Happy Birthday Lisa

Looks like I'm not the only slack one in this family. :-)

Sorry I'm a couple of days late, Lis - but better late than never!

Hope you had a beautiful day and that Adam and everyone pampered you for the day! If not, then you're owed two days of pampering and relaxing to make up with it! ;-)

I've got your present - it'll be coming with Carolynn's one. After the crazy weather that we've been having, I've decided to wait until after the Christmas rush to pop them in the post (apparently the sorting offices are backed up already!). I'll let you know when they're on the way!

I really hope you had a fabulous day. I'll catch you online soon!

*hugz*

Beginning to feel a little like Christmas

It's hard to believe that Christmas is next week. It doesn't feel particularly like it just yet - certainly my flat doesn't feel Christmasy and I have to go to work on Monday, so it's not even holidays for me yet. However, we did have the work Christmas party last night, so today feels a bit closer to the festive season (and no, it's not because I had too much to drink).

The work Christmas party always has some kind of "entertainment" and this year they got a silhouette artist to come along. It's quite a weird thing - this guy cuts your silhouette out of paper while you stand there. Most people got a traditional style portrait (head and shoulders only) but he asked me if I wanted head and shoulders or full length. I gave him the choice and less than two minutes later, he gave me my caricature silhouette. I love it - reminds me of Alice in Wonderland and you know that's a look I quite fancy. :-) Bruce just got head & shoulders (but didn't get an option - I think after mine he started doing more full-length ones). It was a good night out and a lovely beginning to the festive season.

It started snowing here yesterday. It's been fairly cold for the last few weeks but it's now looking like I might actually get a white Christmas (it's been fairly white up north for weeks now). We had a terrible time trying to get to a shopping centre for some not-quite-last-minute shopping - it took us one and a half hours to drive there (usually it's about 20 minutes) and when we arrived we were told that the whole centre was shut! What kind of crazy management closes a shopping centre on a Saturday just before Christmas?! At least we got out of the flat for a little bit. I quite like the snow, I just hope it doesn't stop us getting to Cardiff on Monday night!

Any updates on Christmas plans from Australia?

*hugz*

Happy birthday Carolynn!

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Carolynn,
Happy birthday to you!!!

I'm a little late with this post but not as late as your pressie will be - I bought it more than a month ago and it's still sitting on my floor - oops. Sorry! It will be in the post this week, so keep an eye out for it.

I hope you had a wonderful birthday with lots of sunshine. The snow has come back over here again - in fact, it's snowing even as I write this.

*big hugz* from the cold side of the world.

Happy Birthday Dee

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEE!!!

Autumn in the UK

I keep promising a Bandwagon update.. and here it is. It's been a busy few months - apart from work bring non-ideal we've had a few trips away - York for the August bank holiday weekend, Paris in early September, Manchester at the end of October for the Science Festival. I've got photos from each trip but haven't uploaded them yet - I'm not as quick as Glenn and Dee were.. but they didn't have the distraction of work either. :)


As you're all enjoying longer and warmer days, my days are becoming decidedly colder and darker. Daylight savings ended a couple of weeks ago so it's often dark before I get home. Many of the leaves don't  like the cold and have been getting their own back by jumping off the trees and making footpaths slippery. I didn't manage to catch a falling Autumn leaf so I'll just have to hope I don't get the flu. Mum, did your Easter catch work?



I carved my first pumpkin this year - a tiny little thing no bigger than my fist. Bruce made a regular-sized one and we watched Nightmare Before Christmas while we carved. It was good fun.




To continue the Autumnal celebrations, last week was Guy Fawkes day so I headed up to Wednesbury for the weekend. We thought about looking for fireworks displays on Friday (Guy Fawkes Day) but it was fairly dismal weather - lots of drizzly rain. It didn't stop us burning a sparkler or two outside.  Bruce's folks also found some indoor fireworks in the loft. They were pretty funny - little pellets stuck on cardboard that fizzed, sparked or produced weird fluffy ash. Saturday was a completely different story - it was cold but clear and perfect fireworks weather. We joined several thousand others at Himley Hall for a giant bonfire (the stack of pallets looked as tall as a house and probably the width of the carport!) and firework display. The fireworks were set to music and made it easy to forget the chill. The hot chocolate with flake also helped us keep warm. :) It was definitely a good evening and well worth the entry fee and the wait to get out (we arrived early enough to miss the wait on the way in).



