Kev and Col

Australia 2012

2012-01-11T15:44:00.000-08:00

We returned to Seattle today after a great trip to Australia. 3 days in Sydney and a week on the northern NSW Coast. We did a bit of a family Christmas thing with the Aubreys, saw many old and good friends, celebrated at a family wedding and got a good dose of vitamin D!

Day 1 - Sydney
Breakfast at Kaylene's apartment, out to see Albert and Esther's place to refresh the flowers and think about the two beautiful babies who are never far from all our minds. The evening was spent with good friends in the bar at Blue Hotel in Woollomooloo - Col had her first of 3 snacks from Harry's Cafe de Wheels.

Day 2 - Sydney

We caught up with a veritable gang of friends and family members from the Sydney area at the cafe in the Botanic Gardens. A beautiful day, lots of laughs. Then Col and I climbed the Harbour Bridge at sunset.

Day 3 - Sydney

Out to Manly on the ferry bought some Aboriginal Art, had fish and chips and got sunburnt! Then we caught up with two new friends - Stephen and Kevin (good friends of PJ and Michael in Seattle) - and then out for dinner at Quay, a restaurant with 3 chef's hats, the Australian equivalent to Michelin Stars. It was a stunning meal, possibly the most expensive meal we have ever had too!

Day 4 - Kingscliff

We flew up to Brisbane on our 4th day, Rach collected us (and Kaylene who had been traveling in Sri Lanka), and we drove to our beach house just south of the Gold Coast in Kingscliff. Shannon and Jason with Lily and Alice were also holidaying in the area too! Not by chance :) we had a big family dinner.

Day 5 - Kingscliff and golf

Settled into the house, a big beautiful house with expansive deck with stunning ocean views. Jason, Richard, Col and I went out to play 9 holes in land a bit - stinking hot, funny little place called the Abbey. Jason and I showed the Aubrey pairing a thing or two! The evening was spent on buck and hen nights with Deanna and Dave (Ferrari) at the local pub.

Day 6 - Kingscliff and Currumbin Nature Sanctuary

We headed out for the day to see koalas, kangaroos, crocodiles and a host of other things that I am sure would kill you given half the chance!

Day 7 - Kingscliff

Karin and Ned arrive from Adelaide where they had been celebrating Eric and Josephine's Golden Wedding Anniversary - Karin reckoned Ned had celebrated with 50 drinks! Christmas at the house in Kingscliff.

Day 8 - Kingscliff (the wedding)

Good fun had by all - except those that didn't stay on Shannon and Jason's lounge after the wedding and had to walk home along the beach at 1.30am!

Day 9 - Kingscliff

Shannon and Jason leave to head back to Brisbane, we hang out by the pool at the house.

Day 10 - Kingscliff

Last day at the beach catching waves and eating ice blocks, leftovers for dinner!

A fab week and a bit - glorious weather, great friends, good times with family. We will go back for good...just not yet.

Wedding in Victoria

2011-11-06T18:19:00.000-08:00

This weekend we had the privilege of attending Emily and Cheryl's wedding in Victoria. They arrived Friday afternoon and with the help of a few wig-committed-friends we kicked off the nuptials with a pre-wedding-wig-party. Having managed to get ourselves to bed before 1am and with the exception of Kev, we weren't too merry. Having said that, Saturday morning was still a tough start. We dragged ourselves down the hill to Lake Union and after 40 minutes in a sea plane landed in not-so-sunny Victoria (40 minutes plus 1 hour of waiting around imposed by Kev). We picked up a marriage license, flowers and a quick bite before headed out to The Brentwood Bay resort, did a quick costume change and before we knew it we were handing over rings, signing marriage certificates and drinking champagne. It was lovely and we're so pleased for Em and Cheryl. Unfortunately, at this time we have no photos since 2 of us were getting married and 2 of us where busy witnessing (and crying). There was an "official" photographer, so you're going to have to wait for the real-deal.

The brides!

Dodgy Andy and Will as Captain Jack Sparrow

Emily working the beehive

David Bowie loves a celery stick

Sara working the fro

Cheryl as Jack Sparrow and Christina taking a break from pink to work the purple

Kev finally managed to get the hairstyle he always dreamed of as a teen


Princess Leia, Mary Kay in her "natural" hair and Peter working the pink

Mary Kay working the Blue and a Jack Sparrow cameo from Andy

Strangely, the mullet worked with Michele's dress

Fro and mullet....beautiful

Men in black?

The brides working a new look

Flying us to Victoria

Post-wedding visit to Butchart Gardens.

In the Japanese gardens

My Nan

2011-10-15T19:09:00.000-07:00

My Nan was a formidable person and someone who has influenced me in ways I probably don't even recognise. She was endlessly supportive and critical. Simultaneously judgmental and open minded. Intellectual and practical. Superstitious and empirical.

As kids we spent quite a bit of time with Nan and Pop. Nan would have Pop mow a path from their house through the waist high grass in one direction to the park and duck pond by the highway, in the other to the donut van. She would send us off to the park with a bag of stale bread and stick to bang the ground with the warning of "don't touch any wriggle sticks and don't come back to soon". In the other direction to pick up cinnamon donuts. On rainy days she'd take us to the roller rink in Nowra to tire ourselves out racing round the skating rink. At dinner she wouldn't tell us what was for dinner until after we'd finished and invariable it was liver. One day she said we could go to the beach and proceeded to lead us off in our flip-flops, swimmers and hats....we walked...for hours...I'm not even sure we made it to the beach but we slept well that night! One time when Mum and Dad when to NZ for hols, she had us knocking on doors to find random kids to come to Rachel's birthday party. I think there was 20+ kids and we had hours of games and food organised. I don't remember the details, but I remember that Nan let us run with the whole thing and it kept us occupied for a week. I don't think Rach was that enthused, but BJ, Karin and I had a great time organising our first big bash.

Nan was known to be offensive some times, I won't repeat some of her one-liners. But she also left me with some valuable one-liners. When I was a teen I was moaning about not having the right clothes to wear and she told me it wasn't what I wore but how I wore it that counted. Later, for my birthday she gave me a pile of material and with Mum's help I made the clothes I wanted. She was always warning me about burning the candle at both ends and being a jack of all trades and master of nothing.

Nan died on 11 October. She will be missed.

Peru and Bolivia - September 2011

2011-09-18T18:17:00.000-07:00

We got home yesterday afternoon after an incredible couple of weeks in South America - and an incredibly arduous return journey home. We spent about 10 days in Peru and 2 days in Bolivia then literally 2 days on planes and in airports!

We took a well worn path through Peru, starting in its capital, Lima, heading to Cusco, Machu Picchu, The Sacred Valley, Puno and Lake Titicaca. We then crossed the border into Bolivia and spent a full day ambling around the street markets and coca museum of La Paz.

So much of the last 2 weeks have been spent at serious altitude - Cusco at 3,400 m (11,200 ft) and La Paz at 3,650 m (11,975 ft). We took drugs for altitude sickness for the first couple of days, didn't suffer really apart from getting puffed walking up stairs, and occasional mild headaches.

Some key memories:

Day 1 - Huaca Pucllana - a pre-Inca adobe brick site for spiritual rituals.
Day 1 - Dinner at Jose Antonio - fantastic ceviche (raw marinated fish) and our first Pisco Sour (the national cocktail!)

Day 2 - 12 course tasting menu at Astrid y Gaston - currently number 42 in the Top 50 Best Restaurants in the World - more ceviche (much more), a braised beef cheek (20 hours of cooking) AND a little guinea pig served in a pancake with hoi sin sauce! This started Col's obsession with guinea pig, and a week long search for a guinea pig farm!

Day 3 - wandering around the narrow cobbled streets of San Blas in Cusco.
Day 3 - my first taste of alpaca.

Day 4 - Coricancha - the sun temple in Cusco, part of a walking tour around the city

Day 5 - the ruins at Pisac - most folks head to the turistico market, we headed up the hill to some incredibly well preserved pre-Inca and Inca settlements.
Day 5 - Sexywoman (spelt Sacsayhuamán) - a huge Inca site, massive rocks, overlooking Cusco - amazing views.

Day 6 - The Vista Dome - a train ride to Aguas Calientes, the town within a short bus ride from Machu Picchu - I felt really sick, the only 12 hour spell of illness I had.
Day 6 - Our first walk around Machu Picchu - completely lived up to the hype!

Day 7 - Sunrise at Machu Picchu - awe inspiring couple of hours at the famous Inca site - THE OVERALL HIGHLIGHT OF THE TRIP - watching the sun hit the ruins at 6.30am was one of the most memorable views of my life.

Day 8 - Kuychi Rumi - our own adobe brick house for the night - we had an open fire and ordered pizza! Pizza as it turns out it Peru's national dish, well kind of!

Day 9 - Ollantaytambo - more Inca ruins, but incredible nonetheless. Col also saw how guinea pigs were kept - pretty much as family pets...that get eaten! Maybe 100 or so running around the traditional Peruvian home.

Day 10 - The Andean Explorer - a 10 hour train ride through Peruvian countryside from Cusco to Puno on the banks of Lake Titicaca. A really fantastic experience passing through 14,000 feet!

Day 11 - The floating reed islands of Uros - probably the most turistico thing we did, but interesting in any case. Particularly when the local women sang "row row row your boat" as we set off to a neighboring island on a vessel made of reeds!

Day 12 - Travel from Puno to La Paz - most of the day on Lake Titicaca, beautiful scenery all day.

Day 13 - The vibe of La Paz - an incredibly vibrant city, built in a dramatic valley - the city sprawling up each side into the distance.

Day 14 - it felt like an eternity, starting with the avoidance of street blockades in La Paz, and ended watching Wales beat Samoa!

Our first stop in Lima - Huaca Pucllana - pre-pre-Inca, 200-700 AD

Iglesia San Francisco in Lima

Self-portrait number 1 - coast of Lima city

Local cuisine in Cusco

Place de Armes in Cusco

Can you see the puma in the Inca stones?

Overlooking the garden at Coricancha. Until the Spanish stole them, they were filled with gold statues in celebration of the Sun God.

SexyWoman ruins

View over Cusco from SexyWoman.

Inca slippery dip :-)

More Cusco views

Self-portrait number 2 - from around Cusco - some other ruins (started to forget them) round Cusco.

Pisac terraces. Potatoes at the bottom, then corn and quinoa at the top. The Sacred Valley has many micro-climates and the Inca's worked out that the climate changed by terrace. They optimised crops by micro-climate. Very smart.

Pisac markets.

Guess where?

Even when he's sick, Kev can still pull out his photo-face.

View of Machu Picchu without tourists, amazing hey!

The quarry for Machu Picchu, on the same site, this is where the stones were sourced.

The sun starting to rise over the ruins. Breathtaking.

Got up before we went to bed...but got a memory of a lifetime.

Went to the top of Huyanu Pichhu, piece of cake :-)

Current theory was that Machu Picchu was a medical university for women. Women came to study for 4-5 years and grew medicinal plants in the terraces.

Trusty walking boots. We wore them every day, no blisters!

Machu Picchu Llama

Our adobe brick cottage at Kuychi Rumi in Urubumba, Sacred Valley.

View from Ollentaytambo terraces back down to the old Inca town.

Which one do you want for dinner?

Salinas - natural salt terraces. At 5-soles per person (US$2), I think they make more money from touristico's than salt these days.

Moray, described as the laboratory of the Inca's. The terraces are built in to a protected valley and the micro-climates (15 degree C variance from top to bottom) are exaggerated allowing the Inca's to experiment with agricultural methods.

On the Andean Explorer from Cusco to Puno

The highest point of our entire trip. We moved very slowly.

Went through Juliaca on the Andean Explorer. The train horn was going continuously so that people could close the front of their stores to let us through. Some people had their stores between the train tracks. It was amazing and confronting all at once. We were on a train sipping cocktails while people were struggling to survive.

On Uros (reed islands) on Lake Titicaca. One family per hut. The government has provided solar power to miminise fires.

Inca Kola, so great. Tastes like Iron Bru from Scotland.

The guide on our trip to Sol Island took a shine to Kev and he got roped in to "crowd participation". As you can imagine he loved every moment (will likely have nightmares about it for years to come).

View over La Paz with the turret of San Francisco and the crazy rock-formations at the top of the canyon in the distance. So beautiful.

Downtown La Paz.

Summer in Seattle

2011-08-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

Summer has finally arrived in Seattle. We thought it would never arrive as May turned in the June which merged in to a grey July. BUT, today it was 82F/25C and beautiful on the golf course.
Since we've been a little radio-silent for a while, I thought I'd give you our summer highlights.

