Sam's Bday

I just couldn't resist making another visit to Strike, my new favorite spot. Sam decided to celebrate her birthday there, and what a deal! If you buy a drink for $5, you bowl for free on Sunday afternoons.


Duff, Mel, Joey, Caz, and Sam (all friends of Alex's whom I've infiltrated). Sam lives near me and we've recently seen each other frequently on the bus in the morning. Duff, Caz, Sam, and Alex are from Team Kazaam who I supported during their 100km Oxfam Trailwalk.


Caz, Alex (in brown jacket), Joey, Mel, and Sam. I work with Alex and she once invited me to dinner with the girls, then to Tassie with the girls, and I've never looked back. She was complaining earlier in the week that I see her friends more than she does. The lesson here is don't introduce me to fun friends - I will steal them.


Everyone's getting geared up to bowl with our fancy party hats - woo!


Duff and I did synchronous bowling, where we ignored all bowling etiquette and approached adjacent lanes at exactly the same time. Unfortunately, my practice bowling from Thursday did nothing to boost my score. I bowled worse than anyone else with an embarrassing final score of 49. Whoops. I'm gonna go ahead and blame this on synchronized distraction.

Tony Flynn

Hosi picked me up for a training session at his new gym, the Middle Baths in Brighton, located in the richest neighborhood in all of Melbourne. The gym was very small and appropriately swanky. A beautiful 400 meter dock wrapped around a sea bath at the rear of the gym with a steam room, boxing bag, and gym dog (a collie named Arthur) on the rear deck. Arthur won me over. The gym was peaceful, calm, and relaxing - not the words I would normally associate with working my butt off.

When I got home, there was a rather small (BIG!) surprise awaiting. Jade picked up an 8 week old black and silver miniature schnauzer Saturday. Tony Flynn is the latest addition to our household that still does not allow pets in the lease. When would rules ever deter my brazen housemates?

The little feller is curious and inquisitive and very friendly. With a house always bustling with people, he has to be.

I remember when Jack was this small... it's been a while.

He's a real cuddle bug and follows us around everywhere. He seems to be a fast learner but he's already chewing. Eek!!


Saturday night I met up with a couple friends from boxing. Kristel and Adrian transferred to a full on Martial Arts gym up the road from Shapes. By full on, consider Kristel had a broken rib and massive black eye a few weeks ago, while Adrian is still suffering from a bruised liver. My gym is much 'nicer'. Dan and Brendan joined us for dinner at Lemon Grass, a Thai restaurant in Chinatown. After dinner, Kristel, Adrian, and I kicked on at the International Cake House on Lonsdale St. We stuffed ourselves with pistachio baklava and kicked ourselves later.

You're looking at a boxing romance here - they met in boxing in June a year ago and have been dating since January.

We're all a bit slimmer and trimmer than when we started. Adrian couldn't help but unknowingly flex his arm muscles in conversation. Kristel and I gave him sufficient grief for that and his baggy jeans.

WISER Strike

David, Kerry, Shaun, Kathy, Cara, and Andrew waiting their turn to bowl

Dexter, Alan, Elliot, Casey, and Robo looking too cool for school

Tim's going for a strike

me, David, and Shaun rocked our bowling team - no scores over 100 - oh yeah!

Shaun, Robo, Tim, and Rocco hiding out in the back corner for karaoke

Dexter and Cara got everyone going with 'Push It' - the lyrics got even more risque when Cara did 'She's My Man'

Tim got right into 'When I'm 64' by The Beatles

I broke out for the girls singing 'Material Girl' (Madonna) and 'Oops I Did It Again' by none other than Britney Spears. I'm sure it was painful for all of us.

The dance moves were most entertaining. Shaun, David, and Kathy made quite a trio.

Could you ever guess what song this was? Yep, YMCA by Tim, David, Robo, and Dexter.

URS funds a mid-year function for each workgroup. Our WISER workgroup elected to carry on the annual tradition of going to Strike for bowling and karaoke. Casey topped out the bowling scores with a whopping 175 - well done! After starting off with four gutter balls, I spared myself the embarrassment of receiving the lowest score with a mediocre 78. Surprisingly, this year as last year, every person who stayed for karaoke participated not once but twice.

Shoe Mecca

Ha ha! Isn't this funny? The guys from work decided it would be hilarious to arrange my shoes while I was out at a client meeting. I often take flack for the number of shoes I store on my shelf at work. I suppose it is a bit excessive.