It's a bit worrying to think that the next public holiday will be Christmas - where did the year go?! Between now an then I've got quite a few projects to finish at work and some more jobs to apply for - it's certainly a busy time of year. Ooh and make sure you update kaboodle or send me wish-lists - I need to do my Christmas shopping soon!

*lovenhugz*

Happy Birthday Glenn!

You there. You up the back, with the t-shirt on. No, not you, next to you. Yes, you. Glenn, is it?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Ookky ookook, ookle ookook.

Because everybody needs a monkey.

Update from us

As usual, it's been a while since we posted anything on the bandwagon, so I thought I'd give a bit of an update. This week has could have best been described as Hellishly busy. After a few weeks of not much going on at work, suddenly a client came to us with a massive job and a really tight deadline.. today being said deadline, and I'm writing this over my lunchbreak while awaiting any more feedback from them. Unfortunately, this was also the week in which I've got two Iaido demos.. one on Sunday, and the other yesterday afternoon. This basically meant that the last few days I've been starting around 6 or 7am so I can get the work done and also so I could leave early Wednesday for the demo. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but the sum result is I'm pretty tired :)

So the demos. Yesterday afternoon Takeo and I were at a big park in Adelaide for a half hour or so. We did some kata together, then faced off against each other with Takeo attacking and me defending.. then we did five each alone (we were clapped at the end!) and finished with some bamboo cutting. The crowd actually built up to be pretty large. Cheryl has posted photos, and I'll chuck a couple in here.. you can see it's fairly sparse in the first one, but by the end there's people behind us watching as well. The demo Sunday should be a bit less stress.. it's just for my Dojo in Reynella, so myself and a couple of students will do about 3 kata each and that will be all.

If you want to see all the photos you can see them here.

We hung around at the Moon Lantern Festival after the demo to eat some delicious Korean food and watch a few of the shows on the main stage. Oscar also tasted his first ice-cream.. which was Cheryl's ice-cream, but he didn't want to share ;) We got it off him when we offered him a banana instead.. he loves his fruit!

Oscar is growing up so quickly and learning a lot. He's gradually adding more words, some from us (like "nan" and "up") and some from childcare (like "ta" and "more") and some he just seems to pick up himself. He started saying "nose", "mouth" and his favourite "eye" suddenly one day. He really likes to mimic us too.. sometimes you wont realise you're doing something (like scratching the top of your head) until you see Os doing it too.

He's becoming much better at feeding himself.. some foods are easier than others of course, but he loves using a spoon, fork and knife when he can. He also loves reading books.. I think that's his favourite quiet time activity. Sometimes he'll even sit down and look through the books himself. We play a lot, he loves chasing and hiding games, and really likes exploring outside. He can get a bit quiet and shy with new people, but I reckon it takes about 20 minutes for him to get used to them (and it took about 2 minutes with Sam :))

We're looking forward to seeing Mum and Nana next week, even if there is a fair bit of cleaning the house still to be done. I'm getting Wednesday and Thursday off work (which I appreciate even more after this week) and then Friday Cheryl and I will go out for a few drinks with friends to celebrate my birthday. Gotta make the most of the experienced babysitters :) Monday is a public holiday too! It's going to be a good week :)

Hmm.. I think that's it from me. Hopefully Cheryl can pop on and say how her work is going, and anything I might have forgotten. I'd better get back to work!

Work on the horizon

Just a quick note to say my contract with the place in London is all approved now, and I might be starting work for them on Monday (!!). Of course, I'm not sure if I should actually do anything before the actual contract is signed, sealed and delivered, but hey -- what else am I doing, really? (Plus it would be nice to get a little extra money now ... we're rapidly burning through our "holiday funds", even without rent to pay (thanks Mums) -- if I start on Monday I can probably put in an invoice on the 30th, and get paid for two weeks work thirty days after that. Better than nothing!)