1. We picked up Chunk, our new mini-countryman. We're now AWD-enabled.
2. Rach came to visit and we saw loads of Orcas whales around the San Juan islands.
3. We ran a half marathon coming in 2.17hrs (K) and 2.30hrs (C).
4. Colleen did boxing training 2 days after the half-marathon.
5. We saw U2's 360 concert in Montreal. Great city, incredible concert.
6. Colleen got a hole in one!
7. We attended Kristina and Joanna's wedding on the top of Crystal Mountain.
8. It's only 2 weeks until we go to Peru and Bolivia to explore Lima, Cusco, Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca and La Paz.

Esther Mary Olga Sando Aubrey

2011-04-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

Little Esther was born on 21 April.

She was beautiful, courageous, graceful, charming and loving. She loved Karin and Ned, she laughed with her grandparents, she was generous with cuddles.

Esther died on 24 April.

We miss her.

Love
Aunty Col and Uncle Kev

Old London Town

2011-03-24T08:20:00.001-07:00

It's been a busy few weeks with me to India and Kev to Cork for work. India was crazy but so refreshing. In a way, America can seen a little generic with a plethora of national and global brands dominating the city-scape. The age of the west coast cities doesn't help. Neither does the strip mall. Even the global brands get a healthy touch of chaos in India and it makes for a refreshing experience. I can imagine the chaos gets overwhelming over time, but for a week it was good fun.

And now, I am in London and looking forward to picking up Kev this afternoon. It is, of course, sunny. Just nice enough to make me doubt that the weather was so awful a lot of the time. I headed out this morning strolling down Oxford St, heading for Selfridges and Liberty. First thing I notice is that everyone is carrying Primark bags. Unbelievable. This was one of the £1 sock stores I would rush in and out of in Slough. At the time one would not be caught dead carrying a Primark bag. Seems they have moved up in the world. The second thing, there are a lot of smokers walking about. So awful, so London.

And then, all my favorite stores started running through my head. I had forgotten! Outrageous really. And so, in short order I found myself in Jigsaw and LK Bennett happily spending pounds like rupee. Dangerous, but so great.

London is a great city. It feels big and vibrant and trendy. I miss it. But I also miss Seattle and I'm looking forward to being home looking out of the city with the Space Needle prominently featured on the skyline.

Laad Market Hyderabad - famous for bangles. Top tips, don't pay more than R's300 for a set a bangles :-)

LalBagh Botanical Gardens - this rock-monument marks the end of a war on the site. Can't remember how old it is, but it is old as is the rock formation in the middle of the garden which is 3000 million years old, half the age of the earth.

Replica of the Crystal Palace build for London World Expo. The original burnt down.

Global technology giant?

Tipu Sultan's city palace - he was a botanist and added a lot to the LalBagh Gardens collection

City Market in Bangalore

A wedding had just finished when I arrived at Bangalore Palace. This is a small slice of the venue. There was a huge camera on a boon which telecast the ceremony to large LCD screens around the venue.

Kev with Sasha in Uckfield

Sasha sleeping in the garden

We put up Thomas's trampoline, his xmas present

Charlotte was in charge of instruction reading

Thomas enjoying the fruits of our labour

Same-same

2011-03-10T21:58:00.000-08:00

Today I got in the lift at work with someone I worked with at Amazon.co.uk who now works in the same group and building as me in Seattle. The conversation was like this:

Him: Hey
Me: Hey, what's new.
Him: ummmmm
Me: Same-same?
Him: yep
Me: me too...see ya.

And then I thought, really, same-same???? Surely life has not been that boring. As it turns out, it isn't.

So, what's new?

1. Rocky M hit 10k miles last weekend. And with that, we ordered a new Mini Countryman :-) It will take a few months to arrive, but we're looking forward to it. Our new wheels will be black with white racing stripes and red interior. It should arrive just in time for a trip to Lake Chelan with my parents in June. The good news....everyone gets a door!

2. We've been window shopping and are looking forward to new double glazed windows being installed in our condo. The wind is 40 MPH tonight and our current 1970's windows are bowing with the force of it. Can't wait for 100% water-wind-proof-super-warm windows to go in.

3. Saw our first ice hockey game last weekend with Mary Kay and Kathy. We trekked out to Kent (don't ask me where that is, Kathy was driving, all I know is it is not in Seattle) and watched Seattle play Everett (don't ask me where that is either). It was great. Fast, skillful but a little crazy too. There was a fight, everyone loved that, I felt a bit sick. It constantly surprises me how enthusiastic America is about violence - the home of cage fighting says it all. That aside, had a great night and rate ice hockey. A guy at work plays and I figure it's worth giving a go before I get any older.

4. Soon I'm off to Hyderabad and Bangalore for work. It will be 40C and I can't wait to feel the warmth. The rain is doing my head in. I'm there for a weekend and should probably take advantage of the time and do some sight-seeing. But the pool just keeps calling my name.....

5. London here we come! Kev and I will be in London for a few short days later this month. We're really looking forward to catching up with friends, meeting our new niece (Sasha) and spending some quality time at Selfridges and Liberty.

6. Mum and Dad are over May/June. We're all set to meet them in NYC for a few days and then take Chuck (new car's name after a dodgy sales person) for a run out to Lake Chelan. My sister Rach is also looking to drop by and it will be great to see her. It's shaping up to be another good year for visitors.

7. Still bloody signed up for the Rock n Roll 1/2 marathon in June. I hate running. Been making myself run twice a week and really, it's not getting any easier. I think it's just one of those things that I'll always suck at. 4-months to go....it's gonna hurt....

8. I'm blond now.

So, there's same-same for you.
hugs
Col

Mary Kay and Kev having beers at the hockey


Our first ice hockey experience! Loved it.


Kathy and I yelling "check im!" (oh, and new hair)

Forgot to mention, got some onion glasses, love em! I don't cry in the kitchen anymore.

Rock M - ticking over 10k miles. Time for a change, sorry Rocky.

Been busy with life

2011-02-22T21:57:00.001-08:00

Recently a couple of people have emailed asking why we'd been a bit quiet. It's a good question. We haven't blogged for a while and I think it's life. We've been in Seattle for just over 2-years now and I think we're out of the tourist phase and in to the living phase. It is crazy how it sort of happens overnight. And it is all good, it is just different.

So, what has life been keeping us busy with?

I had a few kidney+infection issues which had us at the hospital one Friday night. The funniest part of that experience was having Kev call 911 and promptly finding our bedroom filled up with what appeared to be gigantic firemen. I was in the fetal position on the bed, so to be fair i wasn't really paying attention. I do remember thinking there were thousands of them! Anyway, in the end, I am fine. The only problem is that my running-fitness now sucks. With only 4-months to the half-marathon i have a bit of work to do.

Kev has been a bit frantic with work. A few late night calls and plenty of bedside-email. It is all good though, good company, good people, good product. My work has been a bit crazy too, but no late night calls thank goodness.

Otherwise, we've been boxing and golfing and snowboarding and having dinner parties and going to dinner parties, bit of shopping of course but mostly just working, training and socializing.

It's not a bad life :-)

In the top 5 birthdays...

2011-01-29T09:19:00.000-08:00

Apparently I'm 38. Seems like a lot. Unavoidable I guess.

As a summer baby, I couldn't face being stuck in winter for my birthday, so I organised for Kev and I have celebrate with 4-days in Mexico. We had such a lovely time. It was warm and sunny and the water was spectacular.

We picked up a Living Social deal at Fiesta Americana Grand. Setting aside the fact that they pitched us a time-share-breakfast as soon as we arrived, it was excellent. I'm not sure we'd like it if it was full, but at this time of year it was not event half occupied and the rooms, food, spa and service was excellent.

We kicked off our long weekend with cocktails in the pool followed by a bit of dinner by the beach. Over the four days we managed to get a massage and lie under and dine in a cabana on the beach. We also took advantage of the resort being on a Jack Nicklas golf course and had a great round working our way along the beach with a number of island-greens overlooking the water.

We also managed, on our 4th attempt, to see humpback whales which was lovely. With diving and breaching, they seem to be moving so slow given their size, but if you blinked you missed them! Luckily for us we were able to follow ~5 different whales with 2 on a breaching-spree.

All-in-all, it was a super-relaxing birthday weekend and we'd thoroughly recommend it. Although, Cabo San Lucas is a total dump and the "americanism" of the place totally obscures any sense of Mexico. We couldn't even spend our pesos.....go figure.

View from our room, which extended right to the headland

Ready to play

On-the-green-on-the-green....oh thank goodness :-)

Love playing by the water

Dinner at a great restaurant - Hacienda

Kev liked it too

Nice beach

Even better from a private cabana

4th time lucky

Success!

So graceful

Air time!

Looks like it will be a big splash

Happy with the results

Cabo San Lucas icon

It's been a good start to 2011

2011-01-08T12:44:00.000-08:00

This morning Karin and Ned flew out of Seattle on their way back to Paris. Taking after Mum, Karin and I were a bit teary and there were long-hugs all round. Despite feeling a bit sad that their stay has come to an end, we have had a fabulous 2-weeks and we certainly put our best foot forward to kick off 2011 (also, our livers are looking forward to a break).

To get the year started we had a NYE Cocktail Party. Joined by a merry band of some of our closest friends, we started the evening off with Ned's Fruit Punch and Kev's Apple Mojito. Andy quickly followed offering Manhattans which were snapped up by Tim and Kathy and Michele did her best to keep up with demand for both Virgin Mojito's from Neil and the hard stuff from me.

With Karin and Ned's home made salmon gravlax moving fast and Kev working the barbie with honey-soy wings and piri piri prawns, Peter and Christina introduced the Cosmic Cherry, Mary Kay started feeding the hords Blood-Orange Champagne cocktails and Kathy was mixing the Lemon-Basil Julip. PJ and Michael introduced Champagne straight up to cleans our pallets inbetween drinks (sort of like water).

Needless to say that the night managed to get a life of its own and after seeing in the NY with fireworks off the Space Needle, Christina picked up the DJ baton which saw most people on the dance floor for some portion of the night through to 4am.

It was a great night.....not such a great New Year's Day.....

Karin and I managed to drag ourselves out of bed to put the dishwasher on and have a bacon sandwich around 10.30am. We then slunk back to bed for a few extra Z's. Ned, Karin and I surfaced again at 2.30pm and sort the house out. Kevin Miller, however, did not managed to show his face until after 6pm, when it was dark :-) Having said that, I went back to bed at 7.30pm and slept through. All symptoms of a great night I'd have to say.

Since then Kev and I dragged ourselves back to work and Karin and Ned visited friends in Vancouver, and we shopped like professionals. Having bought over 9-bottles of champagne, a bottle of congac, bottle of calvados and a full raclette set, they had thought they'd go back with empty bags. That was before they picked up 9-pairs of shoes.....

Happy New Year! Here's to a happy and healthy 2011.

hugs
Col and Kev

Mary Kay and Michael with classic champagne cocktails

The Manhattan drinkers

A few drinking games, just in case we needed any encouragement to have another cocktail

Mojito chef taking a break

Happy New Year!

Space Needle lighting up

Testing out the outdoor heater....it works

More happy new year wishes

2011 Glitter Glasses are on!

Happy new year!!!!

Dancing flows over to the kitchen

And the dance club is open!

Meeting the call for "MORE CHAMPAGNE!!!!!"

Bustin' out some moves

White mans overbite

Time to recline

French coup-de-poul

Christmas 2010

2011-01-01T16:34:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the radio-silence. Kev committed to blog about 3-weeks ago, but clearly hasn't. The good news is that you get to hear my version of events :-)

It's been a busy month with Kev in Ireland for first 2 weeks for work (during which I primarily shopped) and with Karin and Ned joining us for xmas, we were hosting Xmas/NY for the first time in years. As regular junk-purgers, we of course had no festive paraphernalia and this required a committed shopping spree all of it's own.

Preparations done, Karin and Ned arrived on the 24th after being delayed in DC overnight (bloody french went on a spontaneous strike at CDG). Since then we've been busy enjoying ourselves, especially since they smuggled 9-bottles of champagne, cognac and calvados in.

Kathy and her parents - Pat and Jerry - joined us on Christmas and we worked our way through 5-fantastic-courses separated by a walk to Kerry Park, gift exchange and The Game. Kev and Kathy voted for boys v girls, and the girls thrashed the boys more than doubling their score. Kathy and Pat did their best to make us feel at home making prawn-salad and chocolate trifle. The gift exchange worked remarkably well for a group of strangers with Karin scoring a snuggly (look for photos of her wearing it home on the plane).

