As I mentioned in our last post that we had a few things coming up I’ll fill you in on those things first...
My Nautical themed office party – as you can see from the pictures we were great pirates, was really fun and quite refreshing having an afternoon party! I have come to the conclusion that Aussies are GREAT at dressing up. There was a blue bottle, the titanic and two jelly fish (clear umbrellas with lots of ribbon and silvery stuff tapped to the edge of them and the girls were dressed in white!!) to name but a few....needless to say us pirates were blown out of the water! However the winner was a Fijian guy who had a smock that resembled a coral reef and a head piece that was a shell of a pearl...hence a black pearl!!!! The party continued into the last afternoon but I had to leave as we had a plane to catch.
Luckily our flight to Wellington was late enough for me to go to the party but it didn’t stop me being a bit tipsy when I met Daire!! After being delayed at immigration in Wellington for not having return itinerary with us we finally made it through around midnight on Friday 11th December. Noel and Maria met us at the airport after generously insisting we stay with them for the weekend, the first drastic difference was the wind and rain! AARRGGHHHHH we left 30ish degrees back in Sydney but we still had a great sleep that night under a ton of blankets to keep warm. Saturday we had brunch with Noel and Daire’s cousins Maria and Donna (for those in the know these are Eamonn’s sisters), Donna’s husband Dean and their youngest daughter Lilly. It was a beautiful day sunny but typically windy and Maria gave us the grand tour around the harbour and city, it was so young and small in comparison to any city in the UK and certainly Sydney. In the eve we went over to Donna’s for a slap up BBQ the Qiwi way, as well as a bounce on their enormous trampoline with the girls (I particularly enjoyed this!!) Sunday we went to see Brena in her Dance Schools Christmas production of The Wizard of Oz and then went for an explore on our own, down the cable car and around the Te Papa Museum. Noel came to get us and drove us around all the little bays before heading home for a slap up roast. We had a fab weekend and really had our fill of family which always makes things a little easier being away from home.
This week was pretty busy, preparing for Christmas but we still managed a cookery lesson at the Sydney fish school on how to marinade and BBQ scallops and sword fish as well as make all the accompanying bits. I also got told I had a picnic day on Friday which is like a free day off..SWEET!!! So used it to book and finish preparing for Christmas. Saturday we went swimming then over to Manly for lunch and an afternoon on Shelly beach which was lush and in the eve we were invited to a house party of a girl I work with. Then Sunday we were invited to baby Orlaith’s Christening, Daire was at the christening of Steve and Lynn’s first born Keelin around 12 years ago so it was great to join the Slevin/Daly clan again.
Can’t wait for next week and Dad and Charlotte arriving and CHRISTMAS!! Merry Christmas to everyone, we hope you have a great time and look forward to seeing all the pictures!!
