2013 - The second half

Not a good year for our blog! So taking it from July ...

The highlight without a doubt was our family vacation to Fiji. The time on the mainland was OK, the kids would argue very OK as they appreciate any stays in hotels that have multiple swimming pools. The majority of the holiday was spent on Castaway Island – absolutely brilliant – stunningly beautiful as close to what you dream a tropical island should look like as you get, lots of family activity, really good independent entertainment for the kids and surprisingly good food. The highlights were kayaking around the whole island (about 2.5 hours) with Kelly and Luca and a climb to the top of the island to see the stunning views. The lowlight – I tipped the kayak that Scout and I were riding in early in the holiday and she wouldn’t get on one again. Highly likely we will go back, also likely IF we get Scout on a kayak again it will be with Kelly.

sunset Castaway Island - Fiji

Luca and Scout have both been busy with school and sport. They have both come a long way with their swimming and especially their confidence in the ocean – Scouty is in there now diving under the big waves and Luca and Kelly have even started surfing. Luca finished his second season of football (soccer), Scout has been doing ballet and recently had her big end of year concert, and they both did a couple of tennis camps.  Hopefully next year I will be writing about how well Luca can play the guitar and that Scouty is riding her bike without training wheels – both of these initiatives are under way.  

Luca and mates at Luna Park for his birthday

Luca celebrated his 7th birthday with a trip to Luna Park (local amusement park under the Sydney Harbour Bridge) with a few of his mates and dinner at his favourite restaurant with the family. We battled a mini-tsunami to celebrate Kelly’s birthday at the sister restaurant to our favourite Sydney restaurant (and anniversary ‘spot’). With my sister Susie and her family (over from Perth) and my parents joining us at home,  Kelly put on a Mexican food extravaganza for my birthday. 

We held our annual Christmas eve party with about 40 guests – I say ‘we’ but really I am there to drink and talk and get a few bags of ice, Kelly busts her chops in the lead up and is definitely the hostess with mostess and leaves everybody marvelling at the food, presentation and chance to catch up or meet a few new people.

We watched Luca’s favourite rugby league team, the Sea Eagles,  make the grand final (like a Superbowl equivalent) and I tried my best to get him fired up while watching the game but to no avail – he is such a laid back kid! Unfortunately the Sea Eagles lost in a thriller. I however got very fired up mid day during work listening to the Red Sox win the world series (again!) while everyone around me had no idea what the commotion was about –  “Ohhh! baseball”.

Scout before her ballet concert

We revisted many of our favourite hikes around Sydney and found a few new ones and generally tried to go exploring the city as much as possible – often with a stop into our favourite Messina Gelato on the way home (even if it really isn’t on the way home).

We added a new raised bed in the garden at home – not ready for winter peas (but we did really well out of those in any case) – but ready for summer and the monster harvest of many mini tomato varieties as well as a few Roma’s, some beans and hopefully still zucchini’s and cucumber’s to come. The lowlight of the garden was that I lost the battle with the stink bugs for the orange tree – and I will only get five oranges off it this year.

So there it is, a quick catch up for 2013 and a promise to do slightly better with blog in 2014 – I guess sort of a new year’s resolution. All the best for 2014.