Tag Archives: Beach

Our Curious Life: Week 1

Posted in Family, Life, The List by

Ok… a new year means a fresh start and a good opportunity to try something new… so this year on the blog I thought I would try a new method of weekly blogging, one that I saw on one of favourite bloggers, Shutterbean, and it seems super simple… although that’s usually a cue for me to totally over complicate it.

Anyway, it’s just a recap of sorts of the week that’s been… somewhere I could write about our listing adventures, share some pictures, and quickly recap. I am a little worried mine will start to read a little like a grade 5 diary entry… but hey, when it really all comes down to it, this is here for me… and if you love it too, excellent.

So the plan is at the end of each week… probably Sunday (which is technically the start of the next week) I will write this… which will help my regular blogging, help me to record some fun things… and maybe the not fun things, and give me a little “me goal”… which I already have way to many of… but maybe a “me goal” that I might actually achieve.

So here we go:

January is a funny time… a new year brings lots of potential… a little associated pressure and some really really big plans.  It fills me with hope, but also stress that this is the year that I have to fix/complete/try/achieve x y & z… some of which I bring on myself with a little thing I like to call the list but also for those things that don’t make it on to the official list.  The lists in my head, the lists on our bench, and the lists I didn’t even know I was keeping.

But so far so good… it’s summer and lets face it everything feels better in summer.   So this week, I was glad I posted the new list… but a little disappointed that I never quite managed to finish my recap of last years list, blog thanks to my computer breaking down… I will finish it, but it turns out there is even less time to blog now that Isaac is at home.  But we did manage to cross a few things off the new list…

97. Fix my computer – completed: 02/01/2018
My computer had a moment on new years eve… and after a few hours on the phone to apple support it seems to be back… although it’s probably time I really start saving for a new one… I think it could be on borrowed time.

89. Update some photo wall photos – completed: 03/01/2018
There are still a couple more that need updating, and it is unlikely that this is the only time I change some of the pictures, but we have updated 3, and I figure that’s enough to cross this off.

92. See coco – completed: 06/01/2018
Yep, but I didn’t take the baby… I finally have a valid reason to indulge my love of Disney… but I left him at home with his Dad and went with some of my besties instead.  And unsurprisingly I cried like a little baby.

We started the new year at the beach, and I got my first real dose of fomo… (fear of missing out, for all of those who are playing at home, who unlike me have embraced their age and don’t try to keep up with the cool kids).  It turns out, that even though I knew life would be different with a baby, I hadn’t really thought about what that looked like on holidays.  It turns out going to the beach and spending hours in the ocean without a care in the world will probably never happen again… we may be able to spend hours in the ocean… but we need a few years and a few hundred swimming lessons… and I will probably always be worried about Isaac.  So this summer we just walked near the beach… because our pram does not like sand and neither does oxygen tanks or tiny nose prongs.

When went for a few late night family walks…

Swam in the pool at my Dad’s place for the first time in year… why I have I not been doing this more often?

And Isaac turned 5months old… far out… how did that happen?   So we celebrated with two little photoshoots.  One on the actual day, and one a few days later, because I forgot to take the milestone card to the beach with me.  But at 5months, he is super smiley, starting to coo and getting bigger everyday… right on track for being 8weeks corrected.

So there you go… week one.

 

Halfway point 

Posted in Life, The List by

Just like every year, this year is flying and without really any warning at all we have reached July… which is the halfway point… so what better time to do a quick list update.  I think the list is actually traveling along quite nicely… but I will let you decide for yourself.  Like always, those list tasks that already have a blog or a picture of their own have a hyperlink, so you can go back a read all about it… but I have included the ‘official’ list picture too, just for some fun.  Oh and any that have been completed but seemingly flown under the radar you can read about here…. ok, here we go halftime update.

1. Visit Hobbiton – completed: 01/01/15

3. Do another Pinterest craft – completed: 13/02/15

4. Make my own hot cross buns – completed: 05/04/15

7. Eat something I have planted – completed: 27/01/15
The veggie patch is still going strong, although I think we have enough chillies to last a life time.

