happy feet 2 extended trailer!

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July 30, 2011
Australia, Sydney, Uncategorized
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we’re going full steam ahead with our heads down on happy feet 2. the movie is coming out in november come hell or high water, so the studio is in a bit of a frenzy! i did my first week of overtime, which actually wasn’t nearly as bad as i was anticipating. the only thing that really sucks about overtime is that it cuts out off of the precious family time we have, minus about a hurried hour in the morning. i console myself knowing that the money earned now is fuelling some extended hang out time in just a few short months.

last week we released the first real trailer (we had a teaser out before). neither of them give you any idea what the movie is about, but at least you can look at the pretty pictures. i would be lying if i told you that animated penguins are a passion of mine, but the renders that are going through look really nice. enjoy!

i found a photo stash

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June 19, 2011
Australia, Sydney
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i thought we were rather scant on photos lately and it turns out i had just forgotten to copy stuff from out point and shoot onto our computer. oops. looking back at what’s on there, its clear that we have been rather busy beavers!

earlier this month we finally made it into the inside of the opera house for none other than the extravaganza known as yo gabba gabba! the whole cast was there, including the legendary biz markie. i can’t believe they brought him on tour just to be on stage for less than five minutes. it was a great show, although nayou was a bit over stimulated by the end. it was funny to see a bunch of adults with no kids in attendance. and singing along to all the songs. i like yo gabba gabba as much as the next parent, but i don’t think i would watch it if it wasn’t for nayou. to each their own i guess!

we went with my supervisor paul, his wife josa and their cute kid wyatt.

its still winter here, so there has been a fair amount of rain. which means that there has still been lots of this:

we’ve been making sure nayou stays bundled up when its cold. sometimes he looks very dapper:

… and sometimes he looks like a homeless pirate:

one rainy day we went to see the steam trains at central station. that was pretty cool.

of course june in this household is synonymous with brenda’s birthday. we made a full long weekend out of it (i was “sick” on the 6th) and had a blast. we kicked off the celebrations with presents in bed.

we even left nayou with a non-relative babysitter for the first time ever to go out and party like adults. brenda and nayou met this girl kate who works at the aquatic center near our house, whom nayou adores. she was happy to come and spend an evening with him so it worked out perfectly. i have to admit i was skeptical whether the arrangement would go smoothly – nayou is not exactly the kind of kid who will open up to anyone – but he really really likes kate. when we told him that she was coming over to play while we went out, he was ushering us out the door the moment she arrived!

we didn’t take any photos that evening, but i managed to take a couple the next day when we headed out to bondi for a birthday surf.

followed by a rather indulgent afternoon tea! (indulgent for us, anyway ;))

this weekend we rented a bike trailer from the amazing watershed bike library. we hauled nayou all over the place in this thing! on saturday we rode from potts point all the way to sydney park. nayou really likes it which is cool. it does make my legs tired quickly though. i am a bit of a wimp when it comes to biking 🙂

nayou had a big play at the park, which resulted in this on the way home:

today we rode to circulay quay and took the bikes on the ferry to manly. it was a gorgeous day, and warm enough that nayou could play naked on the beach without getting cold. which is crazy considering the winter solstice is in two days! gotta love sydney for its weather, thats for sure!

the memory card also had a fair amount of video which i will edit and post soon!

 

going pro

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June 9, 2011
Australia, Sydney
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here we are, rushing headlong into mid-july. where did the first half of 2010 go?! i swear time is accelerating. my contract at dr. d is up at the end of september, although they will almost certainly extend it for another month. our lease is up at the beginning of december as well. all of this means that its time to start thinking about what our next move is going to be. brenda and i have weighed up several options, and for now its looking like we will be heading to bali for a couple of months. so many friends from all walks of life have recommended bali to us, and given its proximity to australia it seems like a natural choice. the more i read about the place, the more i want to go.

there is a place in bali called desa seni, which is this gorgeous eco-resort with an emphasis on yoga, organic farming and community integration. they attract master yoga teachers from around the world, and their director of yoga, tara judelle, is amazing. desa seni has a three month resident teacher program, where you teach yoga and become part of the community they have there. the opportunity to teach and practice yoga with these amazing teachers, not to mention live in a community like that, probably doesn’t come up very often. however, the application form is a bit daunting – it says that most teachers have between 5-13 years teaching experience (i have 4), and they have probably been teaching full time for most of those years (i haven’t). it definitely brings up some insecurities i have as a yoga teacher 🙂

still, you never know until you try. and in the interest of promoting myself, i did something i have been meaning to do for ages – create a website to present myself as a yoga teacher. it was a fun process to get back into designing with flash after all these years, and i am pretty satisfied with the final result. so click on over and have a gander: somewhatslanted.com/yoga!

scenes of domestic bliss

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June 6, 2011
Australia, Sydney
2 Comments

i’m going to stop whining about how long its been in between posts. it seems like every time i sit down to write, i start off with something about how long its been. from now on, i’m gonna just write what’s up and leave the excuse making alone 🙂

things have been pretty cruisy lately. nothing major happening, but lots of day-to-day fun. we’ve been enjoying the small stuff this “winter” (sydney winter is like a wellington summer) – going to markets, playing at home or at parks, digging (nayou’s new obsession), reading, that sort of thing.

oh yeah, somewhere in there brenda and i did a ten day juice fast. compared to the lemonade diet that we used to do, it was super easy. i felt amazing afterwards and we have continued on with the juicing in the mornings. here is nayou getting acquainted with the fruits and veggies.

