When I used to live over at Bracken Ridge, the Durhams used to come over each year just before Christmas, and we’d all walk over to Wickfield Street, where the first dozen (or so) houses on either side of the road put on a fairly impressive display of Christmas lights. Obviously, this tradition couldn’t be kept up while we were living overseas, but last year, we resumed right where we’d left off with our annual Christmas expedition to Bracken Ridge.

Boy were we disappointed when we found out that there were no lights on display!

So this year, instead of suffering disappointment at the hands of thoughtless tenants who don’t attempt to out-do Chevy Chase, we decided to do a little bit of research, and find ourselves an alternate source of lighting spectacular. As it turns out, there’s a house just around the corner from us at Bowers Road South, who won the 4KQ Christmas Lights competition for Brisbane North!

Clearly we had to go and investigate, and it wasn’t long before we discovered exactly why they were the winners. Firstly, their plot of land is huge, and they open it all up for the public to walk through. And, the place is covered in lights!

And it’s not just lights either; they have a whole “rainforest walk” to go through, a huge model train set, a model European city, a sleigh for the kids to sit in, and even a face-in-hole scene for the Julians of the world.

The only downside I can see to a display like this (apart from the obvious power bill) is that I don’t know how they can top it next year. Only one way to find out, I guess!

After a lot of ups and downs in September/October (not to mention Oscar repeatedly getting sick), it took us over a month to finally meet the latest addition to the Johnsen family – baby Abigail! Unsurprisingly, she’s adorable!

As you can see, she was a little camera shy on Saturday having only just woken from a nap. But let’s be honest, who would want a photo of themselves straight after getting out of bed?

A huge congratulations to Cath and Grant on the latest A-ddition to their clan!

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.

No, not the classic flick from the 80′s; I’m talking about the regular breakfasts that we’ve been having with Team Threebie and Team Johnsen! A couple of weekends back, we met at the Threebie’s house where BaM whipped up a very generous helping of BBQ’ed French Toast. Apparently it was the first time they’d tried the recipe, but you’d have never known it from the results – it was amazing – loved by kids and adults alike!

My third piece was possibly one too many, but it tasted so good! Think I’ll have to get the recipe from ‘Chellsie.

Breakfast club is at Team Thomases house next time, and we’ve no idea what to make. I’m sure we’ll think of something!

Last weekend we were in Victoria to celebrate Nathan and Kelly’s wedding. The ceremony and reception were held at Werribee Park and Gardens, which has to be about the most scenic place you could ever get married. I would hate to be the guy responsible for mowing their lawns in straight lines, though I reckon he’d have an awesome ride-on mower.

Anyway; with a perfectly blue sky and temperatures hovering around the late teens, they couldn’t have asked for a nicer day to get married! (Celeste – who forgot to bring a coat – may have argued that it could have been a touch warmer, but I thought the weather was just lovely!)

Unsurprisingly, the paparazzi were out in force, snapping shots of all the celebrities that had turned up.

In keeping with the wedding’s fairytale theme, Kelly and her cohort of bridesmaids made a spectacular entrance on horse and carriage. (And after the ceremony, the driver and his young assistant were giving rides around the grounds to everyone – it was awesome!)

After a sand ceremony, a butterfly release, and of course the exchanging of vows and first kiss, Nathan and Kelly walked back down the aisle together as Mr and Mrs Rolfe, showered in rose petals and bubbles all the way.

Werribee Gardens was such a magical backdrop for a wedding, and I’ve no doubt that Nathan and Kelly will have some amazing photos to commemorate their day.

The reception was held inside the ballroom of Werribee Mansion. The food and beverages were divine – I especially loved the dessert, which was a sampling of four different mini-desserts. The profiteroles were the easy the favourite!

After cutting the cake and a well choreographed bridal waltz (which put all of us “just sway to the music” crowd to shame!), we ducked out a little early to wait for our cab. Unfortunately, cabs in Werribee do not seem to understand the concept of a booking – not only did they not have the maxi-taxi that we booked, but after repeated phone calls to try and work out where they were, we were told us that they’d be over two hours late! Dodgy! A big thanks to Bill (Kristy’s Dad) and Ray (Michelle’s Dad) who trooped out to pick us all up.

Still, it did little to sour what was otherwise an amazing day! A big thanks to Nathan and Kelly for inviting us along – we felt very privileged to have been a part of it all!

More photos online in the Nathan and Kelly’s Wedding album on Picasa, or on Facebook.

For our final adventure in Brisbane, we took Aubain and Ingrid out to Scarborough for some fish and chips. The Seafood Lover’s Cafe had been recommended to us by some locals (thanks Melissa!) so we thought we’d give it a whirl. I don’t think the bird behind the counter liked me.

