Unfortunately while caught up in the excitement of a week away at the always sunny Sunshine Coast we forgot to plan for one very important thing – RAIN.

…Oceans…
…full…
…of it….

The whole week was pretty much washed out but that didn’t stop us from having heaps of fun as a family. We still managed to get out and about taking full advantage of the fleeting moments of sunshine whenever we could.

There was plenty of bucket and spade fun down at the beach, a trip to the local aquatic centre and lots of running around at the park across the road. We even hired a boat and spent an hour exploring the Maroochydore river. Ted didn’t really know what to make of his first boat ride and got a little restless at having his play area restricted. Along with Michelle’s parents, we took Ted to the Ginger Factory where Ted enjoyed another first – a ride on a steam train. He was fascinated at first but got bored quickly. Not to worry though, he was completely fascinated with some mechanical ‘All Blacks’ doing the Haka at the Overboard attraction. He couldn’t stop mimicking them, bowing up and down doing the ‘Haka’ all day long.

Michelle – being the awesome mum that she is – planned plenty of wet weather activities to keep Ted – and of course us – happy. We enjoyed coffees at the ‘Plaza’, McDonalds and the Mooloolaba Esplanade. And at home in between playing in the makeshift cubby house / fort, we read books to Ted – over and over and over – teaching him all the sounds that his favourite animals make. And one day we ventured down to KidZone – an indoor playground – where Ted nearly wet himself with excitement.

Michelle’s parents stayed with us a few days at the tail end of the week and graciously looked after Ted letting Michelle and me and enjoy a few outings together. We went and saw Hugo one night and the next we enjoyed a romantic dinner at the Spirit House. Enjoying ourselves thoroughly both times.

While it would have been easy to have moped and moaned about all the rain on our week away, as a team we managed to make the most of our situation and ended up having the greatest, relaxing week away.

I can’t wait for our next family holiday.

We are lucky enough to live in a house backing on to a large paddock with four cows in it. For those of you who missed Ben’s earlier snap of Ms Moo, here goes –

Every day or so Ms Moo or one of her mates will stick their heads over the fence to say g’day … or “moo” as it is usually, and munch on our banana trees.

Ted is doing his best to confuse the poor cows as, to him, everything with four legs is “doggie”. But I don’t think Ms Moo minds…

I can only assume that the Thomases and Johnsens have not seen the movie either, as if they had, rather than enjoying delicious morning dishes and the best coffee this side of Chinook St. we’d be having our semi-regular breakfast catchups crammed under school room tidy trays serving out detention.

The Thomas family hosted today’s event, transforming their kitchen into an omelette station, with chef Kristy making our delicious parcels to order. Of course, I had cheese, capsicum, ham, shallots and the pièce de résistance – hot chilli.

It was lovely to catch up with the Johnsens and more lovely that I finally got to meet little baby Abigail.

As Andrew and Louise are Racecourse road locals they took us down to Milany, the gelato place owned by Tatiana Grigorieva – the pole vaulter – and her husband. It was absolutely fantastic. I highly recommend popping along their for a cold treat next time you’re in the vicinity.

Sadly the evening ended way to early and we said goodbye to Helen not knowing the next time we’ll see her again.

The following lists the important events close to our hearts for 2011:-

Lovers:-

There have been many joyous occasions this year with the coming together of loved ones through marriage or engagement.

• April – Nathan and Kelly Rolfe were married at Werribee Mansion (just outside of Melbourne).
• May – Ray and Maree celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary.
• August- John (musipom) and Tina got engaged.
• November – Ben and Melanie Ellis were married in Brisbane.