9. Go to two weddings – completed: 21/02/15
(wedding 1, wedding 2)
Two beautiful weddings I might add, the first our friends Ben and Annie and the second my Mums. 

10. Order fish at a restaurant – completed: 06/01/15

12. Have a weekend away – completed: 26/04/15

14. Work as a classroom teacher – completed: 13/03/15
Yep it’s happening, at the moment it is just emergency relief teaching, but it is teaching in a classroom all the same.

17. Do some trivia – completed: 17/01/15
Ok so it wasn’t quite the trivia I had in mind, but there were several rounds of buzz and it is a trivia game, so it is off the list. 

21. See some black sand – completed: 02/01/15

22. Put some new photos up around the house – completed: 11/04/15

24. Ride a rollercoaster – completed: 09/04/14
Winner birthday inclusion from 1 Dave George!  It may have just been the scenic railway at Lunar Park, but its a coaster of sorts and was enough fun to warrant crossing this off the list.

26. See a movie at the drive-in – completed: 14/02/15
What better way to celebrate valentines day than at the drive-in?  There is none, seriously I don’t the drive-in will ever go out of fashion

29. Take a selfie with the selfie stick fully extended – completed: 10/01/15

30. Go to the beach at least 5 times – completed: 26/01/15
Split over 2 countries in the once summer means 5 different beautiful beaches.

33. Rent a bike and go on an adventure – completed: 03/01/15

34. Stay at the Langham – completed: 07/01/15

35. Go Hiking – completed: 03/01/15

37. Make a playlist for each season
Well we are now into our third season this year… so two playlists are done.
Summer:
– Burn Like a Star – Rend Collective
– My Lighthouse – Rend Collective
– Shake It Off – Taylor Swift
– Style – Taylor Swift
– Out Of The Woods – Taylor Swift
– Blank Space – Taylor Swift
– Welcome To New York – Taylor Swift
– I Am Australian – Travis Collins
– Uptown Funk (feat. Bruno Mars) – Mark Ronson
– Ever Be – Bethel Music

Autumn:
– American Honey – Lady Antebellum
– Forever – Bethel Music
– Wasn’t Expecting That – Jamie Lawson
– Trouble (feat. Jennifer Hudson) – Iggy Azalea
– Shut Up and Dance – Walk the Moon
– Sexual Healing – Hot 8 Brass Band
– Marvin Gaye (feat. Meghan Trainor) – Charlie Puth
– You’re The Voice – John Farnham
– How Can We Be Lovers – Michael Bolton

44. Knit a scarf – completed: 30/05/15
Hand knitted… as in… with my hands… as the knitting needles… and it turned out ok…. but took a lot longer than the 30 minutes the YouTube I watched told me it would.

45. Read a book on a subject you wouldn’t normally choose – completed: 08/06/15
This year I have been part of a new bookclub… which I mention breifly here… and I love it, I have read 3 books now that I probably would never have read without prompting and one I chose.  2 of the 3 were books that I would have read if recommended to me, but probably would other wise not come across and one was completely not on my raider.  I had heard of it… mostly because it’s title is my name… but it was in a genre that I just never really got into.  I think probably because I found them more challenging to read, and couldn’t do it as a little mind escape… it took effort.  But May’s bookclub book… which turned out would also become June’s as well was Emma by Jane Austen, a classic.  And even though I would have never chosen it myself… I am glad Kirsten did, because it does share my name and once I got used to the style of writing I actually loved it.   So time well spent and no. 45 off the list.

50. Learn something in sign language – completed: 08/06/15
So I have always had a fascination with Auslan and how incredible it is… so I popped learning some of it on my list this year.  Conveniently one of my besties recently did an Auslan course and shared some of her knowledge with me… and we made a little video.  Click the link to check it out. 

