on the water that day. We thought "let's just do it!!" and so we rendezvoused with the group at 12:45pm and set off.

It was such a beautiful day - bright blue sunshine! - but it was quite windy, so Wayne headed for more sheltered waters, and we cast our lines and waited. We didn't have to wait long before we got some bites, and Beth caught the fist fish of the day - a pink snapper, or "pinkie" as they call them. Though, she wasn't so impressed with getting up close and personal!


It wasn't big enough to keep, so off it went, back in the drink. She did however catch the only "keeper" for the day a bit later on - a nice little flathead that we all had a little taste of for dinner that night. I had had lots of bites and my line felt quite heavy, but it wasn't putting up a fight. I thought I might have myself either a log-fish or a crab. I was wrong!


Yes, that's right folks. I caught myself a star fish. A first for me!! Hee hee. Quite a few of us were catching fish, but none of them were big enough to keep :-(

Hubs and his catch





Wifey, convinced she'd caught the same fish as Hubs


Luke and Grae, catching... ummm..... not much at all! :-)

Uncle Wayne cooking up a storm for us on the BBQ

Beer + Friends + Fishing = Awesomeness!







Melbourne really turned on some great weather for us, and thanks to travel sickness tablets, ginger tablets and ginger beer, Bethie and I didn't provide any burley for the trip. Hooray! We're so glad we managed this before moving out to Wang. Something else to cross off our "to do" list!

So excited!!!

Friday, May 14, 2010

My Mum and Aunty Heather are down for a visit, arriving last night! We had a nice little chat over wine and G&Ts and they headed back to their hotel, just down the road from College, around 10pm. We're going for High Tea at The Windsor this afternoon, and we're off to see Jersey Boys on Sunday evening. I can't wait! It's going to be a fun fun fun weekend!!!

Travelling Tassie IV

We noticed how close Launceston was to Swansea and decided to "pop in" on the way back to Hobart. We said our goodbyes to Lesla and Mike...


(Not the best photo, but you can see how close they are to the water!) and were on our way. It was suggested that we head to Cataract Gorge, so armed with a map we drove through the beautiful town of Launceston. And beautiful it was! I love that all the houses are different colours (same as Hobart!) and the Autumn leaves really set it off! We parked the car near the gorge and started our walk.


Did I mention is was cold? I mean, the locals were wearing light clothing, but I had 4 layers on. Chilly!!! It was a very pretty walk though, and we started warming up quite quickly.






When we got to "the end" it was like we'd stepped on to a movie set, hidden away from everything! There was a swimming pool, a restaurant, a cafe, a bar, a chair lift, a suspension bridge and a park. It was really amazing! And wouldn't you know it, I don't have any photos of it on my memory stick. I'll have to see what I have at home! It really was gorgeous! There are 2 ways of returning to the start - the high road or the low road :-) We had taken the low road there, which was the easy route, and we had planned to take the high road home which was more of a hike, but I was just too knackered. We got back to the car and started our journey back to Hobart.

We arrived back at the B&B and this time we were booked into a room at the back of the building, with our own ensuite! Gorgeous! And oh so quiet (sssshhhh sssshhh). We returned the car with no additional costs (woo hoo!) and caught the last quarter of a Carlton vs Geelong game at the pub. Then we used our last $19 to buy some dinner (noodles/rice at a cute little Asian take away joint) and it was back to the B&B for a night in.

What a great trip! We had such a lovely time and really enjoyed the ease of getting around Tassie. Hubs wants to do a Cradle Mountain hike one of these days, and it's definitely a place I'd love to come back to. I'm so glad we were able to visit while still living in Melbourne. The next trip on the list? Back to Brissie for a weekend at the end of May. Hope to see some of you then!

Here's what I was talking about when I mentioned the different coloured houses in Hobart. Just beautiful!

