Sesame Street Love - Max the Magician

This was the video that started our Sesame Street marathon on Saturday. We know it's you Gob, you can't fool us with your fake name.

If you don't know who Gob is you need to watch Arrested Development, and then you'll have a whole new appreciation for this video.

Also, Chris totally looks like no-one told him how "Max" was going to actually do his tricks.

I look forward to sharing more.

(Also, sorry about the poor quality of the video. Sesame Street does have it's own youtube page, but they started it after this episode aired and don't seem to feel the need to upload it. This is the best I could find.)

Malt and Teaser

What is it? Adriano Zumbo's Malt and Teaser
How does it taste? Amazing. I want more now please!

If you've heard of Adriano Zumbo you'll know he makes all sorts of different, interesting and intricate desserts. He is a regular challenge setter on Masterchef Australia. I've tried a couple of his things and found the flavours too intense, or just plain wrong for my palate. This, however, is AMAZING. It's chocolaty; it's light; it's fluffy; it's crunchy. Mmmm. If you like desserts, and chocolate, and are in Australia I recommend trying one.

Today was Productive

We have a friend coming to stay with us for a couple of weeks, arriving tomorrow, so took the opportunity to use the visit as encouragement to spring clean. Man did we get a lot done. It probably helped that we both naturally woke up at 7:30...which I still can't get over. I woke up at 7:30 on a weekend day, for no other reason than I was awake and didn't want to sleep. Anyhoo, because I am so proud of what we got done today I wanted to share.

Today we:
-Visited our Real Estate agents to discuss the tiles in our bathroom that have fallen off. The tiles just randomly popped off. We sent an e-mail on Monday and had heard nothing back since, they've been sorting things out for us...just not letting us know about it.
-Made mango ice cubes for easy smoothie making. Last weekend I'd made coffee ice cubes, mango and passionfruit ice cubes, mixed berries ice cubes, and banana and blueberry ice cubes...mango ice cubes were the last on my list. Mmmm smoothies.
-Sorted my flowers out. I still hadn't cleaned out some of the vases after throwing out flowers last weekend...they were looking gross. I also rearranged the flowers we have.
-Wrapped boxes. Remember me talking about making boxes for our appliances look pretty all the way back in June, well we got more boxes, so I made them pretty too.
-Wash, fold and put away our clothes.
-Went to the shops and had a treat before some shopping. It was about 11 at this point.
-Got some REALLY soft and lovely sheet set for our room. We wanted something new and light now that the weather is getting warmer. What we ended up with is AMAZING. If I could spend all day in bed stroking the sheets I think I would.
-Got an inflatable mattress, pump and some single sheets for our friend to sleep on. We discover this evening that the pump we got needs to attach to the cigarette thingy in a car to work...so we will have to find another pump tomorrow.
-Had super yummy chicken wrap for lunch from Oporto. We're loving their new wrap selection. So so yum.
-Watched an unhealthy amount of Sesame Street clips. I am thinking of creating a mini-series here to share some of my favourites.
-Sorted out our kitchen. We tidied it and did a complete clear out off all the useless stuff/expired stuff we did not need. It looks very tidy and organised now. :)
-Tidied the bathroom.
-Tidied the rest of the apartment.
-Threw out about 3 bags of rubbish.
-Vacuumed the entire apartment.
-Flipped our mattress and made our bed with our gorgeous new sheets...and then lay on them for a bit raving about how incredibly soft they are.
-Did a little bit of grocery shopping.
-Had a G&T to celebrate an awesome days work finished by 5.

I think we did incredibly well. It has felt like an awesome day, and despite what we have got done it's also felt really relaxed and laid-back. :)

Today was lovely

 

The forecast today was rain. We haven't seen a single drop, or even any signs of this forecast coming true. Today has been lovely. Last weekend we decided we should do more with our weekends...maybe even get into the gorgeous city we have on our doorstep instead of sitting inside all the time. So today we went to explore the Strand Arcade, David Jones, Westfield and the QVB. The Strand Arcade and the QVB are so very beautiful, and the two shopping 'centres' photographed above. The shops inside each of them look ridiculously expensive...like I didn't dare step inside them for fear of damaging the beautiful things inside of them. Gorgeous.