I'm sure you're all reading The Long Way Home (you are, aren't you??) so you know we took a little trip to Albury-Wodonga this past week. Well, actually just Albury -- Wodonga isn't anywhere near as nice or clean or modern as the New South Welsh half of the pair. We had a trip to Ettamogah Pub (in Table Top) one day, and stopped in Beechworth on the way home. It's a lovely little town, full of boutique shoppes and lots of "housey" stuff ... Dee spent a couple of hours and could've spent more wandering around, checking stuff out and picking up business cards. I think we'll be visiting again once we find a house...

We also stopped at Wangaratta to see some family friends of Tricia's, and got scones with jam and cream! Diet starts (again) tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Mum

It may seem like I'm going back in time, but it's just because I'm on the other side of the globe. ;-)

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday dear Mum

Happy birthday to you

*big hugz and kisses* from London.
xxoo

(Email) From Bangkok, with love

Hi all, Dee's brother just informed me that there was an explosion (or a series of) in Bangkok -- but I thought you'd be happy to hear that we left the capital for Koh Samui that day, and had no idea it had even happened!!

So yeah, a quick note to say we're fine and relaxing on the beach far away from any "civil unrest". If you don't hear from us for a little while it's because the internet terminal is way up on a hill, and I'm lazy.

But of course feel free to drop us an email saying how relieved you are to hear that we are alive and well. :-) Oh, and tell anyone else who might want to know, in case I've forgotten.

My Busy Life!

It's been too long since i last updated the bandwagon. So here it goes...Will and I have been going out for over a year now Yay! School is going well I'm doing the best in english and math, I have the cisco exam next week, finally after i failed it. I had to wait about 6 weeks before i could do it again. Next weekend is my Calisthenics concert, It's trinity' first concert. The weekend after that is Will's 18th birthday. I don't know what to get him for his birthday, any ideas?

I wanna cupcake!

Hehe - Lazy Glenn is sleeping so I thought I'd take the opportunity to use the lappy, we have decided to stay another 3 nights in Vientiane - the hotel is cheap and nice plus has the added bonus of a functioning air conditioner, its so fantastic in the afternoon I turn it down to 20 degrees,throw a blanket over myself and read, its amazingly luxurious, Glenn laughs at me.

We are planning what to do with the remainder of our time here, I think we will travel to bangkok then skip across to Siem Reap, see some temples then head back, then make our way down towards Singapore, hopefully having enough time to stay a week at one of the islands, I need to check out prices though, Ko Samui seems well placed but I'm uncertain if I will be comfortable on a beach resort with 19 year old females swanning around in skimpy bikini's, don't get me wrong, I'm not prudish, in fact if I had the body I too would be swanning around is something akin to dental floss, but given I don't, the idea intimidates me.

Oh and in other very exciting news I have finally caved and joined Facebook, I'm still not convinced... watch this space....

Not much longer now I hope till we are home, both Glenn and I cant wait, travelling has been fun, but we are both desperate now to be on home soil. An email from our travel agent advised that the boat has been delayed another 4 days due to bad weather, however he believes this time will be made up when it arrives in Singapore, so fingers crossed.

Love to you all!
hugs dexo

Cake day

Last year I made myself a black and purple black forest cake for my birthday. I selflessly took it to work and shared it with my workmates. This year I won't be making myself a birthday cake - I've made summer cupcakes for tomorrow.

Our office has a roster for cake. Every Tuesday, someone brings in a (usually home-made) cake. Fortuitously my cake day is this week - so I'm starting my celebrations early. It took me about 3 hours tonight to make and ice these cakes. I don't have a real oven in my flat - just a microwave convection, so I can only cook 6 cakes at a time. The icing also took a long time - washing out the piping thingy between every colour gets to be a drag, but I think the results are worth it. Now I just have to hope I get them all to work without damaging them.

Wish me luck!

Now can someone else post something please?!
:-P

Happy Birthday Daria

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday dear Daria

Happy birthday to you!

Have a great day!