Travelling Tassie III

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

We were up bright and early (well, we weren't very bright and it wasn't that early) for a walk around Freycinet National Park on the Sunday. We arrived armed with a map, water, snacks and brand new sunnies (I was struggling without them!!) and of course Hubs' camera! We decided on the Wineglass Bay and Hazards Beach circuit which was 11km and supposedly 5 hours. Hubs was really keen to do Mt Amos as well, but we weren't sure we'd fit it in. I suggested we try and push ourselves through the first walk and then decide after that.


We started off around 11am and I gotta say, the first 1.5km was hard going! The weather was incredible and within about 15 minutes, both Hubs and I had removed our thermals, which we had to carry around for the rest of the walk! (It was 8 degrees that morning!!!) We got to the top of the lookout and had a great view of Wineglass Bay.


No, that is not a cardboard cut out of our silhouettes! Hubs wanted to lighten it but I got impatient and wanted to blog before he got around to it! :-) Now, there are a couple of different stories about how Wineglass Bay got it's name - one is that it is shaped like a wineglass, but the other is that there were 2 whale slaughter stations situated at the beginning of the bay, and that all the blood from the whales would come in and "fill up" the bay and look like a glass full of red wine. Gross.

We trekked on (downhill!) to the bay and it was just as beautiful at the bottom.


It seemed pretty damn chilly, what, with the close proximity to Antarctica!!, but that didn't stop some crazy people from going swimming! We left them to it and cut across on the track to Hazards beach which was just as stunning.


We took our shoes off and enjoyed the feeling of the sand between our toes. I actually felt the water, and to my surprise it wasn't as freezing as I was expecting! The last part of the track was through the bush and over rocks and through trees and all sorts of fun things! I really like those sort of hike/walks. Especially with the glorious weather - you can see from the photos how stunning it was! We got back to the start at around 3:30pm and with the light fading fast (no more daylight savings!!) we decided against Mt Amos. Hubs was a bit disappointed, but was getting a bit sore, and I was absolutely stuffed, so we just headed back to the car. After taking some photos of a Wallaby:






We had cooled down by this stage and it was freezing! So on went the thermals again, and we returned to Swansea via another bay and a lighthouse. All lovely sights to see! We arrived "home" around 6pm, exhausted (and chilly!) after another great day out.

Travelling Tassie II

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

On the Saturday (24th April) we headed to the Salamanca Markets for a little look-see.


It was quite busy and we slowly made our way around the whole place. I gotta tell you, it's pretty depressing walking around markets for 2-3 hours, knowing you don't really have any spending money!! The usual suspects were there (jams, cards, clothes, jewellery) but Hubs and I were quite taken with the wood carvings and the leather goods, respectively. The weather was quite okay - a bit windy which blew the autumn leaves up in the air which was so gorgeous. We then hopped into the car and started heading up to Swansea.

On the way, we had to stop at Orford for this amazing view:


The clouds were completely covering those mountains when we first got there, but by the time Hubs set the camera up, it was starting to clear. Very pretty none-the-less! We arrived at Swansea around 3pm and caught up with Lesla (a relative, but too hard to explain how we're related!!) over a cup of tea and some ANZAC bikkies - it was the ANZAC day long weekend after all! It was such a beatiful afternoon that Lesla took us for a walk along the beach - practically on her doorstep!


It really was very pleasant! We got home a bit before dark and settled in for an evening BBQ (cooked outside, eaten inside - it wasn't that warm!) Mike and Lesla gave us some info about Freycenet National Park - our destination for the following day, and after watching a bit of the footy, we headed to bed for a nice, warm, cozy night sleep.

How did this song get in my head?

Monday, May 10, 2010

Here I am, sitting at my desk, minding my own business, looking at real estate in Wang, and all of a sudden I realise I have "Diamonds on the soles of her shoes" but Paul Simon in my head, and I could NOT figure out why that was??

And then it hit me.

One of the houses I was looking at was on Kanana st, which sounds like "ta na na, ta na na na, she got diamonds on the soles of her shoes (a-wa, a-wa)"

BINGO!

It's like when I was living in Edinburgh, and every time I'd get home from doing the shopping I'd have the song "Edelweiss", from The Sound of Music in my head and it took me weeks to realise it was because of the bread I bought. You see, the bread was "whole and white", which leads me directly to: "clean and bright, you look happy to meeeeeeeet meeeee!"