this photo is amazing because it was taken on the front lawn of the house i used to live in back in high school! we stopped by took look at the house on our way back from a market on the north shore, and the owners were super nice and gave us a tour. they are in the midst of a huge renovation – essentially a new house – so i was just in time to see our old kitchen cabinets before they went off to where old cabinets go to die. the owners also found an old box of books that we had left in the attic 17 years ago so we scored some pretty awesome new reading material too!

recent snaps and stuff

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May 16, 2011
Australia, Sydney
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right after the easter break, noa and john were in sydney for two weekends in a row. brenda had piqued john’s curiousity about raw food over easter, so we invited them over for a raw dinner. our mutual friend rebecca (whom noa and i went to high school with) and her husband geremy (not a typo!) have also been keen to get a taste of gourmet raw food so it turned into a bit of a party. brenda prepared an amazing spread – corn chips, guacamole, lasagna and chocolate pudding (all raw!). any skeptics in the room were converted by the end of the night. geremy, who is a chef, has decided to try his hand at raw food and has promised to invite us over soon for a raw feast at his place!

nayou of course was overjoyed at the prospect of meeting play mates, old and new!

brenda has also been busy as a seamstress. on friday she converted one of her old sweaters into a new one for nayou! which is perfect, because it is starting to get seriously cold in sydney. the sun is still shining, but the chill is winning. nayou’s not going to be very cold though!

and here is what went down on saturday morning 🙂

 

easter up north

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May 10, 2011
Australia, Brisbane
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this year for easter we went up to see noa and her parents in brisbane and the sunshine coast, respectively. i had an extra long holiday due to a public holiday right after easter monday, and the air fares were really cheap so it was a no brainer!

after nearly missing our flight thanks to a very tardy shuttle service, we managed to board with time to spare. nayou loves going on planes and its so cute to see him get excited about travelling! he occupied himself quite happily for most of the short flight.

we spent the first two days in brisbane with noa. driving through brisbane we barely saw any damage from the floods – just a couple of shuttered shops. they have done an amazing job picking themselves up!

noa has a really cute place in an area called annerley. nayou wasted little time settling in and attaching himself to noa. especially once he saw her babushka dolls 🙂 here he is helping her water her plants.

the best part of brisbane for me was our visit to the gallery of modern art (aka “the goma”). i love the exterior of the building, and the inside is just as beautiful as well. we managed to catch the final day of an exhibition looking at art in the 21st century. there was lots of interactive installations, including a lego table that nayou and i spent most of our time at.

we built a pretty cool turret thing.

the rest of our holiday was spent up at the sunshine coast with noa, her friend john, and her parents. her family and my family have been friends since i was in high school, so hanging out with them is a bit like a homecoming. brenda and nayou hit it off with them too which was really nice.


nayou was especially enamoured with noa’s dad – he warmed up to him within half an our of us being there and after that they were inseparable!

noa’s mum is one of the most respected suzuki teachers in the world. we all got in touch with our inner musician at her studio, which is in the lower half of their house.

the sunshine coast is very close to noosa, and one of the things we wanted to do was to go surfing. unfortunately it was rainy the whole time we were there, and the swell was very small. we made it out to a local beach for a swim, but will have to come back for some wave riding. it was really fun just hanging out and relaxing though! having lots of adults for nayou to play with makes life much easier for us, plus everyone has fun in the process so it was a win-win situation!

for our final night in queensland we went back to brisbane to stay with some friends from wellington. these were our friends who kindly stored our stuff in their garage while we were in mexico. unfortunately by that time we had left our camera in noa’s car so we didn’t get any snaps 🙁

we managed to take much more video than photos, so here are the greatest hits!

i met katy perry and i liked it!

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May 5, 2011
Australia, Sydney, Uncategorized
2 Comments

aya just keeps the good times coming. hot on the heels of our wonderful soiree at the arthur premiere, she scored us two tickets to go and see katy perry in concert last night. we even had a chance to meet her and have a chat! i ended up going with our friend john, who we met through noa over easter break. he was a good wingman to have as we both kept each other sane as the screams of teenage and not-so-teenage girls swirled around us.

we rocked up to the sydney entertainment center around 6.30, got our passes and went in. the meet & greet started at 6 so we were a bit late and had to wait outside the vip room for a while because the grumpy bouncer wouldn’t let us in. they were letting people in in groups so that everyone can spend some 1-on-1 time with katy. john and i eventually sneaked ourselves in with another group where we were greeted (and hence validated by mr. grumpy bouncer) by angela (katy’s sister).

the whole room had plastic lollipops, fairy floss with blinky lights in it, candy in jars and lots of pink clouds. it was a bit like walking into one of her music videos. john and i marvelled at it all and watch katy spending quality time with her fans. i was struck by how genuine she was with everyone. definitely no diva stuff going on there. eventually katy came up and introduced herself. we shot the breeze for about ten minutes and then angela ushered us away to make way for the next wave of fans. but not before i got her to sign a poster for my department at work. i put it up this morning and it has been a huge hit. many people walk by and don’t believe its real. but then i show them these photos 😉

the concert was pretty much everything you would expect – lots of pastel, costume changes, pyrotechnics, confetti, dancers, the works. katy definitely knows how to put on a good show. john and i had a great time despite ourselves. hehehe. it was a sold out show and there were a lot of people.

i didn’t take many photos (was too busy singing along), but there are some official ones here if you want some visuals.

all in all a great night! thanks again aya!!