IT'S MY PARTY

Just a little tease...

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BUT WHAT ABOUT THE PRESENTS?!

I forgot to post some pics and stuff about Charlotte's birthday presents. Kristin & I got her some building blocks, which she can pull apart and pack away but not build yet (a future in demolition?!) along with assorted puzzles and books. She was also spoiled by her grandparents on both sides!

Sitting in the livingroom with the sun on her back... awwww

Charlotte pushes her new toy thing!

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HIPPO BIRDIES TWO EWES

And many Hippo returns!

Charlotte's 1st Birthday was yesterday. It was a busy day, I was busy in the morning running around like a chook with its head cut off, around lunch we went to Taronga Zoo, then in the evening Kristin & I went to Charlotte's Day Care Centre for a meeting to see what all the fuss was about (the privately run center has recently been bought by a Group that has 36 or centers and is poorly communicating changes).

A couple of pics!

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SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING OLD PT2

So last night Kristin and I went to the shops and she treated me to some new boxer shorts! Yay! After picking out my choice of underdax, we made our way to... wait for it... Mac Centric, an Apple store to pic up my very own 30G iPod Photo!!

Before I start ranting and raving about this lovely product I would like to thank all those who had a hand in making it possible. Props to Kristin & Charlotte, Mum & Dad, Peter & Valerie, Tim, The Heaps, Gerard & Briar, and Wayne!!

This thing is great! I now have all my contact details, all my calendar info, all of my photos (3,176), all of my music (3,954), all of my musics cover art (around 70% of total songs), a colour screen, loud sound and 4 fun games... no seriously, they're fun!

The problem I'm facing is what do I listen to? Up to today I had a MiniDisk player that I had to 'record' songs onto 'tapes' so I only put the cream of the crop on them. Now that I have my library at my fingertips, do I listen to songs I haven't listened to much? How about just listen to them all in order... but what order? Artist, starting with 2 Unlimited (No Limit) and finishing with ZZ Top (La Grange)? Or how about Albums, starting with ...Art (Regurgitator) and finishing with You Can Take What's Mine (george)? I could sort it by song and start with ! (Song Formerly Known As) (Regurgitator) and finishing with Ziggy Stardust (Ziggy Stardust AKA David Bowie)?!

Oh, and by the way, the something old is my headphones ;)

And now the fun begins... don't worry Tim, the pic is on its way :P

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5/5/05

Today is my birthday... and I'm at work! Oh well you can't win then all. Kristin is taking me to the shops tonight for a surprise... hmmm, I'll have to let you know what happened tomorrow ;)

Charlotte is whingeing a lot more and we can see her two front teeth bulging (and one or two more just to make things interesting). She is getting confident with standing up without any support, but with that she is falling over more and getting a few bumps and bruises.

Just a quick post. More tomorrow

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2 YEARS

Kristin and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary yesterday (Yay we've reached Cotton!). I took her out to dinner to a restaurant called Rocket in Chatswood (thanks Ben). It was a lovely night, nice food wine and atmosphere (there were maybe 2 other groups there). It's mostly seafood orientated, I had the scollops to start and the Barra for main. Kristin asked for some oysters (6 natural, 6 kill Patrick) then the King Prawns, man, those prawns rocked! If you're interested you can check out the menu.

What we're looking forward to though is our 'real' celebrations. This Saturday we are off to The Lion King to see what all the fuss is about. Mind you we will be in the back row (yes, yes I've been told it looks better from further back but we'll be back row people!), I'll surly post about it after the weekend.

More photos will be on the way but if you are in a clicking mood check out Tim's Flickr, thanks go to Chris for Tim's Pro account.

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ONE WEDDING & A 50TH

Friday night saw a group of Kristin's aunts, uncles and cousins who were down for the wedding come over for a bbq. It was great to catch up and good for Gerard to say g'day for he was quite busy on his wedding day and would already be on his Honeymoon on Sunday.

Saturday, D-Day. We had a nice start to the day and the Groomsmen all had a swim (with a few swinging floating devices, watch that face Gerard!!) and a shot of Port (or something, I'll edit this bit when Tim writes a comment to tell me what it was) to calm the nerves.

Everyone made it to the church on time and the Bride was even a minute or two early! The storm started with some rumbling just as the beautiful Bride was walking down the isle. The ceremony itself was very nice with Charlotte (I've made it this far without mentioning her) charming the pants off everyone and letting out a few trademark laughs. It all went smoothly with a few shaking hands and plenty of tender moments (awwww).

The reception was at Avondale Golf Club where, for the trivia hounds out there, mum was married the first time over 35 years ago and had not been back since and also my great grandfather Philip Howard Goldfinch was a chief founding member. It was laid out well and had a very comfy 'country club' feeling to it. Being MC on the night it would be silly of me to say that it didn't run well, but from the feedback I got (I mean really, who's going to say you did a crap job) it was a success! They had a live band with singers and they were definitely a huge hit (and they were the backup plan!)

I got mum on the case to figure out where Gerard & Briar were going for their Honeymoon (they wouldn't tell us!), all we had was that they had to have a soft bag and could not carry over 12kgs. From this mum figured that it would have to be a helicopter flight somewhere and one of the only places that you would have to take a helicopter to is Heron Island... and she was right!