Boxing day was spent watching Modern Family in stitches and we headed up to Mt Baker for 4 days on Monday. The mountains were so so beautiful and we spent our time snowshoeing, snowboarding, hot-tubing and eating.

And now, I'm blogging and everyone else is preparing for a New Year's Eve party. We've about 14 people coming and with a front-row seat to the fireworks it should be a good night.

Ned making xmas pancakes for breakfast

Preparing the spiced rub for the beef

Kev really pleased with his new golf bag

Kathy and Pat preparing first and second courses

Bon appetite!

Karin testing out her new boots on a walk to Kerry Park

Checking out the view

The new snuggy

Jerry opening his surprise present

Lovin' the hat!

Concentrating on carving the beef

Lots of hat action

Snowshoeing at Mt Baker

Should never of sat down!

Looking like a professional

Beautiful day for an experienced snowshoer

Waiting for Kev to get down the mountain, he took a wrong turn...

Madmen Thanksgiving

2010-12-04T15:46:00.000-08:00

So I'm a week late, but the pictures still make me laugh so I figure it's worth sharing.

Escaping the snow and ice of Seattle, Kev and I headed south to Palm Springs with Mary Kay, Kathy and Dan to catch some sun over Thanksgiving weekend. Luckily the I5 was clear by the time we headed to the airport on Wednesday morning, although Kev and I had to drag our golf bags down the hill a block to meet the cab since they were unable to get up the hill to our house.

After a surprisingly pain free path through check in and security we jumped the plane to Palm Springs and 3 hours later were in our shorts and t-shirts by the pool at a wonderful mid-century home we'd rented for the weekend.

The house we stayed out is classic mid-century architecture and the owners have decorated the house in the same style. I'm not sure when we came up with this idea, but we thought it would be fun to have a themed thanksgiving dressing in mid-century style and cooking a menu from the same period. And of course, as avid watches of Mad Men, it became Mad Men Thanksgiving.

The costumes were excellent and after starting with deviled eggs, cheese ball, crab louis and Tom Collins cocktails, we proceeded to enjoy a turkey-buffet and swapped head-gear as we danced through to the early hours to the Mad Men sound track.

Super fun weekend. Bit of golf mixed in and plenty of laughs. I think I'll put my entire outfit on Ebay, see if I can sell it as a Betty Draiper costume :-)

Kev in his pool-side embroidered shirt

Betty Draiper eat your heart out

Kev in his "colin firth in A Single Man" outfit

Up close view of the button down collared shirt, thin tie and tie-clip

The perfect 1960's couple

Mary Kay and Kev cooking up a storm

Joan (aka MKB) cooking up a storm

Kathy with her fabulous turban and vintage bag

Deviled eggs and cheese ball!

We liked the turban with the broach best

Cheers, like my beehive

Dan and MKB dancing up a storm

Kev took a fancy to the beehive...

My new look (bit late now)

In my pool-side outfit

Introducting Team Minniwanka....

2010-11-04T08:02:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we headed to Canmore/Banff to celebrate Jen's birthday. We escaped Thursday night, skipping out on boxing, and flew to Calgary where we met Devin and Jen. From there we bundled in to an absolutely enourmous car and bombed up to Canmore about ~1.5 hours away (Dev and Jen have been snowed in before, hence the huge 4WD).

Despite Kevin and Dev staying up to 3am drinking wine, we managed to get ourselves out of the house and in to Banff at a reasonable hour starting the day at Grizzly Pub with a load of beef followed by a bit of shopping and then up the gondola up Sulphur Mountain (~7500 ft). It was bloody cold, but so so beautiful looking out across the Canadian Rockies.

In Sat we headed to Lake Louise where at one end of the lake a glacier runs down the valley in to a pale green lake. At the other, a grand hotel built to attract the industrial money when the rail road was extending West. So beautiful.

Apart of our site seeing, the main purpose of the trip was to celebrate Jen's birthday and on Saturday night we went to the Rimrock Hotel in Banff and enjoyed a 10-course degustation dinner with some fabulous matching wines. Kev's marking it as the best ever degustation dinner.

The crazy thing is, that while heading to the Rimrock to indulge on 10-courses, Dev, Jen and Kev had the crazy idea of running the Seattle 1/2 marathon in June 2011. Despite the stupidity of this idea, I was bullied in to joining the team now known as "Team Minniwanka". We of course pronounce it as it is spelt, immaturely we got a few laughs from each sign we saw for the lake over the weekend, but in actual fact it is pronounced mini-wonker. Regardless, I now have a 1/2 Marathon ap on my phone and this week have done 1 hr cross training and a 20 minute run. Looks like I'm going to be one of those f***ing crazy people.......

Col

Devin and I in the gondola heading up Mt Sulphur

View across the valley from Mt Sulphur

Jen's birthday present. Her t-shirt says "In bed with my Sony Reader....dreaming about a Kindle"

Saturday was a beautiful day. The mountains looks spectacular from our condo.

On the shores of Lake Louise

Lake Louise glacier

Group photo at Lake Louise

Kev and I at the top of Mt Sulphur

Treking in the wilderness at Mt Sulphur

It's been almost 2 years

2010-10-18T07:47:00.000-07:00

We were floating round Seattle this weekend past, catching up with friends, good food, good booze, lots of laughs, bit of lying about, bit of golf, a good weekend.

On Sunday we headed to the supermarket and I noticed that they had hay bails and pumpkins out. On our first weekend in Seattle, almost 2 years ago, we walked by this same supermarket and saw the hay and pumpkin. We took a photo. It was our first Halloween (31 Oct happens all over the world, but Halloween is not a significant event) and we'd never seen all the huge orange pumpkins lined up like that. A worthy photo opportunity.

Unbelievably 2-years have past and we're heading in to our third Halloween. So crazy to think we live in the US......still! It's not something either Kev or I anticipated and yet here we are. And, we like it. The American's can be a little crazy at the extremes (please, take no offense), the TV news is pathetic, there's a lot of verbal diarrhea, some people drive stupidly-big cars and the political campaigning is relentless but, we have met some wonderful wonderful people who have been welcoming and supportive and will be friends for life, Seattle is a beautiful city with stunning mountains and water, things work here and you get what you pay for, it's a diverse country with so much to learn and discover and we love our home, jobs and lifestyle. Seattle works for us.

What else have we learnt over the last 2 years?

Kev now says "trunk" instead of "boot".
We can now both talk in miles and pounds but still struggle with ounces and inches.
We can drive to Ballard, Maple Leaf and Capitol Hill without the assistance of Barbara-the-satnav.
Tipping is not so hard once you get use to it.
We've cracked the taxi-code in Seattle with the help of the TaxiMagic ap. New York is no longer the best place to get a cab in Seattle :-)
We know the names of the islands in Hawaii.
We can name all 50 states although still have some difficulty with where they are.
We've taken up drinking cocktails.
Given serving sizes, we now occasionally use the term "box it up" knowing that no one will be offended.
We can drive on the right without giving ourselves a headache.
When we experience bad service, complain straight away now and expect some form of compensation.
Colleen can use coins having finally worked out which one is which including the slang names.
If you want a lemon-squash, ask for lemonade with crush fresh lemons in it otherwise people will think you're asking for lemon cordial.
We order "fries" and not "chips".
Chipmunks are tiny and not the size of an Australian possum.
32 oz of sour cream is a lot, don't order that.
Noise canceling headphones are essential on a plane.
Dodge Ball, Roller Derby, The Simpsons and the Griswolds are all true.

Finally, in celebration of 2-years in Seattle, I beat Kev on the golf course this weekend. First time in the history of the world. Bring it on!!!

Col

New job

2010-10-09T18:55:00.000-07:00

So we have been back from Maui for a week - it has been a big week!

Col had her 2011 planning presentation in front of Jeff Bezos (Amazon founder), it went really well. Good stuff all round. I got a promotion...

New job title is Vice President Global Operations - pretty grand hey. I was told yesterday by a colleague that they expected to see me stroking a white cat next, planning global domination! That's not on the agenda. So it is a big job, will see me traveling to Cork maybe a few times a year - first trip will probably coincide with the Christmas Party, that's my plan anyway.

We are having a low key weekend in Seattle at the moment, dinner at Tim, Michele and Kaelyn's last night - good fun - and tonight a pig fest at ours with Michael, Mary Kay and Kathy. Might have a couple of glasses of wine too methinks. Tomorrow for recovery, MI-5 (Spooks for UK readers) season 8. SPOILER ALERT - can't believe Jo's dead.

Off to Banff in a few weeks for a long weekend with Devin and Jen - celebrating Jen's birthday at a flash spot in Calgary, should be a fun weekend.

Just waiting for the last two pieces of furniture to be delivered to finish off our condo. Still really happy we got it - it is perfect for us.

A few additional photos of Maui below - it was a good week there...and it has been a good week back in Seattle.

Me and the girls

Shannon up on her first attempt

Col not so much hanging ten, more hanging on

Stunning...

Killin' time in Maui

2010-09-29T12:42:00.000-07:00

It's Wednesday and day 5 in Maui. I'm on the deck overlooking the pool and ocean and it's another beautiful day.

Shannon and Lily have just headed off for a bit of shopping in Lahaina before our surf lesson at midday. Kev and I are pottering around the condo slowly getting ourselves organised. It's so nice to have a slow start.

So far we've managed to tick off a few Maui hot spots. Yesterday we did the road to Hana and beyond, the day before visited one of Maui's best beaches - Kapalua. On Sunday we managed to drink the equivalent of a 1-litre bottle of Grey Goose in cosmopolitans. Apparently Shannon isn't going to drink for the next decade....

Will let you know how we go with the surf lessons later, but in preparation I've put in a request to the local spa for 2 massages :-)

Jason, Shannon, Lily and Alice under the Banyan Tree in Lahaina

Kev and Col visiting the Banyan Tree

Lily, Alice and Jason making a quick stop some church named after owls on the road to Hana

Kev admiring the view at a loo-stop

Surf and volcanic rock on the Road to Hana

nice hats

Making our way back to civilization

Another beautiful sunset

Meet Kaelyn Olivia

2010-09-24T13:09:00.000-07:00

Kaelyn joined Tim and Michele on Aug 17th. She's 5 weeks old now and only just got herself an email address. Youth these days.....so slow..... :-)

Congratulations Tim and Michele.

We own recliners.....

2010-09-10T20:35:00.000-07:00

After months of decision making and waiting, today we took delivery of 2 new arm chairs. So exciting!

Our new arm chairs are.....recliners! Who knew!

We're just waiting on 2 dining chairs covered with the same material in red. Not sure what we'll do once we have these final pieces of furniture.....travel I guess :-)

Col

Can you picture Kev and I, watching TV in our new recliners? Pity the BBQ is in the background. They finish painting our side of the building on Monday. Hopefully we'll be able to move the BBQ out by then!

This one is mine, right in front of the fireplace!

An eventful weekend

2010-09-06T16:29:00.000-07:00

It's a long weekend and we decided to stay local, but away. It's nice not to have to contend with the travel to/from with a million others.

Friday night we had a lovely time at Terese and Adam's wedding in Issaquah, 20 minutes up the road. Terese and I work together at Amazon. We dashed off Friday afternoon for our weekend away, making ourselves beautiful in 40 minutes (were a bit late checking in to the hotel). I even manage to do my eyes without eyeshadow. I have a pallet of 16 colours of eyeshadow, left the entire set at home. Anyway, fiddled around with what I had an managed to get out of the hotel with passable make-up.

Terese and Adam had a lovely wedding at a local "barn" with a beautiful garden. The weather was amazing and after a short but sincere ceremony we went straight in to the booze and pulled-pork sandwiches. Even managed a bit of a dance to AC/DC! We toddled of around midnight and were precariously crossing the freeway when Karson and Jessica rescued up with a lift the last 1/2 mile home. Save both our feet with me in 3-inch heels and Kev in his new black boots.

On Saturday we dragged ourselves downstairs for breakfast and then on to the golf course. Kev beat me by 5-strokes but I blame it on the sand. I got stuck twice taking 4 strokes in one before I gave up and took 10 for the hole and 3 strokes to get out of the other. Nightmare. We also ran over time a bit and ended up legging it down the road to Kirkland to check in to a dodgy Comfort Inn, get showered and beautiful in 20 minutes before jumping in a cab.....

And off to The Herb Farm in Woodinville.

The Herb Farm is a bit of a local institution. National Geographic calls it the number 1 destination restaurant in the world and rated 29/30 by Zagat. We've been meaning to go for a while and since we were weekending on the east-side we figured we should stay on the east-side and give it a go.