52. See two oceans meet – completed: 05/01/15

53. Go in a sea vessel… kayak, canoe, paddle boat, regular boat… whatever – completed: 06/01/15

64. Eat a Feijoa – completed: 15/04/15
Delicious and sweet… I really don’t understand why these don’t take off here.  Seriously they are delicious

65. Go on a luge – completed: 03/01/14

66. Swim in a thermal pool – completed: 02/01/15

70. See a Musical – completed: 07/02/15
January date night at Once with Davo.  Quite different to the musicals I usually go to, but still a winner, let’s face it musicals usually are. 

71. Read 15 books
Ok so it isn’t quite completed yet, but it is on it’s way… I’ve read 10 so far, 5 to go, but here are the ones I’ve read to date:

    • The Storyteller – Jodi Picoult (finished 26/01/15)
    • Still Alice – Lisa Genova (finished 09/02/15)
    • Leaving Time – Jodi Picoult (Finished 22/02/15)
    • Wild – Cheryl Strayed (21/03/15)
    • Divergent – Veronica Roth (02/04/15)
    • Child 44 – Tom Rob Smith (10/04/15)
    • Useful – Debra Oswald (05/05/15)
    • Emma – Jane Austen (08/06/15) 
    • The Burnt House – Faye Kellerman (18/06/15)
    • If I Stay – Gayle Foreman (25/06/15)

74. Have a mocktail – completed: 17/02/15
Thanks to a fun hen’s night for my mum this is now off the list!

79. See Big Hero6 – completed: 30/05/15
We didn’t see it on the big screen like I thought we would, but we did see it in the comfort of our lounge and it was wonderful as all disney movies are… seriously I can’t think of an animated dud.

82. Do some colouring – completed: 08/05/15
Apparently adult colouring is a thing now… just another thing that I seems to have been into before it was cool… so much before that I was uncool… but now I can embrace it… seriously embrace it because its a thing… a real anti-stress thing. 

83. Go to a live sporting event – completed: 08/01/15

85. Have High Tea – completed: 07/02/15
Celebrating mum as a bride to be also meant that we got to have high tea, and as all high teas are it was beautiful and delicious. 

87. Learn a new skill – completed: 10/05/15

90. Ride a push bike without tears – completed: 03/01/15

93. Go to a farmers market – completed: 26/04/15

95. Do something handy at home – completed: 14/02/15
Now that we have our own home we can change it whenever we want… so at the moment we are preparing the backyard for a deck, so far I have drilled, hammer, shoveled and use some power tools I don’t actually know the name off, but it is fun… and you’ll get to see some pictures when it is done. 

99. See a wild swimming animal – completed: 06/01/15

100. Touch a volcano – completed: 02/01/15

Christmas in New Zealand

Posted in God, Life by

So Christmas has come and gone and I missed posting something about it because it turns out just like costal towns in Australia, the costal towns in New Zealand don’t always have the best Internet reception… So here it is a little late, but here all the same!

Christmas is a time to celebrate joy and love with those you love, and while for Dave and I it has steadily gotten harder for us to see all the people we love on Christmas Day, for the last 10years, while we have been together, I have been pretty blessed in that at Christmas. I have been able to see and spend time with my family, if not on Christmas Day then on the surrounding days. But this year it’s a little different, this year I am away for Christmas, still with family, but with different family than the last 10 Christmases… In fact different from the last 27 Christmases… This year it’s Christmas with the George’s… Well the extended Georges… Kind of, and its been really nice.

I have to admit there were lots of things I missed from home, the biggest ones being seeing my brothers, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles on Christmas morning… And carols by candlelight… I really struggled not being able to enjoy the carols of Dennis Walter and Sylvie or being able to laugh at David Hobson, while secretly enjoying they fact that someone has sung Holy City! But thanks to the marvel that is the mobile phone (after a wrong number to some poor random in New Zealand) I was able to speak to home, and then celebrate in a slightly different fashion.

It is an odd feeling being a random at Christmas, but it was actually a great day. Dave and I were warmly welcomed and included in a delicious summer Christmas feast. We also walked on the black sand of the Otaki beach and enjoyed the surprisingly good New Zealand weather.