Later I met up with Jojo for dinner at Othello's, a Greek place in Southbank. She is one of Alex's friends whom I've stolen and who joined my gym about 6 months ago - she's looking fantastic now!

Time Out

A snapshot of part of our Urban Life group:
Back row L to R: Tracey, Asha, Bill, Belinda, Steve, Anna
Front row L to R: me, Lauren, Rosie, Bronwyn, Hailey, Lynda


Same crew as above with Julia in the scarf on the right side, one in from Bronwyn

The day started with a leisurely sleep in and lounge at Mel's house. Then I drove back to my house in the city, made a grocery run, and sadly returned the car. I've now gone 15 months without my own wheels. Generally it's no problem, but there are times it would be really convenient to have a car.

I met up with my boxing coach Brando for a late lunch and afternoon tea, who then joined me for church. This week we met at Melbourne Town Hall and had a guest pastor from the U.S. After church, a chunk of us from our Urban Life group headed out for dinner at Time Out in Federation Square.

Bec's Birthday in Hoppers Crossing

Birthday girl Bec - she loves the camera!


Me and glowing (pregnant) Mel.


The place is hopping.


Shae and Fi passing out the first round of jello shots.


There's the pool table and flat screen with a corner bar.


Mel's mom did the mosaic on this water feature in their back yard. Funky cool, huh?


Mel's brother Scott on the left and Waz on the right. Gotta love those heat lamps.


Bec, me, and Mel - love those Harris girls


Me, Lesley, Belinda, Julia (Scott's wife), and Mel.

Mel is my closest friend from work. She lives in Hoppers Crossing (about 20 km west of the city) with her husband Waz. She has a very close family much like mine. There are three kids, all of whom live within a ten minute drive of each other and their parents. You're loving the sound of this, aren't you Mom? Someday! I hired a car Saturday afternoon to drive to Hoppers Crossing. Mel and I got ready together; then she, Waz, and Mel's friend Bel headed to the party at Bec and Brad's place. What a house! With a surround sound theater in the front room; pool table, flat screen, and bar next to the kitchen; and a hot tub off the deck, what's not to love? Music was piped through speakers located throughout the house and the crowd was fun and easy to chat with. I stayed the night at Mel's house and started getting the itch to have one of my own (a house that is).

eGusto & Bear Brass

Another Friday night drinks at work led to a nice sit down dinner at eGusto followed by drinks at Bear Brass. I somehow found myself surrounded by four guys - Duncan (New Zealand), Jamie (Scotland), Tim (Australia) and Casey (Texas).

Last Training Session with Hosi

I've been training with Hosi twice a week for nearly a year now, and today marked our last PT session at Shapes. Hosi is moving onwards and upwards. Starting Monday, he'll be managing a swanky gym in Brighton, which is about 10 km south of the city with sea baths right in the bay. It sounds like an opportunity not to be missed, but I sure will miss him. We'll still meet up socially and we may try to arrange some private training sessions after he gets settled into his new job. We've had a good run.

Urban Girls Dinner

Tuesday night I put my new Thai cooking skills to the test. I tried to recreate the chicken and cashew stirfry we made at Thai cooking school in Chiang Mai. It was rather tasty but next time I'll spice it up a bit. I made Dana's fudgy bars for dessert. They were a smashing hit and called 'slices' here rather than bars. I had Julia, Belinda, Anna, and Rosie from Urban Life over for a girls night, and we ate and chatted for hours. I was most excited to maintain a reasonably clean house with toilet paper in the bathroom for their visit. It's the small things in life.

Suction

Today I spent 4 hours vacuuming. Aren't you glad you read this blog? I mean this is the real dirt, interesting stuff. We had the most putrid red shag carpet runner lining the hallway. I'm told it functioned as a red carpet entrance for Aimee's birthday party which occurred while we were in Asia. This carpet was ancient, not to mention only one measly foot wide. It was removed from our 100 year old next door neighbor's house and the carpet wreaked of "old". Not only was the smell horrifying, red shag was constantly shedding from the runner, shading the carpet to either side of it a horrible pink color with little swags of red shag dispersed through the house. Add to this a next-to-worthless vacuum, and what you get is 4 hours of suction. I ran the small round nozzle along every square inch of our downstairs level, sanitized the bathroom, and found the bottom of the kitchen. Woola, we had clean house for a very short time. How exciting!