So yeah, we got off of our backsides today and it was well worth it! We also did a couple of others things, but my brain is not working enough to go into them...maybe another time. We have more planned for tomorrow too, and I got my tax return recently so I'm doing quite of bit of treat shopping that I may share.

Off to a night of Turkish takeaway and some rugby. :)

I have pretty flowers!

On Monday I bought myself some pretty flowers. I love having pretty flowers in the apartment. I went in hoping to get some colourful gerbera and tulips, and that is part of what I came home with. The gorgeous pink gerbera I came home with were displayed next to beautiful purple orchids and some blossom branches; so of course I had to get some gorgeous purple orchids, blossom branches AND the gerbera and tulips I hoped to get. It's only been three days, but I LOVE my pretty flowers. They so purty. They make me so happy. Why my lovely James does not buy me flowers I do not know, because I so love flowers. 

Eeee, pretty flowers!

Happy Father's Day

This would have been a lot better had I known Father's Day was today and not next Sunday before Wednesday this week. We've been going crazy at work getting the Father's Day present sorted after our little revelation!

Hope you have a relaxing day. Love you lots! :)

Dayboo

Before work yesterday I was reading an article on the Telegraph website about England and Australia's recent T20 game (seriously...I'm voluntarily reading articles about sports now...) and I cam across the line, which you can see above, "Pakistan-born Fawad Ahmed makes Oz dayboo".

I paused.

Dayboo? Now I will admit I am not the best at spelling, but I was fairly sure the author meant 'debut', but being all doubtful of my spelling/writing abilities I did some googling to see if 'dayboo' was a word I had maybe just never come across. No. It is not. 'Dayboo' is not a word.

Responses from friends and family about this weird spelling have thus far been:
"The opposite of a nightaaaaaaaaaah?"
"Maybe it was his dayboo article."

Blossoms

 

 

I don't know if we hang out in the wrong part of Sydney, or just don't get out enough, but season changes like Summer to Autumn, and Winter to Spring are not as visually noticeable. In Canberra, however, the tree turn those gorgeous reds and oranges in Autumn, and blossoms come out in Spring. It is gorgeous, and one of the many reasons I love visiting Canberra. Today I took the opportunity to take some blossom photos, as I cannot guarantee they will still be around next time we visit, and taking photos of blossoms is one of my favourite spring time activities (we have a gorgeous pink blossom tree back in Geneva that I miss so much).

I then took some gorgeous photos of James, but since he is not so fond of the photos I will not share them here. I love the photos. I think he looks gorgeous, and so happy, and that makes me love them even more. :)

One more day of my long weekend and then it's back to reality.

Winter? Really?

Beautiful blue skies, temperatures warm enough for shorts and mangos on the shelves in stores...it really isn't feeling like winter in Sydney at the moment. I'm not really sure if I'm complaining or not, at the moment lovely days like this are very welcome, but I'm sure after 4 months I'm going to be wishing there wasn't another 3 months of warm weather still to go!

In life news, things are going well. I've been feeling like I have been neglecting the blogging world quite a bit lately, and I do not have a reason for it... it's just not high on my list of priorities at the moment. Work takes up a lot of my thinking power, not only during work time but outside work hours too. I'm constantly thinking of or creating little things for us to do with the children, or planning and daydreaming about how I would organise our room for next year if money was not an issue (I've found a gorgeous rug that costs $400...can't see my boss saying yes to buying it...). I've also started my Certificate III in Children's Services, a qualification I'll need if I want to keep my job. When I say started I mean enrolled and printed off the notes for the first unit, because I'm doing it online and am very good at delaying the actual starting. The first unit look pretty basic though, sleep routines, hygiene, food, things I deal with every day, so I doubt I'll be reading much new. Besides work and study I have basically been sleeping, because my life is really that interesting; sleeping and playing Candy Crush (damn you Candy Crush for wasting away so much of my awake time).