It was a 9-course mean themed Northwest BBQ. The Herb Farm only cooks from produced sourced within 100 miles of the restaurant. Same with the wines. Their menu changes on average every 2 weeks. We had everything from oysters to pork belly to wagyu beef and cheese. All of it fantastic and we were lucky enough to be sat with some interesting people from Chicago. A really lovely evening.

Yesterday we went to another east-side institution - Maltby Cafe - apparently one of the best breakfasts in the Northwest. I'm not sure if it was the best breakfast, but it certainly is one of the biggest. We ordered the homemade cinnamon scroll to start and ended up boxing the whole thing up to have this morning.

We also sold our black leather lounge yesterday. Bit of an end of an era, a little sad but it has gone to a good home. Today we picked up half a pig and jammed it in to our fridge.

Bacon anyone?

Terese coming down the ailse

Shortest ceremony in history, <10 mins, but we cried....

Ready for wine and pulled pork sandwiches

Travis and his date Jeannie

Mike and Casey

Karson and Jessica


Nico and Michelle

The Herb Farm menu

Kev getting a coffee while we waiting 45 mins to eat at Maltby Cafe

Ready to be seated

Massive serves at The Maltby Cafe

Let the farting begin!

2010-09-01T21:07:00.001-07:00

Today we received a gift from Karin and Ned.....a Sodastream!!! So Mad Men. Noice!

Very exciting. Now I have my own supply of sparkling water, WITH flavors as required, AND it is my favorite colour and matches the kettle.

All good.

Matches the kettle!

My first successfully home made bottle of sparkling water

Kev is real happy

Special flavours, no calories of course

Tick off Minnesota

2010-08-21T15:51:00.000-07:00

Last weekend took off on a "mini-break" (see Bridget Jones) to Minneapolis. We'd heard good things about the city and figured it was about time we added a new state to our tally.

And......I think we would recommend it. Being based on the Mississippi, Minneapolis has a cool urban industrial feel. There seems to be a lot of regeneration going on where warehouses along the river are being converted to condos. The clusters of cafes and restaurants are not really there yet, but its cool. But very hot! The Saturday that we were there I am sure it was at least 95 degrees!

We had breakfast at Al's in Dinkytown, queued for 90 minutes then sat and ate for 20. Worth the wait. Staff with a little attitude, we sat at the bar, not that there was anywhere else to sit! It is the narrowest restaurant in Minneapolis.

The we took a walking tour along Summit Avenue in St Paul (the other of the twin cities). Spectacular houses running a 4.5 mile stretch of suburban street. It is the longest continuous stretch of Victorian houses in the USA.

Then we had a drink in a bar just off the river before heading out to dinner at Cafe Lurcat - fantastic food and of course drink.

Sunday was a much cooler day, we spent the morning at the Walker Art Center - it was a very interesting modern art gallery with a sculpture garden similar to Seattle.

This week, Tim and Michele had a baby - well Michele did all the work. Kaelyn Olivia Campbell was born on Tuesday at noon. All are well - we are yet to meet Kaelyn just yet but plan on doing so in the next week or so.

We have started counting the days to our trip to Maui in September - 5 weeks today we fly. A week in a beachside condo with some of our favorite people. It will be fun, warm, sunny...cannot wait.

Old mills / new condos

Walking across Stone Arch Bridge to downtown

Breakfast at Al's

Buzz the tower

2010-08-07T16:24:00.000-07:00

It's August 7th in Seattle and it's raining. What is the story! Last year the summer was so so lovely and we thought we'd hit the jackpot. Alas it was an anomaly and this year we're experiencing the real Seattle summer. It's not nearly so impressive.

However, all is not lost. It hasn't been a complete waste of a week. I got new hair (red and orange) and we received 2 deliveries of new 801 furniture. The nook now has a new espresso 2 seater theatre lounge matching the 3-seater in the lounge. Our balcony is now also graced with a sofa and coffee table. If it wasn't raining we'd be sitting out there right now.

Other than that, this morning we got buzzed by the Blue Angels. The video below shows them in a formation of 6 roaring past our condo.

New sofa on the balcony for an evening cocktail

New theatre sofa in the "nook" (aka, the room with no name)

The Blue Angels fly-by

Time to start writing again

2010-07-27T18:45:00.000-07:00

It has been 6-weeks since Albert died and I figure it is time to start writing again. Putting ones life out there on the world wide web seems hypocritical if one only shares the good times. It's not about playing happy families.

The last 6-weeks have been profoundly sad. Albert's life was stolen from him. The horror and shock of this is in itself overwhelming. But mostly I have struggled with fear and concern for Karin and Ned. I just want to fix it for them. To turn the clock back, change the path that ended with Albert being ripped from their lives. But I can't. There is nothing anyone can do to bring him back. And so, the only thing to do is to wade our way through the grief and be the best we can at supporting Karin and Ned as they too try to find their way.

Despite the awfulness, our friends have kept us afloat, thank you. They've kept us busy with a 4th of July party, dinners and lunches, weddings and plenty of golf. We've laughed and cried and it has helped. Some days are more sad than others, but it's ok. Better that we feel it.

*****

Karin and Ned had a service for Albert in Paris. We went to Butte Chaumont for a picnic afterwards to celebrate Albert's life.

Karin and Claire

I got a cowboy hat especially, no missing that I was the sister that lived in the US :-)

Dad did the rounds with the cherries.

Eric and Ned chewing the fat, or drinking Pineaux....

Our new home is wonderful, so peaceful with beautiful sunsets.

We remembered Albert and celebrated his life as his funeral took place in Sydney. We seem to remember him wearing outfits of stripes of blue and green.

We thought he'd like a mix of candles.

We celebrated July 4th with fabulous friends. While we couldn't see all the fireworks, it was still a great night.

Our new furniture has started to arrive. We're now the proud owners of a 3-seater, parchment leather sofa. So lovely.

Last weekend we headed down to Dallas to celebrate Melissa and Preston's wedding. Melissa is Shelley and Ray's daughter, our neighbors from Axis. We met some great people.

Albert Joe Aubrey: 11 December 2009 - 16 June 2010

2010-06-27T14:08:00.000-07:00

2 weeks down and lookin' good

2010-06-13T19:55:00.001-07:00

Well, we've been in our new condo for 2 weeks now. Figure it's time for a verdict. And given our country of residence, it is only fair the we go with "AWESOME" to describe our new home.

And why you might ask. Well, it feels good. It's quiet and we feel relaxed when we're here. The view is spectacular and the city makes a lovely picture in our living room. We hear noise from no one else and yet it's secure up here on the 8th floor. Kev has taken a particular liking to the large TVs, but it's more than that. The space works for us and while we're still in the process of furnishing, organising and decorating, it promising great times together and with friends and family.

All in all, despite the stressful buying process, it was meant to be and we're glad we stuck it out.

Now we're in we are moving systematically through each room ticking off tasks on a big list. This weekend we managed to construct 2 dressers and add them to our bedroom, fit a new door seal to the washing machine (actually we did that on Thurs, sore hands...) order a sofa for the reading room (grand name for a space in the living room), installed a Roku box in our bedroom (into Dexter season 3 now), order coffee tables and side tables, found matching towel rails and hooks and placed an order, picked up some new place mats to match the dining table, installed a shed in our car park which is the proud home of our golf clubs and snow boards and, last but not least, we've bought two planters and planted 2 types of grasses which now sit on the balcony decorating one of our windows. We figured decorative grass was a good option for us. They don't need a lot of love and they don't need mowing!

We have a bunch of other furniture in progress and look forward to lining up a series of dinner parties and bbq's to celebrate.

Unbelievable, but we gardened!

New dresser, constructed by yours truly

New picture that we've hung in our living room.

New door seal, which also now owns quite a bit of the skin from our hands....

13.5 years and 12 homes, not a bad run rate!

2010-05-29T11:15:00.001-07:00

We'll post some photos later of our move and our new home...but during yesterday we worked out that during the 13.5 years that we have been together, we have now lived in 12 homes! Living constitutes longer than a month.

1996 - Learmonth Court (sharing with Dr Jones - we had the box room - Edinburgh)

1997 - St Vincent Street (Richard Ayles' top floor Georgian home - Edinburgh)

1998 - Belvoir Street (house sitting at Kerry Thew's place in Surry Hills - Sydney)

1998 - Market Street (next to the Queen Victoria Building - Sydney)

2000- Pyrmont Street (our first purchase, Darling Harbour - Sydney)

2004 - St George's Terrace (Drummoyne, Harbour Bridge view and pool - Sydney)

2005 - Linden gardens (serviced studio in Notting Hill Gate - London)

2005 - Elgin Mews North (great modern mews property in Maida Vale - London)

2007 - Portnall Road (our second purchase, bit of a renovator's delight - London)

2008 - Harbor Steps (serviced apartment - Downtown Seattle)

2008 - Axis (with the 600 sq foot deck and amaaaaazing water views - Seattle)

2010 - Ward Street (been here 24 hours, penthouse apartment with 'Frasier' view - Seattle)

So a day in and no buyer's remorse at Ward Street - we think we could be here a while!

Later...K

One last glimpse of the view from the deck of 723

Closing the door in 723

Our memories piling up at 801

Celebrating with a bottle of Louis de Sacy champagne

Our new view

Very important to have the bed sorted first

Pizza, our first meal at 801

Vancouver Winter Olympics

2010-05-29T11:14:00.001-07:00

On the slowest train in the world coming back from Vancouver. It is vintage 1950's travel, the train even chugs....

Had a good weekend in Vancouver, was an interesting interpretation of an international sporting event. I think the term "home made" captures it. Sort of like home made ice cream versus Hagen Daas. It is nice, but not quiet as spectactular as rich vanilla bean Hagen Daas which is so smooth it slips off the spoon.

We got in late on Friday night and met out "greeter" at the condo we rented, all went very smoothly although we couldn't see the Olympic Touch except for a small glimps out the back windo of the cab for a nano-second.

Next morning, all spritely and ready for Olympic fever we headed in to town to suck up the atmosphere. First sign that things weren't quite as smooth as Hagan Daas was when we picked up our tickets and the staff member wasn't able to tell us where the venues were and had to head off hunting for a map. Bit weird not to have a map when a few million tourists are decending on the city in a 2 week period.

Brushing that aside, we headed off to BC Place. As it turns out it is building and a car park. No big screens, no public space. Oh well.

We met up with Tim and Michelle and went in search of the Olympic Touch. Now, I thought the touch should be visible through out the Olympic city. We had wondered where the hell it was the night before. We eventually found it, had to look hard since it was decidedly understated. Odd for the icon of the games to be understated....

Never mind.

We next headed in to the German tent, had some bratwurst and beer before we marched off to our first event - the curling. We found the train and were amused to see that they were using hand-written signage, how quaint. Not so ammused to get to the venue to find that they had no real toilets, no water, just rooms of blue pastic chemical toilet boxes. With my hyperactive gag reflex it was not a good time. That aside, we tried to get in to the USA v's GB game. Problem is, it is a really boring game. Who knew!!!! I can imagine how it is good fun if you are playing with a few friends over drinks. Not so fun when you're sitting on plastic seats, sober, watching other people play. Sort of like watching people play board games, boring. So we bailed and headed back in to town.

On the up side we got back early and were able to Skype in for Alice's party. We are now the proud "spare parents" for Alice and we shared a glass of champagne with her, Shannon, Jason and Lily.

I won't bore you with a full catalog of the home-made components that made up the Vancouver Olympic Games except to say that they had only 1 merchandise store which you had to queue to get in to (odd that they should make it so hard to give them money), they didn't bother changing the train anouncements to say which stops were Olympic venues and the Live Sites were so small you had to queue for hours to get in and then they weren't showing events.....

All that aside, the long track 1500m womens speed skating was fabulous and we had a great time hanging out with Tim, Michelle, Peter, Christina, Kim and Stephanie.

Gastronomic delights and champagne houses

2010-05-09T07:13:00.000-07:00

We arrived back in Seattle yesterday after a marathon of french food and wine. The second half of our week in Paris was dominated by fabulous restaurants, a day in the Champagne region and a raclette feast for the last supper.

On "do-your-own-thing-day" Kev and I went to a lovely little restaurant near Invalides called Le Petit Bordelais. We had planned to go to Le Grand Vefour, but they were closed for a private function. The chef at Le Petit Bordelais - Philippe Pentecote - previously worked at Le Grand Vefour and set up his own restaurant 2 years ago so we thought we'd check it out.

