Out last trip before the baby arrived, we decided to take the train to Boston for a four-day weekend.
Travel
We’re in San Francisco!
Our little girl had her first flight with us to San Francisco just before turning 12 weeks old. We’re visiting for 5 weeks for Alec’s work before flying back to Sydney for Christmas.
Possum eyes! 12 wks, 4 days old in San Francisco.
Alec’s Birthday – Washington DC
We celebrated Alec’s birthday this year with a weekend trip to Washington DC for the National Cherry Blossom Festival.
The weather was sadly gray-er than originally forecast, but we still had a fantastic two days exploring the nation’s capitol.
First up was the National Air and Space Museum, where we saw cool things like the lunar landing modules, the first airplane, moon rock. We also checked out the American History Museum where I was delighted to see the original ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz, and Julia Child’s kitchen.
We spent sunday wandering around the cherry blossoms and war memorials. The blossoms were in amazing abundance everywhere!
Happy birthday husband!!
Air and Space Museum
Cherry blossoms
Melbourne Weekend
We had booked a weekend in Melbourne to watch the Australian Open looong before we knew about this New York business. It ended up falling on Alec’s last weekend in Australia, so it seemed to be a good way to see him out with a bang.
Sweltering in the tennis. Don’t be fooled, the clothes are for sun protection. It was boiling.
We also spent a day wandering around St Kilda and the CBD, just hanging out.
St Kilda boardwalk.
Luna Park!
The Victoria Art Gallery. Thumper!
We had such a lovely weekend – the perfect way (bar a weekend at the beach!) to spend our last weekend together for a while. Next time we meet, it will be in New York, baby!
California and NYC Trip
I haven’t felt much like blogging lately, so this is a brief account of my recent USA trip. It was mostly for work, but I managed to squeeze in a trip to NYC and Monterey. Most of the trip, when I wasn’t working, I was catching up with friends and family.
First stop, San Francisco.
Catching up with Isis, Mansi and baby Maya.
Dinner at Greens Restaurant in SF with Jamie, Lisa and Isis.
One of Mansi and Jason’s Abyssinian cats.
Another of Mansi and Jason’s pets!
Filming an AdSense video with Victoria in Mountain View.
Drinking the Koolaid on campus.
Next destination, NYC! I stayed with Masa for a few days in Brooklyn.
View from the Brooklyn shore.
Making a new friend in the park.
One of seven bridal couples I saw having photos taken in the area.
View from the Metropolitan Art Gallery rooftoop garden.
Doing what I do best 😉
Goofing off with Masa.
Dinner with Janice and Calman.
Hello Jersey Shores!
At the Google NY office with Olah.
And Nadia …
… and Isa!
Then it was back to Mountain View…
On campus, taking in the sites.
Nom nom nom.
My friendly tour guide, Gus, and giant green Android.
Making a new friend! Meeting Zoe Pollock.
Alec met me in Mountain View. We were able to spend a long weekend in Monterey.
My favourite animals at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the jellies!
Drive down the coast to Big Sur. Amazing scenery.
Gorgeous water.
Gorgeous, jet-lagged, husband.
Beautiful!
Admiring the view.
The red woods in Big Sur.
Small husband…
Tiny wife.
Meeting the locals.
My brother and Michele drove down to nearby Carmel for the end of the weekend.
Back in Mountain View with the Ring family – Jeannette and little PJ.
Making more friends on campus! Meet Lola.
Birthday in Melbourne: Day 3
My birthday fell on day 3 of our Melbourne trip. We had a sleep in, breakfast in the hotel, and then sauntered off to the Tim Burton Exhibition. I’ve always admired his films, so seeing his artwork on loan from personal collections was quite amazing. I found it entertaining picturing him as an animator for Disney, seeing as his personal style is quite the opposite.