So if you don't hear from me for a long while it will be because I am either working, studying, sleeping or playing Candy Crush.

Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs

James has gone to Canberra for a lunch on Friday at which Jake White (Brumbies coach) will be speaking. This means I was 'home alone' this afternoon, so a colleague of mine and I decided we'd use the time to go shopping and then get some dinner as we were both on the early shift. We started off by getting a drink and cake from one of mine and James' (and it turns out my colleagues) favourite little places on the top floor of Broadway. We then did a lot of ups and downs going into to different shops, eventually going to Dymocks (a bookstore) before dinner. We're both very similar when it comes to our bookstore browsing: straight to the kids section. We probably looked a bit odd; two grown women sitting on the floor of the kids section reading through different books, but we didn't care. I showed my colleague a favourite little book of mine 'The Hueys in a new Jumper', which I then also ended up buying. We were also on the look out for dinosaur books because we both had kids in our room that loved dinosaurs, and this is how we happened upon 'Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs', which is a pretty awesome find. It's cute and it's funny, mocking a lot of those bits in children's books that you question like: Why is a little girl wondering around on her own? It had a lot of humour in it, and we giggled the whole way through, so if you don't feel silly reading a kids book I definitely recommend you check it out (or you could just click the link above for a look at some of the pages inside). I ended up buying way too many books, most for the kids at work, but also Keri Smith's 'Wreck this Box' which I've been sort of wanting to get my hands on for quite some time.
All in all, it was a lovely afternoon. :)

Poppies

 

 

 

Last week I bought a whole bunch of poppies, actually two bunches of poppies. I think poppies are gorgeous, and for the first couple of days they did look gorgeous and would make me feel so happy when I walked in through the door...but then they all died. I don't know what I did wrong. I treated them like all the other flowers I get, the bunch I bought at the same time is still very alive and happy, but my poppies are now all droopy and hanging about. It makes me sad. I don't think I'm going to buy poppies again. I'll leave them for admiring in beautiful gardens.

Also, I need to work on my flower photographing with the new camera...the focus is all over the place in these photos. Not good.

Mahna Mahna

I love that James and I grew up in different countries because it means we have some different memories. For example, Mahna Mahna reminds us both of two completely different adverts from our childhoods.

I remember BN using Mahna Mahna in their ad:

James remembers a Banana Boat ad:

The Banana Boat ad is pretty awesome. But BN BN sticks in my head more....it's going to be a while until I get the song out of my head!

What does Mahna Mahna remind you of?

Day Trip to Manly

 

 

 

 

Yesterday afternoon we headed out to Manly with James' mum and youngest brother. It was a seriously lovely day for it. We caught the ferry, had some Ben and Jerry's, and walked along the coast dreaming about how lovely it would be to live on the coast. It was a gorgeous, calm day. Perfect use of a day off. We should really get out more on gorgeous days, Sydney has a lot to offer.

Rostered Day Off

Today I have taken a day off. I wanted to take two days off in a couple of weeks, but another staff member was off then...so I couldn't. Poo. Today's day off is pretty awesome though. Due to my Visa coming through I can now apply to study the course I'll need for my job next year, and I can use today to go out and prove to them I have the Visa...because they seem to insist on it being done in person. James' family are also visiting Sydney at the moment, so we can hang out with them today too. It all works out in the end!

My plans for today:
-Fill in Temporary Visa Form
-Take said form and proof to Stathfield
-If I have the sufficient funds already in my bank account pay for course
-Be enrolled!
-Take photos of pretty poppies in our apartment
-Have a yum lunch out
-Meet up with James' mum and brother to do something like going to the zoo or the aquarium
-Try my hardest to not buy or do anything for work
-Fail at previous plan

Sounds like a good day off to me!