Work Drinks to World

Tonight was my first time back at Friday night work drinks after travelling with Katie. It was so great to catch up with everyone. After we cleaned out the fridge at work, a bunch of us moved onto World, a bar & restaurant in Southbank not far from the office. The group slowly dwindled down to Robo, Elliot, Susan, and me. The live band was rocking as was the dancing. I returned to a full house around midnight and the party continued from there.

Elliot's 30th & the Olympics

Friday night was Elliot's 30th birthday. This is the guy who hosted the best party ever a few months ago for his engagement, so I knew this was not to be missed. We went to Clare Castle Hotel on Rathdowne St. The evening was a bit more tame than his engagement party, but I enjoyed catching up with a few of his friends I'd met previously and met a few more. The guy has good friends...what can I say? It also happened to coincide with the opening ceremony for the Olympics which was a treat to watch, knowing I'd been there and seen the Bird's Nest a month before.

Soul Mama

Katie's last day in Melbourne was surprisingly synchronous with her arrival day. I rented a car to bring her to the airport the next morning, so we had complete freedom to go anywhere we wanted that evening. Dan, Brendan, Jade, and Luke joined us for dinner at Soul Mama, a vegetarian restaurant on the beach in St Kilda (not a far cry from Veggie Bar on Brunswick St).


We then stopped by Brunetti's, renowned for their fancy desserts, on Faraday St just off of Lygon (not too far a stretch from Koko Black's on Lygon St). We elected to eat dessert at Crooner's instead which had sinful chocolate Mars cake. I believe there were a few episodes of Kath & Kym or some other Australian TV series - something wildly appropriate for Katie's last night.


Katie was a color model for Dan at Aveda earlier that morning, then met me in the city for boxing. We took a few mock shots in the kitchen later that evening to capture the sisterly love and rivalry. I got Katie completely hooked on boxing while she was here! It was so hard to see Katie leave the next morning, but what an amazing couple of months we had. We both would love to do it all over again...tomorrow!

Last Day of Leave

We enjoyed a little shopping Monday morning along the shops in Airlie Beach before driving back to Mackay for our flight back to Melbourne. We headed to Mezza (Katie's pick) for lamb kebabs and watched the last two episode of Six Feet Under to finish the series we'd been pecking away at during Katie's visit. Sadly, today marked the end of my solid month of leave from work.

Whitsundays Island Hopping

Sunday we took a leisurely 3 Island Beach cruise to Daydream Island, Hamilton Island, and Whitehaven Beach. We took a bus to Shute Harbour from which our FantaSea Cruise departed. Katie and I took a moment to pose by the sea horses.


Here's our massive cruise ship - a little different from the smaller, sportier speed boats to which we'd become accustomed.


Here's Katie and I at yet again another romantic spot - Lover's Cove at Daydream Island Resort & Spa. There was all kinds of coral and shells rather than sand on the 'beach'. When we disembarked the cruise ship, we saw a couple that had been on our ocean rafting tour who was staying on this island and this was the spot they recommended so we figured we better check it out.


We also made our way through the "Putt Your Way Around Australia" 19-hole mini golf course.


Katie pulls off the Titanic pose on 'Daydreamer'.


Katie's killing her imaginary opponent in this rousing game of chess.


The next stop of the day was Hamilton Island, the largest resort in the South Pacific. We splurged and hired a golf buggy to peruse the island at our leisure, crossing paths several times with the narrated, cheaper but seemingly boring bus tour.


Katie and I took turns driving around the massive island. We had just over an hour to take it all in.


A view from one of the lookouts at Hamilton Island.


A view to the other side from the same lookout on Hamilton Island.


A beach filled with sailboats, wind surfers, and sunbathers.


There's a closer view of some of the wind surfers.


After a hearty meat fest bbq buffet on the boat, we cruised to our final destination, Whitehaven Beach. We took this funny little transfer barge from the cruise ship into the shore. Whitehaven Beach is renowned as one of the top ten beaches in the world, located on Whitsunday Island, the largest island in the region. This portion of Whitehaven boasts 7 km of glistening white silica sand and crystal clear waters. As beautiful as it was, nothing compared to Hill Inlet from the day before.


Katie shows off her tan on the perty white sand at Whitehaven.


Oh yeah, me too! We cruised back to Shute Harbour, took the bus back to Airlie Beach, and camped out in our hotel for the evening, ordering one last round of cauliflower risotto and breathing in the relaxation of it all.