It turns out that even with family that we don’t spend a whole lot of time with, Christmas is still the same! Love and joy are celebrated and embraced and shared and it is still wonderful! It’s a day, I know not for all, but at least for me, I get to experience heaven on earth in the love that Christ came to bring.  I can witness joy on the face of Dave’s grandma as she laughs at a corny Christmas joke. I get to be part of the excitement as Dave’s Dad creates the wonder of Santa with a $5 warehouse scavenger hunt. And I get to be thankful for all that I have… I am truly blessed.

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Fake Tan and Green Juice

Posted in Life, The List by

It’s been long time since I have been on a girls weekend away, in fact I think the last time I did something similar was for my own bridesmaid get away and I had forgotten how refreshing it is to do something different and how much fun these girls are! We just headed down to the beach for a quick trip before my best friend Kirsten gets married, and while what happens on a girls weekend should probably stay on a girls weekend, there are a few things that need to be made public… mostly because the weekend away also seemed like the perfect opportunity to cross some things off the list… and they can’t really be crossed off in secret. Over the weekend I crossed a whole stack of things off my list, but actually the whole past week has been a list frenzy… let me take you through what’s was crossed off before we went away…

No. 38 Cook Fish
On Tuesday night I cooked fish – I know this doesn’t sound like a big deal but it is. It’s something that I had never done before.  if I was put on the spot I wouldn’t know what fish to get, what to do with it, how to cook it or what to eat with it… cooking fish is a big hole in my cooking knowledge (it’s actually one of many large holes in my cooking skills knowledge but that’s another story). The idea of cooking fish, even just touching fish makes me nervous, even though I know I need to be eating a lot more of it. But now the first one is done… and while it wasn’t the healthiest meal in the world, these little fish burgers from one of my Donna Hay cook books turned out pretty good.

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No. 19 Help someone set up a blog
Thursday morning I helped a friend start a blog and actually later that night I got asked to help someone else as well.  I am really excited about these new blogs because I think they are both going to be winners… but I’ll blog more about the blogs later when they are a little more ready.

No. 51 Get a fake tan
I was super nervous about this… like super super duper nervous, the last fake tan I tried was just before my wedding, I had asked for a super light tan as because I am super pale I didn’t want to look ridiculous… but it was dark… really dark, and awful… just the wrong color and a bad experience all added to the stress of my pending nuptials. So this time round, I was trialing a tan for Kirsten’s wedding, and I wanted to make sure it was right (no one wants an oompa lompa in their bridal party).  So Friday afternoon I went to a friend who has her own beautician business (Donvale Beauty Therapy… check it), and once again asked for a light tan… rather than what I got last time… and it has turned out really nicely… so much better than I could have imagined, and it was perfect to have on the beach! Thanks Hollie.

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So still drying and ‘activating’ my new tan I headed down to the beach where the list fun continued…

No. 69. Walk across Kilcunda bridge
Every time I go down to the beach house I drive past this bridge and for a number of years I have been thinking about stopping and checking it out. It’s an old rail bridge that runs between the beach and the highway and while it doesn’t hold trains any more it does make for a pretty picture…

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No. 6 Try a green juice
If you read my blog regularly you may remember a blog I wrote entitled “The truth about green juice”, in the blog I didn’t rate them very highly. Nothing has really changed in my opinion of the green juice, but I felt a little bit bad as I had never actually tried a green juice… but now I have… and I still don’t rate the. The Green juice I tried had kale, parsley, chia seeds and pear… which was not a winning combination… I can see how with a little more fruit it might be tasty… but I just don’t think they are for me… which is fine, as I also don’t think they are as awesome as they are made out to be…

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No. 70. Go to a cemetery
Morbid I know, but I find them really interesting, I like to read the tombstones and wonder what people were like, work out how old they were and think about who they left behind… I know it’s weird… but it’s true.

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No. 86. See the movie ‘Frozen’
After I got home last night, Dave and I went to the movies to see Frozen and it was nice, not as awesome as I had hoped, but I did have pretty high expectations. It was a nice story, with nice music and it made for a nice night.

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So there you go, we are 13 days into January and I have already crossed 9 things off the list… I feel like I am going to get pretty close to the full 100 this year!

