Working working working

Hello family,

Good to hear what everyone has been up to. I've also been pretty busy lately. I've been on a couple of trips for work. Two weeks ago I headed to Germany and Italy - more specifically, I went to Bad Durkheim, Modena, Genoa and Turin. The picture below is me outside the Cathedral in Genoa. As you can see, the weather was sunny and warm. The next photo down is one of the streets in Modena. I really like the colours of the buildings and the shutters.


The trip was fairly busy - I spent two nights in Bad Durkheim and Modena and one night in each of the other cities. I had some really long days - I was up between 5.30am and 6am most mornings.

It wasn't all work though - I did have enough time in the evenings to wander around the city and take some photos - I've made a flickr collection for the work trips (I've also put my "Australia" photos into a collection and made one for my trip last year - I think it's easier to manage than having hundreds of photos in one album).

One of the things I quite enjoyed in Italy was apperitifs. In particular, Spritz - a wine with some Campari. The wine was served along with some 'finger food' - olives, foccacia, cheese. Tasty! Ooh, another tasty treat from Italy (Genoa actually) is cheese foccacia. It's not what I would have thought of as cheese foccacia - it's thinner than foccacias in Australia, and the cheese is melted inside - the result is VERY rich and VERY tasty!

After a week of rain in Manchester (truly), it was back to the airport and off to Poznan, Poland. Again the weather was beautiful, almost too hot.

The food was incredible - I arrived around lunch time and had fruit soup (truly, hot soup made from strawberries and other berries.. with noodles). I also had Polish donuts, steamed dumplings with Napoli sauce, various pasta dumplings and a Polish version of Mexican! I don't think I've eaten so much in a week before (except maybe when I spent a week visiting Mum and Dad *grin*).

The photo to the right is Poznan Town Hall. You might be able to make out the dark coloured clock on the front. Every day at midday, the doors above this clockface open and out come two mechanical goats. The goats butt each others head twelve times and so many people (like me) stand around and watch it. The goats are a symbol of Poznan.

I got home Friday night - glad I got a long weekend this weekend to recover. It might seem like I'm just having a lot of fun, but I promise I'm working hard.

Keep posting!

Hellos From Carolynn

Hi as you know jamie came over yesterday. Today the Neo atacked Trin then me when I tried to save her now my hand hurts. On Wednesday on of the old teachers from the high shcool came and showed us his medival outfits and wepons that he has handmade mostly from scratch. He made shoes from leather, 1 of the boys in my class is making chain mail and a sword from a piece of scrap metal in his back yard that he keeps telling me he has made a castle in it.

School is excellent so far. We have learned heaps of stuff and on Wednesday we're having the cross country and I'm going. (Regionals) I came 3rd in my age group at school and I won an award for trying and having a go at sport.
Lion training is great. The Dalai Lama is coming to Bendigo and we are performing at the Great Stupa opening. I get a day off school.
Today Jamie is here because he came over for a sleep over last night. We watched Night at the Museum and a racing movie which was funny.

LOL

okay okay I sorry I was sick with a cold!! firstly I will say that Glenn and I had a offer to move to Singapore via my work at JPM. However having receiving the offer we have decided to decline. So we will be checking out London for further options!
In other news Damien I love your art!!!! so much so I have brought 2 pieces from the web site! You are so talented! I was really blown away by your stuff
I look forward to having the framed prints arrive!

Prints for Sale

I found a Melbourne-based group who do print on demand prints. You can upload your high res images, set a percentage profit and they deal with buyers if there are any, print them up and post them away. I'm pretty lazy so the idea appeals to me, and I put up some pieces here. I put on a 20% commission, because i'm a big fan of cheap art.
Anyway, I had a sale! The pink robot and flying pieces were bought, which gives me a tidy profit of $3 each ;) but yeah, I'm just impressed that somebody wants to hang my work on their walls.
And yes, that is foxy in the pink robot piece :D

allo

Testing Testing, Testing 1,2,3. Hey everyone, long time no post, I have been very slack in getting my Gmail organised. I have been keeping track of the blog however. This is just a test message I will put something more interesting tommorrow! :)

hope everyone is well
love dee

About Time

Well, I've been pretty slack online lately, but the good news is that the Mother's Day stall at school was a success so now we can have a bit of a break. Last week I did school stuff EVERY DAY! It was very tiring!


I am trying to get Adam to put some good software on koffeekat so I can put up some photos of the kids, but in the meantime I will try to put some on photobucket (which is where this picture is) I want to try getting some more good photos but haven't had a chance to set up an area to take them. Although this was just taken last night on my bed...





http://s122.photobucket.com/albums/o246/trinity006/





I have also started another blog for my craft stuff (I post on a forum where a few of them do the same thing) I'm not good at names so at the moment it is Craft Addicted Cat... feel free to suggest something else or come up with a good header picture.



Trinity is chatting away now, and says most things when you say "can you say..." Except "can you say Carolynn" ... she says "nah" LOL I think we need to record it :) She also loves cinnamon Eclipse mints! Even Jared thinks they are too strong. She knows most body parts and can say them, and point to them. She still loves Elmo, and she smiles and says "impon" when the Simpsons come on :P She also loves the Wiggles. Last night I was trying to get her to wear the hats I've made so I can add them to my blog, she wasn't interested until Carolynn tried to model them instead. Then she wouldn't let Carolynn wear any hat LOL


I'll try to get Carolynn and Jared to post later so they can update you on what they have been doing.

Just want to say ...

Gazing into the Abyss

Or to put it another way.. we have a webcam! So if you have windows messenger or skype, you can actually see us when you talk to us. Finally, you can all see Cheryl's facial tattoos and my mighty handlebar mustache (I dyed it green to be jolly)

What we have been doing

In response to Carolynn's question, the coolest thing we did was go to Marion and happen across this odd stage show with Donatello and Shredder dancing together. We were there to get me a new phone.. my old one kept dying, and the new one was free on a 2 year plan with three. I'm told they're a really good phone provider. Plus now i can make video calls, as well as standards like taking photos of random stage shows.
For our anniversary we booked a night in a hotel on Glenelg, right at the beach. It was a really nice evening, so we ate outside one of the Italian places and generally enjoyed the ocean breeze :) We also got a free buffet breakfast the next day, and I learned if you try to put an entire croissant through one of those conveyor belt type sandwich toasters it sets it on fire. I'd feel bad but not ten minutes later somebody else did it too :)

Hi From Carolynn

Hi Everyone

Just a message to say hi & to find out what everyone has been up to

Playing with Photoshop

Carolynn and I took some photos while we were out on Easter Sunday, the background photos are from the Chinese Gardens and the one of Trin was taken in the park... we also went to the Civic Gardens that day.

Happy Anniversary

Happy Anniversary Damien & Cheryl

French Assignment Almost Done

HI Everyone 3 weeks ago I got a French Assignment. Does anyone knows any of the following: French words bused in English, a Sports man or French companies in Australia. If u do that would be Great

Our Busy Easter

I thought it was about time I put up some photos from Easter. I don't have them all on this computer, but here is a selection from Easter Monday at the Procession.



Here's the Lion Team before the Procession.



We all know who this is right!



I can't remember the name of this dragon, we call it the gold dragon. I think it is Ming or Ping, one is carried by males and one by females.



This is one of the new lions. I just think this is a great photo.

Jared says he was under one of the red and silver ones, so I will have to find some more photos... I also have some from the Awakening where Jared was a monk for the junior performance, so will have to upload them later as well. :)