a Beer, a Whine and The Spirit

Posted by Renae at 7:41 PM Comments

I've started writing this blog post 3 times now, so hopefully I might actually post it this time! Life is so hectic and I don't know how it happened but our 6 weeks in Brisvegas is coming to an end. We leave on Monday and have had a great time catching up with people and spending time together as a family. It's been such a blessing having Hubs around to see all the changes in Chance that I've been able to see, and I don't know what I'm going to do when he has to go back to work a week after we get back to Wang! I really love all the get togethers and socialising that comes with staying in Brisbane, but to tell you the truth I'm ready to go home. That's really hard for me to say as I don't want our families to think that I want to leave them, but it's really tiring to be on our best behaviour for 6 weeks solid without much down time.

Having said that, I can't wait for the fam to come and visit us down south again asap. It's been so amazing having that support - always having someone there to take Chance for an hour while we grab some sleep or do some cooking or write a blog post. Like just now I heard Chance cry, followed by my Dad's voice saying "Hello there. What's going on? Maybe you need a cuddle." I'm really going to miss that when we leave. Just thinking about it is giving me a headache :-)

We're going to spend a couple of days is Melbourne catching up with friends before heading back to Wang on Wednesday. I'm a little nervous about being so far away from our support networks, and with Hubs working full-time hours, but I know we've made some really good friends who are more than happy to help out when we need or want it. In the mean time, I just have to remember that everything always works out. Not always how we think it will, but it works out none the less.

Thank you to everyone for all their love and support and best wishes over the last 9 weeks, and in particular the last 6 weeks. We've enjoyed the chats and the beers and games of ping pong and pool, and watching the cricket and tennis, and celebrating life's special occasions with you all. If I don't get to blog again until we hit Wang, please forgive me, and know that I have lots to share with you in the coming weeks and months.

Wifey  xx

Posted by Renae at 6:48 PM Comments

For those who are unaware, I am currently celebrating my birthday week! And it has been a cracker so far! I kicked it off with a great day on Sunday where we started with brunch with friends (mmmm.... pancakes....) and their darling little girl who has grown so much since we last saw her! We then headed over to visit Kate, Kyle, my Godson and his baby bro. We crashed their family lunch (mmmm.... lasagne....) and had a lovely relaxing time with them before they jetsetted back to Cairns. It was then time to head out to coffee with 2 very dear friends and we found ourselves at Freestyle in the Valley (mmmm.... lindt chocolate saucy pudding....) Again, a lovely, relaxing time was had by all and of course the food was delish!

But we weren't done yet!

We finished our day with a trip to the temporary Jazz Club. We had planned to go to the actual club but it was badly damaged with the recent flooding, so they moved it to the Australian Legion Memorial Club in the Valley. We arrived not long after 5:30pm and the band started about an hour later. Chance loved it! He was happy just to sit on my lap and take it all in. And then he had a little sleep and then he was ready to party again! We enjoyed great company, and tasty treats (mmmm.... pinot noir and cheese and crackers) and the music was lots of fun as well!

To cap that day off, Australia won their day/nighter against England! It doesn't get much better than that.

On Monday I caught up with 2 of my cousins for a bit and then Hubs and I decided to hit Chermside shopping centre for the afternoon, partly to get out of the heat and partly to look for something to wear to Chance's baptism. (What? Chance gets a new outfit, so why can't we??)

Tuesday was my actual birthday so Hubs took me out to brunch at Di Vita Cafe at Wilston (mmmm.... double smoked ham, corn and parmesan hotcake with bacon and eggs....) It was the first time we had left Chance since he was born and I think we did pretty well! My brekky was SO GOOD and Hubs' was pretty good too. We then lazed around for the arvo before heading over to Nanny and Grandpa's for birthday dinner. Only problem was, a massive storm hit and they lost power again so we ate pizza and pasta by candle-light! Very romantic! We then had cake for dessert (mmmm.... cheesecake) by which time the power had come back on (thank goodness we could turn the fans on!!) and headed home for a great night sleep.

I'll fill you in on the rest of my birthday week soon!

Posted by Renae at 1:45 PM Comments

Hubs has never bought me flowers, he has only ever made them for me which I think is even better! So when he came in with this bunch I was blown away!

And then I realised he had been pruning the bushes outside and this bunch was on its way to the bin. Oh well. You take what you can get!

Posted by Renae at 11:16 AM Comments

Posted by Renae at 12:52 PM Comments

Posted by Renae at 2:31 PM Comments

We made friends with a lovely couple of soon-to-be-interns at Wangaratta, Jackie and Darren, and it just so happened that Jackie was due to have a baby 2 weeks after us! It also just so happened that her little bundle of joy, Aidan, was born 3 weeks early, so he is actually older than Chance! We went over for a visit before we left for Brisbane and of course Hubs took the opportunity to take some lovely photos.

Aren't they just adorable? J & D are now based in Bendigo so we're hoping we can catch up with them some time in the next 6 months before we head to Mt Beauty in July.

Posted by Renae at 10:04 PM Comments

Hello lovely blog-readers. Just letting you know that we are okay and haven't been affected by the flooding in Brisbane. It's so sad to watch the news and see the disastrous affects this rain is having on the state - I've never experienced this kind of rain before.