The day started well since we had a nice sleep in with the help of some ear plugs! After a lazy start, we headed off through Paris doing a bit of window shopping and walking along the Seine to Invalides. We went for the degustation menu with matching wine and every course was fantastic, from the amuse bouche to petit fours. Philippe himself took our order which we thought was a nice touch and he checked in on us several times through the meal. All in all a highlight of our trip.

That evening, we met Karin and Ned at one of their favorite haunts for more stunning food. The evening meal just spoilt a bit by extremely slow service. We were all at dinner, apart from Charlotte who looked after Thomas and watched Dexter on DVD – Charlotte not Thomas!

That was quite a late night, made later by walking home, something we did a lot of in Paris. Following the late night, was an early start to catch the TGV to Reims (pronounced Rranz...or something). Anyway, Reims is in the heart of Champagne country. We collected a car at Reims station, after traveling at approximately 250Kms per hour for the short 45 minute ride from Paris. We drove to Epernay, took a really interesting tour of the Moet et Chandon cellars – where we learnt a reasonable amount about the production process of Champagne. Then we had to have a couple of glasses of course! It was 12.30pm after all! The cellars were amazing, the tour informative and the tasting superb!

We then wound our way through small villages in the Champagne region for the next couple of hours, stopping at a couple of smaller producers of Grand Cru Champagne – more tasting...more buying!

This short day trip was heaps of fun, much recommended for those visiting northern France.

It was a quiet night in with take out pizza and watching the UK general election streaming live via bbc.co.uk! Few wines too...

Our last full day was spent preparing for the evening (our last supper). Dinner was a combined Ruby Wedding celebration for both our sets of parents, and Mum's (Angela's) birthday. We went to a great market near the Bastille, wandered through the Place des Vosges and all the lovely little streets in Le Marais.

At dinner, we presented all the parents with something red to honor the Ruby celebration (heart shaped necklaces for the ladies and red waterproof bucket hats for the gents!).

We drank some of the Champagne bought the day before in 'Champagne', and ate raclette – a melted cheese, meat and potato dish – with each mouthful you can feel your heart rate slowing and your arteries hardening!

Karin and Ned brought some fantastic cakes for dessert and their Cognac cellar contents! It was a fun night, a great way to finish a week in one of the most charming cities in the world.

At Le Petit Bordelais with Chef Philippe

At dinner in the Cave

The men!

In the Moet et Chandon caves

The important bit...the tasting!

Ruby gift 1

Ruby gift 2

Number 3

and four!

The last supper

Paris is lovely but filthy and bloody cold

2010-05-04T14:04:00.000-07:00

1 city, 12 adult family members, 1 child, 1 baby, shared accommodation....day 2, 3 and 4 down, no casualties.....yet.....

Catacoombs, Jardin de Luxembourg, Passages, Louvre, Sacre Coeur, Grand Palace, open-top-bus-tour done. And yes, Paris is beautiful. But, it is filthy dirty and has been bloody cold.

Tomorrow is "go your own way" day and Kev and I are off for a bit of shopping and a degustation lunch at Le Grand Vefour (Josephine and Napoleon's old dining haunt). Love "go you own way" day :-)

****

Over 7-million Parisians are kept in the Catacoombs

Here are a few more of them

Walking through the old quarries to get to the Catacoombs

View up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe

Tour Eiffel

Albert and I on Montmartre

Phil, in the freezing cold, wearing t-shirt and thongs.....

Montmartre

Actually, it was pretty annoying....

Freezing on the open-top bus - hard-core tourists!

Nous arrivons

2010-05-02T00:40:00.000-07:00

Morning

Nous arrivons a Paris! Il est beau.

Flight was ok although Col's chair came to bits and we were buried at the back of the plane. The only saving grace was that the toilets were located in the middle so we didn't have to deal with the smell of....you get the picture.

Amazingly, Thomas met us on time to let us in to our apartment and shortly after Karin, Ned, Mum, Dad and baby-Albert arrived with croissants and coffee. Ang, Clive, Phil, Charlotto and little-Thomas arrived later that afternoon and we headed out for a walk wandering down to Bastille, across the Seine and to Notre Dame. It was lovely and so fabulous to back.

Our apartment - while not the floor plan I would have designed - is well equipped and quiet and has a boat load of markets, boulangerie, markets and bistro's around it. Kev popped out this morning to pick up fresh croissants and baguette.

Today we're off to the Catacoumbs and for more wandering around the streets of Paris.

Col

Dad-Aubrey, Ned, Albert and Col out front of Hotel de Ville.

Mum and Dad-Aubrey

Baby-Albert making a scene

Brother-Phil and Little-Tom-Tom on the merry go round

Dad-Miller, Dad-Aubrey, Karin and Mum-Aubrey

Discovered I don't like books.....

2010-04-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

Saturday night, just finished fabulous slow cooked lamb shank, very nice.

Last weekend I headed down to Colorado Springs to see Gail and left Kev in Seattle to hold the fort. Gail is heading back to Australia after 14 years in London and had a stop over in the US to catch up with her fam.

In order to get down to Colorado, I had to get a flight at the stupid hour of 6.15am Saturday morning which required me to sneak out of bed at 4.30am and race off in a taxi (since I was traveling by myself I was allowed to set my own schedule. If Kev was coming he would have forced me to get up at 4). I was all so organised and then.....disaster.....left my Kindle next to the bed. Nightmare!

But, I figure it's not that bad, there are book stores at the airport. So I get through security and with 30 mins to kill I head in to Borders and pick a book. Roll up to the checkout and the person scans the book.....$16!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Outrageous! I haven't paid more than $10 for a book for 18-months.

So, I get over my shock with a cappuccino and a muffin. I wait until the last minute to board the plane (can't do that with Kev) and get to my seat. I figure the good news is that I can read my book during take-off since it's not electronic and that must be a benefit. But NOOOOO, can't read with 1 hand and this means I can't drink my coffee at the same time. So wrong.

I manage to finish off my coffee and muffin and then get back to my book. I figure now, it's all ok, I have 2 hands and I should be fine with the ole-paper-page-book. And then, have to turn the page. Whoops, got 2 pages, bugger, can't separate the pages, back and forth, 2 hands and all, so so so annoying.

Manage to get past the first few pages and think I'm getting in to a flow and then I notice that the weight of the book has changed since I've turned x-number of pages. Now I have to change the way I'm holding the book. So uncomfortable, so distracting.

And so it continues. Can't read with one hand, fiddle-ass around with page turning, have to keep adjusting how I hold the book as I get further through the book. Really, I never knew, but I don't like it. I end up having to sprint through to book so I can finish it, sell it and get back to my Kindle. Last night was lovely as was this morning and for these reasons I am investigating surgery to get my Kindle surgically attached to me.

Discovering I didn't like books aside, had a wonderful time catching up with Gail. Did a bit of shopping, drank a lot of coffee, painted some eggs (very festive) and talked loads.

We are here

Found some Gaudi art in Manitou

More coffee!

And more coffee :-)

Bit home sick today

2010-04-01T21:30:00.000-07:00

Things have been a bit run-o-the-mill recently with disgusting colds, work, disgusting infections, more work, even more disgusting colds and work. But, had a bit of a laugh today.

Now, in Australia, where April Fools arrives first (except of NZ, but they don't really count), you have until midday to play your tricks. Doesn't seem like this is the case here in Seattle, almost the last place on the planet to have April Fools. I returned to my desk this afternoon after a stack of back to back meetings to find everything wrapped in aluminum foil. Very funny albeit a little disruptive for what was going to be my power-hour-catch-up-afternoon. No one has confessed yet, but I have my suspicions.....

After a fun afternoon of unwrapping, I headed home. While walking home 2 fire engines came trundling down a fairly short street, blaring horns AND sirens at the same time. The half dozen cars on the street all panicked trying to get out of the way. As they passed me I noticed the drivers had head sets on. The trucks were polished to within an inch of their lives. It was all very very serious. Hero's rushing off the save the day. So so hollywood.

So I realise, that Hollywood is actually copying the real fire service, but still it was so glossy and so intense and so very "save the day" with the head-sets and horns and sirens all going at once. All of a sudden I missed Australia with it's she'll be right mate, no worries approach. So odd the things one misses.

Busy month

2010-03-21T19:14:00.000-07:00

Kev here, apparently my turn...probably been mine for a while actually! Nice one holding down the fort Col.

So the weekend after we were in Vancouver for the Olympics, we headed out into the snow ourselves. We've been before, we went to the Campbell's cabin at Snoqualmie Pass.

Again we hired snowshoes and poles, this time actually buying a sled to load up with beer and food. There were nine of us on this trip (including baby Parker Temer). Fun was had by all. We hiked into the cabin on the Friday night after work, leaving our car (and snowboards) at the trail head. The walk in was punctuated by a beer or two, no cougars spotted!

The cabin is quite luxurious, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, fully equipped kitchen, Nintendo Wii, all the mod cons. The main difference this time to last was the number of inhabitants. Last time when Col and I went up with just Tim and Michele, the cabin was quiet, we slept well, ate well, drank lots. This time, we did all of that apart from the sleeping bit... But we knew that things were going to be a bit squashy. Lucky we knew everyone! We know them even better now!

We all managed to fail miserably at Super Mario Cart, archery and golf on the Wii. We of course played the game, resulting in the fairest result we have ever had...a draw between the boys and the girls!

On the way home - after hiking out - Col and I snowboarded. We are both trying out switching - which is swapping your front legs. We are OK, and neither of us fall quite so much any more - which is good. But I guess burns less calories!

We had one weekend at home, then headed to Vegas. Col's first trip, and she collected a state that I had up on her, bugger.

We went with Andrew, Katherine and Catherine. Col was a little under the weather, being unable to shed a cold that had lingered for a couple of weeks. Good thing probably, as I lost enough money for both of us! I would like to add that I still have the moral high ground, as Col spent more at the Spa than I lost!

We saw 'O' - a Cirque de Soleil show at the Bellaggio, had a fab dinner at Fleur De Lys in the Mandalay Bay, and on Sunday we took a helicopter flight out over the Hoover Dam and down into the Grand Canyon. It was absolutely spectacular. The weather perfect.

Now we are home for a good few weeks. Next trip is Paris for me, Col goes to Colorado Springs for a weekend in a couple of weeks. It is good that we are home for a bit, as I have just taken on more responsibilities at work - I am now the Director of Operations for Big Fish Games' casual download business. Col is also going great at work, she gave a great presentation to her great grand-boss last week. When she texted me to say it went so well, I was a bit teary!! Honest.

Other news, we have put an offer on a condo about half a mile away. The offer is accepted by the owner, but it is a short sale - meaning that our offer is less than what he owes on the property - and the final decision lies with his lender. Anyway, things seem to be moving along which is good. We haven't seen anything else we like at all - so all fingers crossed please.

Oh, went to see Chelsea Handler last night - a foul mouthed, drunk comedienne. Can't decide if I enjoyed it to be honest.

A few pics below for your viewing pleasure :)

Col making snowballs...ever into mischief.

Breakfast in the sun by the pool at the MGM Grand

The Eiffel tower???

Waiting for the fountain and light show at the Bellaggio at Midnight - it never started...too windy!

The Hoover Dam

Heading towards The Canyon

The Colorado River and Grand Canyon

In it!

Vancouver Winter Olympics

2010-02-21T23:10:00.001-08:00

On the slowest train in the world coming back from Vancouver. It is vintage 1950's travel, the train even chugs....

Had a good weekend in Vancouver, was an interesting interpretation of an international sporting event. I think the term "home made" captures it. Sort of like home made ice cream versus Hagen Daas. It is nice, but not quiet as spectactular as rich vanilla bean Hagen Daas which is so smooth it slips off the spoon.

We got in late on Friday night and met our "greeter" at the condo we rented, all went very smoothly although we didn't see the Olympic Touch except for a small glimps out the back window of the cab for a nano-second.

Next morning, all spritely and ready for Olympic fever we headed in to town to suck up the atmosphere. First sign that things weren't quite as smooth as Hagan Daas was when we picked up our tickets and the staff member wasn't able to tell us where the venues were and had to head off hunting for a map. Bit weird not to have a map when a few million tourists are decending on the city in a 2 week period.

Brushing that aside, we headed off to BC Place. As it turns out it is building and a car park. No big screens, no public space. Oh well.

We met up with Tim and Michele and went in search of the Olympic Touch. Now, I thought the torch should be visible through out the Olympic city. We had wondered where the hell it was the night before. We eventually found it, had to look hard since it was decidedly understated. Odd for the icon of the games to be understated....

Never mind.