I felt most inspired seeing the exhibition, as Tim Burton has clearly worked extremely hard to get to where he is. For every success he has had, he’s had more than double the amount of projects go nowhere. His passion and skill have taken him to where he is, also his tenacity. It reminded me to be stronger and not give up on my dreams.
Hello giant blow-up scary person.
“Nananananananana BATMAN!”
My favourite quote of the day, overheard in the exhibition: “Did he do Shrek?” Lol.
After the exhibition we wandered around some more on the river banks until the sun went down.
The Yarra.
Very scenic.
As CBD as it gets.
Pretty bridge makes for nice photos.
Baroo?
It’s my birthday and I’ll pose if I want to.
And make my husband pose too!
Another graffiti wall.
Outside the ACMI building – such a cool design.
I lurve you blob!
Raaarrr!
We didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye, lol.
Run, husband!
Blobs make for handy seats too.
And then SHE said …
After much wandering, we had dinner at the very funky Fifteen. I love Jamie Oliver, so was keen to try his restaurant.
The restaurant was excellent. Stylish, great vibe, fabulous service. The food was really great, interesting recipes rather than the stock standard type, particularly for the veggo options.
What is down the stairs?!
Happy birthday to me! (This may have started out as “happy birrhday” …)
Another year older …
One more pose for the road. Happy, well-fed and slightly tipsy.
Even the restaurant had graffiti art …
I’m on a tram!
Back at the hotel – Alec and the frog, together at last.
I wore out my husband …
Thanks so much for the fantastic weekend away Alec 🙂 xox
31st Birthday in Melbourne: Day 2
Day 2 kicked off with brunch at Di Bella in north Melbourne with an old friend, Dana, and her bf Karl, an ex-intern at Google and who joined our netball team while she was in Sydney. Dana moved back to Melbourne after her internship ended and is moving to Seattle in the near-ish future to join Google there, where I’m sure she will take the Seattle netball team to new heights of victory.
I enjoyed the breakfast at Di Bella immensely, even more so because we were introduced to Dana and Karl’s brunch technique of ordering food, then eating cake while the breakfast was being cooked. Breakfast of champions. Amazing.
Pear and chocolate danish. Divine.
Netball yay 🙂
After brunch (and an unscheduled drive to the bus depo in Footscray to pick up the wallet Alec left on the airport bus – PS Sunshine street is NOT sunny people) Alec and I walked around Melbourne and ate more food.
I’d like a purse THIS big.
I love how Melbourne has random sculptures scattered around it. Like the giant purse. Or the men waiting for a tram.
Like CityRail in Sydney, trams can take a while to arrive. This poor fellow has been waiting a looooong time.
I practice my tram-waiting face while waiting for the tram, of course.
Melbourne also has a lot of graffiti art. I enjoyed the little alleys with oh-so-cool cafes, jam-packed with trendy Melbourne-ites, and covered with bright designs.
Even the dumpsters got the art treatment.
The husband loves a good alley.
The wife loves a good Tiffany store 😉
Lindt gets arty.
Birthday tulips! Thanks husband!
Melbourne Central shot tower in the middle of a shopping centre. So cool.
More graffiti.
Dinner at Pellegrini’s Espresso Bar for home-cooked, simple, Italian food.
After dinner it was off to Mary Poppins at Her Majesty’s Theatre. Alec was fabulous and booked us great seats with a package that included wine and a goody bag (ooooh more gifts!).
“Feed the birds, tuppence a bag!”
The show was fantastic. I wasn’t sure what to expect, so it surpassed any expectations I might have had. I adored Mary Poppins the movie when I was growing up, so the musical brought back lovely memories. The singing, dancing and set were all fabulous.
31st Birthday in Melbourne: Day 1
For my birthday this year, Alec took me to Melbourne. We were blessed with lovely weather. A full three days of sunshine, wheee! We stayed at The Olsen, a fabulous new hotel in South Yarra, decorated with the artwork of John Olsen.
I love this – I did take one home with me!