Thanks for thinking of us.

Posted by Renae at 7:28 PM Comments

Hubs and I decided we would try not to have a crazy Christmas trying to run around to too many places this year, but it didn't quite work out that way. The good news is, we had an amazing day and wouldn't have changed anything! We did our usual Christmas eve at Nanny and Grandpa's place which meant lots of food, drink, prezzies, and far too much dessert! (Is there such a thing??) I don't seem to have many photos from Christmas eve, so we'll move on to Christmas day.

We went to church in the morning and caught up with some friends and introduced Jr to them, then headed back to Hubs' Mum's for breakfast and presents with the fam. We then went to my bro's place for Christmas with my side of the family which was, as usual, an absolute delight. There were 23 of us seated around an enormous table eating absolutely delicious food!

Posted by Renae at 9:42 AM Comments

There's so much I haven't blogged about and don't know if and when I'll find the time!! I have some time tonight so might line up a few posts for the next few days. Here we go!

Hubs and I celebrated our wedding anniversary a week late this year, with a lovely lunch at The Idle Book Cafe in downtown Wang, and the exchanging of gifts. Hubs gave me two gorgeous titanium tension-set rings that he ordered off an etsy site that I just happened to leave open on the computer. Hee hee! He gave me one with a mystic topaz stone in it for the birth of our baby boy (topaz is the birth stone for November) and one with alexandrite in it for our 3 year anniversary, just cos he liked it.

The previous week, I found some energy drinks in the fridge and asked Hubs about them, as neither of us drink energy drinks. His response was "it's not important" which means he's up to something. I asked if I would find out eventually and he said yes so I left it at that. And this was what he was working on:

Posted by Renae at 10:00 AM Comments

"Wow I can't believe how big he is!"
"He's just growing so fast!"
"I remember when he was a newborn and how small he was."
"Those chubby thighs are so adorable!"
"I can't remember my life without him."

Yes, I'm afraid I have muttered all of these phrases over the last couple of weeks. I can't help it! It's all true! He's even grown out of the newborn Huggies nappies and we've had to buy the 6-11kg ones that are for toddlers!* Crazy!

In other news, Chance had his first trip to Bunnings today! (See how he's looking for Hubs!?)

I'm sure he'll be back again with Hubs some time soon though! We have a working bee planned for tomorrow at Hubs' Mum's place and we're REALLY hoping for a break from the rain! Fingers crossed!!!


*We only use disposables when we get lazy/when we run out of cloth nappies/ when the cloth nappies aren't dry.

Posted by Renae at 6:35 PM Comments

Why do we store stuff? Hubs and I have boxes and boxes of stuff stored at Hubs' Mum's place, cos we thought it would be crazy to take everything down to Melbourne/rural Victoria with us. Instead we took the bare necessities (and some extra stuff) and have bought bits and pieces, generally second-hand, along the way. It just seems such a shame that we have all this lovely stuff just sitting in a house, 2000km away, not being used. Having said that, I could probably only recall about 10% of the stuff that is in those boxes. If someone told me tomorrow that it had all been accidentally lost, I don't think I would be overly devastated about it, as I wouldn't really know what I was missing out on.

So why keep it all? We all know the reasons - "sentimental value" (Hubs and Wifey); "cos I'll use it one day I'm sure" (Hubs); "just because, okay??" (Wifey).

Hubs has organised a working bee this Saturday to go through everything, so it will be fun to look at what is there. And I'm going to try and be ruthless and get rid of a few things. Mainly books I suspect. And maybe some things that I've been holding on to for way too long.

Maybe I should give my mind a bit of a clean-out as well and throw out some stuff that's been hanging around, taking up valuable room. Like all the body-image crap I've been carrying around since I was a teenager. Or the desire to please other people all the time (though, I'm getting better at this one!). I wonder what else I'll find there that I could do without...

Posted by Renae at 6:25 PM Comments

I know I know, another post about the baby. I promise I'll blog about something non-baby-related soon. Maybe :-)
We took Chance to the doctor for his 4-6 week checkup today and he aced it! Ha ha. Well he has put on 2kg since birth (yikes!) and now weighs 5.8kg. He has also grown longer and is 58cm (easy to remember!). He is going to be one tall lad, that's for sure. Anyway, I just thought I'd share those stats with you, as well as this photo:

I have to say, it's quite hard to think of things to blog about at the moment, as our whole lives are consumed by this little individual. I've thought of a few ideas but the inspiration isn't very forthcoming. I mean, there's only so much complaining about the weather and my lack of sleep that one could handle! I'll see if I can come up with something soon.....

Posted by Renae at 6:12 PM Comments

Our son is 5 weeks old and he has already done the following:
- enter the world (hey, it was hard work for him too!)
- had a road trip in the kombi
- attended a wedding
- been on a plane (see below) (thankfully he slept the whole trip!!!)
- had his first Christmas
- seen the new year in
- grown numerous centimeters and put on many hundreds of grams

Not that I'm bragging, but that's a pretty impressive resume for someone who has only been around for 35 days... Oh yeah. I'm going to be one of those parents!! :-)

Posted by Renae at 12:41 AM Comments