Summer Lovin’

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So even though I don’t have holidays over summer that doesn’t mean I haven’t taken the chance to enjoy some of the fun in the sun that summer encourages… It’s no secret that I love the beach… in fact sometimes I even think I might be a little obsessed with the beach, I can’t get enough of it… When I was younger my bedroom at home was even decorated in what I termed “beach colours” complete with blue walls and a yellow curtain… but now that I am older, I don’t get to go to the beach as often as I would like, so I like to make the most of it when I am there. But summer isn’t just about the beach, it’s just a nice month… a little more relaxed, a little more fun… the January effect… a little like what I was talking about in my blog about ‘New Beginnings’. Anyway, to make the most of my Summer Sun I have been using the weather to cross a few things off the list already… yep only 14 days in and there are already 5 things off the list… I know I have already blogged about my hobbit like adventure… but here are the rest…

No. 25 Blow some bubbles…
Thanks to a surprise gift from a very generous friend at work to help me cope with the loss of my recently dead computer, I was able to spend a few minutes at work blowing bubbles at lunch… and it was just as fun as I thought it would be. I love bubbles, they are just so pretty and fun and I don’t think there are anywhere near enough bubbles in my life. Seriously if you haven’t blown some bubbles recently, you should get on to it!

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No. 67 Visit a country town I haven’t been to before…
So even though it’s just around the corner from my usual holiday destination I had never been to Cape Paterson… but now I have… and like all good little towns it had a cute little pub which gave us a good feed for lunch… thanks Cape Paterson and Dave!

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No. 85 Have a milkshake…
Milkshakes are delicious… really delicious and there is nothing better than sitting in the sun with your Dad and Dave enjoying a super cold blue heaven milkshake…

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No. 90 Fly a kite…
A fun afternoon at the beach, with my retro kite and some instructions from Dave I managed to fly a kite… I think it will be a while before I can steer the thing or keep it in the air on my terms not its… but it was fun and it looked super pretty flying in the sky.

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Part Human… Part Hobbit

Posted in Family, Life, The List by

One of my family… well maybe mine with family… I’m not sure… traditions is to go to the movies on Boxing Day… It’s a tradition that started quite a few years ago, in fact because I have been thinking about it today I tried to put together a list to see how far back it went and this is what I came up with…

2012 – The Hobbit
2011 – Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
2010 – Gulliver’s Travels
2009 – Sherlock Holmes
2008 – Yes Man
2007 – The Golden Compass
2006 – Happy Feet
2005 – Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe
2004 – The Incredibles
2003 – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2002 – The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2001 – The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the rings

A pretty impressive list of movies if you ask me… Anyway, as you can see from the list last year was no different, I saw The Hobbit. Now to be completely honest.. it wasn’t my favourite movie to date… I found it a little slow… but giving it the benefit of doubt I decided that I should read the book before I made my final decision, which I am now about half way through. As I have been reading I have discovered there are a few more similarities between me and hobbits than I would like… for example:

  • Hobbits are short… I am short
  • Hobbits have fat/wide hairy feet… I have wide… NOT hairy feet
  • Hobbits are often thinking of the next meal… I am always thinking of my next meal…
  • Hobbits generally like a quiet, predictable life with no adventures, until of course they are thrust into one and then enjoy it quite a great deal… me too…

Anyway, this summer I went on a little adventure of my own, one which I wasn’t super excited about, especially once it started getting more difficult but at the end of it I was really proud of myself and very thankful to Dave for taking me on such an adventure.

My Adventure wasn’t quite as extravagant as Bilbo’s in the Hobbit, but it was still fun. Dave and I walked along the surf beach in Inverloch until we reached a point called Eagle’s Nest. Which while it doesn’t sound that difficult, it did require more than just walking, in fact I had to climb up and down, navigate through stinky seaweed and walk over large rocks which were not always as solid as I would have liked… but I survived and we made it… and it meant that I could cross no. 91 off the list.

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Perhaps once I have finished the book I will like the movie more than I did on Boxing day?  If not… I guess I will have to be a better version of a hobbit adventure.