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Australia

last friday brenda went in for knee surgery to fix a mensicus tear thats been bothering her. but first, a photo of the world’s largest bliss ball!

she has a decade old acl injury, and i think that gave rise to some weakness in the knee… basically its popped out a couple of times in the last year and it was time to take care of it properly! the procedure was only 45 minutes so she only had to spend the morning at the hospital. as the doctor told her, she walked in and hobbled out. she got her bandages off this morning and the doctor told her she is recovering well. hooray!

 

we’ve tried out a wheatgrass delivery service for the week to boost ourselves for recovery/support. the juicer we rented leaves a little to be desired, but harvesting and juicing is a lot of fun! nayou loves to eat the bits of fruit and veggies that come out of the juicer.

while brenda was resting, nayou and i have been making up for lost time. we’ve been on some big adventures in the last couple of days, starting with an impromptu outing to tamarama to see the sculptures by the sea. there were some really cool entries this year. i think my favourite was the big red asian dude. and the moais. they were great as well.

we also had a day at the pool which was really fun. yesterday we checked out the new park at darling harbour. if you live in sydney and you have kids, you NEED to take them there. its amazing – water features, large slides, sand pits with digging things, they have it all! nayou’s clothes came off within minutes of being there 🙂

we also had a peek at the show windows at david jones and said hi to all the toys for sale inside.

most parents seem to have a hard time getting their kids to eat their vegetables (or at least thats the cliche). not with my kid. he double fists his carrots!

nayou seems to have his heart set on some sort of remote control car or boat (depends on the day). he also told me yesterday that he wanted a toy baby and a toy buggy instead so we shall see what ends up on his final list for santa 🙂 he is also intrigued with all of the santas in different department stores. i’d love to take a trip in his head and see what mental picture he has of the whole christmas thing!

now that the surgery is over, we have booked our tickets to bali. december 10th is our departure date. not long now! we’re slowly getting our affairs in order which is good. there’s not long to go now! if all goes well we will be back in sydney for one month in february before heading out to namibia for the mad max shoot. i’m still waiting to see a contract, but at this stage its 99% certain we’ll be going unless warner brothers pulls the plug on the movie (again). fingers crossed!

 

we’ve been having a grand old time this past week, despite me still catching up on sleep and getting over the obligatory post-movie cold. brenda has been amazing getting me back to my normal energy levels. i’m still a bit sniffly but i can tell that i’m going to feel amazing tomorrow. yippee!

here are some recent snaps.

i started drinking coffee again during the tough times at dr. d. now i’m completely hooked again. it doesn’t help that the best cafe in kings cross is close by. and run by some friends of ours.

an impromptu bath outside (the neighbours must think we’re crazy!)

… quickly degenerated into a mud pie factory!

today we spent the morning at boy charleton pool, probably the nicest public pool ever. just look at the view! nayou’s become a much better swimmer since i last saw him in a pool.

we practiced our handstands there as well. this little boy is super strong!

while i was out running errands this afternoon, the rest of my family was having a body painting party!

in terms of intensity, the past ten days rank right up at the top of my time in sydney. right at the point when work was at its most intense, a bunch of my high school friends from switzerland descended upon sydney for justin and peta’s wedding. they arrived a week before the wedding and we started burning the midnight oil right away. and never stopped. don’t get me wrong – its been an awesome, awesome time. but i will say that is was very hard to get out of bed this morning 🙂 even nayou’s magic kiss and cuddle was unable to rouse me, and that usually does the trick right away. i’m still a zombie now, so excuse any incoherent ramblings.

the festivities started officially last tuesday, when we all went to manly for justin’s stag night. in true stag fashion, thomas brought a sheep suit all the way from london, which justin was required to wear until he saw peta again the next day.

i love that its just that little bit too small for him. just to add to the humiliation factor. it was interesting walking behind him and watching peoples’ reactions. especially the kids.

the guys got a very swanky apartment overlooking manly beach. definitely a good choice of venue for hanging out. we even got a chance to see some whales!

i love hanging out with these guys. we’ve known each other since we were 15, although i only became good friends with some of them after we graduated from high school. we don’t see each other often, but its always a good time when we do. we decided to do some promo shots for our upcoming boyband. the guy in the sheep suit wasn’t invited.

mmm lamb korma.

the three of us headed down to kiama on friday afternoon. after getting lost and watching a lady ding our rental car in a mall parking lot, we made it safe and sound to the campground. the sign at the front of the campground claims its 4.5 star camping, and they were not exaggerating. we had a site with an ensuite bathroom which was cleaner than ours. the wedding party rented a cabin which had a jacuzzi, 55 inch tv and a washer/dryer! plus there was a playground and a pool, not to mention the beach a couple of minutes away. very cool. nayou had the time of his life down there 🙂

some kayakers gave nayou the biggest sea urchin, possibly ever.

thomas is one of the chosen few that nayou took to immediately. when thomas brought him ice cream on our first night in kiama, the friendship was sealed forever.

the wedding ceremony was at peta’s parents’ place, about ten minutes out of kiama. the weather was gorgeous all weekend, and the ceremony was truly a pleasure to be part of. you know its a good wedding when the bride and groom can’t wipe the silly grins from their faces the whole time. it was one of those unions that felt very genuine, and i’m so happy to have lost justin to someone so cool (just kidding. about the losing part. ahem.).

nayou made fast friends with the kids at the wedding and spent the evening running around like a madman with them. he even scored a lollipop which he devoured in record time.

and the once the wedding cake came out, that was all he could think about. his one track mindedness was exaggerated by the fact that he was exhausted. nayou tried so hard to stay awake for the cake cutting, but in the end he fell asleep before it.

the advantage to him pointing out which piece of cake he wanted was that i was able to get it and save it for him. the first words out of his mouth the next day was “did you get my cake?”. of course i did! parenting win! then he proceeded to have it for breakfast. parenting fail.

we went back to peta’s parents’ house for a late brunch before heading home. not sure when i’m going to see justin next…. perhaps in bali?!? the rest of the crew have scattered across australia, but i will get a chance to see them again briefly before they head back to their respective countries. by then i’ll be done with work so i fully expect some debauchery 🙂

and a happy and exhausted nayou conked out in the car. definitely the sign of a good weekend!

 

we escaped north today up to stockton beach, which is about 2.5 hours north of sydney, near newcastle. a bunch of friends from work were going quad-biking up on the sand dunes there, so we tagged along and hung out on the beach. it was a gorgeous sunny day with just the right amount of cloud cover in between. for me it was heaven just hanging out on the beach. you kind of forget that there’s a whole world out there when you’re staring at digital penguins for 70+ hours a week!

on friday we also got a chance to hang out with an old friend dave mahfet from seattle. we hadn’t seen each other since we left seattle back in 2004, but we’ve all become addicted to surfing since then so there was plenty to catch up on!

 

 

we’ve got three more weeks to go, and i am so ready to put these 13 hour days behind me. various front end departments are wrapping up, but for me its going to be busy right up until the end. at least i’m going to have a weekend off on the 21st for justin and peta’s wedding. that is going to be so much fun! and you know what else is fun? matt damon and brad pitt and two (un)ambiguously gay krill. our final trailer came out today and here it is in all its glory.

here is the ragtag crew that is my family at work. technically we are the Final Layout department, but we are known in the elite circles simply as “flo”. they are a really nice group of people and i actually will miss them when we go our separate ways in three weeks!

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!