i was kind-of-sort-of-not-really naughty today. i took the morning off work so i could have a little family time amidst the suck that is overtime. actually it wasn’t naughty at all, it was amazing. hehehe. i was partly motivated by the fact that today was nayou’s last gymbaroo class with noelene, the lady that runs it. over the course of the last few months nayou has really grown attached to her, which is something he does very rarely to people. the gymbaroo franchise changed owners and so noelene got let go, which is kind of a bummer, but i guess you can’t fight change. this morning’s gymbaroo was the last one with noelene, and i’ve been wanting to see what it was all about so it seemed like a good idea.

the classes are really short – about an hour each – and quite structured. there is some free-for-all anarchy but its mostly short activities like dancing and show-n-tell and the like. it was great to see nayou so animated! since i really only get to see him for extended periods of time on sundays right now i am noticing big changes in him much more. his stamina and strength has gone up considerably lately. before we would always leave the house with the buggy or the scooter because he would get tired, but these days he practically sprints 900m (almost 3,000ft) uphill from our house to kings cross station. and that’s for a warm up. he likes to climb, balance and jump on/off stuff as well. sometimes its like watching toddler parkour.

i took lots of video to share with you 🙂 i just watched the video and realised that the editing makes it look like noelene ignores nayou a bit, but i just want to say that its totally not the case! she is really awesome with him… nayou wouldn’t be all over her if she wasn’t!

o glorious day! i am writing this just after 5pm on sunday while waiting for nayou to come home after spending the day with uncle colin and aunty yanny. brenda and i spent the whole day in adult land, and it was awesome. we kicked off the morning in style at a screening of my favourite anime tekkonkinkreet at the opera house. the showing was part of a graphic storytelling festival, which is the kind of thing that makes me appreciate living in a city like sydney. the screening was accompanied by live music from a duo called plaid, who did the original score for the movie. i love how the opera house is loosening up and hosting all these cool events. brenda and i were laughing that the two times we’ve been to the opera house were to see yo gabba gabba live, and a movie.

after the movie we wandered around the rocks for a bit, followed by a late lunch at mad pizza, afternoon tea at room 10 and then home. halfway through our day we realised that we’d left the house with no keys and were locked out. our kitchen window was open, but its about 3m from the ground and it has bars on the window. normally this would be a hopeless situation, but as luck would have it there are several long ladders in our building, and brenda has been stashing nayou’s collection of long sticks in the hedges by our house. so armed with a ladder, a long stick and brenda’s ninja skills we managed to fish out the keys that were hanging up in our kitchen. yeehaw!

nayou was soooo excited to see yanny and colin this morning. he is going through a phase where he is being really funny (and not in a ha-ha way) with people lately, so it was good to see him actually looking forward to hanging out with someone other than us. yanny is amazing as well – she sends us photos and txts of the goings on so we know he is having a good time. not that i think its possible for nayou not to have fun with them! a big thanks to them for giving us some much needed time alone!

they’re going to be here any minute now so i will leave you with a short video of recent random bits. the indoor gym-like place is this weekly thing called gymbaroo that nayou goes to. there is a shot of him sitting in noelene’s lap, who is the lady that runs the sessions. it was a long road to friendship for those two but now nayou loves her!

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!

it came out at just over ten minutes to get a cup of tea and sit down!

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!!

it seems as though easter is a much bigger deal in sydney than it is in other places (although semana santa in sayulita was pretty out of control). this year the easter holidays are followed by anzac day so everyone is going away for some r&r. i’m writing this post on friday evening and scheduling it to be posted a bit later so you all have something to enjoy on easter sunday 🙂 by the time you read this we will be up in brisbane/noosa visiting noa, her parents and clara and richard who are friends of ours from wellington. we’ll be back wednesday morning.

hope you’re all having a wonderful easter break everyone! here is a video we took of us painting easter eggs last wednesday 🙂

you may or may nor know that my sister aya is the estate manager for russell brand and katy perry. while her work related stories assure me that this is not nearly as glamorous as it sounds, other members of her family (like myself) get to reap the benefits of proximity to celebrity. case in point – the premiere of russell’s new movie arthur was on friday night and brenda, myself and some other friends got to attend!

we showed up in time to see russell do the slow walk down the red carpet and also see some other random b-listers follow suit (ronan keating anyone?). i didn’t really know whether we had tickets to just the movie or to the whole vip/red carpet area (it was the latter), so by the time i asked the people in charge we were the last people to strut down the walk of fame. it was funny to see everyone start taking photos of us as we set foot onto the red carpet and then stop suddenly as they realised we weren’t famous in any way at all. that’s cool – it comforts me to know that we are on the same memory card as russell brand. that is the closest to celebrity status as anyone can hope for right?

unfortunately we didn’t get to meet russell in person but he did come into the cinema before the movie to joke around. he is a very funny guy and it was hard not to like him. the movie itself was good as well. its not going to win any awards, but as far as romantic comedies go its fine. its getting slammed in the reviews, but i am decidedly not a rom-com sort of a guy and i enjoyed it so that’s saying something. one of the best parts about the whole premiere is that we were each allowed to take three things from the concession stand for free. we were literally kids in a candy store once we found out. what i can i say – we are easy to please!

after the movie brenda, sean and i went out to my favourite bar in sydney for a drink and went home for a nice long sleep. we were so excited to not have to wake up early in the morning for a change! i took full advantage and woke up at 11am on saturday, but brenda couldn’t kick the habit and was up and about at 8. its still nice to get up early if you can do whatever you want though 🙂

so where was nayou while his parents were out cavorting? he was in the good hands of my aunty yanny, uncle colin and my cousins! this was his first time staying over away from us without his grandma so it was a pretty big deal. plus he hadn’t seen yanny or colin since new year’s so we weren’t sure how things would work out. when we told him about the sleep over on friday morning he was decidedly not keen on it. we were worried that brenda would have to stay home with him, but yanny was absolutely amazing and let nayou warm up to her in his own time. by the time brenda left their house he barely even said goodbye to her! so nayou got to spend some time with his relatives (including his great grandma!) while we partied on knowing he was in good hands. yanny was truly a rockstar because she also knew that we were a bit worried so she kept us up to date with text messages and photos throughout the evening. that made all the difference for us and we are both really grateful for that extra touch!

a big thank you to aya for getting us the tickets and to yanny, colin and everyone else for making it such a smooth and stress free experience for us! it was wonderful to have a night off and to have such a cool event to spend it at!