a Beer, a Whine and The Spirit

I've been sitting here reading my google reader, eating an Easter egg, with Chanbe asleep in his cot, thinking "I really should blog" for about half an hour, so here I am! There's just so much to tell! Uncle Benny left this morning after a lovely week-long visit. Hubs, Uncle Benny and I used to hang out a bit together back when Hubs and I were courting (yes, I just said courting) (meaning v.tr. 2) and we really miss those days. I'm happy to share that we recaptured some of that magic on our road trip down to Stratford! Just like old times... plus a baby :-)

We had a fantastic visit with my family down south and the road from Bright to Stratford, via Mt Hotham was rather spectacular! Not that I could enjoy it on the way, as I was so car sick :-( But the trip back was really something! We were at the top of the mountain just before sunset so the boys took some gorgeous photos. It certainly was chilly up there! It was amazing to see ski fields minus the snow. There was a real deserted feel about the place, even though there were quite a few people around, hiking and whatnot. It will be marvellous to see it in the middle of ski season!

Hubs and Uncle Benny had a very manly weekend, drinking beer, going fishing on Sunday and catching some bream for dinner, and yesterday they went rabbit catching with friends of ours on their property. I cooked the rabbit for dinner last night! I'm not sure how I feel about eating rabbit... But anyway it was nice. 

The weather here at the moment is pretty magical and I'm trying to make the most of it while it lasts. The house we looked at at Mt Beauty was pretty nice, but we have a couple more to check out before we make any decisions.

That's pretty much all there is to share at the moment, other than the fact that Chanbe turned 5 months old today. He's doing wonderfully and we're really enjoying his smiles and laughs, and the fact that he is having 2 naps every day! Yay! We're heading to Melbourne this weekend for my Marriage Celebrant ongoing professional development day, and we'll hopefully be catching up with a few friends as well. I promise to post more photos soon. In the mean time, I hope you all had a wonderful Easter!!

Posted by Renae at 1:50 PM Comments

So last night I mastered the art of cooking steak, and tonight, I conquered the fish. I cooked up some salmon steaks and some sort of white fish (blue grenadier?) and both were just lovely! Not that I like to brag :-)

As we were pottering around today, we thought it might be nice to call my great aunt and uncle in Stratford to see if they were free this weekend for us to come and visit. And they are! We're leaving tomorrow morning to check out a house at Mt Beauty that we might be able to rent from July when we move there, then it's onto Bright for lunch then we head directly south to visit the rellies.

Really looking forward to it!

Posted by Renae at 7:35 PM Comments

I've always been a bit nervous about cooking steak - there just seems to be a knack to it that I don't have. Or should I say, didn't have, until last night. We bought some eye fillet steak from our "local butcher" (I say "local" because it's 10km out of town, but totally worth the drive) and after marinating it in soy and olive oil yesterday, I cooked them up last night. Uncle Ben kept saying "you can't ruin a good cut of meat" and I kept thinking "wanna bet?" But I gave it a go, and they were awesome. Granted, I had a bit of help from Hubs and Uncle Ben, but I feel much more confident about cooking steak after last night's efforts.

And now tonight, I'm going to tackle some fish. (Pardon the pun. Or don't :-))

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Some days, I'll walk on in to an op shop and emerge half an hour later empty handed. Other days, I'll leave with half the shop in my bag. Today was one of those days. Vinnies had just put out a whole new "season" of clothes and boy did I score. The thing about op shops is that they are mostly made up of fairly run-of-the-mill brands, but some days, like today, you'll hit the jackpot. Now, I must tell you that the clothes I bought for myself were pretty stock standard, albeit mostly new and quite nice, but I came across one of those op shop finds we all dream of: a 100% silk dress from Brown Sugar. I just had a look on line, and a dress like that would normally retail at over $100.

I paid $8. BUT. And it's a big but. It's not my size. And I knew it wasn't my size when I bought it, but I just HAD to buy it? Am I right? I couldn't let a find like that slip through my fingers! So I stood there, holding the dress, and thought of who I might be able to pass it on to, and after coming up with a few names, I made my purchase. I really hope that it fits my friend and she likes it! But if not, I'm sure we'll be able to think of someone else to pass it on to.

I do love op shop shopping!!!

Posted by Renae at 5:55 PM Comments

It's 8:30pm. Chance has been in bed since 6:30pm. I've just enjoyed a leisurely dinner with Hubs while watching an episode of The Sopranos. I've done the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. And now I don't know what to do. Chance is usually only just settled by now, but we're trying an earlier bed time for a few different reasons and it seems to be agreeing with us all.

Here are my choices:
1. Go to bed - yeah right, not going to happen. What if I miss something fun!!??
2. Read my book - I'm currently reading "The Red Tent" and really enjoying it, but not sure I'm in the mood to read right now
3. Do the folding - pffft
4. Make Easter Eggs. Decision made...

In the mean time, here is an embarrassing photo!! (Embarrassingly cute that is!) Matchies!!! I saw this top at an op-shop for $2 and just HAD to buy it so I could match my little man. This is SO going to come back to haunt him in 18 years... Hee hee!

Posted by Renae at 8:26 PM Comments

Pregnant? Looking for a good name to call your first/second/third/etc born?

One word.

Credits.

When I was pregnant, I loved watching the ends of TV shows and movies to pick out names that I liked. I still do it! You get to see names in a new context, other than name books and we certainly saw some good ones!

(That's not how we came up with Chance, but I got our future daughter's name from TV!! Let's just hope I have myself a girl some day!)

((I'm not pregnant.))

Posted by Renae at 10:18 PM Comments

The Chan Chan Man is currently occupied with the babysitter

(this video was taken a little while ago, but you get the idea) so it gives me an opportunity to blog! FINALLY!!! Our trip up to Brisbane was just fabulous. Our little man was an absolute star with the travel - the trip back was just as successful as the trip up! It was so lovely to see our family and friends and everyone just went nuts over Chance which was very nice.

I took loads of photos but I haven't gotten around to downloading them yet, as downloading photos at our place is a little more complicated than you might think. You see, we don't have a PC, only a laptop (actually, we have 3 laptops and a tablet PC) and the one we use to dowload our photos on to our hard drive is Hubs' tablet which he takes off the docking station to work in the loungeroom/take to uni etc, so in order to download the photos, I have to wait til Hubs isn't using the computer, put it on the docking station, plug it in, plug in the hard drive, put the memory card in the computer, try and remember how to download the photos and voila! Easy! :-) Maybe it'll happen tomorrow...

Life has been treating us very well. Chance has learnt some fun new tricks like squealing and poking his tongue out, and he has recently found his feet and is currently trying to put them into his mouth which is super cute. Hubs is gearing up for a big couple of months with exams in June that cover all the work for the last year. Chance and I are cheering him on! And as for me, my mother's group is going wonderfully well, and I am keeping myself busy with other fun things like baking, shopping, (window shopping that is) going to the gym, and being a latte mum.

All in all, life is good.

Posted by Renae at 2:34 PM Comments