Rowley Road Christmas Party

Being in Oz didn't stop us celebrating our annual Rowley Road Christmas Party, it was just a smaller turn out than usual.

Instead of the usual roast with all of the trimmings we celebrated with a BBQ.

Lentil

We have had a little secret for a few weeks.... we have a baby Collie due in June 2009! Had our first scan last week and everything looks great.

Ben Blakeney turns 2

Yesterday was Ben's 2nd birthday. In the morning he went to the Lone Pine Koala sanctuary with his family and in the afternoon Iain and I went round for some tea and a very yummy cake.

Happy birthday Ben!

Bath time

Thomas and Fraser exploring a new bath.

BBQ Man

A night at Ant and Emma's would not be complete without a BBQ and a LOT of good wine (and Dad trying to out do Howard!)

Airshow

In a blistering 35 degrees with no shade and no breeze, we sweated our way through Amberley Airshow. It was a great day out and we had prime positions and brand new camera's to try out.



The winning shot was Max's new toy plane though!

New pet

We now have a pet possum who lives in our palm tree and likes to make lots of noise at 3pm. Good job he is cute!

Oktoberfest

Howard was adamant he wanted to go to Oktoberfest. The rest of us were quite tired from our trip to O'Reilly's but we agreed to go. It turned out to be an excellent night with bell ringing, yodelling, lots of beer and dodgy dancing.

Bris-Vegas reception

A couple of weeks ago it was finally time for our long over due Oz wedding reception. Iain's parents hosted us a wonderful party for us at the Victoria Park Golf Club which over looks the city.

Thank you to everyone who came and made it a fantastic evening.

(sorry Trevor I don't have any of you.... were you hiding???I seem to remember you being on the dance floor ALL the time!)

O'Reillys

In honour of Dad's upcoming 60th birthday which Howard will miss and on Drue's earlier recommendation, we decided to spend our last weekend together at O'Reilly's. As Mum and Dad don't slum it they paid for us all to stay in one of the new 3 bed luxury villas. For the first time ever Howard got 1st pick of the rooms and did not have to sleep on the pull out sofa bed.

When we arrived it was thick fog and Iain had a difficult drive up the mountain but we got there safe and sound in time for dinner.

Despite the rubbish weather we were delighted to find a hot tub on the balcony so we all crammed in. In the end we had 5 people in a tub made for 2!!!!
On the Saturday morning the boys decided we would do a 10k hike.

This was Iain's little leech which he found on the floor after we got back and he noticed the lovely trickle of blood running down his leg.

We are all pretty unfit but it was a lovely trek. Half way along our route was a pool so the boys got changed and decided on a swim. It was a little cold, with it being fresh spring water and all but they splashed around for a little while.Once they got out and the water settled, we noticed a 3ft eel which had been swimming around in there. Strangely no one wanted to get back in again.

As none of us had seen them before we went on a glow worm tour. We hopped on a bus down the hill and then went for a walk along the creek, once we were all sat down we all turned off our torches and the bugs put on a lovely show for us. It was just like looking at the night sky. It was pretty magical.On Sunday morning we finally got to see the wonderful view before packing up the car and doing the 2nd best thing here... feeding the bird.Doing the Sound of Music!

Boys will be boys!

It started so well, all getting along and then suddenly......