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Last weekend we traveled to the Napa of Australia the Hunter Valley. One of my friends Julie celebrated her 30th birthday by organizing 16 friends to meet in the Hunter for a weekend of wine tasting and birthday celebration.
At 10 AM on Saturday morning we boarded a mini-bus to tour the Valley, stopping at 4 wineries, Scarborough, Tulloch, Peterson’s Champagne House and Audrey Wilkins, with a stop for lunch at the Belltree Café (fantastic food). Mark and I did our fair share of tasting, purchased almost 3 cases of wine (most from Tulloch and Audrey Wilkins) and did a little sightseeing.
Mark took particular pleasure at the wine museum at Audrey Wilkins that showcased a number of “Bung Hole Borers”. For those of you not familiar with the phrase "bung hole", just check out an episode of Bevis and Butthead. The party was great fun. Julie is from Texas and works for Dell in Australia, a number of the other guest were also from Texas, at times with the y’alls and country music playing it certainly felt more like I was in Texas than Australia, however once the Kangaroo’s hopped by it was back to Australian reality! On Sunday we were able to visit with my mom, stepdad, cousin and family friend who were all visiting the Hunter Valley as part of their trip to Australia for the Wedding, it was fantastic timing and great to catch up with them post-wedding maddess! -kel
It rained, then it poured, then we got married…The wedding was amazing, the entire day turned out just beautifully (after the rain stopped). The wedding was held at Gunner’s Barracks in Mosman, overlooking the Sydney Harbor. Our guests enjoyed dinner, dancing, quite a few speeches, cake and plenty of alcohol. The night flew by in a blur, Mark and I did manage to speak to almost all of the guests and got in plenty of dancing. Some couples take dancing lessons before the wedding, those of you familiar with Mark’s “moves” would have been very proud when he pulled out the James Brown splits! Other highlights of the wedding included the poem my sister read during the ceremony, Mark’s fingers shaking like crazy as we read our vows, all of the speeches, the toast to Mark’s parents who celebrated their 43rd wedding anniversary on our wedding day, so many friends and family traveling around the world to celebrate with us, John Frize one of Mark’s childhood friends singing “Sweet Caroline” during the reception and going out to the Ivanhoe (a local pub in Manly) after the reception. The entire night with our family and friends was fantastic, the wedding was perfect!
We are hoping to have photos up soon, once we’ve got them we’ll post them here for you all to enjoy. -kel
I'll give credit where credit is due and acknowledge that I stole the title of the blog from my friend (& our wedding photographer) Sam Grimmer who has named the three events Kelly and I are hosting this week the "Festival of the Fergo's". Part I is the wedding rehearsal dinner that doesn't involve a rehearsal.
Rehearsal's are not the norm in Australia and our celebrant being as inflexible as he is with nearly everything (yes, there is more than a
hint of dissatisifaction on our part), wouldn't entertain the idea. We decided to have a dinner in any case as a way for us to spend time with our international-interstate guests in what has been a hectic week. It was also a way of introducing the northern beaches to the people who have decided to camp in the city.
Kelly being a fan of the pizza has had us try out a number of different pizzeria's since we arrived in Australia and by far her favorite is a place called Tropical Italy in Manly... so we decided to have the rehearsal dinner there... great decision! They had erec
ted a special canopy in the courtyard in case the weather turned bad and were generally on top of every request we had, the pizza was awesome (as usual) and more than one person doubled down on the gelato. The McWilliams wine flowed freely (thanks Dave) and everyone had a great time, especially my six year old nephew Corey who took the photos for the night. (The first photo is of my soon to be sister in-law Tiffany & the second is of our mum's).
At the end of the evening I sat enjoying a Makers Mark pondering my last 18 hrs as a single bloke!
Cheers.
With only two weeks away to hosting our first party at our new house, we thought it might be a good idea to rip out the incredibly ancient carpet that had the fruitful odor of cat pee before our closest family and friends arrived for a post wedding brunch. Ripping out the carpet seemed simple enough but then came the great question, how will we get the old carpet to the tip (Aussie for the dump). This required us picking up our new truck Mark had purchased a few months ago from a friend.
Why hadn’t we picked up the truck before this weekend? Mark doesn’t know how to drive a manual, but I do. So off we went to the Wolley’s to pick up the truck, where I had to drive away while Mark drove away in the BMW. This was great fun for me, as most of you know, this was serious blow to the Aussie manhood born and bred into Mark. His woman had to come with him to drive the new truck! What was even better was later when we were at the hardware store when I drove up, Mark was in the passengers seat! I have come to realize most Aussie men are guys guys, very burley, very rugged most have dirt under there nails, you get the picture, you don’t let your fiancé drive you to the hardware store if you are a real Aussie.
Small side note here – Just for you uncle Joe and the Pitt family, while packing and moving to Australia I found a note I wrote and signed when I was 10 years old, to Uncle Joe stating I would never drive the pooper scooper (the pooper scooper was this extremely ugly, old, truck that my dad owned, rusty and peeling paint, that when you started covered the entire car in a cloud of smoke that you had to drive out of, think Batman in a white Datsun Truck minus the glam and cool gatgets) I remember at Christmas the year I wrote this note that I hated the car so much I told Uncle Joe that I would rather walk when I was 16 than ever ever drive the truck. I remember Uncle Joe laughing at my stubbornness and telling me to write that down. I did drive that truck, and I don’t know what I promised Uncle Joe I would do if I did when I was 10, but I owe him big time, I drove that truck more than 100 times I am certain. Yesterday while driving around in our new truck it dawned on me that our new truck had just the same feel, that someday it could be my kids pooper scooper if I put it through enough wear and tear!
We ripped out all of the carpet, dug out one of the many flower beds in the house, loaded the truck up for a trip to the tip and completed our very first step of the remodel! Now all we have is about 1000 more hours in the yard, council approvals, lots of workmen, half the house torn apart and rebuilt and we’re ready to move in! One way or the other, I am determined to spend next Christmas in the house, at this point we might be camping in the backyard! Oh and look for my next blog all about teaching Mark how to drive a manual! This is going to be great fun! - kel
