It should have been Mexican New Year over the weekend (instead of Chinese New Year, that is) – as we somehow found ourselves enjoying it twice. That’s two times a winner in my eyes!

First up, we joined Joe, Shamine and Baby Harry for Saturday lunch at Pepe’s Newmarket. They lean more towards the restaurant side of Mexcian dining compared to the fast-foody style of our regular Mexican haunt – Guzman y Gomez at Emporium. We’d be warned that their meals verged on being unfinishably large, and we consequently attended with our best appetites in tow. Burritos were the order of the day, and I can’t say we were disappointed – though I had no trouble polishing off my plate so I don’t know what the fuss was about!

Serving number two was of the home made variety, when we had Mel and Ben over for a very overdue birthday dinner for Ben. When I say “very overdue”, I mean it was very overdue – Ben’s birthday is in the middle of the year. In fact, we promised to make him fajitas so long ago that he’d completely forgotten that we’d promised to make him fajitas. But we are nothing if not true to our word, and so fajitas it was!

Even Oscar got in on the action, sampling, and somewhat enjoying – well, as much as Oscar enjoys any food, that is – his very first fajita!

Blood is totally awesome – just ask Dracula! And as it turns out, it’s transferable too – and it doesn’t even have to be via the fangs-in-neck method that our favourite vampire is so fond of. (Is Dracula our favourite vampire anymore? Who would win in a fight to the death between him and those Twilight hipsters? Twilight is about vampires, isn’t it?)

In support of this transferability, the Red Cross blood van was inconveniently parked right along our path from work to Nandos, and try as we might, we just couldn’t not notice it. It’s huge!

If I were the type of guy who was into pimping out caravans, I’d definitely be stealing some ideas from these guys; their air-conditioning is the hammer!

Anyway – they didn’t appear too busy, so after filling up on chicken and chips, Ben and I signed up to bleed. I’ve tried to donate blood in the past – once, and it was way back when I was working for Compaq down the Goldie. They turned me down! There was too much iron in my blood, so they were worried that I might have haemochromatosis – a disease which causes you to have too much iron in your blood.

Now however, many years later and haemochromatosis free, the Red Cross was only too happy to harvest my goods. Of course, donating blood isn’t a competitive sport, and yet somehow they managed to turn it in to one by equipping the van with a leaderboard for fast bleeders! Apparently anything under six minutes is fast, and I managed to bleed out in 5:52. Yeah! My name and time is now written onto that board for the rest of eternity, or at least until someone wipes it off at the end of the day. If only there was a trophy that I could have unlocked.

I ride past Teralba Park at Mitchelton every time I ride the treadly to work. From the road, it looks like it has quite a large-sized play area for the little ‘uns. And so on Saturday, we went down to check it out with Karl, Sibylle, and their two boys Anton and Ferdi.

Now, I’m certainly not going to be one to complain about a free park – in fact, quite the opposite; I think it’s remarkable how many awesome parks the council provides/maintains around Brisbane. We love the little park at the bottom of our street, and we can get to at least two others that are equally awesome in under 10 minutes walk!

However, Teralba Park did not live up to my expectations (though perhaps my expectations were a little unfair). As I said, from the road, the play equipment for the kids looked huge, so I was expecting a closer-to-home version of Arthur Davis park at Sandgate. But actually, there isn’t all that much there, especially given that the park is always so busy – there was easily a hundred other kids around while we were there. The slides with the steps next to them were a bit hit with Oscar, but overall, there wasn’t too much for a little boy of his age!

Of course, we still made our own fun, mostly just chasing after kids who decided to run in every direction they could. Poor Oscar didn’t have much luck running through the various lengths of grass over uneven ground, though his frequent falls didn’t seem to dampen his spirit at all. We had one very dirty little boy by the time we got home!

One of our goals for 2012 is to spend more time enjoying our beautiful Australian beaches. It’s only 1 hour 10 minutes from our door to one of my favourite beaches up the coast – Mudjimba – which is just about the maximum length of time that Oscar can tolerate a car seat whilst awake.

I’m very lucky to have a workplace that is very flexible with hours, so we’re going to try and start making regular mid-week trips, probably on a Wednesday morning. We figure that if we leave home by 6 AM, we’re at the beach just after 7 AM, which means even with a good hour-and-a-half of beach time, I can be at work a little after 10 AM.

