Ben and Jacqueline's Blog

14
February
2009

Happy Valentines Day1

Happy Valentines Day

Have a wonderful day!
Love from Jackie and Ben

6
February
2009

Since the last blog, Jackie and I have both been settling back into working life after the amazing Christmas holiday. Sydney weather has been a little unpredictable, but we’ve had some great sunshine and have been trying to keep up our tans! (As you can see from Jackie’s quick post from her iPhone last weekend). I’m still down in Canberra Monday-Thursday, but hopefully there are only another 5 or 6 weeks to go.

Following Jackie’s birthday dinner where the last blog left off, She continued to celebrate with a night out with some of her girlfriends, and then the following weekend with a BBQ in Bradfield park, across the road from our house. The BBQ worked out wonderfully. The weather was perfect, and we wheeled our Weber Baby Q bbq across the road and grabbed a spot by some tables in the sun. We then spent the afternoon relaxing with friends and having a few glasses of Rosé, and some delicious BBQ food.

Unfortunately, the following morning, I was back off to Canberra and didn’t get to see my friend Nat from Singapore/England, who came to stay with us for a few days. Jackie and her had a great time however (and I’m not going to lie, I was very jealous).

A few weeks ago was the Sydney Festival, where Sydney comes alive with a variety of performances. Jackie and I went along to ‘Jazz in the park’ which was a huge event in the Domain, one of the parks in the city. We watched the Gypsy Kings and Queens with a few friends from work, and had a great night dancing away in the park with thousands of other people.

January 26th is Australia Day here, so we had a long weekend, and my cousins Pasquale and Wendy came up to stay with us. We had an amazing time. On the Saturday, we headed up to Cattai National Park on the Hawkesbury River, about 90 minutes away, with Sarah and Jason for a night of camping. It was 42 degrees (107 F!!), so we were boiling and enjoyed swimming in the river and taking cold showers to cool off. Unfortunately there was a total fire ban, so we couldn’t have a BBQ dinner, and instead the boys all decided to go up to the shops to get a roast Chicken. We got distracted at the pub however and had a nice little adventure to Windsor, a nearby town. That evening we had a few drinks, sang some karaoke, and slept out under the stars.

On Sunday morning we headed back to Sydney and had a wander around the city, before heading out for some afternoon drinks at a cool bar called the Beresford for one of Jackie’s friend’s birthdays. It was a busy evening, as we followed up the Beresford with dinner with my family and my Auntie Shiela and Uncle Frank at Nepalese Kitchen, and then a great night out in Kings Cross.

Monday morning was Australia Day, so we headed over to our friend Kylie’s place for a ‘real’ Australian BBQ by the pool. All in all it was a tiring weekend and we were relieved it was a 4 day week!

In other exciting news, Jackie and I have been busy holiday planning. We’ve booked tickets to Tasmania to check out the East coast for Easter, and have booked flights to the US for 3 weeks in June – We’ll try to organise a week down in Costa Rica too while we’re over. How exciting!

How are all of you? Let us know with an email or a comment.

And, as always, don’t forget to check out all our photos