Destinations:-

• January – We hired a three bedroom apartment in Golden Beach and spent a week away as a family.
• February – When friends offer to have you stay with them in an apartment down the beach you don’t say no – we had a great time hanging with the Thomases down at Miami in their parent’s Grande Florida apartment.
• April – When you get married, you and your mates go do stuff that in your right mind you would never do. A wonderful weekend spent down the Goldie for Nathan Rolfe’s bucks weekend.
• April – A wedding in a bona fide English style mansion is the perfect excuse to relax and enjoy a few days leisure down in Melbourne. It was a truly special day for Nathan and Kelly and the Thriebe’s really enjoyed the few days they had with the Briggs’ in Melbourne.
• May – Our first overseas trip with Ted was to Fiji with the Thomas and Dahl families. We had a great holiday, only I was violently ill the entire time.
• June – A short trip down to Sydney with Rob and Gerrod for the annual Australian Remix web developer conference.
• August – With the stresses of work consuming my every thought, Michelle organized a weekend trip down to Coolangatta as a short reprieve.
• October – After six months or so of dedicated, long days working on the SmartClinics project, we celebrated a kid-free night away at the Sofitel in Brisbane. It was great fun to just relax a little and not have to worry about waking when our babies did the next morning.
• November – I’ve always threatened to visit members of my family who live outside of Brisbane and after only ten years or so I finally made good. We took a week off work and went on a road trip down to Newcastle to visit my brother and his girlfriend.

Visitors:-

Having the opportunity to have friends is a privilege but to have friends who travel great distance and find the time to catch up is a true honour. This year we were fortunate enough to catch up with:

• Stacey and Wes Bramley
• Kirstin Bettiol
• John and Tina
• Dave Chappell and Piero
• Matt and Emily Puusari
• Karl, Sybille, Anton, Ferdinand Hoeft
• Karin, Brendan and Isla Miles
• Jim-bob-ity – Jimmity Jim James – Jaimessarino – the top half of the Walne family.

How we earnt money:-

Both Michelle and I have continued working in the same jobs we had last year. That makes it three years and counting. The longest position I’ve ever had.

This year saw my company Dingu Blue come of age – we separated from our owning company to become fully independent. We took on several new clients and have enjoyed many fresh challenges. It was particularly exciting getting to work with Steven Dahl on the SmartClinics project. Dingu were and still are responsible for all their software systems.

Michelle returned from maternity leave in August to a promotion and the challenges of getting five days worth of work done in three.

Where we lived:-

It was the end of 2010 that we signed on with Watt Reality to sell our Aspley home. I loved our house but with Ted and the probability of more sprouts on the way we were going to outgrow that place sooner rather than later. It was time to move on to greener and bigger pastures. It didn’t take long before we had several offers and had sold the place. After many weekends of open homes, we finally found a wonderful house in Bridgeman Downs that we just love. We moved in last April and I am still extremely happy with our home. I love it.

New babies:-

Funny thing about having friends in their thirties – they all seem to be wanting babies. This year the world was introduced to:

• September 18th – Abigail Linda Johnsen – Cathy and Grant’s third child.
• August 1st – Jessica Rose Steel – Michalie and Joe’s first child.
• August 28th – Nina Jean Bramley – Stacey and Wes’ first child.
• December 29th – Isabella Grace Carlise – Ben and Mel’s first child.

Musicals/Concerts/Entertainment:-

The older I get the less I seem to spend splashing about in the arts & culture scene. With a young child we are lucky to get to the cinemas once every six months.
I don’t think I’ll be able to keep this category alive next year.

That said, I did get to see Eddie Vedder perform solo in March, and thanks to Louisa we were lucky enough to see Naturally 7 in April, they are a talented vocal group that will blow you away with their mastery of the human voice.

Ted Highlights:-

• Feb – Ted learns to crawl
• August – Ted grows up and turns numero uno.
• September – Ted tires of crawling and rises to the challenge of walking.
• September – Ted learns that walking is fun but running is where the real action is at.
• December – sure all this exploring of the house is fun, but I’m a water baby now.

