When Kristy asked me what type of cake I wanted for my birthday this year, I had no idea what to ask for, so as a joke I said, “Something that looks like The Keywork“. Kristy had no idea what I was talking about. I was totally kidding. It was a very short conversation.

Fast forward a few months to today – my birthday – when I get home from work and come upstairs. Kristy takes me by the hand and says, “Come and look at this before you see it by accident”. And there in front of me was the greatest birthday cake I can ever remember seeing, ever. Ever.

What an amazing woman I’m married to!

Turning 31 turns out to be pretty cruisy, pretty cool. I’m too old to get truly, butterflies-in-my-stomach excited but too happy to be filled with a pass-the-kleenex fear of ageing. My birthday arrived without a countdown, but left me with a smile on my face!

The fest started with a girls’ night out on Friday. It’s something that a good friend started a little while ago, to keep us new Mums in touch with our friends and the outside world in general. A London buddy of mine joined in this time, and I was very proud of myself for talking about things other than babies and relieved to find that it’s getting easier to do so. We dined at the Crosstown near the Gabba, and had after dinner drinks across the road at Canvas. I really enjoyed trying out two new venues in what turns out to be a pretty cool neighbourhood!

On Saturday, I enjoyed an early gift: a 3 hour package of beauty treatments at MummaBubba Windsor. They weren’t all that I had hoped for, but just lying down in silence for 3 hours was wonderful! Gerrod then cooked me the now famous Beef Wellington, which was ah-mazing. Thanks to Jason and Susan for their help and their company!

On Sunday, my actual birthday, we went out for breakfast at Cafe des Alpes, Mitchelton. The breakfast was way too heavy, but had we not gone there we wouldn’t have discovered the awesome farmers’ markets on Blackwood Street. I’ll definitely be heading back there to wander and snack!

Our plans to indulge in fish and chips on the waterfront were foiled by the weather, so instead we ate pizza, drank beer and watched Modern Family. Aaaah. Such a cruisy way to end the day!

Thanks to Gerrod for his thoughtfulness and birthday planning, and to all the beautiful friends and family who spoiled me and wished me well!

Oscar reached his first major milestone on Friday, hitting the ripe old age of 1!

He woke up at his usual time of 5:30 AM on his birthday morning, so we took a leaf out of the Durham’s book and started his day with presents in bed. He doesn’t quite get the wrapping paper thing yet, but I’m sure he’ll get plenty of practice over the years. Also, he’s not very greedy – once the first present was open, he pretty much wasn’t interested in anything else!

Nonni and Poppi visited with more presents in tow, as did Mia and Pa a short time later with even more presents! It really was quite a good haul for a one-year old!

On Saturday afternoon, we hosted a little afternoon tea for a few of Oscar’s nearest and dearest. One of Oscar’s favourite things to spot are little bees, and as such we had a bee-themed party that Kristy had spent many hours preparing – not the least of which involved her and her Mum making the little bees for his cake!

Thankfully, he seemed quite pleased with the end result!

All in all it was a lovely first birthday for our lovely little boy! We’re looking forward to seeing the adventures that Year #2 brings us!

Some photos (many c/o Jason) in the Oscar’s 1st Birthday album.

We’ve just returned from a glorious long weekend in Mt Tamborine, where we joined the Durhams in a magnificent celebration of Amyfest 2011! Janelle found us some superb accommodation in Eagle Heights, at a place called the Sky House.

The views were spectacular! We could see all the way down Tamborine mountain and out to the Gold Coast, sweeping from Coolangatta up to South Stradbroke Island. Oscar insisted we get up early each morning to appreciate the spectacular sunrises, and moonrise was just as impressive in the evenings.

Most of our time was spent exploring the national parks, hunting for geocaches, playing board/card games, and just relaxing around the fire. We drank loads of espresso (obviously!), and we exercised the well equipped kitchen at every meal. Best of all, we gave birth to a new society, whose sole purpose is to promote the appreciation of ham. Not ironically, we named it The Ham Appreciation Society, and we will be actively recruiting members wherever bad ham is sold!

Taking things up a notch on her actual birthday, Amy decided we should trolley along to the high-ropes course at Adventure Parc on Sunday. We arrived shortly after they opened, and we were rewarded with the whole park to ourselves for the first hour!

It was fantastic fun – extremely challenging in parts (especially on the red and black courses), but incredibly rewarding at the end. My muscles are still aching from some of the games!

We felt very privileged to be invited along to Amyfest 2011 and absolutely loved spending the weekend away with our friends!

More photos in the Amyfest 2011 photo album.

There are few people in this world who are as reliably inspirational as The Durhams, and so it pleased us to no end to be invited along to Dandelion and Driftwood to help celebrate Nelly’s Birthday.

We enjoyed a four course afternoon-tea menu, consisting of two rounds of coffee (or tea, but why would you bother?), and two rounds of snacks. I opted for the pikelets with jam and cream for snack number one, and I would have it again in a heartbeat! The cream was so fresh and thick that it reminded me of clotted cream which I miss so dearly from England! Round two was something that had a very fancy name that I don’t remember; it definitely had the words “french”, “chocolate”, and “cake” in it, but in reality it was a chocolate cupcake with a malteaser on top. Also delicious, but it didn’t hold a candle (sparkler?) to the pikelets.

