Sydney

Well, HELLO!

Brian and I got back from a wonderful trip to Sydney on Sunday -- and I am just get around to uploading the pictures and writing this blog!  I'm not doing too bad but I like to do it quickly or else I forget everything we had done!!  My memory is hopeless... thank God for blogging!


Anyways we arrived in Sydney Friday morning-- it is only a 1 hour 15 min flight, so a very easy trip!  As soon as we got there we went to the beautiful Syndey Harbor to go on an afternoon boat cruise!!  The harbor was so amazing, the Bridge is massive and the Opera House is just iconic!  We probably could have sat on a bench in the harbor all weekend and been satisfied just by that view.  But as it turned out, we had other plans and other sights to see!  We had a little bit of time to kill so walked all the way around the Opera House, getting great views (but maybe too close up) of the OH (opera house) and the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

We then got on a boat and enjoyed our lunch cruise!  The food was delicious but we really loved the tour of the harbor!  The whole thing is massive!  It would take ages to get from some spots to the city by driving but they use a ferry as public transportation across the harbor and that is how a lot of people commute to work!  I can't imagine going to work by boat but it would be really neat!  Especially because you get the BEST views of the whole harbor!

They had a man describing each little inlet as we cruised passed so got to see an area of the harbor where all the celebs live, even where they filmed a few movies.  WHOA those houses were AMAZING!!!!!  Some even had their own little private beaches.  We also went by old military areas and a place where small little planes can land in the water!  We even saw one landing as we rode passed-- first time I've ever seen that!  The whole area is beautiful.  The old huge houses and the new mansions along the coast make it all seem even more perfect!  It looked to me like the hollywood hills along a rocky coast each with their own private sail boat :)

We then left for Bondi Beach!  Bondi Beach is really popular around here-- they have a show called Bondi Rescue about the lifeguards rescuing all the drowning folks (Reality Baywatch?!)  and Bondi Vet where the handsome Chris Brown (who we saw on The Project) takes care of sick animals-- that show is actually too sad for me to watch!  Anyways, I'm not sure why they have all the hype over Bondi because I wasn't super impressed!  Now to be fair, it did get really over cast and start sprinkling on us while we were there so that may have "rained on our parade" a bit, haha!  We did have a very good dinner on the beach and  strolled along it while it stopped raining!  One thing we noticed is that surfers are hard core!  They were out there in the rain, in the cold water, in the dusk (yikes! Shark eating time!)

The next morning we left early for Manly Beach!  We took the ferry there and spent half the day laying on the beach!  The weather was nice and hot and I thoroughly enjoying laying out for awhile!  They had a major surf competition at Manly beach and this was the second to last day of it so we got to see some really great surfing (I know nothing about surfing but this is what the announcers were claiming!)  Brian and I decided this was a great sport to watch-- you lie on the beach on a beautiful day, its completely free and there is live music in the background!  So much fun!  We even got to see a guy surfing on his head haha like a surf headstand!  I was pretty impressed :)

We then decided to see another area called Watson's Bay where we moseyed around a bit before dinner!  If you ever make it to Sydney you have got to go to Doyles!!  We had the BEST meal there!  All fresh seafood cooked to perfection!  We sat right near the beach and had an amazing view of Sydney Harbor!  I would highly recommend! :)  

We caught the ferry back to the city and also caught a beautiful sunset!  Here are a few pics from our time around Watsons Bay.....

Sea plane on the water!

On our 3rd and final morning we went to the Harbor Bridge -- which is massive, by the way-- and went up to a lookout point for some great views-- as if we need more pictures of the Opera House!  But seriously, seeing such an iconic structure is just sooo cool and it's something you can't not take a zillion pictures of!  When you think of Australia, don't you think of the Sydney Opera House?!  They also have a bridge climb, which we decided not to do.  I was pretty scared being high up on the lookout so would never be able to walk up even HIGHER with only a little cable keeping you from falling!  Yikes!  Although, Oprah did it so I am sure I could!!!!!  Maybe next time?!???   nahhhh.....

Is it just me or is that Cruise ship the same size as the entire city-- crazy huge!

We then walked through the Royal Botanical Gardens!  They were really nice!  I think all the British commonweath cities have these nice gardens and we really enjoy checking them out when we can!  We looked at the Government building which looks like a castle!  :) :)

As we walked through the garden I noticed something strange in the trees-- huge sleeping BATS!  There were so many of them and they were soooooo big!  Scary!  When I went to a movie at the botanical gardens in Melbourne there were hundreds flying over us (the movie was Twilight so it was very fitting to see bats for a vampire movie!) and I was telling Brian about the size of these guys-- like Brody with bat wings!!!  So I was pretty excited when he saw them and realized I was not crazy and imagining this!

We then walked by a beautiful church, Saint Mary's, and took a few pictures :)  We also went inside (we could not take pictures) and it was amazing!  It was easily the most beautiful, most extravagant church I have ever been in.  

We walked around the city and got a few pictures... The city is beautiful with its ornate buildings and neat and clean streets!