Bird: Hi, what can I get you?
Me: Hi there, could I please get a Two Person Combo pack, with barra as the fish?
Bird: No, sorry, the combo only comes with dory. It’s a combo.
Me: Really? I’m happy to pay the difference in price.
Bird: No. It’s a combo, we can’t change it.
Me: Oh, ok… well then I’ll have the Two Person Combo pack, one piece battered, one crumbed.
Bird: No, both pieces of fish come crumbed. It’s a combo.
Me: Oh I see how this works now. I’ll have the Two Person Combo pack please.
Bird: (to kitchen staff) One Two Person Combo pack!

However, their stubbornness at refusing to change the fish is my only complaint. The food was excellent! We were joined by the rest of the Thomases, Kristy’s folks, plus the Threebies, and we all loved our meals!

We finished off our afternoon with some Boules in the park at Woody Point. Conditions weren’t the best, with a fairly soggy ground and a lot of wind whipping along the waterfront, but you have to take what you can get!

We had such an awesome week with Aubain and Ingrid visiting, and we were extremely sad to drop them off at the airport on Monday morning. We had crammed so much into the week that it felt like a much longer break from work than it had actually been, but only one week in Australia is definitely not enough to see everything! Hopefully they’ll be back soon so we can start with Part Two of their Australian adventure!

A few photos from the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane and Woody Point now online at Picasaweb.

With only the weekend left to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Brisbane is definitely the place that Aubain and Ingrid should be, we took to the city for a scenic tour. Thankfully, the City Cat is partially back up-and-running after that whole January flood debacle, so we parked Alby at New Farm Park and jumped on a city-bound boat.

We hopped off at Eagle Street Pier and walked through the city, eventually stopping for a coffee at Brew – just one example of Brisbane’s uber-trendy urban cafe scene. The coffee was sensational!

To impress their lunch socks off, we decided it would be hard to go past Pane e Vino on the corner of Albert and Charlotte streets. It was a gorgeous day, perfect for sidewalk dining. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed their meals (though Kristy felt super dodgy after hers – but that’s not Brisbane’s fault!).

Our final activity of the day was to try and get a little bit of perspective on the city. To do that, we drove to a number of viewpoints which each offered a different angles over Brisbane. First was Wilson Outlook Reserve, at the top of Bowen Terrace in New Farm. It’s amazing how brown the river still is after the floods three months ago!

Next up came the view from Kangaroo Point cliffs, just across the Story Bridge.

And finally, the view from Mt Cootha. I must have subconsciously been in quite a hurry to get to the viewing platform, as I also managed to clock up my first ever speeding ticket on the way up the mountain. 77km/h in a 50km/h zone! I had no idea I was going that quickly – in fact, in a heavy car carrying four adults up a fairly steep hill, I had no idea I could go that quickly!

Oh well, such is life. Aubain and Ingrid were grateful for the view from the top, and they even bought me an ice-cream cone to make me feel better!

To me, the big ticket item for Australia is definitely our beaches. In order to give Aubain and Ingrid a sample of this, we booked a top-floor, three bedroom unit at Atlantis Marcoola for three nights. Our unit also included a private rooftop terrace which afforded us some spectacular views over Marcoola and Mudjimba beaches.

Aubain was keen to try his hand at surfing, so he and I booked a lesson with Heath at the Mudjimba Surf School. We both managed to get a few good rides, and I really took to Heath’s teaching style – though I had a bit of an advantage over Aubain given that it was my 4th attempt at surfing!

Of course, we couldn’t entertain two trendy Europeans without taking them to the trendiest place that we know of on the coast – Hastings Street, Noosa. The Threebies joined us for lunch at the always excellent Bistro C; as awesome as their beer battered fish ‘n chips is, I strongly envied Kristy’s chicken and coconut risotto dish!

We walked our lunch off with a walk along the Noosa Heads Costal Track. We didn’t make it the whole way around, though it was getting dark by the time we got back to the car, so it’s probably good that we didn’t stay much longer. I really loved watching the surfers working the point, especially as with the setting sun as their backdrop. Unfortunately I didn’t take my camera with me on the walk (I had a baby taking up all the carrying real-estate on my back), so I’m going to shamelessly poach one of Ingrid’s photos here instead.

The dark coastal sky provided an excellent setting for some Grande Florida style sparkler writing, but none of us were able to come up with anything that looked convincingly legible! I’m not sure why this is, though I partially blame the sparklers – star shaped sparklers (which we had last time) seem better for writing than the straight-shooting ones (which we had this time). This here homage to our visitors from overseas was probably our best win.

Our three days went by far too quickly! We took the scenic route to get back to Brisbane, first stopping at what is now my favourite place to eat breakfast – the Sunrise Cafe at Coolum. The sun came out in full force on Friday, so we stayed a while to bask in its warmth, and snap up some memories overlooking Coolum beach.

We had planned to visit Kennilworth Falls via Mapleton, but our plans were foiled only a few kilometres from our destination when we found the road closed due to landslip. Thankfully, our day was not entirely without a waterfall viewing, as we had taken a short feeding break (mainly for Oscar, though I had some rocky road) earlier in the day at Kondalilla National Park. We grabbed a couple of photos at the waterfall at Picnic Creek, but we didn’t undertake the 1.5km (or so) walk down to the main show.

