Welcome Tara

I'm an aunt! My younger sister just gave birth to a beautiful girl, Tara, on the 17th Jan 07 (Sydney time). She's really quite a gem, so much hair, looks just like her mum when she was a baby. We were all very anxious to find out whether "peanut" (the nickname Jo called her when she was in the womb) was a boy/girl. She was very shy in womb, not letting us know what her sex was, there was even a betting pool going on whether peanut was a boy/girl. When she finally arrived a few days later after her due date, we were all very excited. Esther & I were waiting anxiously as we are on the otherside of the earth. Wish i was there to hold my little niece. Jo is coping well after the labour, apparently enjoying being a mum. When i spoke to her over the phone, she sounded so happy. I guess i was expecting her to sound tired & exhausted as most new mums are, but not Jo. I can't believe i'm an aunt. 17th Jan 07 is certainly an auspicious date as that's when we closed escrow on our house here too. Congratulations to Steve & Jo on a beautiful baby girl...

Bondi in New York???

Hold on, where are we? Could it be Bondi or are we in the East Village in the Big Apple? Well, it all depends how you look at it. A fellow aussie expat, who has been busy studying in Columbia U for the last year & half organised this great dinner at this aussie restaurant in the East Village with a whole bunch of aussies. I told him how much i miss home & next thing we know, we're in Bondi Road in NYC. Everyone including the waiters were aussie & they even had lamingtons & pavlova for desserts. Okay, so it's summer now back home & it's freezing winter in NYC, but hei, who's keeping track. The restaurant's interior walls was covered with a panaromic view of Bondi beach, so it was almost like we were right there. To finish the night off, we wondered down to a good olde aussie bar called Bar-ramundi.... it was all good ... mate!!!

Christmas in upstate New York.. and Happy Hanukah

Tab & I celebrated Christmas in New York with Esther, Dave, Fleur & Hunter. Well, actually it would be Happy Hanukah to Dave. It was a great Christmas/Hanukah upstate and it snowed too. Just as it should. Esther made the best aged prime rib. (almost as good as our thanksgiving turkey... i said... almost) But i must say, some credit goes to Dave for buying the best prime rib cut. I'm still dreaming about that to this day... p.s how fat is Fleur (Esther will you stop over feeding her!!)

In the midst of escrow for a house

We bought a house. A BIG house. Tab & I were looking for a small condo in the city but ended up with a 5 bedroom ranch style home. How did that happen? Gawd, i don't know. We found a great real estate agent who showed us this place on our first outing with her. It was on the last week before Christmas & we had stopped househunting for the year, thinking we'll pick up again in 2007. But the next thing we know, we put in an offer & got this place & we'll be closing escrow Jan 17th. Well, it was going to be my new year's resolution to buy a place but looks like that's taken care of now. Now all we need is furniture to fill up this place. Looks like Tab's wish of being able to do different themes for each room has come true. We'll have many different rooms to play around with.