Quiet weekend.....

It's all relative.....this was on paper a quieter weekend than normal but was still pretty full.

Saturday started with Jame's playing cricket - his final warm up match before the start of the season. The team were looking good and all the coaching has clearly helped. One of the players Dad's is Dermot Reeve - former England test player and current coach of the New Zealand cricket team. His involvement can only help and we all have high hopes for The Kookabarra's this season.

On Saturday afternoon I played another soccer match - for KPMG this time. I made several mistakes in this match, firstly - no suntan cream and secondly - thinking I could keep up with 25 year-olds. By the end of the game I was sore, bruised and very red - my nose will probably start to peel tomorrow.

Saturday night was Party Night. Our friend Helen Peach just turned 40. We joined 80 other people for a huge party in their house - complete with Harpist, a Rock Band and full catering. The theme was "Barefoot and Black Tie". The guys had to wear board-shorts and black tie, the girls cocktail dress with a 'hint of beach'.

In the picture you can just about see Emma's thongs (Flip-Flops for the Brits) - her 'hint of beach'. It was a great night with lots of dancing and drinking - it ended about 1:30am with most of the guys sitting in the jacuzi enjoying their final beers. We woke up with very sore heads this morning - and 4 kids as Helen's kids had stayed the night with us. 4 kids & a hangover are not a good combination.

Today was very, very wet in Sydney so we did not do much.

Olivia had fun pretending to be an alien from a distant planet. Lisa, Craig, Hunter & Fletcher joined us for dinner and I somehow managed to find the courage to enjoy a glass of wine. The hangover is finally gone!

Ken

Auckland weekend

We are just back from a long (Thursday to Monday) weekend in Auckland, New Zealand.

It was David Mochrie's 40th Birthday and given that I have known him since we were about 12 months old - we thought a visit was justified to help him celebrate the occasion.

We spent our time (in between eating & drinking) seeing the sites of Auckland - including several volcanoes (did you know Auckland is built on 50 volcanoes), some wonderful beaches, an acquarium and the compulsory Crazy Golf Course.

We had an excellent time. Dave, Nic and Nate were great hosts and put up with our messed up body clock from the mere 2 hour time difference.

Our dinner experiences were exciting. On our first night we went to a local Fish restaurant and enjoyed great food. We were not expecting the entertainment that arrived with desert - the Chef & Owner, clearly rather drunk, made a speech to the whole restaurant about a long held grudge he had against a local waiter and how he had just 'had it out' with him. He then moved on to Auckland's food critics and described how after a bad review he had flown a huge banner above a bridge calling the critic a w**nker. After that he joined our table and spent 30 minutes explaining how he had beat his drug problems. While a great chef - as a dinner companion he left a little to be desired. We'll remember the night for a long time though.

Now, it may have been the Whisky (a lovely single malt) or the many beers, but I have a vague recollection that Dave & I agreed to lose a few kg's and climb Kilimanjaro in 2010. Better get in training as after a few drinks in the week before I also agreed to do a 100km walk for charity - must be something to do with being 40!

Ken

A family Sunday

It's been a busy morning and a lazy afternoon.

I played soccer (see below) and Emma spent the morning gardening with the help of the kids. By the size of the piles of garden rubbish now at the gate it was a very productive morning.

This afternoon was more relaxed. A walk to Forty Baskets Beach, tea and cakes with the Peaches & Underhills followed by a walk back to Tania Park to collect the car. In between the kids played cricket and had great fun.

Thanks to the wonderful timer on our oven (only discovered today) we arrived home to the smell of Roast Beef and quickly tucked into a good old fashioned Sunday roast dinner. James chose Brussel Sprouts as the veg (yes our kids actually like them) and we followed it with Ice Cream with Emma's home made caramel sauce - which is amazing.

The snaps above are of this afternoon activities.

Just before dinner the kids turned up the music to enjoy their favourite artist - Michael Jackson - the video is them dancing to Billie Jean until James pushes Olivia over and the tears started ...sorry the iPhone does not capture sound.

The World Masters Games 2009

The World Masters Games are the largest participatory multi sport event. They are the Olympics for normal people plus a few elite athletes.

They are in Sydney and kicked of on Saturday. I am playing in the Over 35 Football Comp. Thankfully the Comp is graded and we are in a pool of teams with similar (see below) skill levels. Some teams are rather good - for example there is an Aussie team that has 6 former Australian National Team captains. There are also 6 Brazilian sides here - that we also managed to avoid.

So, game 1 on Saturday started badly - we were 0-3 after 7 minutes. It got better from there but we still lost 0-9. We did however make the headline news on the official website.

http://www.2009worldmasters.com/Kellyville-Kolts-kick-off-to-good-start/default.aspx

Game 2 was today and we had high hopes. By half-time we were 3-1 up thanks to two goals from yours truly - one with my right and most pleasingly one from 20 yards with my left foot! Sadly we ran out of puff in the second half and lost 3-5.

Game 3 tomorrow if the muscles can recover in time. The chances of us winning a medal are now gone - so it's all about fun.