Sunday was going to be a small gathering of family for a brunch but to Valerie's surprise, Peter (with Kristin's help) had arranged for 60 or so of her friends, colleagues and family to arrive to celebrate her 50th! Mum was catering for the brunch and she did a stellar job. On offer was the usual Champagne & orange juice, muesli, fruits and juices but the topper was the marinated tomato, pancetta, fontina cheese and basil on Turkish bread toasted on the bbq, yum!!!

Last night was another quite catchup with a few of the remaining relos, and an early night for all!!

Pics to come, keep an eye out for Tim's update with pics (there may just be one of me ;) ).

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PROGRESS REPORT #1

I think we can now say that Charlotte is crawling. She is up on her knees and gets a few movements before flopping. She is a master at the 'commando crawl' and if you sit her up, she can get herself back down into crawling mode (not just by falling back).

(more progress reports to come when they happen)

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FIRST DAY

Charlotte had her first day (half day really) of Child Care on Thursday. Kristin reluctantly dropped her of in the morning and while Charlotte wasn't phased and was more than happy to stuff her face with 'new' toys, Kristin felt some loss in leaving her little chicken 'strangers' at this tender age (7 months). Kristin got a pleasant surprise when she saw her mum waiting for her out the front of the Centre to show support and make sure she was ok (a give a lift to the train station). Thanks Valerie.

Kristin is now working Thursdays and Fridays back at Ambition in a new roll that will fill those day quite easily!

While we have our reservations for sending Charlotte into Day Care so soon, we have weighed up the Pros & Cons and it works out in favor of the Pros in our case.

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THINKING...

Alex Lloyd closed the Australia Unites - Reach Out To Asia concert on Saturday night with his biggest hit "Amazing". It was the exclamation mark at the end of a sentence that read We Care.

In our abode (ok, we watched it on the in-laws TV downstairs), we had a little get together and everyone that was there donated to the Red Cross Tsunami Appeal. By the end of the broadcast Australians had pledged through phone, SMS & the web AU$15 million, by 2am Sunday that amount topped AU$20 million, that's $1 for every man, woman & child living in this country.

wow

One thing that has made me think is, is it because all of these millions of people were affected by this disaster in only hours perhaps minutes that we have given our hearts and part of our wallets (and our hands in some cases) to help these people? Following are just a few points about only one of the many issues the Human race has facing it today:
AIDS
• According to the World Health Organization 34.3 million people in the world have the AIDS virus. 24.5 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Nearly 19 million have died from AIDS, 3.8 million of them children under the age 15.
• 5.4 million new AIDS cases in 1999, 4 million of them in Africa.
• 2.8 million died of AIDS IN 1999, 2.4 million of them in Africa.
• 13.2 million children orphaned by AIDS, 12.1 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Reduced life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa from 59yrs to 45yrs between 2005 and 2010, and in Zimbabwe from 61yrs to 33yrs.

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HAPPY 2005

Happy New Years everyone.

We had a very quite night last night. A couple from our mothers group came over in the afternoon and left around 9pm or so. We did have thoughts of staying up but it has been a bust week or so and thought "Hey why don't we just tape the fireworks?!"... so we did.

Kristin set her alarm for 11:50pm but never got up. I was woken by Kristin saying Happy New Year! We then preceded to receive text message after text message, which reminds me I should turn my phone back on.

I think we'll just be taking the first few days of this new year slowly and enjoy me being at home before I have to start work again on the 4th.

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BUSY WEEKEND

Friday:
* Phil goes to a work suppliers drinks at Parramatta One World Sport followed by a dinner down the road at a Malaysian restaurant.
Saturday:
* Phil & Kristin have Kristin's Mothers Group over at our place (10 babies and their parents) for Christmas morning tea/lunch.
* Kristin goes to a baby shower
* Phil goes to farewell drinks for two mates in the City
Sunday:
* Phil, Kristin & Charlotte go to a Christmas/Birthday lunch at Mosman Bowling Club
* Four of Kristin's relatives are in town and two will be staying with us. We have a nice Christmas dinner for Wayne who is on his way to Europe today till February. Safe trip Wayne.

The silly season is well and truly upon us
Some photos to come...

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5 TIMES IN 4 YEARS

Kristin & I have moved 5 times in the past 4 years. This kind of nomadic life is not foreign to Kristin though, her father was in the air-force for the majority of her childhood. For me on the other hand (if you exclude being born in Wellington), I had only moved once and that was when I was 17.

Starting at 7am and with some helping hands from Dan, Brett, Gerard & Dad we managed to load the truck and get over to Lindfield in one piece. Brendan joined us to unload and we were all done and dusted by 1pm. I had not finished though, and after lunch Gerard and his friend Andrew loaded the few possessions Gerard & Briar have accumulated so far and moved them to Hornsby (into the apartment we have just left) for their impending move post wedding (this Feb).

Thanks go to all those mentioned above and also to Nicola for helping Kristin look after Charlotte and to arrange the kitchen ;) I also can't forget Nick who made a special guest appearance to help get the pool set up.

Last and by no means least, to Kristin for all that she did in getting the truck and countless other elements in place to make this move one of the easiest to date. We still do not have internet connection at home and thus have not been able to send a change of address to peoples and to check our email. We should be online in the next day or two.

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TAHLEE/WEDDING

Here are some pictures from the weekend. I'll edit this post and add comments to them later in the week.

Mum & Bub

Great Great-Grand-Parents

Charlotte & Bop

Family Fun

I Love Your Nails

The Reception

Fireplace

Cutting The Cake

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