Stylish room with artwork by Olsen.
Morning light – hitting the shops.
We had a lazy Saturday morning before wandering down Chapel St to grab some brunch and shop. Fun for me, perhaps less fun for Alec.
Feed me!
Coffeeeeee!
It was then off to the Melbourne Museum to see Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition.
Who knew Melbourne would be so sunny!
The exhibition was great. It contained a lot of artefacts that had been recovered from the wreck as well as telling many personal stories of people who survived and perished. It also had sobering facts about the sheer number of people who died.
“I’m the king of the world!”
Snack time at Koko Black.
Nom nom.
One more coffee for the road.
Heating from the inside out. Brr Melbourne is cold.
Tasty pudding.
Mousse martini. Looks amazing. Made me feel ill afterwards.
Walking through Melbourne in the fading light.
Tram!
Hip hop dancers in Federation Square.
Dinner – a local Thai joint.
Yay, we’re in Melbourne!
Hawaii Honeymoon: Maui Part 1
A delayed honeymoon is a great idea for several reasons. 1. It’s practical as you can save up after the wedding for your trip. 2. It extends your wedding celebrations even longer. Our honeymoon was delayed because we wanted to go to Hawaii and the rainy season extended until the end of March.
We decided to visit two islands we hadn’t been to before – Maui and Kauai, with a day on Oahu at the end for shopping.
First stop on our trip was Maui. Each hotel gave us a complimentary bottle of Champagne with a really sweet card congratulating us on our wedding and honeymoon. The funniest was the last hotel, who address the card to “Mr and Mrs Knight”. *snigger*.
Free champagne? Yes please!
Lovely bedroom in our suite.
Mai Tai? Don’t mind if I do!
Celebrating with cocktails. Yay we’re married!
We stayed just outside of the main town of Lahaina, on North Ka’anapali Beach. The town is a bit touristy, but has the most amazing Banyan tree. It’s impossible to capture how large it is in a photo – suffice to say it’s worth visiting the town just to see the massive tree.
Biggest tree ever.
We bought this pineapple for a dollar on the side of the road.
During our stay we drove the road to Hana, which stretches along the coast. We stopped off at many parks and waterfalls along the way.
No idea what this is. Love Hawaii and the weird and wonderful things lying around in the national parks.
One of many falls on the side of the highway.
The most beautiful waterfall was right at the end, called the seven pools of Oheo. It’s basically seven waterfalls that stream into each other – amazingly beautiful.
Photo op!
Sunsets on Hawaii are just amazing. We pulled over while driving a few times to photograph the sunset on the side of the road.
Beautiful view on the side of the road!
Just another perfect day in Maui.
Canberra – Day 2
It’s off to the National Art Gallery to see the Degas exhibition. It was definitely worth the long drive down! We joined a tour group and learned a great many things about my favourite artist.
Following the art gallery we took a walk around the Old Parliament House Gardens and had a look at the hundreds of roses that are planted there.
A visit to our nation’s capital isn’t complete without a trip to Parliament House. We had a quick look around, walked over the top, and stopped for lunch. We hadn’t intended to stop there at all, but I’m glad we did as I found it really interesting.
Last stop in the Berra before our journey home was at Koko Black, a chocolate cafe recommended to me by a work friend. It’s a Melbourne company and has yet to open in Sydney. I was a bit of a glutton and ordered way too much, but I wanted to try a few things.
I wasn’t disappointed that’s for sure! The ice chocolate I had was amazing and filled with two different types of ice-cream. Alec’s ice coffee was also great, and the ice-cream martini we shared was absolutely fantastic.
Piggy!
I can’t remember the full name of this, but it was a delicious caramel ice-cream made on the premises with coconut and chocolate and possibly something else.
Gone in 60 seconds!
Lots more chocolate!
After Koko Black we slowly drove back to Sydney … after an immensely enjoyable Canberra mini-break.