So far in January, we’ve managed two trips in 15 days (one weekend and one midweek), which I think is a decent enough ratio. If we could hit three to five trips a month I think we’d be doing well!

Going by the number of articles written, it’s clear that I had less time/energy to blog in 2011 than any of the preceding years; but that doesn’t mean the year wasn’t noteworthy! I’m hoping to write more frequently in 2012; but until then, here’s a quick recap of some of the events that happened to the Thomas Family in the year that was.

Everyday Life

By the end of the year, we had been back in Australia for 18 months. Both Kristy and I still dearly miss London, and I think part of us will always yearn to go back. However, we’re also loving the comforts and familiarity of being back “home”, having a place of our own, and so many family and friends close by. Oh, and did I mention the beaches?

We didn’t spend nearly enough time enjoying these in 2011, which is another thing that we will be rectifying in 2012.

As for working, Kristy continued in her role as a full-time Mum to Oscar. I was promoted at Dingu Blue to Lead Developer, and I spent most of my year building software for SmartClinics.

Our address remained unchanged, and I can’t see it changing again anytime in the near future. Though we love our house at Everton Hills, we’ve identified a few parts that could be better. We’ve already installed a kitchen, fans, and insulation, but by the end of the year, we had also engaged a draftsman to help us work through some of our bigger ideas. More on that later!

Highlights/Lowlights

By far, one of the biggest highlights of the year was Aubain and Ingrid’s visit to Australia! Crazily, they were only here for one week; we’re still trying to convince them that they can’t do Australia justice without committing for at least a few years! Nonetheless, we made the most of the time that we had with them, with a quick jaunt to Sydney, followed by a few days on the Sunshine Coast, and of course – a tour around Brisbane city.

Here’s some of the other highlights/lowlights of 2011. It’s all about perspective.

• The Brisbane floods! We got a deluge of rain which caused the Brisbane river to break its banks. Our workplace didn’t escape the flooding, and it was weeks (months?) before things got back to normal.
• We planted our first geocache.
• Kristy celebrated her first Mother’s Day, and I celebrated my first Father’s Day.
• My PS3 died the yellow light of death, but thankfully it was recovered only a few weeks later.
• The successful opening of SmartClinics’ first outlet at Westfield Chermside. This was a culmination of months of long days and nights developing the software to run their clinics. Lou and Steve, Ben and Michelle, and Kristy and I celebrated the achievement with a child-free night out on the town.
• I started riding to work a few days a week, and have been thoroughly enjoying the extra exercise.
• The three of us got horrifically sick at the end of November, and it took us weeks to fully shake all our symptoms.

Love

2011 was a good year for the lovers! The year finished on a high note when Mel – a very long time friend – married Ben, one of the most stand-up guys around. They’re two of the most selfless people that you could ever meet! We were quite impressed that they had sign-language interpreters on hand for their hearing impaired guests – as well as with their amazing choreographed dance routine!

A few other highlights for the lovers:

• March saw baby Ryan Daniel jump into the world a touch early (but none-the-less healthy!) to second-time parents Jason and Kellie.
• In April, we saw Nathan and Kelly married at what was probably the most spectacular weddings I’ve ever witnessed. Seriously, impressive!
• Adam Robert John was born to parents Jason and Louise in June.
• Travis and Kira (who I’ve known pretty much since the day she was born) were married in Brisbane city in July.
• Baby Nina Jean was born to proud-as-punch parents Stacey and Wes in August.
• Grant and Cathy welcomed “A” baby number three with Abilgail Linda coming in to the world in September.
• All the way over in Canada, Levi Alexander was born to Geoff and Eva in October – only four days short of sharing the best birthday in the world .
• Amjad (who I worked with at Lloyds in London) and his wife Sobia were joined by Baby Haris in November.
• Also in November, Elise Tilly Joelle was welcomed into the world by parents Aubain and Ingrid.

Travel

It’s definitely easier to travel domestically these days – especially to places we can drive, as we always pack out the car carrying things for Oscar. But we still managed to get Oscar the first stamp in his passport in 2011, with a trip to Fiji with Team Threebie and Team Dahl! Sadly, sickness plagued many of our party (with Ben being hit especially hard) – but it was still an enjoyable, memorable trip for everyone.

