Today we bought an apartment!

It’s a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment with a nice big balcony. It’s on the 6th floor and has an underground parking place.

It’s just by St Leonards train station, and a short stroll up to Crows Nest shops.

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We don’t move in until Australia day (26 January 2010) because there is currently a tenant, but we’ll definitely have a house warming after that!

Bonnie and Lou – We’re looking forward to your visit I’ll need lots of help doing up the place!
Hope to see you all soon
Ben and Jacks

A couple of weeks ago we had Nadia (an old friend of Jacks’) and her boyfriend Jay come and stay with us on their way to Auckland. We had a wonderful time ‘being tourists’ in Sydney, and hopefully we’ll get a chance to visit them in Auckland. We visited Blu Horizons, the cocktail bar at the top of the Shangri-La hotel with views over the city, and had dinner in the Rocks. We spent a few days at the beach – Bondi, Manly and Maroubra (which happens to be an iconic place for Jay who is an avid surfer) – and did some surfing in the sun, which kindly came out and shone down on us! Unfortunately however, I snapped my board, although it was a great opportunity to go shopping (Or is that me being optimistic – my new board is very cool!). One of the highlights of the visit was our big day out on Saturday. We met Millie and James (other friends of ours) in the park outside our apartment in Milsons Point at lunchtime and had some champagne while we waited for a table at Ripples, which is a great cafe on the water! The 6 of us spent a few hours there, before heading across to the cross for some drinks at the Gazebo Wine Garden, and dinner at Tomatillo. We all had heaps of fun together, and had a great day and night!!

On September 26th, TK turned 18, and had a big party at Mum and Dad’s house. It was Rubiks Cube themed – everyone comes in multi coloured clothes and is meant to end up in 1 colour by the end of the night. We had a great night looking absolutely ridiculous, and mum did a beautiful ceremony!

The other very exciting piece of news from us (well Jacks really), is that Jacks started her new job today at CSC, which is a global consulting, systems integration and outsourcing company where she will be Corporate Affairs Executive! Very impressive She will be responsible for government relations, analyst relations and media relations for CSC Australia.

In between Howorth and CSC, Jacks had last week off and spent a few days of it relaxing and getting healthy in the Hunter Valley. She headed up to the Golden Door Spa with Lucie, a friend of hers, abandoning me to look after myself It sounds like she had an amazing time though – meditating, hiking, exercising, relaxing and eating delicious but very healthy food. She even brought me back the cook book so I can try some of it at home!

Well I think that about covers our news (for a little while at least). I’m sure we’ll write again soon.

Check out all the photos!
Look forward to hearing from all of you

Ben and Jacks
xx

Saturday we walked around the entire city, headed down to the beach at Glenelg for lunch and explored that area for the afternoon. That evening we dressed up for a night on the town with our first stop at Mesa Lunga – a trendy wine and tapas bar. We had a few glasses of Adelaide Hills/Barossa Valley wines and a bit of banter before dinner at Adelaide’s infamous Ying Chow (a cheap Chinese joint that is legendary with the locals) We then made our way to The Bar and finished the evening at Lotus Bar.

Sunday morning we picked up our rental car and made our way to the hills for a day exploring the famous wine region. We had a delicious breakfast at a tiny little providore cafe (the kind I dream about opening one day!) A couple of ks down the road was our first winery – Petaluma. The cellar door and fine dining restaurant are inside what’s known as the old Bridgewater Mill which is actually still in operation. Their extensive wine selection took nearly an hour to go through before we headed downstairs to check out their champagne room. Some of the bottles had been then for nearly 15 years (with the dust to prove it) and would be there for another twenty! The old German town of Hahndorf was our next stop. We strolled along the main street, had lunch and made our way to the next winery on our list – Shaw and Smith. Michael Hill-Smith is actually a friend of Ian and Siena’s and he’d helped with our initial planning of the trip and set up the special tour at Petaluma.