We next headed in to the German tent, had some bratwurst and beer before we marched off to our first event - the curling. We found the train and were amused to see that they were using hand-written signage in the station, how quaint. Not so amused to get to the venue to find that they had no real toilets, no water, just rooms of blue plastic chemical toilet boxes. With my hyperactive gag reflex it was not a good time. That aside, we tried to get in to the USA vs GB game. Problem is, it is a really boring game. Who knew!!!! I can imagine how it is good fun if you are playing with a few friends over drinks. Not so fun when you're sitting on plastic seats, sober, watching other people play. Sort of like watching people play board games, boring. So we bailed and headed back in to town.

On the up side we got back early and were able to Skype in for Alice's party. We are now the proud "spare parents" for Alice and we shared a glass of champagne with her, Shannon, Jason and Lily.

I won't bore you with a full catalog of the home-made components that made up the Vancouver Olympic Games except to say that they had only 1 merchandise store which you had to queue to get in to (odd that they should make it so hard to give them money), they didn't bother changing the train anouncements to say which stops were Olympic venues and the Live Sites were so small you had to queue for hours to get in and then they weren't showing events.....

All that aside, the long track 1500m womens speed skating was fabulous and we had a great time hanging out with Tim, Michele, Peter, Christina, Kim and Stephanie.

******

Star spotting! 4-time Olympian and Aussie gold medalist Steven Bradbury at the speed skating.

Czech athlete - bronze medalist - down the straight

Medal Ceremony for Womens 1500 long track speed skating

Victory lap!

Boxing kangaroo out at a pub soaking up Olympic spirit.

Peter and Christina all rugged up.

Robson Street festivities

Team GB conferring at the curling.

Tim and I in the German tent for bratwurst and beer.

Olympic Torch at the Waterfront.

Wandering round Vancouver with Tim and Michele

Thursday marked our 11th anniversary

2010-02-07T10:30:00.000-08:00

Morning

Hanging out in Seattle this weekend. It was beautiful yesterday but today's a little grey and wet. Nice day for relaxing however after a pretty busy week. We headed up to Snoqualmie on Tuesday and had a good night snowboarding. It was really quiet, the snow was soft but ok and we invested a bit of time working on switching (boarding right leg forward instead of left). On Friday we went to an Editors gig which was great. But the big event was really Thursday when we celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary.

We went to Lola's for dinner and over dinner wondered a little what the next 11 years will bring. The first 11 has really been about finding our feet in work with Kev moving from hospitality to HR consulting to food manufacturing to jewellery design to online gaming. I've not made quite as many changes but moved from youth work to job boards to online retail. With our work journey has also come quiet a bit of travel and we've lived in 3 continents during this time and have had a wonderful time exploring each as much as we can. Neither of us really anticipated such fantastic opportunities. As a bonus, with all this moving around our families have lovingly trekked all over the plant to see us and we've meet a boat load of great people and we are so lucky to have such fantastic friends.

Not sure what the next 11 years will bring, hopefully more of the same great adventures and people. We're certainly looking forward to exploring the Americas as a starting point. Regardless, we thought the occasion deserved a bit of a photo timeline.

************

4 Feb 1999 at The Carrington in Bungendore, great night.

2000, the best Olympics ever!

2001 - At Molly Morgan Winery in Hunter Valley with Julia, Phil, Gus, Jason, Shannon and Lily

2002 - in Bundeena for Lil's 1st Birthday

2003 - Celebrating our 30th B'days at Aqua Luna in Circular Quay with fabulous friends and family.

2004 - On our way back from the UK we stopped in Tokyo to catch up with Mark

2005 - On our balcony in Drummoyne on our way for an anniversary dinner at Ecco

2006 - at the Australia v Croatia World Cup Soccer game in Stuttgart

2007 - Karin, Ned, Mum, Dad and us in Split, Croatia

2008 - at the Ice Bar in Stockholm with Andy and Katherine to celebrate Katherine's 30th

2009, Atlanta (Idaho) in the natural hot springs - with Andy and Tim

Eventful start to the year!

2010-01-22T17:42:00.000-08:00

Yo, dude, check it out, y'all be stoked to hear my-man Kev and I got ow green cards!

Yep, it's true, we're locals now. Yes, OMG, whatevverrr, dude, awesome, y'all and booyah are a small sample of the local vocabulary that we can now legitimately use. Kev's off to a good start on the use of "awesome" and I think I can probably ramp up my use of "y'all" :-)

Now, in the Queen's English....amazingly our green card applications were processed in 6-months and we are now permanent residents. Basically this just means no fixed time line for our time in the US, people will lend money to us for >3 years and shorter lines when crossing boarders. It's good.

That aside, it's been a great start to the year.

We gave ourselves a bit of time to recover from Colorado and NYE before heading on to the slopes again. We headed up to Snoqualmie one Saturday afternoon and jumped on the chair lift. As we headed up the hill I noticed that a lot of people were lying around on the snow. I couldn't really work it out.

Anyway, we carried on, got off at the top (without falling over) and looked up. We could hardly see 5-meters ahead, totally fogged in which isn't great when the ground is white. As we tentatively headed down a cat trail (being careful not to fall off the edge which we couldn't see) we realised that the mountain was actually covered in sheet-ice.......this would explain why people were lying around on the slope. Needless to say, it was a short session. We edged our way down, walked the last part, jumped in the car and when home. Instead we headed out to dinner with Andy and Katherine and drank cocktails and wine. It was a much better use of time!

With the snow awful and the sky grey, we were lucky enough to have a trip to Palm Springs to look forward to. We headed down for 4-days with Kathy, Mary Kay and Michael.

The weather was lovely, the house fantastic, pool private and golf fun. We indulged in some good Mexican food including my birthday dinner where they served margaritas in small buckets. Mary Kay managed to find a birthday cake with a champagne bottle and palm trees on it which we enjoyed after she and Kathy cooked up a storm on the barbie. The flight back was a little dodgy as we caught the start of the California storms, but they virtually ran on time which was a nice change from bloody-Delta.....

We celebrated my birthday again in Seattle going to El Gaucho for dinner. Liked it. Only problem is, with all the "me me me" time, I forgot to get Logan a 1st birthday present (for the 16th). But, don't panic, we're going to make it up to him with an inflatable pool. He'll love us again in no time!

We're looking forward to a couple of weekends in Seattle. Besides, we're saving up energy to celebrate Alice's naming day and Winter Olympics' in Feb.

Mary Kay and I in the Palm Springs cable car

Alice out and about with Lily

Birthday cake

Oh, and Albert is growing/eating/sleeping as is his job

The Pool in Palm Springs...sorry!

How about this?

2010-01-03T11:20:00.000-08:00

Morning

I've had a few requests for a photo of my Colorado souvenirs. While my bum is probably more colorful, I'm not that keen to have my butt on the internet......

So, here's my left knee and leg. It's starting to go yellow, but still got some my shades to it :-)

Happy New Year

2010-01-01T12:16:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year and happy birthday to Dad-Aubrey.

Bit of a slow morning but a fair exchange for the quality of the NYE we enjoyed. It was a great finish to what has been an eventful week.

We set off on the 25th at the ungodly hour of 4.30am and travelled through to Crested Butte in Colorado. In our wisdom we'd packed our snowboards separately and paid Delta $180 for the privilege. So crazy.

Anyway, arrived safely in Crested Butte and stepped outside to find we could no longer breath. This may have been due to being at 9500ft above sea level, or the stupid temperate of 12F/-11C. Regardless, I came to the quick conclusion that these conditions are not fit for humans.

We dived in to the bus and then hotel minimizing our time outside leaving all outdoor tasks like unpacking our bags from the bus to the locals who seem not to realise that they were at risk of having their face freeze off.

In our ignorance we got dolled up and headed downstairs for xmas dinner at the "fine dining restaurant". It was an underwhelming affair and we were plagued by a hoard of bloody Aussies whose kids were racing around the restaurant, crawling under the tables and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

Since we'd been up since 4.30am, we had an early night getting a good night's sleep in preparation for our first day on the slopes. So exciting!

True to form, I went for broke on day 1 and spent time waiting for Kev at the bottom of the hill. Kev took the slow and steady approach. And, in this case, Kev was right. By hour 3 I was making my way through a series of very hard falls. My tailbone took a beating and I gave my helmet a good workout acquiring some whiplash on the way. By 1pm we were both exhausted and I was very, very sore. We headed off to the hot tub and struggled in to town for dinner.

The next day was not good. I could hardly move. Kev on the other hand happily cruised down the slopes and started experimenting with switching turns. I on the other hand almost broke down in tears each time I realised I had to get off the chair lift and risk falling over...again. In an effort to not fall on my ass, I gave my knees a good workout, not my greatest idea.

Day 3 was murder for me, but Kev was going great guns and headed off to the blue runs leaving me to limp down a green run with the 3-year-olds.

After a series of ice and deep-heat treatments, I managed to pull myself together for day 4 and had a more enjoyable time but by this time Kev had left me for dead and was merrily cruising down the slopes.

Although we enjoyed it, snowboarding every day at 9500ft and inhumane temperatures was exhausting and we were looking forward to getting home on the 30th. And then we started the journey.......

Basically, we got stuck in Salt Lake City for 7 hours and couldn't get back to Seattle, instead ending up in Portland and driving home arriving at 4.30am in the morning. Delta were spectacularly bad and after 18 hours of travel we were exhausted.

We pulled ourselves together and managed to get organised to have a NYE party and had 12 friends over for a "2009 Year That Was" session of The Game. Peter and Christina introduced a new round - one word description - and the Skirts kicked Trouser-ass winning 129 points to 122. After a quick break to watch the fireworks off the Space Needle, we headed in to round 2 and again the Skirts whalloped the Trousers winning by a margin so big the boys couldn't bare to total the points at the end of the game. All in all, a pretty good night :-)

So, as we head in to 2010, I figure a re-cap of our performance against our 2009 goal of 15 new states is in order. While we didn't achieve our goal, we have it a good-aussie-go. I got 11 new and Kev got 10.

Col's 2009 state count:

NEW US States: Oregon, Illinois, Montana, Idaho, North Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Hawaii, Colorado, Milwaukee.

REPEAT: California, New York, Oregon, Illinois, Idaho.

NEW Canadian States - British Columbia.

Kev's 2009 state count:

NEW US States: Oregon, Illinois, Montana, Idaho, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Hawaii, Colorado, New York.

REPEAT: California, Nevada, Oregon, Illinois, Idaho.

NEW Canadian States - British Columbia.

We're still working out our 2010 plans, but while we do, Happy New Year everyone and best wishes for a spectacular, rewarding 2010.

Welcome to the world

2009-12-23T16:21:00.001-08:00

On 11 December Albert Joe Aubrey-Sando debuted in Paris. An Aussie through and through, he's already accumulated an impressive list of nicknames - AJ, Albee, Bert, LB.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, Albert did not arrive on Kevin's birthday which meant Kev didn't get middle-naming-rights. Albert narrowly escaped being "Albert Spartacus". Pity really, would have been fun :-)

Our first meeting with Albee went well although mid-Skype he fell asleep. At least we know he's Karin and Ned's kid!

The three of them seem to be doing well, and AJ is already the man about Paris. I wonder how he's doing with the lovely urine-scent of the metro......

Off to Colorado on Xmas day for 5 days snowboarding. Had to get balaclavas yesterday since it is going to hit a day time high of -12C on Friday.....

Merry xmas.

Col and Kev

Nice to see him awake....

Hitting the streets of Paris.

Checking out the local graffiti talent....

And already establishing a name for himself as a local artist.

Dressed for a Parisian White Xmas....asleep of course....

Karin heading out with the bubble boy

It's not hot, but it is a beautiful morning

2009-12-05T09:58:00.001-08:00

Morning

We're back from Hawaii and it is a freezing but beautiful morning in Seattle. The fog is clearing off the Sound and the sun is shining on the Olympics lighting up the snow capped mountains. It's lovely.

We got back from a lovely week in Hawaii on Wednesday night. Had a bit of a shock walking out of the airport in to near freezing temperatures, but hey, it was to be expected. Besides, we had just had 7-days in the warmth of Oahu, golfing, swimming and watching the sunset each day.

The upgrade on our flight to Honolulu turned out to be a good decision as the headwind was strong and the flight took over 6-hours. When we arrive, it was a little overcast, but once we'd arrived at Ko Olina all was forgiven. Our friends - Jen and Devin - had booked a fantastic condo, right on the beach overlooking the water. The front of the condo completely opened up on to a balcony where we spent most of our evenings watching the sunset, sharing a few beverages and chewing the fat (or reliving the days golf).

