It’s about time that Julian and Shelley paid a visit to Australia! We’ve missed them! So have a whole host of other people it would seem, judging by the throng of people that gathered to see them at Julian’s parent’s house out at DumbGumdale on Saturday! I counted at least 14 before losing interest in counting; likely it was because I was too busy chasing Oscar around their acres of yard space!

Anyway – this is certainly the first time that Julian and Shelley have been in the same country with us and the Threebies for aaaaaaages, so we had Shelley’s Dad – Peter – take a photo to commemorate the occasion.

Full compliments to Peter for producing what is easily one of the better framed photos of us that we have. His discomfort at using a superior brand of camera hardly shows in the photo at all! Yet, despite his photography skills, I once again find myself displeased with how my hair looks in this shot. After the disastrous photo at Mitchelton markets where my hair was clearly too long on top, now it’s so short that I look like a total chav! I warned the hairdresser that gauge six on top was far too optimistic, and this is what I get?!

From now on, I’ll be the guy wearing a hat.

Kristy and Oscar picked me up from work on Thursday afternoon, and together, we all headed to Mom and Dad’s unit at Grand Florida for a long weekend of fun in the sun. We were lucky to have amazing weather the whole time we were there – much more like the Australian summers that we remember!

With such amazing weather, we tried to maximise our time at the beach, and even gave little Oscar his first ever play in the ocean! Unfortunately, he was not a fan – the water was a bit too chilly for his liking! Still, at least he got his feet wet (both physically and metaphorically), and I’m really looking forward to the day when he’s racing to beat me in to the waves!

We were joined by our buddies the Threebies on Saturday, and we all ventured out for a game of boules in the afternoon. Mom decided not to come, but after proving herself to be an absolutely unstoppable boules player on Friday, it was probably for the best! It was an old-fashioned showdown – Thomases vs. Priebes – and in the end… well, actually I can’t remember who won, but it was pretty close!

Kristy had the bright idea to bring along some sparklers. Originally, she had intended them to be for the kids, but of course, we had to give them a trial run first! So with the babies tucked safely in bed on Saturday night, and with Nonni and Poppi on guard duty, Kristy and I headed down to the beach with team BaM for a bit of sparker writing fun.

Ahh, the long exposure shot!

I absolutely love the weekend getaway, and I’m so pleased we got to enjoy such awesome weather with some awesome people. Even better, my skin is at least one or two shades less London after spending so much time in the sun – covered in sunscreen, of course!

Check out the other photos from the weekend in the picasa online gallery or on facebook.

Wendesday was our first Australia Day for six years where we’ve actually been in the country to celebrate – not to mention Oscar’s first ever Australia Day! Ben, Michelle and Ted have all been up at Golden Beach enjoying a week off, so we headed up at sparrow’s to join them and Team Dahl in an overnight mid-week getaway.

The Priebes were staying in a lovely three bedroom apartment at Gemini Resort, which had amazing views over Golden Beach and Caloundra on one side, and out to the Glass House Mountains on the other side.

We had a very lazy Australia Day, with some swimming at the beach and in the pool, loads of eating, and listening to the Triple J Hottest 100 – I think we were all pleased with Angus and Julia Stone taking out the number one spot. We lost count of the number of Australian flags that we saw around the place, and there were literally thousands of people out celebrating the birth of our nation.

Thursday was much quieter at the coast. Kristy decided that we should take a leisurely stroll down to Bullcock Beach, but when we got there, we decided to keep on going around to Kings Beach. That’s the first time we’ve walked along the new boardwalk that they’ve built there, and I was most impressed with it!

Boy were we exhausted when we got there – and it suddenly became clear that thongs were a poor choice for footwear! We rewarded ourselves with a well deserved coffee and cake at the little cafe under Rolling Surf resort, which may or may not be called Tanja’s Beach Pavilion. The Hummingbird Cake was delicious, but I regret not having a lamington (which I didn’t see on the menu until we were leaving!).

After a long walk back, we tidied off the afternoon with lunch with Ben’s Mum, a quick cache, and a few games of Boules. Ben was particularly on form!

We farewelled the Priebes and had a very uneventful drive home, but arrived feeling like we had been away for a lot longer than two days. What a great way to spend a Wednesday and Thursday – I wish we could do that every week!

View more photos in the Australia Day 2011 album on Picasa.

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!

We celebrated a quiet New Year at The Priebe house, with Team BaM (obviously!) and also Kirstin, who is back in the homeland for three weeks. As usual, the girls relaxed and talked on the couch while the boys slaved away cooking a feast for dinner.

Why is it that when you’re a kid, staying up until midnight to see in the New Year was such a privilage, and yet when you get older, it seems near impossible? By 11:30 PM, we were all flagging, and I almost fell asleep on the Priebe’s very comfortable couch more than once. But we all trooped through until midnight, when we were treated to a ridiculously amazing view of the fireworks, right from the Priebe’s lounge room! I never realised they had such good views of Sydney Harbour and the bridge!

A huge Happy Birthday to Ben today, who is not only celebrating one more candle on the cake, but also that he became a Dad only one week ago!

Baby Ted was born on the 17th of August, tipping the scales at a very healthy 3.75 kg. The whole family is back at home now, and from all reports, they’re adjusting quite well to having one extra member living under the roof.

Happy Birthday Ben! Congratulations to you and ‘Chellsie! And welcome to the world, Ted!

View more photos in the Ted photo gallery on Picasa.

We thought Geocaching would be right up your ally, and we really wanted you guys to get into it! So, we bought a travel bug and sent it on a journey, with the goal of finding you all the way over there in Australia. Surprisingly, it made it there a lot faster than we had expected it to!

Perhaps if you have time one day, you could stop by in Bardon to try and pick it up?

Miss you both!
g&k

You can’t beat the club sandwiches at lunch at Kafe Neo at Garden City. PK got this candid shot of Bender and me (mid-sandwich).

After work tonight, Bender, Nathan, Karl, and myself went for beers and dinner at Lonestar. After that, I headed to Rebel Sport down at Chermside, to pick up my heart rate monitor which had been in for repairs. Seems like a pretty normal thing to do of an evening.

Well, seemingly if you’re a “kid” aged (say) 15-17, your ideal plans crossed somewhat with mine. The number of kids down at Chermie was amazing! There must have been about 300 – 400 of them, all loitering around the cinemas, Playtime, and just outside the entrance. Madness! But why, I ask you? When I was that age, I would have been either at work, or home doing school work. Why don’t these kids have jobs? Why aren’t they studying? What’s so cool about hanging around a shopping centre? What’s wrong with the world? (Or have I missed something here… ?)

2 movies in the same week! That is rare for me; before this week I haven’t been to the flicks for ages!

Anyway, Bender and I headed to Garden City to see Spiderman 2 last night. Bender had fairly low expectations, after not liking the first movie. Being a big fan, my expectations were much higher!

Overall, the movie is very enjoyable. The plot is much more developed than in the first movie, and the story that it tells is of Peter Parker’s struggle to be Spiderman, as well as living an ordinary life. I thought the movie would be more action based, so I was a little disappointed – however, the fighting scenes are done particularly well. The CG for Doc Oc is absolutely amazing!

Both Bender and I thought the film was much better than the first one. Definately a must-see on the big screen. gerrod.com rating: 8/10.