Other trips that we took in 2011:

• We enjoyed a midweek vacation over Australia Day, crashing Team BaM’s pad at Golden Beach.
• Mom and Dad hosted us and Team BaM at their unit in Grande Florida.
• We spent a few days wandering around Melbourne with Kristy’s parents, after Nathan and Kelly’s wedding. My first visit to Melbourne since I was but a wee lad!
• Rob, Ben and I took an overnight trip to Sydney for the Remix 2011 conference.
• We had a great long weekend with The Durhams in celebration of Amyfest 2011.
• Jason, Louise and Baby Adam drove up from Sydney to join us for a week at Kingscliff.
• We rounded off the year with a few days down the coast at Christmas with Mom and Dad.

Music, Culture, and Theatre

Did I mention we don’t get out much these days? But that’s not going to stop me missing a good gig when it comes to town!

• Stu, Ben and I saw Eddie Vedder play on his solo tour at QPAC.
• Kristy and I happened to be in Melbourne when one of our favourite artists – Imogen Heap – was doing a show, so with Mia and Pa on babysitting duty, we popped along to check it out.
• I saw Jimmy Eat World play at The Tivoli along with Jason, Susan and Ben.

Oscar

Last, but definitely by no means least – little Oscar Moo. What a year he had! Being a parent is certainly an experience that no matter how prepared you are for it, you’ll never really be ready for the challenges you face. Everyone has their own approach to parenthood, and every child is different – something we’ve learned time and time again this year! It’s amazing how much Oscar changed in 2011, and yet when you see him every day, you barely notice the differences!

Of course, it wasn’t cotton candy for the whole year through; on the contrary, there were a number of lowpoints too. For the first nine months of his life, Oscar was not a fan of sleeping, which meant Kristy and I didn’t get much of it, either. Suffice to say, it’s amazing what a difference a full night of sleep makes – not to mention contiguous full nights of sleep! And, Kristy and I were nervous wrecks when Oscar had to pay a visit to the Emergency Room. And it wasn’t the only time, either – by the end of the year, he’d clocked up three separate trips to the ER!

Still – these are all part and parcel of being a parent, so we’ve done our best to take things in our stride and concentrate on the highlights instead; of which, there were plenty!

• Trying solid food for the first time, and the subsequent face that followed.
• Dressing in matching outfits. Yep, I’m that guy.
• Watching all his physical skills develop – learning to roll over (four/five months), sitting (seven months), shuffling (10/11 months – he never really crawled!), then walking (14 months). Oh, and of course – high fives (nine months).
• Happy Birthday to you! Oscar turned one in September.
• Discovering that he really does understand what you’re saying to him. I’ll never forget when this first became apparent to me. I was playing with Oscar on his mat, and I said to him, “Go and get your toy truck, and we’ll push it at the blocks together.”. He looked at me for a second, then shuffled off to grab the truck, then brought it back to me and sat in my lap so we could push the truck together. I was blown away!

If you feel as though I’ve missed out something/someone important, it’s probably because you’re wrong, and I don’t care. Either that, or that my memory isn’t as good as it used to be; feel free to try your luck by letting me know.

Our quest to get a photo of all four Harvey grandchildren continues! This time, we tried to distract them with cupcakes and play equipment, and actually, we were somewhat successful!

Poor Owen and Reuben had to stare into the sun to get this shot! If only I’d have moved slightly to the left to frame Ella in the photo better, then I think we’d be on to a winner! Similarly, this one isn’t too bad, if you ignore the fact that I had to crop it square to remove a certain parent’s hand out from behind Oscar’s back…

Oh well! It was a good excuse to spend Saturday afternoon/evening with the Harvey Circus – and have dinner and a movie (Tangled – quite a good kids flick!) while we were at it. Plus, Meegan made one of the greatest desserts that I’ve had in a long time – some sort of frozen marbled chocolate cheesecake thing. Score!

The right-hand side of our herb garden was looking a bit spent by the end of 2011. Our parsley and chives – which had both been very good to us – had gone to seed. Our sage was being eaten by something-or-other, and our original basil plant had never done too well in the soil.

Since digging up and replanting everything on the left-hand side of the garden, the plants there have been growing amazingly well. The basil grows faster than we can consume it (clearly we need more uses for basil!), and our cherry tomatoes have just started fruiting.

Given how well the left-hand side of the garden is now doing, we figured that the right-hand side should be treated to a little bit of replanting love as well. And so, we went through and dug up all of the dodgy old soil, and replaced it with about 150 litres of fresh new potting mix. The stuff that ended up on top was pretty loose, so we all had a go at stomping around to try and compact it a bit.