Unusually, we didn't whiz round seeing all the sights, rather with the exception of 1-day when we headed up to the North Beaches and in to Honolulu to dine with Peter and Christina, we stayed in one spot.

The golf course stole a bit of our time with 4 rounds. We played individually on day 1 and then teamed up for a series of best-ball. Somehow I managed to be on the winning team each best-ball round, must have been my contribution to the short-game as I primarily put my drives in peoples back-yards. No broken windows though thank goodness. Kevin on the other hand found his new best friend in a new driver he was testing out. Middle of the fairway 90% of the time.....showoff :-) Jen did an amazing job playing for the first time since having hand surgery in the summer and Devin kept us focused by loading each round with bets. I think he still owes me a 10-er!

We headed out on a catamaran one day to do some snorkeling. We were cruising along to the "snorkeling spot" and noticed that we were heading towards a rather ugly power plant. Next thing we know we've pulled up in front and are handed our masks to jump in and snorkel along the water-outlet pipes from the power plant. The warm water has attracted a collection of coral and fish. It was a little weird, not very romantic, and we all spent some time looking for the 3-eyed fish from The Simpsons! We did however see a turtle (except Devin who apparently only saw rocks and sand). It was so lovely to see it gliding through the water.

Anyway, end of the day, ate too much, drank too much, but relaxed a load and caught some vitamin D. Thanks to Jen and Devin for finding such a wonderful location.

Drinks on the balcony.

Sunset.

Cosmo and Kindle, winning combination.

Made Kathy's chocolate-espresso cake with peanut butter cream for Thanksgiving.

Kev with his trusty driver.

The 10th hole.

Devin and Jen relieved that they didn't see a 3-eyed fish while snorkeling.

We're outta here

2009-11-24T10:46:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in a meeting, development planning for Dec, and I'm counting the minutes until 5pm when I am officially "on holiday".

This morning, aside from a few metrics meetings, emails, blahblahblah, I've managed to check-in for our flight to Honolulu tomorrow morning. I accidentally clicked the "upgrade" button, so Kev and I will be traveling in seat 1A and 1B :-)

We're all packed of course, golf clubs in their little cocoons safely padded by swimmers, shorts, t-shirts and thongs (yes, I said it, the Americans have permission to giggle). Devin and Jen are on their way to Honolulu today and will have scoped the resort by the time we arrive tomorrow. Or, maybe they will not have got past the balcony off the front of the condo overlooking the beach, it is entirely possible....

Devin has lined up 4 rounds of golf, Jen a day out snorkeling and we'll probably catch up with Peter and Christina on Sunday for a few cocktails. Otherwise, with my Kindle fully loaded I'm planning on a few quality horizontal hours by and in the pool, maybe a massage, bit 'o tennis if I feel energetic.

As you can probably guess, I can't wait for this week off. Seattle has been peeing with rain for over 3-weeks with no sign of letting up. The snow is good, but Kev has not let me go snowboarding in case I injured myself. So, Hawaii here we come. Bring on the heat!

Weekend in Orcas Island

2009-11-07T11:07:00.000-08:00

It is peeing down with rain and blowing a gale outside, so figured I'd do a bit o bloggin and give you the low down on our weekend in Orcas Island.

We arrived there, in the pouring rain of course, but the weather fined up and we had cold but beautiful sunny days. It was so so lovely, very relaxing, we had a wonderful time.

We stayed at a place called The Homestead in a renovated barn right on the water. It had a log fire, dock on the water and a hot tub for us to soak away the worries of the day.

Rocky-m did a few miles taking us up Mt Constitution twice (first day was fogged in) and across to Friday Harbour on a ferry exclusively for Rocky-m. We considered going out on Halloween night, but the thought of all the crazy locals dressed up and raring for crowd participation had Kev going straight to the supermarket to get stuff to cook.

On the Sunday we headed out on a boat to see if we could spot a whale or two. We didn't, but it was beautiful and we saw a few eagles, sea-lions and seals.

Mum and Dad fly out to Las Vegas on Monday meeting my aunt and uncle there. They have a trip to the Grand Canyon, a few other things then they are off to LA for a couple of days before heading back to Oz. Tomorrow we're going to the Seahawks game, see how they like that. It's been a good to see them.

Out looking for bears in the Moran national park.

Rocky-m out from of our cabin

Take 1 - view from Mt Constitution

Take 2 - view from Mt Constitution

Dad on the boat looking for whales

Kev and Dad considering renting a boat on Mountain Lake

Maybe not.....

Rocky-m exclusive ferry service from Orcas Island to Friday Harbour.

American Camp on San Juan Island

View from our cabin

Quality time in the hot tub

Dad doing his best Titanic impersonation, he looks like Leonardo don't you think?

Stellar Sea Lion

On the ferry back to Anacortes

Our dock and sailing boat at the cabin

Family reunion in Chicago

2009-10-21T17:47:00.001-07:00

Yep, more visits and visitors!

On the 7th Mum and Dad Aubrey flew in to SF, sister-Karin arrived from Paris in to Chicago on the 11th, M&D flew to Chicago too, then I did on the 15th, then Kev crashed the party on the 16th. With 5 of us, I figure that makes a family reunion!

Aside from Karin being 8-months pregnant and seeing everyone yudda yudda, the big news is that while Kev was at work I managed to convince Mum, Dad and Karin that a short road trip was in order. As a result, I can now add Wisconsin to my list of new states in 2009. A day at the Harley Davidson museum in Milwalkee was all it took. Now I'm 2 states ahead of Kev overall, 1 this year (all good).

Now that I've got that little announcement out of the way, the museum was actually really good. I had no idea that H-D was one of the pioneers of motorized transport producing their first bike in 1903. Apparently the motorbike was a revelation over the car because you could travel to a lot more places. The reason being that the roads where really poor and a motorbike requires less road. We also learnt that H-D produced a load of service and military bikes. It wasn't until the Vietnam Vets returned and adopted the brand as a sign of freedom that the brand became more of a "bikers" bike. There's a little history for you :-)

Aside from that, we had a cold but good time exploring Chicago. Ate some good food. Hung out in Wicker Park, had a drink up the John Handcock building, choked down deep dish pizza and visited the Picasso sculpture.

Lucky Karin collected 100 items of baby clothes from my Mum. All individually ironed of course. And she flies back to Paris today with them. We are back in Seattle and Mum and Dad are enjoying the grey-Seattle weather.

Celebration on Whidbey Island

2009-10-03T11:45:00.001-07:00

Big news.....we're at home in Seattle this weekend! Yes, after a 3 out of 4 weekends away marathon, Kev and I are staying local this weekend sleeping in our own bed, spending some quality time on the lounge. Might even get some life-admin done. And of course, a bit-o-bloggin.

Last weekend we had a fabulous time on Whidbey Island helping Michael celebrate his 40th birthday. Whidbey Island is 1-2 hours north-west of Seattle depending on if you get on the ferry or go north to go over a bridge. Apparently it is the second largest island in contiguous US (keeping in mind almost everywhere we go in the US is the biggest of something).

A bunch of us met at The Inn at Langley on Friday night, got acquainted at a local restaurant and enjoyed a few cocktails and bottles of champagne. On Saturday 5 of us decided to hire mopeds and we spent the afternoon terrorising the locals as the Langley 5. Mary Kay and I were really hardcore wearing purple bandannas under our helmets. Dave, as the only person who had ever had a motorcycle license was tasked with bringing up the rear and Kev took control of the map. We were fearless as we tore round the island, stopping in at an art exhibition-cum-open-house, picking up a cappuccino at the local servo and finally cramming 3-bottles of wine from Whidbey Island Winery in the seat of our mopeds on the way back to Langley. It was a beautiful day, and the mopeds were great fun despite requiring a little bit of leg-power to carry us up hills (very Flintstones).

On Saturday night, 20 of us gathered to celebrate Michael's birthday at the restaurant at the Inn. The chef is a bit of a local celebrity and focuses on using local produce - Chef Matt Costello. He prepared a 6-course degustation menu with matching wines. The kitchen was open to the dining room which was interesting. The food was excellent and the company fantastic. We had a lot of laughs.

On Sunday Mary Kay, Kathryn, Kev and I played a round at the Holmes Harbor golf course on Whidbey. It was awful. I think we were probably a little too tired/hungover. The views from the course were beautiful, however the fairways felt a little crowded by the houses. I managed to drive 2 balls in to 2 yards, actually, the front yard (over the back yard on the fairway, over the roof, and in to the front yard). Oh well.

We had a spectacular drive home via Deception Point and back in to Seattle. It was a lovely weekend. Great people, good food and a lot of laughs. Happy birthday Michael.

Mary Kay and Alan all rugged up to set out on our road trip

Dave and Alan hooning round the car park by the beach

Ready to cruise

Pit stop

Kev looking very suave on his moped

They were picking at Whidbey Island Winery.

Kathryn and Michael sitting at the head of the table

Stopped to look at the sunset at Deception Point

Sunset at Deception Point

3-state weekend courtesy Rich and Makayla

2009-09-21T17:59:00.001-07:00

This last weekend we managed to cram in 3 new states - Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana - courtesy of Rich and Makayla having a fab wedding reception in Ohio. (thanks R&M)

We took off Friday morning flying in to the Cincinnati/North Kentucky Airport that night. In order to consider our visit to Kentucky genuine, we staying in a lovely B&B in Burlington that night and ate Hot Brown and Fried Chicken at the local Tavern. It was a charming little town (yes, charming, and in the US.....) with a lot of the 19th century buildings beautifully restored. This included our B&B where we staying in one of the attic rooms.

On Saturday, we jumped in our awful, awful hire car of which the only good thing it had going for it was that the roof came off. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed a quick ride across the Ohio River in to Indiana followed by 9-holes at the Sugar Ridge golf course with our new Kentucky golf friends - Suzanne and Greg.

Suzanne and Greg were good fun, talked and talked, plenty of laughs. Greg managed to get through 5 beers and a cigar on the first 9-holes, we teed off at 10.22...... When we left them, Greg had popped in to the club house to collect himself another 6 beers. Looked like they were going to have a good day.

We, on the other hand, had a wedding reception to get to, so we jumped back in the car and zoomed across the border (spitting distance from the golf course, but still, we were in Indiana) and headed to Cedarville where we stayed at the Hearthstone Inn.

After a short spell in the jacuzzi and a long spell making ourselves beautiful, we had a few pre-wedding drinks with Andy, Katherine and Parker. Now normally one wouldn't think too much of this, but in this case, Cedarville is a dry town. Yep, that's right, no booze. Andy and Katherine had to search high and low in the surrounding area to find some light beer and average wine. After enjoying our illegal activity, we headed off across the corn fields to the wedding reception at a local golf course.

Here we set ourselves upon the task of having a good time. Which, wasn't that difficult since Dave the barman was pouring a pretty stiff drink in all forms (he also had no qualms about handing over the bottle so I didn't have to return so frequently).

Rich and Makayla looked fabulous. It was great to meet their family and friends. We had a great time catching up with Andy and Katherine and managed to get home across the corn fields without getting lost or falling over. On Sunday we fortified ourselves with a huge huge very greasy breakfast at Bob Evans (no espresso, no sparkling water.....I know.....crazy).

Some of our sights from our 3-state weekend are below. Thanks to Makayla and Rich for the invite.

Andy leading me astray.

Kev looking sharp.

Katherine and Parker sharing a drink.

Rich and Makayla looking radiant.

Evidence that we did actually go to Indiana.

And Kentucky....

And Ohio.

We didn't go here, but geez, what a spectacle!

Rocky-m's second road trip

2009-09-14T18:50:00.001-07:00

Tragically, I have only 5 public holidays each year (bloody awful, don't get Anzac day, Australia day or Good Friday, don't know what the locals are thinking?). The first weekend of September is one of these 5 days with Labor Day (yep, no "u", more craziness).

To celebrate we decided to take Rocky-m on a road trip to Crater Lake in Southern Oregon. Crater Lake is a huge lake in a 7,700 year old volcanic crater in the top of a big mountain. All the photos we had seen were stunning so we headed off to see it.

We left later on Fri night and had a nice clear run through to Portland, stayed the night and spent Saturday morning wine tasting in the Willamette Valley. Picked up some lovely Pinot among other things from Rex Hill Winery and Calrton Wine Studio.

We then headed off in to the wilderness to stay in a cabin by a river in the national park. It was a lovely drive, plenty of tight corners to test Rocky on, although Kev took it pretty easy on her, big softy!