Ken

Birthday Girl

It's hard to believe, but Olivia turned 6 this week.

Her Party week kicked on on her official Birthday on Wednesday when Olivia got to choose where we went for dinner. Luckily for us all, she chose our favourite Thai Restaurant - and we all enjoyed the Chicken Satay, Curry Puffs and Panang Curry. We got home from dinner just in time for Chocolate Log birthday cake - see photo above.

Saturday was quite a day. James had two parties and a sleepover. Olivia had her joint party with Tess and a sleepover. The Adults also had a birthday party followed by a hangover.

Olivia and Tess had a joint "Gymnastics" party. This involved 14 girls (plus Tess's brother Tom) doing Gymnastic type activities for 90 minutes and then eat cake and chips. They all had a great time and even the adults joined in (or at least Emma did when she got the change to dive into a huge pit filled with foam balls). You can see a few photos above - our daughter has surprising skills on the balance beam - must be her fathers genes as Emma struggles to walk on smooth surfaces without tripping up. You'll also see above that once again Emma did a stunning job on the Birthday Cake - this years theme was fairy castles - and the cake was a huge success.

The Adults had a friends 48th (yes, our friends are getting old) party on Saturday night. Everyone had to attend dressed in a typical outfit from the favourite holiday destination, and bring a plate of food from that destination. By Saturday afternoon we still had not thought of anything inventive so we hastily decided that Scotland was our favourite destination (when the sun shines, the midges are not there) so I got out the kilt (which needed two safety pins as I seem to have put on a few kg's since our wedding) and Emma found the most indecently short tartan mini skirt to wear (which I suspect she has not worn since before the wedding). I got creative in the kitchen and decided that Potato Pancakes topped with Wasabi Cream, Cured Ocean Trout and chives was a typical Scottish dish.........if it's not it should be because they were excellent. A great night was had by all....but sore heads were in evidence this morning.

To recover we decided to get out on the water. We spent the day dashing up and down the harbour in the speed boat with Nigel/Helen and Jules/Lenka and all the kids. It cured the hangovers - which Nigel & I decided was due to the lack of water rather than the Beer, Cocktails, Champagne, White Wine, Red Wine and Butterscotch Schnaps. The photo above sees the ladies slumming it on the back of the boat at Balmoral Beach.

So a busy weekend - will be glad to get back to work to have a rest. For anyone in London this week - see you there, I'll be there from Wednesday to Sunday morning.

Ken

Jack Hammer and Sunshine - a great weekend

We are nearing the end of a great weekend.

We had planned to spend Saturday on the water, enjoying the 29 degree day but for some reason we decided that a day of gardening would be more fun!!?!

A quick garden meeting was convened and I stupidly said "Why don't I lift up the path that runs across the grass, it'll give the kids more space to play." Well after 30 minutes of smashing tiles with a sledge hammer I started to realise the enormity of the task. The problem was the previous owners built things to last...they had laid a 6 inch slab of concrete beneath the tiles...very inconsiderate really.

The only solution was a jack-hammer. A quick trip to Oliver's Hire and I had a toy for the day. It made light work of the concrete but weighing in at about 40kg's I was still totally knackered at the end of the day just from picking it up and holding on to it.

The final challenge was what to do with the 2 tons of concrete and slab that I broke up. With James' help (for 2 minutes until he got bored) it all finally got moved to the front of the house.

To celebrate the start of what feels like summer (31.5 degrees today) we heated the pool and at 4pm the kids took their first plunge of this summer season. Olivia had the honour of being the first to get her hair wet. James marked the occasion in style - doing a handstand flip into the pool - almost giving me a heart attack in the process. When I asked him where he had been practising that new pool entry technique he replied "I've never done it before, I just thought it would be fun." Kids!

As the sun was setting Deb & Ben joined us for dinner and we all sat on the balcony watching a glorious sunset. The sunset was helped by the nearby bush fires which gave a lovely brown tinge to the colours. (these are controlled bush fires to burn off debris before it gets really hot in a few months).

After all the hard work (and a few wines) I am not ashamed to say that once Deb & Ben left with their kids at 8:45 we all hit the sack. I can confidently say that by 8:48pm each member of the Reid household was fast asleep!

After such a hectic Saturday, Sunday was a bit more leisurely. Golf & work for Ken. A long walk & ten-pin bowling for Emma & the kids.

More soon.

Ken

Seaforth Soccer Gala Day

At the end of the Winter Soccer season is the Annual Gala Day. This is normally a glorious spring day with blue skys and sunshine. Last year was rained off so we had high expectations for a really great day and we were not disappointed.

The format is the each team is given a country to represent. There are about 8 teams for each country. The winning country is the one that scores most goals in the day.

Playing as Portugal, James' team got off to a slow start with a 1-1 draw but soon found 2nd gear and notched up a 4-0 win which was followed by another 2-1 and a 0-1 loss. James scored 4 of the team goals - so made his usual contribution.

Overall a great day with Portugal coming second overall behind Australia - only by 1 goal. I did not remind James that if he had made at least one of the 6 sitters he missed, his team would have won!