He met us at his winery to guide us through our tasting which as you can imagine added so much to the experience. Ben and I channelled our inner John Allen while he explained the intricacies of the wine, the history of the winery, his personal journey as a wine maker/businessman. After nearly two hours there Ben and I headed back to Adelaide with our 6 bottles from Shaw and Smith.

Monday was reserved for the Barossa Valley which is famous for its Shiraz so as you can imagine I’ve been dreaming about since we’d booked our vacay! The drive in itself was a treat. Our first stop was Yalumba which is actually owned by Michael’s cousin. They had a huge cellar door with a gorgeous fire place. We’d decided to take advantage of the sunlight and make ourselves a picnic for lunch so our next stop was the Barossa Valley Cheese Shop to pick up some freshly made Goat’s Brie before heading down the road to Penfolds. We purchased a delicious bottle of Bin 28 to add to our ‘cellar’.

Maggie Beer’s Farm was next on the list to pick up some more essential ingredients for our picnic before heading to the charming boutique winery – Hentley Farms. We’d tasted their Zinfindel at Mesa Lunga the first night and I fell in love with it. So we tracked it down and to our delight it was the perfect setting for our picnic. We purchased a bottle of the Zin and enjoyed a lunch of fresh cheese, wholegrain bread and vegetable pate overlooking the picturesque vineyards.

Our last stop was Jacob’s Creek which was a bit of a disappointment after our special experience at Hentley Farms. The cellar door was actually referred to as the ‘Visitors Centre’ which I’m sure paints the picture perfectly for you.

We flew back the next morning bright and early. Ben rushed straight back to work and I was off to my health retreat in the Hunter.

It was a fabulous trip and we had such a great time. Let us know if you want some tips for wine tasting in Adelaide!

There is much more to report on…but in the interest of keeping these as short as possible we’ll hold off on that…

Lots of love,
Jac and Ben

Spending a beautiful Sunday at Bondi beach!

In other exciting news, Jacks had her soccer grand finals last Sunday and won, so Northbridge FC are the Champions We’ve put up a few photos from the game, so check them out! I was a star supporter and brought the BBQ and had beers and sausages – I think I ate 5. Yum yum

Hope you’re all well!
Ben and Jacqueline

The snow at Perisher was actually quite good all weekend, although it was pretty cold and blizzardy at the top of the mountain. It was Ciersley’s first time at the snow, and Marilia is a beginner too, so Byron, Ben and I did quite a lot of riding together. Ryan was being a gentleman and being patient with Marilia

Despite it being a year since we were last on the snow, we all got back into it pretty quickly and were flying down the slopes and hitting the terrain park in no time! I was even trying some little jumps, and got some good photos of Ben and Byron doing some jumps, rails, and drops. On the Sunday, Ben even landed a 360 which he was really excited about.

The weekend flew by, and on Sunday afternoon it was time to head off. We drove straight from the slopes back to Ben’s hotel in Canberra where we relaxed and showered before heading out for an early dinner. I then had to hit the road to head back to Sydney, and sadly had to leave Ben in Canberra!!

We’re thinking of heading back down for another weekend soon, so we’ll see what happens.

Thanks so much to all of you that donated to us for the City2Surf. City2Surf is on Sunday so we’re both looking forward to that.

Hope you’re all well!
Jacqueline and Ben

For those of you that don’t know, the City 2 Surf is an annual 14 km/8.7 mile charity fun run that goes from the City (Bet you didn’t guess that!) all the way to Bondi Beach!

And here is some information about Bear Cottage, our nominated charity:
An initiative of The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Bear Cottage has made a significant difference to the lives of many families since opening it’s doors in March 2001. Be it respite care for a much needed break for families, end of life care or bereavement support after a child has died. Emphasis in hospice care provision is placed on family focused care and the provision of respite. Bear Cottage provides a place of rest where daily tasks such as administering medication, cooking and cleaning are done by staff and volunteers so that families may spend quality time together. Families do not pay for any Bear Cottage services and without government funding, all costs of operating are raised entirely through community donations.

Thanks very much!
Ben and Jacqueline
xxx