We had a lovely and relaxing time in a great city!  I am really looking forward to making another trip soon!  I will go ahead and leave you with more pictures of the Sydney Harbor Bridge and Opera House!! :)  

Love, Love, Love

This is going to be a super short blog... they have been getting awfully long lately so I thought I would change it up :)

Not too much as been going on the past few weeks-- and it has been wonderful!  I can really enjoy just having a nice quiet weekends, cooking and cleaning, going on long walks with the dog and just spending time with my sweet husband.  Speaking of Brian-- we had a great valentines day!  We both worked all day then when we got home we made a delicious heart shaped pizza, drank some wine and chatted on our cozy back patio all evening!  Brian got me some BEAUTIFUL rose and I baked him some cupcakes- with peanut butter frosting- YUM!

We also went to a music festival last weekend... it is called the St Kilda Festival!  There are always festivals going on in Melbourne.... so many fun things going on-- soon there is the comedy festival, the food and wine festival, the fashion festival, some festival called Moomba-- all in March 2012!

It rained most of the day but we did get some good food and had a few drinks and listened to all of 5 seconds of music :) whooops I guess we basically missed the whole point of the festival-- oh well!  We had a great time hanging out with friends!  It seems like we will be getting all the festival we need in the next month anyways!  Tomorrow we leave for Syndey and I am very excited to see the iconic harbor and Opera House!  I will most definitely be taking pictures!

I will leave you with a LOVEly little tune I've been enjoying lately and its pretty fitting considering we just celebrated Valentines day!

Catch of the day!

For Brian's Christmas pressie I got him a chartered fishing trip out in Port Phillip Bay!  He invited me along too :)  We had it booked for early January but they texted me the night before cancelling it due to extreme weather!  The weather forecast looked fine to me so I was very upset and thought they were being a bit dramatic.  The next evening on the news after hearing "boat capsized on the bay due to strong northerly winds, 2 men stranded in the water for 4 hours" I realized these guys know what they are talking about and if they need to cancel our trip to prevent me from having a titanic moment that is fine!!!!!

Did I mention we live only a few minutes from the beach!  It is so great, although, we have not been out there near enough this summer!  

We had to wake up at 3:30 AM and get to the pier at 4:30 so we could leave at 5!!!  Ridiculously early.  The best part of  The only good part of being up that early is getting to see the beautiful sunrise!  I haven't seen the sun RISE in ages!

We cruised for about an hour before we stopped to start fishing (this is a pretty massive bay).  The water was SOOO calm which is good-- no seasickness from me!!  At the first stop it was pretty slow and the only keeper fish was MINE! :)

I asked Brian over and over how you know when you have actually caught something rather than just the waves making it feel like a little tug on your line (I'm obviously no expert!)  Finally, I felt this huge pull on the line and knew this had to be a fish!  I was reeling as fast and as hard as I could making all sorts of struggle noises, the boat crew was over there to assist me just in case I pulled in something like a shark!  At this point everyone on the boat was looking my way to see what kind of massive fish I was about to pull up.  When the fish finally came to surface it was just this medium sized skinny little guy-- I was pretty disappointed.  The crew was ecstatic because the fish I caught was a flathead-- a very desirable fish that prices at about $50/kilo.  All I know was this little bugger REALLY didn't want to be caught and was swimming as hard as he could to get off my line-- even tangling me up with others lines- and although he wasn't too big he was soo hard to pull up that I really thought I could have caught a shark.  Which, now that I think about it, THANK GOD I didn't YIKES!

For the next few hours we pulled up tons of "pinkys" -- baby snappers.  We didn't go at the best part of the year for the BIG catches but we knew that going in and I thought it was so much fun to pull in all these little pinkys!  Brian caught one that we could keep, as most were way too small.  For about 30 minutes we were non stop catching fish!  I would catch one on my line and Brian would help me get it off and re-bait it and while I was holding his pole I would catch another on his!  It was really so much fun!

We got a little sausage sizzle on the boat (I swear, sausage sizzle = Australia, to me!)  Then after a few hours headed back to Melbourne.  At the end of the trip between Brian and I we had two fish to take home.  We were satisfied with that-- most people had none.  They did a little pool where if you were interested you could put in $5 for the biggest catch of the day.... and guess who won????  ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I even got this spectacular little trophy, which I immediately found a home for on one of our bookshelves for all the world (or our house guests) to see!

It was a beautiful day in Melbourne so took a few more pictures as we rode into St Kilda pier.  

MERRY CHRISTMAS BRIAN :)

That evening we cooked up our fishys!  I was pretty excited about the flat head because a few people I talked to that day said it was their most favorite fish and I had never even tried it!  I couldn't decide how to cook it so Brian grilled 2 fillets and I pan fried 2 fillets (did you know the pronounce the T in fillet here-- it sounds funny to me!)  DINNER WAS DELISH!  Grilled AND pan fried fish, brown rice with fresh tomatoes and stuffed jalapenos from our garden!  YUMMY YUM YUM!  Not that you asked, but I do think that Brian's grilled fish were a bit better :)

Then we relaxed and I found Brody having a little cuddle time with his favorite ducky :) 

 Isn't he the cutest?

Mom, don't show that to my friends.....

Hope you are having a great February :)