The student finishes his first year

Brendan finished the last of his med exams during the week, and we celebrated his achievements this weekend. The celebrations started in the city on Saturday and continued onto the Farm on Sunday.

We dropped by Stephen and Karen's on the way home......Aidan has really stretched in the last couple of weeks.

Aidan - video 1

Aidan had a new ball trick for us and wanted to be filmed ...............
Unfortunately we didn't recognise the cheeky grin towards the end of the video, and turned off the camera one second too early. Suffice to say that someone's bum who was nearby got a little surprise

Cheers

Cheers!!!! I had a very challenging year supervising an Honours student. Last week we found out that she had passed the Honours year. We went out to celebrate at a modern Lebanese Restaurant (Rumi's). Here I am having a pomegranate, lime juice and vodka cocktail. Very nice.




We met up with Jason+Susan, Sophia+Jeremy recently and had a combined birthday celebration for Susan and Sophia birthdays.

Birthday weekend

Tiger Airlines had a sale recently and we managed to get very cheap return flights to Adelaide for a weekend away to celebrate Sally's birthday. (Gerard, you must tell Conor there's an airline in Australia called Tiger!!!) It has been nearly 20 years since Sally was last there, and I had only been for a conference. Our good friend Luke (Sally's twin) now lives there and not only did he put us up for the weekend, but was the perfect tour guide. It was an extremely indulgent weekend with lots of excellent wine and exquisite food. Here we are at The Greedy Goose, apparently it won a state-wide competition as the best restaurant.




The lookout from Mt Lofty. Unfortunately it was very foggy that day.




Of course no visit to Adelaide is complete without going to the Barossa Valley. Luke took us to a few of his favourite wineries, he was an excellent tour guide and chaffeur. Our taste buds definitely enjoyed the wine, but our wallet is still recovering.




We didn't realise Maggie Beer has a shop in the Barossa. Not only is the food absolutely delicious, it was all in a beautiful setting.



On the way to the airport, we saw a luxury car shop which was very appropriately called "The Toy Shop"

Overseas visitors

Recently we had an unexpected visit from Sally's cousin Arabela from Macau, and her friend, Matilda. It was great having them with us and being able to show off Melbourne.

For Deb and Michael

Amanda and Derek celebrated their engagement a couple of weekends ago. It was a fantastic afternoon, great company, yummy food and excellent music. Here are a couple of photos from the day, of the whole gang (minus Jane, Deb and Michael).

The kids

It's been a few weeks since we saw the little ones. We can't believe how much they've grown!!!!

I didn't take a photo, but Jake and his friends recently recorded a CD!! He plays the guitar on it, and it's fantastic.

Eoin is gorgeous as ever. His top reads "I may be little, but I am still THE BOSS". He has learnt many new tricks: clapping, singing, let's-drop-the-spoon-and-see-who-will-pick-it-up trick (Hint: the sucker is in the second photo).






Cutey Emma was also in very good form, and was very busy entertaining the adults with her twirling, peek-a-boo, hide-and-seek etc.

The farm, KK and October birthdays

Everyone was up at the farm for a BBQ this weekend. It was great to see everyone.



Mam was very proud of the beautiful roses that are blooming in her garden. They smelt absolutely fantastic too.



Jake was in charge of organising KK for Christmas again this year.



Afterwards, all the October birthday people shared a beautiful chocolate cake (thanks Karen!!). I looked through all 12 photos I took when we were singing happy birthday, but in all of them, Dad's eyes were firmly on the cake!!

Quick video of the gang

Let's see if this works.