what we did this weekend

the first half of our weekend was all about connections, old and new. there is this dutch couple, kim and gordon, who are living in our hotel with their 18 month old. they have just arrived from a stint in melbourne. brenda has been hanging out a lot with kim, and on friday we finally all had a chance to meet each other and hang out. we went to the markets by moonlight at the rocks which is a great thing to do if you’re in the area! its really relaxed with interesting stalls and places for kids to have a bit of a wander. kim and gordon are cool, and gordin is really into surfing so we had a lot to talk about. they are going to live in manly, which is a great surf spot, so that gives us another excuse to head out there on the weekends!

on saturday i got the honour of catching up with aba, who i have known since i was about thirteen years old. he is the father of my good friend noa, whom i have known since high school. through noa i met her parents and have also become really good friends with them too. we dispensed with names a long time ago and now i just call them aba and ima, which means father and mother in hebrew. aba and ima live in brisbane so coming to sydney brought us closer together but not quite. lucky for me, aba was in town this weekend on business and found some time to come and say hi. we hadn’t seen each other in over a decade and it was amazing to be in his company again. a lot has happened in the time we were apart – i grew up (kind of), became a dad and he beat cancer and found a new lease on life. still, it was like we never had those years apart and he is still just as awesome as i remembered him to be. brenda and i are going to see whether we can make it up to see them in brisbane over new years. fingers crossed our stars will align!

we had big plans to go to the blue mountains on sunday but were foiled by maintenance on the rail tracks and bad weather. sundays are a good day for exploring because for $2.50 each we can ride all day on the buses, ferries and trains. nayou has been dying to ride on one of the articulated buses that run in sydney so we went on a hunt for one in lieu of the blue mountains. unfortunately we were unsuccessful so we made do with an articulated tram and a monorail ride. nayou was none too happy about missing out on the articulated bus, but he came around eventually!

the weather got worse over the course of the day so the afternoon turned into craft time. nayou’s birthday is on thursday and brenda has been wanting to make some tie-dye t-shirts and party gifts for a shindig we are planning. so we busted out the pots, pans and paraphenalia and got busy! the fumes from the dye were a bit strong so we left the door open while we worked. the people walking by must have thought it was a meth lab or something. especially since our room looks like a bomb hit it…

for some reason the directions said to put salt in with the hot water and dye. nayou had a whale of a time playing with the salt and decided to give himself a facial with some of it.

this whole thing started off when brenda found a big basket of kids t-shirts at the salvation army for $1 a piece. they are good quality shirts and come in different sizes. they went in white and came out blue!

we tried a variety of ties using marbles, coins and rubber bands. i not-so secretly thought that the shirts would turn the wearers into crusty hippie kids, but they actually turned out pretty cool!

in addition to birthday planning we are also in the process of organising our move into our house. our move-in date is the 6th (next monday). i think i say this every time i mention the house, but we are very excited to be settling down. we’ve got our utilities all hooked up, internet on its way, and a fridge and temporary bed rented. bring on the good life!