365: Saturday 28th April 2012 (again)

A second 'daily picture' from yesterday.. only because the first was taken at 10pm oustside a Chinese restaurant after a bottle of wine.. and this one was a little more 'considered'!

365: Saturday 28th April 2012

New friends, great times.

365: Friday 27th April 2012

Last Sunday's Western Bulldogs game! (no good picture ops today)

365: Thursday 26th April 2012

Rain, rain, go away...

365: Wednesday 25th April 2012

Ready for dinner

365: Tuesday 24th April 2012

Dinner at work.

365: Sunday 22nd April

Bride to be...

Sunshine and showers...

Today brought sunshine and showers.. not rain showers, but a bridal shower for work colleague and friend, Yael. She is marring Yotam in Israel in June, and this morning one of her bridesmaids, Jenna, threw her and about 25 friends a champagne brunch. This was my first ever bridal shower, and I must say that Jenna and Yael have set the bar high!

The host Jenna opened with a very heartful speech, which was followed by several other speeches, and finally a response from Yael, who had some lovely words to share about her mum!

Here's a great idea to recycle if you are planning a bridal shower in the near future... each of us had a polaroid photo taken and then wrote a message in a guest book for Yael to keep:

I'm not sure if this was a break with tradition or not (this being my first shower and all..) but next up, the groom arrived! Yotam was roped in to play a little 'Mr and Mrs' style game, crafted by the hostess with the mostess (and also bridesmaid), Jordan. She always has the best party games, and this is another one to recycle at your own parties!

Bride and Groom sit back to back with their shoes off (wierd I know, but all will become clear), and are asked ten questions along the lines of .. "who is the best cook?", "who said 'I love you' first?" and so on.. Rather than calling out the answers, the bride and groom hold one of their own shoes and one of their partners, and raise the relevant shoe in the air to indicate their response. It's fun to watch when they agree and when they disagree!

 
After a delicious brunch we feasted on cake and received delicious macaroons to take home. It's 11pm now.. too late to try one?! Why not. Yummy :-)

Thanks Jenna for hosting a wonderful shower, and congratulations to the bride and groom-to-be, Yael and Yotam.

365: Sunday 8th April 2012

Easter egg hunt. Run, run!!!

Easter Sunday

In ex-pat land the high days and holidays are spent with our Melbourne 'family', and as it happens on this occassion, fellow Brits. We spent Easter Sunday with neighbours Lucy and Steve, and blog-regulars Sam, Lou, 2 year old Ben and 5 month old Anna.

Lucy and Steve hosted Easter lunch because Steve has just had major back surgery, and can only stand up or lie down. This means he can't travel anywhere in a car and it's more convenient to be at home. Their place is a pretty convient location for Tom and I too - they live three floors beneath us in the same apartment building! This made it really easy for Tom to cook roast lamb in our apartment and transport it down in the lift when it was ready. If only we could have bottled the wonderful aromas that filled our place and taken them with us too :-)

Lucy made prawns and risotto cakes for a starter, and Lou rounded out the meal with panna cotta and berries (and had much delight in telling us how many calories we'd consumed in the pudding alone!).

Steve had to stand up to eat his meal, so whilst we were at the table, he stood at the breakfast bar and watched on. After dinner he gave a demonstration of his 'grabber' - essential for retrieving the remote control from the floor when you can't bend down! Ben tried it on Thomas and Percy, with limited successs.

Lucy had pre-hidden lots of chocoloate eggs for Ben to find, much to his delight! He found about 20 eggs, counted them (with some help), identified all the colours, and managed not to eat them all in one sitting - well done Ben!

 

Happy Easter everyone!

Tom's First Game

Sunday 1st April marked the first Western Bulldogs game of the 2012 season, and the long awaited start of the 'real thing' for Tom. Having joined the club just after the close of last season in September 2011, it's been 6 months of solid preparation, and now it was finally time for the action to begin. With his lean, muscular, sporty physique it's wonder he had a suit on instead of a kit (!) but either way Tom was looking very official on the day.

As General Manager of Fan Development, Tom's role on the day was to oversee all fan-engagement type activities, all of which he was directly involved in planning. This included videos played on the big screens both inside and outside the stadium, new player posters in the stadium, the 'junior captain' (like the English Premier League mascot concept), two quarter-time audience participation activities and Foxtel promotions which pitted home and away fans against each other in a cheering challenge to win an Xbox-360, a junior guard of honour as the players ran out, appearances from Woofer this mascot and Sid the real bulldog, and lots more!

I didn't get many photos because the Etihad Stadium didn't like the fact that I had a professional camera (boo). After the below image I had to stop using it, but I switch to the video camera instead (I came well prepared on the audio-visual front). Answers on a postcard for spotting Tom in the below image:

Video highlights to follow shortly!