Dawn

This is what the sky looks like just before I leave for work (the weeks I'm on an early shift). It's these mornings that I really need my coffee. Getting up to the dark is not fun. I'm already planning my nap for this afternoon!

In other, much more exciting, news: We got my Temporary Partner Visa!!!! Yay!!!! We're so happy! :) It sounds like it'll be another year and a half until I get the Permanent Partner Visa, which makes me a permanent resident, but WE GOT THE TEMPORARY ONE!!!!

Freshly Brewed Coffee

 

Yesterday I bought a coffee machine. Until now I'd been drinking instant coffee at home, and whilst I'm not a coffee snob and will happily drink the instant stuff, you just can't beat the proper brewed stuff. I love the noise the machine makes. I love the smell it fills the apartment with. I know it's only day one, but I really do love this little purchase. I look forward to spending my early mornings with my coffee machine. 

Our Saturday Out

Today has been a wonderful day. After waking up at ten to eleven (I needed the sleep) and having a coffee, James and I headed out to Broadway for a Movie Date. First we went to Ziggy's Cafe, our favourite place to eat at in Broadway. The pizzas are amazing, the chips are to die for and they do super yummy milkshakes too. Yum. (Speaking of good food, we went to a tapas place called Encasa last night as a staff night out. SO GOOD! If you are in Sydney and want tapas, I recommend this place.) After stuffing ourselves with a half and half pizza and some chips we headed to the movies to watch Monsters University. We felt a little awkward as we were probably the only 'adults' there without children...oh well! Before the movie they showed the Pixar short film 'The Blue Umbrella'. Seriously, Pixar and Disney will be the death of me...a short about an umbrella, with no words, had me on the verge of tears. These people work magic! Plus the animation was AMAZING! Monsters University was good too. :) I laughed. I cried. Now I want to watch Monsters Inc. again.
After the movie we went and got ourselves some new pillows, and a new blanket...we can't get enough of good blankets. I also got a proper coffee machine that I can not wait to try out. It has a auto-timer on it, so you can program it to make you coffee for a certain time, meaning on my early shift mornings I can have some coffee freshly brewed for when I wake up. So excited! We also got a vacuum, because our current one is useless.

It's been a good day.

Mundane Midweek

Today has probably been pretty interesting as far as Wednesdays go.

Our boss wasn't in for the morning because she's feeling really ill; our Admin dude was at Head Office during the morning, and the only permanent staff member in the Toddler room today needed to go home for a bit because of a leak or something. So we had to shift around all sorts of things and sort out lunch covers and all sorts of boring ratio/staffing stuff.
In the afternoon we had a grandparents afternoon tea. This was probably the biggest family event we have had. We had 48 grandparents turn up! It was really nice to see most of the children interacting with their grandparents, and the grandparents were so excited and happy to see how happy their grandkids are. It also made the afternoon go by so quickly, and a lot of children went home early which makes the afternoons a lot less stressful.

We had Domino's for dinner, and quite a bit of beer too. I also booked two days off at the end of July around James' youngest brothers birthday. One of those days James and his youngest brother will be at a Liverpool game, so I'm planning on booking myself in to get a nice spa treat. I am looking forward to it. :)

I kept it brief today, that was my mundane midweek day. Thrilling, right?

My New Camera

 

 

After about 7 months of wanting a new camera, and then 2-3 weeks of excel spread sheets, checking out different cameras, and a LOT of umming and ahhing I finally bought myself a new camera on Thursday: a Samsung NX1000. Due to the weather it's been hard to properly test out the camera, but I have had a little play and am LOVING it! It's so gorgeous and easy to use, and the photos it produces feel like they are of much higher quality than what my old camera produced. My favourite settings on the camera so far are the miniature setting, the macro setting and the panoramic. I can't wait to play with my new camera some more! :)