Logan is freakishly strong!

.... either that or I'm pathetically weak.



He can also swing like Tarzan from one end of the monkey bars to the other end and hold himself up with one arm on the flying fox (while maintaining this cool man pose with the other free hand in his pocket). Poser!

Proof that Monica does do housework... sometimes

Kids Are Funny!

My 3 year old niece, Lauren is a bit of a hoarder. She likes to walk around with tiny pink things in her hands.. doesn't have to be anything she can use, it just has to be tiny and small. She also loses track of where she puts these things a few times a day. Upon realising she's misplaced the tiny small useless thing, she would throw a tantrum and demand that you drop everything and find it for her. I go through the following scenario with her many many times already.

Lauren (with increasing pitch and volume) : I want it! I want it! I want it! I want it! I want it!

Me: Well I don't know where you've put it. Go find it yourself.

Lauren (with increasing pitch and volume) : I want it! I want it! I want it! I want it! I want it!
Lauren (with increasing pitch and volume) : I want it! I want it! I want it! I want it! I want it!
Lauren (with increasing pitch and volume) : I want it! I want it! I want it! I want it! I want it!

Me: You are going to find out sooner or later that you don't always get what you want in life.

She then became quiet for a few minutes. I thought, Ah ha! That shut her up... she then said:

Lauren (with a lot of sass) : Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I don't think so!

Last Day At Work!!

Two months flew by with superman-like speed. Before I knew it, it's time to bid adieu to all the lovely ladies I've been working with. My boss here took us out for a coffee yesterday to say farewell and we ended up having a drink at the Westin too. I'm such a lightweight I was feeling light-headed after ONE drink!! How useless is that? In my defence, I had an empty stomach and I haven't had a drink in aagges. Cocktail season is upon us though.

Anyway I did my usual and baked some cupcakes for the ladies here. Look how preeettty they are! The cupcake stand always bring the looks up a notch... even if it is a handicapped one. If you look carefully, you can see that it's propped up by yellow pages in the back. Heh! I got it from Monica for Christmas one year and broke one of the legs the first time I used it. It was a bit uneven so I tried to bend it a little bit... unsuccessfully. I do not know my own strength!

So I'm outta here and this time tomorrow, I will be in Melbourne enjoying all the cuddles and kisses from Lauren... or shrieks and tears. One or the other.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday, nellpo! I can't be bothered sifting through the millions of photos of you on facebook so this will have to do. Hope you had a good one....

PS: Did you eat half your birthday cake already????? Tsk tsk tsk...

Ooh La La Fancy Smancy French Cafe

So the day has finally arrived. Everyone rocked up to The French Cafe in their Sunday best. The Js were the last to arrive as they went to a friend's house-warming do first. Jayden took the opportunity to line his stomach with some bbq chicken wings first.

The Wiis..... Wong + Hii, geddit?

Mel and her date, The Joker.

Fiona and Gavin who demanded that we all dress up as he was going to wear a suit...

The pretty single ladies:

I pretended to take a photo of Viv as I wanted a decor shot but I felt like a real loser tourist for taking photos:

First up : Yummy crusty bread with lashings of butter:

We had the 6 course tasting menu and it took 4 hours. Luckily I am a great conversationalist and kept the ball rolling...................... man, it was painful. We Hiis are more the get-in-and-get-out kind of eaters. You have to be in a house full of growing kids. You dwaddle, you miss out!

The amuse bouche for the night was either:

Butternut Pumpkin Cappucino - smoked bacon, pumpkin custard, maple foam, hazelnut. To be honest, this was your typical nice pumpkin soup. Nice but nothing to jump up and down about.

or chicken liver parfait - nougatine cannelloni, feijoa relish, apple caramel. This was weird. I gave mine to Andrew to polish off. It was like eating pate + brandy snap + warm fruit. Yikes.

First course was either Slow Cooked Pork Belly (Seared scallops, cauliflower puree, black pudding crumbs, cider syrup, sprout leaves) or Japanese Inspired Tuna (dashi jelly, wasabi cream, avocado, sushi rice sorbet, seaweed cracker, tobiko).

Here is a shot of Jayden looking wistfully at someone else's pork belly:

The pork belly looking crispy:

The tuna dish was interesting - you have raw fish, vinegary seaweed, jelly, salty cracker AND cold creamy sorbet all in one dish. I liked it.

Second course was YUM. Sauteed langoustine tail - potato gnocchi, artichoke puree, crisp pancetta, black truffle, smoked bacon foam. I decided to risk my prawn allergy and it was worth it! Yum yum yum..

Third course I could have done without. Vegetarian I am not. Viv on the other hand, scoffed this down - including the little flower. Roasted french goat's cheese - caramelised onion, beetroot and fig tart, red wine syrup.

Main (4th) course was either Seared duck breast (sweet spices, steamed bok choy, kumara mash, jus of oranges) or Fresh market fish (crayfish, asparagus and pea risotto, fennel butter, crisp prosciutto, crayfish jus, snowpea shoots).

The duck was interesting because I'm used to my asian roast duck. The texture was more like a medium rare steak than a duck. It was very nice and the kumara mash was so sweet and creamy.

The flavours of the fish main was very asian inspired and tasted much like something Mum could have cooked... probably tasted better too.... ;)

5th dish was green apple sorbet - apple compote, butterscotch, pain d’epices. I loved this. Tart and tangy coupled with the warm custardy apple compote *smack lips*.

Last but not least, the 6th dish was the soft-centred chocolate pudding - warm malted milk, toffee cream, apricot puree, pistachio ice cream, cocoa tuille. So so so so rich... definitely a chocoholic's dream... i felt sick after polishing this off.

Glad we didn't go for the 11 course.

The service was exceptional and the waiter spoke with a cute (though hard to understand) French accent. I did my best to flirt with him/them but didn't get any phone numbers..... oh well... It was an excellent night. Great food, great company. Thanks, Mel and the Joker.

Girls' Day Out + Andrew

In honour of the girls getting married at the beginning of the year, Viv's birthday and me being my awesome self, Mel and Andrew shouted us all to dinner at The French Cafe on Saturday night. Since everyone was up, I thought we should all go and see a girlie movie. But Fiona the hypochondrianc had an eye appointment and the Js were lazy buggers who were oversleeping in Hamilton. So Mel, Viv, Andrew the honorary girl and I rocked up to the 12.30 session of 500 Days of Summer in Sylvia Park. Suffice to say Mel now has another new toy boy to youtube and google about... she is such a hussy that one. Tommy is like 20 years younger than you!



Anyway, go see it... it's a quirky boy meets girl, girl is ambivalent about boy, boy lurrrvvves girl type of movie. It has been getting consistently good reviews too if you are like someone I know and read up on movies on rotten tomatoes first. Get a life, Ah Here!


Andrew cried so that just shows how good the movie was... ok, maybe I made that up.