We’ve put in some new parsley and chives, and replanted the sage, oregano, plus the original basil plant. Only a few days on, the chives are already looking bigger and stronger – hopefully the same will be true for all the other plants soon too!

Because we’ve been a bit more organised about the position that the herbs are planted, we’ve got a decent chunk of space left over – I think we could easily fit another two plants in there. Any suggestions? We’d love to grow some coriander, but every time we try to, it dies! And we already have mint (growing very well in a pot), some lemongrass, and two chili plants (one which is doing exceptionally well this year). What are we missing?

After last year’s dismal attempt to see midnight on New Year’s Eve/Day, I have to admit that I wasn’t feeling too optimistic about seeing 12 AM on the 1st of January, 2012. But I’m proud to report that not only did we surpass our expectations, but we made it there without any napping required! Huzzah!

New Year’s Eve 2011 was once again spent at BaM’s house, and we had Micah and Sarah, Ian, and Mel and Ben join us for the journey. And a good thing too, as everyone played a vital role in preventing the house from burning down! We’re still not entirely sure why the BBQ’s gas bottle suddenly erupted with flames, but thankfully we managed to get the situation under control – admittedly with a little bit of help from two fire trucks, an ambulance, and an army of emergency workers.

More photos and write up of the story on the newly redesigned stickfly.com.

Anyway – everyone was on a bit of an adrenaline high after the fire crew left, so staying up until midnight suddenly became a whole lot easier. In fact, it was after 1 AM by the time we actually got to bed – easily the latest night we’ve had since I can’t even remember when! What troopers we are!

Many thanks to Nonni and Poppi who hosted a slumber party for Oscar, which allowed us a sleep-in in the morning!

Happy 2012, everyone!

Oscar’s “big” present from us this year was a tricycle (full credit to Kristy for this one). We didn’t take it away to the coast with us as we figured there wouldn’t be much use for it while we were there; instead, we assembled it upon our return to Brisbane while Oscar was sleeping off his drive home nap. Of course, he immediately wanted to take it for a spin once he woke up and saw it, so we headed down to the Kedron Brook bikeway for a cruise through the park.

Yep, the tricycle is a huge winner!

As far as Christmases go, 2011 will probably not be going down in our books as “The one to be beaten”. No, I think for now the Christmas ski trip of 2007 remains unchallenged at the top of the list for me!

On paper, Christmas 2011 sounded like it was going to be a corker – four nights at Mom and Dad’s unit at Grand Florida, and no Christmas Day running around required. But sadly, things didn’t turn out quite so well; instead, a large part of my celebrations were spent resting in bed, trying to sleep off various sicknesses. It started out with back pain and stomach cramps on Christmas eve, which moved to fairly severe indigestion on Christmas day. Kristy shot up to reception to ask if they knew where she could buy some antacid, to which the 10 year-old boy manning the desk responded with, “Have you been bitten by an ant?”. As it turns out, the convenience store across the road had plenty in stock.

Boxing day wasn’t much better; my vision started going blurry early in the afternoon, which I’ve since learnt is an early warning sign for an incoming migraine. Unfortunately, this lesson was learnt the hard way, so most of Boxing Day afternoon was once again spent resting in bed. Oh, how the sunlight hurts the eyes!

In between my sickness and general feeling sorry for myself, the other troops did their best to enjoy their holiday – which is understandably difficult without me operating at full capacity. The opening of presents yielded quite a nice bounty – especially for Oscar, whose presents were so many (or more accurately – his opening technique was so slow) that he still hasn’t opened everything he was given.

All of the beaches were closed for most of our stay, due to the cyclone sitting off the coast. The swells were huge, and by Dad’s estimate, waves were breaking continuously for a few hundred metres back from the shore. By Tuesday afternoon, things had started to calm down. The lifesavers re-opened the beaches, and a few people ventured cautiously into the water.

Since we had to stay off the beach, we played mainly back at the resort. Oscar really loves the water, so he especially enjoyed swimming in the heated pool. We even had the pleasure of swimming with Al and Suz, and their cohort of kids on Tuesday morning!

As luck would have it, by Wednesday I was feeling right as rain, but sadly, our accommodation had expired. Worse still, the beaches were fully open again, and the waves looked amazing! Talk about a terrible time to leave!

Despite the sickness, it’s always nice to “get away” for a few days, and I’m very thankful for all my family members that were there to care for me. Hopefully I’l be a bit more sprightly on our next trip!