Gosh my brain provides me with hours of entertainment! And now I have edelweiss in my head... :-)

(And yes, I'm putting it under the "mondegreen" tag just cos I can.

Travelling Tas

Friday, May 7, 2010

A couple of weekends ago, Hubs and I ventured over the Bass Strait to Hobart and beyond. We arrived around 9pm on the Thursday night and were picked up by the shuttle and taken straight to our B&B. Unfortunately, the room we had was right on Macquarie st - the main one-way street into the city, so from about 2am onwards, the trucks rolling in ensured that I had a poor night sleep, and in turn, so did Hubs. Oh well. We got up (grumbling) around 8:30, had some brekky, and went to pick up our hire car. We were given a map of the Huonville area, and we made our way out to the Tahune Airwalk - a must see when you visit Hobart!

The trip there was half the fun! The roads were lovely and the scenery just gorgeous. We drove along the Huon River which was certainly a sight to behold. It actually reminded me of the Hawkesbury River, but on a much smaller scale. We stopped in at Huonville for some snacks and supplies, and also in Crabtree to check out the local shops - both delightful little towns!

We arrived at the airwalk and paid for entry. The place is run by Forestry Tasmania, and is set in the Tahune Forest Reserve. Although a bit pricey, ($46 for both of us), it was a lovely way to spend a few hours and take some happy snaps! (We did the Airwalk and the Swinging Bridges Circuit.)


 Hubs on the Airwalk

Wifey throwing a coin onto the stump...

...and missing... 3 times!!!

Wifey braving the counterlever. Man than thing moves a LOT!
(my thoughts at the time: "Hurry up and take the picture before all those people come and join me!!!!!!!!!!")

The obligatory Hubs and Wifey shot

One of the suspension bridges. Not very scary - very cool indeed!

Hubs, as usual, took some beautiful photos and is experimenting more and more with his camera, lenses, lighting and panoramas. There are too many to feature here, but I will certainly be putting more up later on. We left the airwalk around 2pm (after an iced chocolate and sausage rolls!) and headed up the very steep road to Mt Wellington. We could feel the air getting colder, but nothing, and I mean nothing could have prepared me for the icy cold wind we encountered at the top. Oh. My. Gosh. I was NOT HAPPY!


Shocking photo, but I had to show you the pain I was in!!!! What this photo doesn't show was how much Hubs was laughing at me!! It felt like about 5 degrees! I told asked Hubs to go and take some photos while I took shelter so we could get the hell out of there! A photo of Hobart and the Derwent River.


We drove through some fog/cloud on the way down and headed back to our B&B. After dropping the car off, we walked down to Constitution Dock for some fish 'n chips - it was Friday after all! We picked a pontoon (after too-ing and fro-ing about 5 times!), ordered our dinner, and sat on one of the piers to eat. A great end to a great first day in Tassie!

Sticky money

Thursday, May 6, 2010

I just came across a couple of students from another college, supergluing a $1 coin on to the footpath outside of their college. I remember doing that in high school, just outside the tuckshop near where we sat.

Some gags never grow old!

Farewell old friend

*sigh*

Last night Hubs and I watched the final episode EVER of Boston Legal. And it was a goodie. We actually did quite well to make it last so long for us, considering at one stage, we would watch 3 or 4 episodes straight on a Saturday night. (Oh yeah. We party HARD!) Overall we were very satisfied with this TV series. It seemed that whenever we didn't like a character, they just seemed to disappear! I was okay with that. But then some characters we did like, would also disappear, without explanation. That was a little annoying. There were a few loose ends that were never quite tied up, but on the whole, a very enjoyable viewing experience.

So, what next? We may give Dollhouse a go, since we have season 1 already, and we're also keen for The Wire. Decisions decisions.

In the mean time, I think Hubs is keen for a bit more Blackadder action, so we'll see how we go.

And yes, I know I still haven't blogged about our Tassie trip yet, but I haven't downloaded the photos yet! They'll be here soon, I promise!!