Our drive home took us along the Blackall Range, which was just beautiful – I honestly had no idea that we had such amazing scenery sitting there, practically in our backyard! After stopping for a pie in Maleny, our plans to drive home along the Glasshouse Mountain Tourist Drive were once again foiled by road closure! And so, back to the highway we trundled; it definitely wasn’t a winning way to finish the day!

Still, after so many hours in the car, I think we were all pleased to arrive back home and tuck in to some pizza for dinner!

Aubain and Ingrid decided that they couldn’t come all the way to Australia without seeing Sydney, and so on Monday and Tuesday of their visit, I did my best to show them around a city that I myself am pretty unfamiliar with. Here’s some highlights from our trip:

The Pylon Lookup

I first heard about the Pylon Lookout from a work colleague of Kristy’s in the UK, who said it made for an excellent value visit when time and budget are limited (in comparison to the Bridge Climb). As it turned out, the lookout entrance was not where I had thought; rather than going to the bottom of the pylon and then walking up from there, you actually have to walk along the bridge then enter from about half-way up the pylon. The views from the top were well worth the $9.50 entrance fee!

And, since we had to walk a third of the way along the bridge to get to the entrance, we decided to finish what we started such that we can now all cross “Walk across Sydney Harbour Bridge” off of our bucket lists.

Fish ‘n Chips at Manly Beach

Our timing for the 30 minute ferry ride out to Manly beach couldn’t have been better, as the weather over Circular Quay had started turning very “Sydney”. We were glad to be escaping towards the coast where the sky looked much more “Brisbane”!

We all enjoyed the view from the boat, though after a long day of walking we all also enjoyed a brief kip in the afternoon sun.

After heavily talking up all the merits of chicken salt to Aubain and Ingrid, I was disappointed that the fish and chip shop we ordered from used plain salt instead. Plus, they didn’t even have any bread for me to make a chippy sandwich! What gives?

Drinks at The Opera Bar

I have to admit, I can’t think of too many places better suited to enjoy a sunset than at The Opera Bar.

We arrived just as the sun was considering its descent below the horizon, and secured ourselves a good spot for some beverages. We also met up with a gaggle of Sydney locals – Charlie (who used to work with Aubain and I in London), Lisa (of New York fame), and Jason and Louise (who need no introduction).

Taronga Zoo

We had a number of recommendations to check out Taronga Zoo, not only because it’s an awesome zoo full of animals from all over the world (including this weird hybrid giraffe camel thing), but also for it’s spectacular views back over Sydney harbour.

We were not disappointed! Those animals are on some prime real estate! Favourites for me were the platypus (because they always seem to be hiding in zoos, but the one at Taronga was happily doing circles in his tank), and the koalas (because they’re so lazy and yet so cool).

Food and Drink

Sydney often gets rated as one of the best places to dine in the world, and though we weren’t exactly seeking out world-class dining, we thoroughly enjoyed the food that we did eat (save for the chicken salt disappointment mentioned earlier). Our favourites were:

• The coffee at Chrysler – specifically, the one at the bottom of the Pitt Street mall.
• Modern Australian dining at Bills Surry Hills. Charlie and I had the chili prawn pasta, and it was excellent; The gingersnap biscuits with ice-cream dessert was also a total winner.
• Brunch at Blackbird Cafe in Darling Harbour – a top recommendation from the concierge at Aubain and Ingrid’s hotel.

All in all, it was a busily wonderful two-day tour of Sydney, and it was a number of days before my feet finally recovered from all the walking!

A huge thanks especially to Jason and Louise who so kindly let me crash their spanking new house in Rose Hill Roseville… what I hadn’t realised when I called them up and told them that I would be staying with them, is that they themselves hadn’t even stayed in the house yet! It was like a proper hotel soft opening!

Photos in the Sydney photo album on Picasaweb or on Facebook.

I’ve no doubt that our Australian friends will be very relieved that Aubain and Ingrid have made it to Australia, because now we no longer need to drop phrases like, “When our friends Aubain and Ingrid come to visit”, and “Our friends from the UK are coming over in March”, and such and such. I hope it hasn’t been too painful for y’all.

Anyway, after what I’m sure felt like the worlds longest journey (from London, to Hong Kong, then Auckland, and finally Brisbane), Aubain and Ingrid arrived on Australian soil just after 1 PM today. We trolleyed out to a very quiet Brisbane International airport to catch them as soon as they had cleared customs!

Yes, that’s a particularly unflattering picture of the two of them, and I’m sure that as soon as they’ve recovered from jetlag and realised that we’re all in the same country, they’ll no be having a stern word with me regarding which photos are “internet appropriate” and which ones aren’t. But I figure that will take at least three or four days, and hopefully by then they’ll be having too much fun to care!

I’m jetting off with them tomorrow for a whirlwind tour of Sydney, and after that we’ll be heading up the coast for three days of beachside bliss. It’s going to be awesome!

Any hit tips from the Sydney folks out there?