Other highlights:-

• Who could forget the Brisbane floods?
• The launch of the first SmartClinics store in Chermside.
• My obsession with smart phones and other gadgets. I’m addicted to technology and love playing with the latest and greatest.
• If you have known me for a couple of years, you would know that after spending nine months of the year putting on weight, the last three months would be devoted to losing it. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you put your mind to it – I dropped nine kilograms just by being diligent with what I ate.
• I decided to rework my on-line identity and get the presses rolling again.
• stickfly.com passed the one thousand article mark!
• I racked up another vice. My name is Ben and I’m ‘Hanging with Friends’ addict.
• The BBQ incident will be forever re-told every New Year’s Eve.

Words to live by:-

It’s better to be happy, than to be right!

If you want to feel sad, live in the past. If you want to feel anxious, live in the future. If you want to feel at peace, live in the now.

My apologies if I’ve left off an important event, occasion, or story or got one of the dates wrong. It’s just a genuine mistake, that will be rectified if you could let me know.

Happy 2012 everyone!

Sometimes I’d be happy to just have a good coffee and hot pie but it seems as if I’m always forking out my hard earned money for the best pies and coffees in the entire world.

Well I’m glad to say that there is a fine Thai establishment in Aspley with small but achievable expectations. They only claim to have the best Thai in Aspley and I’d have to agree. Situated next to Hogs Breath, Michelle and I as well as Micah and Sarah frequented the restaurant often when we all lived within walking distance. The food was always fantastically delicious but the real drawcard was ‘thai ghai’. A young Thai man with a distinctive lisp who predictably told you your order would be ready in “approximately about 10 to 15 minutes” regardless of the order’s size or complexity. A local legend.

Living further away now we don’t visit our Thai guy as often as we did but seeing as we had the privilege of having Micah and Sarah stay with us for a few nights we decided to see how our favourite Thai restaurant was going.

Once again, we weren’t disappointed. An exceptional meal delivered with exceptional service (and within “approximately about 10 to 15 minutes”). I highly recommend checking it out if you have the chance.

We were treated to some NYE theatrics when our barbecue sprung a gas leak and caught on fire. I didn’t really think it was that big a deal when it caught on fire but thankfully others in our group did. Ian, Micah and Michelle all took charge. Ian ensuring everyone was moved to safety, while Micah used his OHS skills to contain the fire and Michelle dialled 000 and arranged the firey’s.

The fire progressively got worse and we were all glad to have the emergency services respond so quickly. They did a great job and as a result no one was hurt and the only victims were our BBQ, some pavers and a banana tree.

Having a potential exploding missile at your house sure adds a little excitement to your evening.

We headed over to Michelle and Paul’s house in Samford for morning tea. It always feels like way too long between visits and I’m always amazed at the changes I witness when visiting. Their house is constantly be renovated and modernized – this time an extended verandah and new balustrades – and their little boy Ethan is always growing and changing. He is adorable and sweet – just like his parents.

I especially enjoy the quality tea that only a true Englishman can make and Michelle always has a yummy cake or pastry for us to chomp on – lemon meringue this time.

I love Christmas time and having the opportunity to catch up with old friends.

This year, Michelle, Ted and I hosted a belated Christmas day at ours. With three young boys in the family we thought having it at our place which has a pool would be a great way to entertain them.

As with tradition, there was way too much food – all delicious. I was a big fan of the “Christmas Ham” (otherwise known as just plain ol ham) and my Mum’s plum pudding and home made trifle.

Opening Christmas presents by the tree was a highlight. Seeing the expressions on the boys faces as they unwrapped their gifts was precious. Ted got so excited over a truck MaMa gave him that I felt under immense pressure to free it from its overly complicated constraints so he could play with it. He loved it so much and we discovered that he had learnt a new word for pushing his cars and trucks around – beep beep.

As it was such a lovely day, we had a great afternoon swimming and playing in the pool. The boys especially loved being thrown in the air and splashing down in the water.

We all had a thoroughly enjoyable day.