Work, swords, costumes, and general fun times.

It's my final week of work - I'm taking two weeks off over Christmas/New Years, and rather looking forward to them. Last week I was averaging 10 hours a day trying to hit a deadline for a job. It's not fun. On the plus side, though, I made the deadline ;)

On top of that Shihan contacted me to say he'd decided to come to Bendigo for a training session rather than doing one in Melbourne. That caused a mad rush to find an available hall, since my usual dojo was pre-booked. Thanks to Cheryl's quick thinking and Lisa's useful contacts I was able to organise the EUC Hall. I've since discovered my estimated 8-12 students has ballooned out to more like 20. The Melbourne guys disorganisation led to Shihan deciding to come to Bendigo in the first place, so I shouldn't have been surprised to find out only today that there's about 8 coming up. Anyway, the logistics are sorted I think and it's a huge win for the Bendigo club - hopefully if we look after him Shihan will consider coming here for gradings in the future too :)

Speaking of the dojo, we had our end of year BBQ Sunday. Cheryl did a Herculean effort organising stuff for that -and- did the actual barbecuing while I waltzed around teasing the teenagers and generally not being very productive. She is a saint. I was sorry to see Daria wasn't feeling well, and Lisa took her and Trin home. Lucky for Jared and Carolynn Nanny couldn't resist the temptation of a free hamburger and took us up on our offer to join us for lunch so she could shuttle them home afterwards ;)

We've been organising our costumes for Lisa's birthday party too. We're being a bit secretive about who we'll all be going as - all I can tell you is I've done my best to grow a beard in the last month for my costume. Oh and we're very thankful Edith is nearby and knows how to sew :)

After that Christmas day is going to be relaxing by comparison, even with two very excited little kiddies ;)

That'll do from me. Oscar's got a Kindy concert on Tuesday during which he'll apparently sing "lots of songs" and Nanna, Granddad, Nanny and Nanny's Nana are all coming to watch, but I might let Cheryl post about that after it's happened.

Cheerio!