Being a cafe that also roasts their own coffee beans, I had very high expectations of their coffee. And, all the awards plastered on the wall suggested that I would not be disappointed, and indeed, I was not! It was excellent; I particularly enjoyed the affogato I had for coffee round number two.

It was also great to meet some of the characters from the Durham’s lives that we’ve heard so much about through the years! We were especially pleased to be seated next to Emily-Jane (Nelly’s neice, though you’d swear they were sisters) on one side, and Richard and Karen (David’s sister and her husband, who get mentioned in many a Durham tale) on the other side.

Our afternoon of dining finished with a very generous slice of the fairy-floss cake. Yes, fairy floss! Though it wasn’t made of fairy floss as I had hoped; probably a good thing, as it would have had to be pretty dense to hold all that icing up!

We hope you had an awesome birthday Nelly, and more importantly, we hope the next twenty-one (or so ) years are just as good as the first!

A few photos online in the Nelly’s Birthday photo gallery.

Oscar shares his birthday with Bruce “the Boss” Springsteen? Our (apparently) trivia-loving doctor shared that little chestnut with me recently.

I bet uncle Nick won’t have any trouble remembering the little guy’s big day!

Yesterday was Susan’s birthday, however since the universe wasn’t nice enough to land her special day on a weekend, her party was held on Sunday instead. Kristy was still feeling a bit iffy, so even leaving the house was a bit of an adventure for her! But we were very keen to make an appearance at Susan’s garden party, and Oscar is always up for a road trip, so off we trolleyed!

Thankfully we made it just in time for the second round of mini quiches to be served. Depending on who you’re talking to, they were either:

• “Disgustingly horrid!” (if Kristy is in earshot, since she wasn’t allowed to eat any); or
• “Absolutely smashing – I ate 5 of them!” (for anyone else. And no, I’m not apologising to anyone that missed out. They were gooooooood.)

We were also most impressed with the iPhone cake that was hand-crafted by Susan’s sister, Lauren. Sadly for her, the only person who didn’t recognize that it was an iPhone cake was the birthday girl! She’d better pull out something amazing when Lauren turns 30 to make up for it!

Apparently the party went until quite late in the evening, but with a sick wife and a tired baby, we kept our appearance to a courteous drop-in.

Hope you had a fantastic 30th Sister Susan!

More photos in Jason’s photo album.

Today we attended the first birthday party for our one and only niece, Ella!

Ella actually turned one on Tuesday, but who has time to party on a Tuesday? Instead, M&M wisely decided to go for a morning-tea-on-a-Sunday option, which also meant that Meegs could spend her Saturday afternoon/evening slaving away on Ella’s birthday cake.

Impressive!

Sadly for us, Oscar had absolutely no intention of having a nap, so we had to leave the party before we got to see who won “pass the parcel”. But luckily for him, Aunty Meegs was sympathetic and still gave him a lolly bag to take home, which he very much enjoyed!

Yes, he didn’t quite understand what to do with it, but that just means that we’ll have to consume the contents on his behalf. The things you do for your kids!

Happy Birthday Ella!

As one of my birthday presents last year, Ben, Michelle and Ted gave me a gift voucher for a class at Grass Tree Kitchen cooking school. I must admit, I had never heard of it, but I was enticed by the menu of courses available, and I eventually settling on the Seafood Delights course, as it sounded right up my ally:

We are often told Seafood is an important source of protein and should be included as part of a healthy diet. If you love eating fresh seafood but don’t know the best way to incorporate it in your everyday life and/or dinner party menus, then this is the class for you!

I don’t have the personality type to just turn up to an event like this on my own, so I convinced Kristy to come along to the course with me. To be honest, the course was quite difficult to book – it was full on the first date that I tried, and they cancelled it on the second date as the chef was sick. But finally – third time lucky – we got a booking for Saturday night, and so with Mia and Pa on babysitting duty, Kristy and I trolleyed over to the Grass Tree Kitchen!

I really had no idea what to expect, but after spending a fair chunk of the day doing yardwork, one thing was for certain – I was starving! After filling in some forms, the normal introduction pleasantries, and some beer and wine for all, it was straight on to cooking. The group was limited to seven people, which turned out to be a perfect number for the amount of food to be made. Between the three couples and the one brave girl flying solo, we cooked up four different dishes. Each of us kind-of took charge of one of the dishes – Kristy and I were in charge of the fish cakes with sweet chili sauce (all made from scratch). I would never have thought of chopping up fish in a food processor!

After all the food was prepared, we cooked the first course (our fish cakes), and then let the chefs cook the rest as we sat and enjoyed our work. It was delicious! I was so impressed with everything! And (thankfully) there was plenty of food to go around – we did not walk away hungry. We thought our chef, Chris, was wonderful, and I think everyone got a good amount of one-on-one time with him since our group was nice and small. Best of all, its given us both a bit more confidence to cook with seafood, and from now on we will try to feature it in our diet more often.

Thanks again Priebes for such a wonderful present! We had a blast!

Our very good buddy Aubain turns 30 today, and we really wish we could be there to help celebrate with him. But on the upside, he and his lovely wife Ingrid will be coming to Australia next year, and so we’ll just have to celebrate with them when they get here!

Oscar had some great ideas about what we could do when he comes, so he decided we should make a quick video to demonstrate.

Happy Birthday, buddy! We can’t wait to see you both!