We stayed at a place called The Steamboat Inn. No phone reception, middle of nowhere. We had dinner at the Inn. They only do one sitting and everyone is seated at long group tables. We were lucky enough to be sat with 6 other interesting people. We discovered across the night that we had one Austrian, one South African and 4 Americans along with us two, none of us from the Pacific Northwest, an interesting mix.

The next morning Kev dragged me out of bed early allowing 2 hours to drive to Crater Lake, 15 mins to check in for the boat tour and 45 mins to walk down in to the crater to get the boat tour. Now my policy is not to get out of bed before 10 on a weekend so this was a bit of a struggle.

Anyway, made it out on time and it was my turn to drive. Had a lovely time driving through the mountains with no traffic and made record time to Crater Lake - 1 hour. We got up to the tour-shack way early, parked, opened the doors and.....FROZE! It had dropped to 0/32 degrees and was chucking it down with ice-daggers. I rooted around in to boot putting on as many clothes as I could find while Kev stood in the ice-daggers waiting for the slowest human being on the planet to "check us in". About 45 minutes later we got to the front of the line to discover that all the tours so far had been cancelled because it was so windy on the lake. He said we could walk down in to the crater on the off chance our tour was heading out in the next hour.

We headed off, walking down in to the crater the equivalent to 67 flights of stairs, freezing every step of the way. Got to the bottom, tour was cancelled. It was however incredibly beautiful. The lake is up to 600 meters deep and has a small volcanic island in the middle. The crater is huge and apparently the water is the cleanest in the world (I think that Lake Mackenzie on Fraser Island is, but hey, who's arguing).

So, we looked around, froze, I went to the eco-dunnies (gagged the whole time) and then we headed back up the crater. 67-flights of very steep stairs later, we jumped in Rocky-m and turned the heated seats on. So, while we didn't spend the whole date at Crater Lake, it was beautiful, we're pleased we went, but the visit was short. We did however meet the Griswalds on the way out, Kev took their photo just moments before the 10 of them ran shouting down towards the car - kids, dog, grandparents and parents - and noisily piled in to their mini-bus. Really, it was the Griswalds.

Although our time in Crater Lake was cut short, we did have a lovely time in Bend, Oregan, played a bit of golf at this cool new course and did a bit of shopping. We had a long drive back on Monday to Seattle and decided to take the scenic route through Mt Rainer National Park - it was raining and totally fogged in so we saw bugger all, never mind.

Last weekend we staying in Seattle for a change. Played a bit of golf - Kev and I both eagled a hole with Kev playing in from 140 yards out and me chipping in from a sand bunker, so funny, total fluke. This coming weekend we're off to Ohio for Rich and Makayla's wedding party. All going to plan we'll pick up 4 new states by flying in to the Kentucky airport in Cincinnati and then cruising through Indiana and West Virginia in the convertible we've hired. Fingers crossed for good weather!

Col

Atlanta, Idaho...not Georgia

2009-08-23T19:40:00.000-07:00

Col and I have just got back from quite a remarkable weekend. Not super relaxing or luxurious,but extraordinary none-the-less. Thanks to Andy and Tim for hosting.

We spent the weekend in Atlanta, Idaho. Actually when we got on the plane on Friday lunchtime, we didn't know exactly where we were going! We knew we were flying to Boise (Idaho's state capital) and then driving for a few hours to get to a cabin. Andy picked us up from Boise and we set off. Andy is in the process of renovating his cabin - in fact he has two cabins on a piece of land in Atlanta. So we called in at Home Depot for some materials and then hit the road. We drove out of Boise heading north east towards the Sawtooth Mountain range. The first hour or so was on a freeway, it was a beautiful drive - winding up through the foothills and along the river side, then we turned off the freeway and saw a sign to Atlanta - 41 miles - ALL ON DIRT ROAD. The next two hours we bumped and skidded along a reasonably well maintained dirt road - stunning scenery, chipmunks, wild turkeys and the occasional deer!

We arrived in Atlanta shortly after dark, and took a spin around town, which took about 1 minute! The town's current population is 40 - or thereabouts. It is an old mining town that peaked in population about 70-100 years ago, at about 3,000. Some houses have been kept beautifully, others are in the process of renovation and others have fallen into disrepair.

Andy is doing some serious work to his cabin, a cabin where he actually spent the last couple of years of his childhood. His family at one time or another had owned the bar and store, and a number of the cabins.

Our walk around town the following day was really amazing. I am not sure that any description could do it justice, so check out the pictures.

Not only was the town itself a spectacle, the surrounding scenery was unbelievable, the Sawtooth Mountains, the Boise River, beaver dams and hot springs! All within a short walk of this great little town.

What people do there now, we are not too sure - drink, smoke, hang out...that's pretty much it. There is no longer a shop or a bar in the town and the drive to Boise is a good 3 hours! Take all you want in with you.

We can't stop talking about it at the moment, it has left quite an impression.

Andy's main cabin - Lee and Merlin in the background putting a roof on the back porch.

Main street!

Cabins in 'town'...inhabited.

The Sawtooth range.

The 'country club' as it's known to the locals - icy cold but extremely refreshing!

Chatanooga - hot springs. The waterfall is running at about 90 degrees F, the pool a little closer to 80 - awesome!

Ichiro, Ichiro, Ichiro!!!

2009-08-16T17:08:00.000-07:00

As usual, it's been a busy few weeks. When is it not? Seems odd that I always start a post by saying this since it is basically a given. Anyway, crazy that 4 weeks have passed by since our last "news" post. Getting a bit slack, apologies.

What have we been busy with? Mostly work is keeping us both on our toes. But we've also had the pleasure of having Kay visit from Sydney (my cousin). She just flew out 2 days ago, back to Sydney and work.

While she was here we managed to pack a lot of things in. Everything from walking in Discovery Park and dinner on the deck, to winning the Trivia Night at Columbia Tower and cheering on the Mariners (in particular Ichiro who is Kay's new favorite sports hero). It was the first baseball game that any of us had been to and we had a great night, even though there was no score after 11 innings! Ichiro, with his crazy-batting stance was fabulous and did a great job in the field. Check out this video of his pre-stance-routine, very funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pdaL8JwXEs

We ate hot dogs and kettle corn, Kev ordered a beer from a bloke with a big foam hat on who yelled his way up and down the stairs. Kay was getting top tips on the game from the guy sitting next to us and I, embarrassingly, ducked my head and flung my arms up to wildly protect myself when a foul ball rockets in our very-general-direction (there were about 10 people with baseball mitts around us who no doubt would have caught the ball).

Aside from hanging out with Kay, I have been thinking about retirement plans and have started to come up with a few options. So far I have......

A. Move back to Sydney and work for Google

B. Become a pro-golfer (by the time I'm 45, so plenty of practice time)

C. Be a race car driver (me and Rocky the mini)

D. Join a band as the drummer (they look like they have the most fun)

Tim suggested I join a carnival or circus, which I haven't discounted, but have it with a placeholder against Option Z.....

If you have any suggestions, please do throw them out there. I'm open to ideas!

Col

nephew thomas alfie

2009-07-28T21:15:00.001-07:00

They did a pretty good job...

2009-07-19T09:50:00.001-07:00

Marks out of 10 for the Coldplay gig, 8.5 from Kev, 9 from Col. We
had a good time.

We didn't actually know where our tickets were for, I had just ordered
best available. As it turns out, in a stadium that sat 40k people, we
had tickets for right in front of the stage :-). It was standing, but
we ended up about 15 meters from the main stage and 5 meters from the
catwalk stage. It was very cool. The bonus was that the people around
us weren't phychos either so we were able to enjoy the concert without
interuption.

Chris Martin and his Uni mates belted it out for 2 hours, moved round
the stadium, did a subtle tribute to Michael Jackson and showered us
with millions of butterflies. It was a good night. If you get the
chance, see them.

At Coldplay concert in LA

2009-07-18T20:12:00.000-07:00

Another busy week with Kay arriving from Sydney on Friday. We caught
up last night on the deck with a few champagnes, and today over a
burger by the water. Then Kev and I jumped a flight to Long Beach to
attend the Coldplay concert. Kay is off to Alaska early tomorrow
morning, so only feel a little bit bad about abandoning her.

And here we are, right up front waiting for Chris Martin and crew to
entertain us!

Busy 2 weeks with Clive and Ang

2009-07-12T19:26:00.001-07:00

Kev's parents - Clive and Angela - have been with us for the last two weeks and we've been doing our best to show them a good time. It's been tough having fun all the time, but hey, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

We kicked off their stay with dinner at Columbia Tower. The view was amazing with a beautiful sun set and the food excellent. We got out our "Sunday best" and while the locals in their socks and sandals stared and pointed, it was nice to dress up.

On July 4 we had our first Independance day party. While we also flew the Australian and Welsh flags (yes, that is what they were. Next time we'll take Tim's tip to write the country on them so no one gets confused), we also flew the stars and stripes on flags and very nice pot plants. We couldn't resist serving shrimp and bangers on the barbie, but needless to say our guests bought enough food to feed an army. We are thinking that next time we'll mess up the kitchen a little but cook nothing and just take credit for all the fabulous food everyone else brings! Mary-Kay bought the constituents for smors, apparently quite a July-4 tradition, which kept us going until about 4am.

Sunday wasn't so easy to face, but we kept a stiff upper lip and struggled through meeting Andy and Katherine at Ballard Locks to see the salmon jumping up the ladder (riveting...).

A quick dash back to work to cram in a few meetings and email, and then we headed to Victoria for 4 days. Unusually, the weather was beautiful (until Sun) and we had a lovely time wandering around town. We hired a convertible Mustang for a day out. The best feature of the car was that the roof came off. Otherwise it killed every urge to speed, have fun and drive in general. Astounding how much exciting-driving noise it made for so little output!

We lumbered out to Cowichan Bay. It was lovely and had an excellent bakery, cheese factory and ice creamery. The views during the day were beautiful and we sucked up plenty of fresh air. Interestingly, not 30 minutes after lunch Kev and I looked in the back seat to find that the fresh-air and sun had put Clive and Ang to sleep.....

Otherwise, we fit in a bit of whale watching (saw some Minke whales), wandered round China Town including Fan Tan Alley, took a lego-boat across the harbor and sat outside by the water with a few refreshments.

Clive and Ang flew out this afternoon. I got the feeling that they were putting themselves on a bread-and-water diet once they got back to recover from 4-weeks of US-serving-sizes.

Our house is a hotel

2009-06-21T18:29:00.000-07:00

Hello All,

Not only has it taken a while for me to pick up the keyboard to blog (Kev here by the way), but I am sure that this will take a while to bash out...we bought a Mac today, so I am getting used to the differences from the PC. The best thing so far is that iPhoto has some face recognition stuff going on. After I have typed in a few names on photos that we have imported, the software keeps asking me "is this Phil Miller" and I have to correct it! I did have one instance where it thought Richard Aubrey was his youngest daughter - Rachel! Not sure how reliable this will be, bit of fun though!

So we had a long weekend in Whistler with BJ, Ben, Logan and Jaycob a week or so back. Feels like quite a while, but it was only last Sunday that they left. col 'bungeed' I think she blogged about that. The next day we took the Peak to Peak gondola that links Whistler Mountain to Blackcomb Mountain. The scenery was spectacular. We were in shorts and T-shirts in the snow!! Our whole trip up there just had us longing for the ski season - so that we could shred again! (Don't cringe Tim and Michele, just kidding).

Then after the gondola, we zip lined. Crazy stuff!! Attached to a taut piece of metal cable whipping through the forest several hundred feet above a raging river! I think I was the best in our group, doing upside down stars way before anyone was even letting go with their hands! don't have pictures of me, as I was in charge of the camera! Here's one or two on Col and BJ though.

The next day was much more sedate, cycling to the lake where the brave Ben took Jaycob into the icy water / glacial outwash! Here are the kids having all the fun in the sleeping trailer!

On the whole Whistler was stunning, and as I speak Col is trying to line up our next trip for some awesome shredding dude (sorry T and M again).

BJ, Ben and the kids came down to Seattle then, and stayed for about 6 days - we had a small party on the Saturday and the weather was amazing - soon after we bought a sun umbrella and two sun lounges...and soon after we saw the end of summer!!!

Two days after the Aubrey-Whites left, my parents arrived. This spell was only two days, they are now in LA with good friends for 2 weeks before coming back to Seattle and a couple of weeks in the Pacific Northwest. We will head up to Victoria, BC when they come back.

Oh, by the way for those that are interested, Canada was a new country for me!!!

At Columbia Tower with BJ and Ben

2009-06-11T20:16:00.000-07:00

Uncle Kev is baby sitting....