Mackenzie playing fetch with monkey

Mackenzie playing with a plastic bottle

Mackenzie playing with his own tail

Happy Date-iversary!

Happy Date-iversary to us! Matthew and I started dating 17 years ago today. 

We were so young and stupid (at times). I'm delighted that we've grown up, and we're still happy and laughing after all this time. I'm so lucky and grateful.

Thank you to Michael Schmitt, who took our photo while we were in Portland last month.

Welcome Mackenzie!

Introducing our new Guide Dogs foster puppy, Mackenzie! He's an 8 week old yellow lab/golden retriever cross. We're fostering him for about a year, until he's old enough to go into the official Guide Dogs training program.

Here he is on his first day at our house, playing with his new hippo toy.

Trip to Portland and Houston

Three days after we got home from Tokyo, Matthew and I left again, this time for the U.S. M had to be in California for a business trip, so we flew in early to spend some time in Portland, and afterwards we went down to Houston to spend Thanksgiving with M's family. We had a great time seeing friends and family, and miss everyone already. Photos from the trip are below.

Trip to Portland and Houston

Trip to Tokyo

Matthew and I went to Tokyo again -- business trip for him, holiday for me. As with our first trip in 2010, we had an excellent time! Our photos from the trip are below.

Tokyo Oct-Nov 2012

Home-brewing with Ben

After many citizen requests, the White House recently released their Honey Ale and Honey Porter recipes. We went over to our friend Ben's house last weekend to help/watch him make a batch of the Honey Porter. We followed the recipe closely, except we used Australian honey, instead of honey from the White House bee hive. I forgot my camera, so please excuse the mobile phone pics...

Pouring in the grains

The beer is fermenting at Ben's house, and won't be ready until around Christmas. At first I thought to myself, "Christmas, great time for porter!" because, even after two years, my brain still initally thinks of Christmas as wintertime, instead of summer! Anyway, we're looking forward to tasting it -- I'm sure it will be great regardless of the season.

Here's the album with all the pics.

Brewing Beer with Ben

Trip to Melbourne

Last week we went to Melbourne for my birthday and for Matthew to give a talk at the AusNOG conference. We had a great time! We went to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne Zoo, had cocktails at Eau de Vie Melbourne, and dinner at Birdman Eating and Movida Aqui. While M was at the conference, I went to the Melbourne Aquarium and to the National Gallery of Victoria, where I saw the "Napoleon: Revolution to Empire" exhibition.

For my birthday dinner, we went to Cutler & Co, where we had the eight course degustation with matching wines. Everything was fantastic, and it was nicely paced. They were very good on portion and pour size, so we weren't overstuffed. Here's what we enjoyed:
Selection of appetisers, including oysters, marinated octopus, foie gras cigar
Oyster broth with scallop
Mud crab with buttermilk potato
Baked carrots with goats curd and toasted grains
Smoked and fried duck with morcilla
Roasted suckling pig with kohlrabi
Apple sorbet with dill
Earl Grey ice cream, chocolate and Pedro Ximenez prunes.

I didn't take any photos, so here's a couple of the restaurant itself.

Restaurant exterior - photo from Cutler & Co's website.

 

It was another great visit to Melbourne! Here's a link to the album with more pics:

Trip to Melbourne

Spring Walk at the Royal Botanic Garden

Spring is almost here. We went to the Royal Botanic Garden recently, and some flowers are already in bloom.

There were just a few wisteria in bloom; I bet they'll be be beautiful in several weeks.

Winter Beer Dinner at The Union

About a week and a half ago, we went to a winter beer dinner at the Union Hotel. The Union is third generation family-owned, and has decided to get into craft beers on tap, to the extent that I think they no longer have VB (Victoria Bitter, sort of the Aussie Budweiser) on tap. Here was the menu:

1. Stone & Wood Jasper Ale (NSW)

2. Mountain Goat Coffee IPA (VIC) with braised ox tail and pigs trotter fritter

3. Holgate Gruit Expectations (VIC) with South Australia ocean mullet

4. Murray's Dark Knight Porter (NSW) with braised beef cheeks and spaetzle

5. Little Creatures (WA) Day of the Long Shadow with spiced apple and pear strudel
6. Young Henry's (NSW) Black en More with coffee chocolate short bread

The food in general was good but not great - the beers were the best overall thing about the evening. My memory might be a little hazy (ahem), but I think my two favourites were Stone & Wood Jasper Ale and the Murray's Dark Knight Porter (on its own, without food).

alm + beer + mtw's glasses

Towards the end

I hesitate to ever complain about being served too generously, but in the end, it was too much beer, and we pushed half-full glasses away! Anyway, it was a fun night.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

We've been living in Sydney for two years now! Our anniversary was about a week and a half ago, and we went to dinner at Bloodwood to celebrate. 

We've eaten there several times before, but this might have been our best meal there yet. We shared cassava and sweetcorn croquettes; smoked trout and kale salad; grilled Greenslade chicken with brussel sprouts and smoked speck; chocolate torte with caramel mousse. So delicious. 

It was too dark, and I didn't feel like taking photos, so this will have to suffice. :)

This is Australia

I came across a cool book - This is Australia by M. Sasek. Miroslav Sasek created children's travel guides to big cities of the world, beginning with This is Paris in 1958. This is Australia was originally published in 1970, so some of the facts are now outdated. However, I really like his illustrations.

Here are photos of the book, if you're interested.

This is Australia by M. Sasek

Photos from July

Here are a few random photos from July...

Panorama at Blue Mountains Botanic Garden at Mount Tomah

Interesting flower at botanic garden

Home-made pickled carrots

A bit of Engrish on this Japanese package: "The commodity is taken out of the outside bag, and it puts it on the spaces such as chest of drawers and sink as it is."

A calf at the petting zoo at a community event in Sydney Park

Aroma Festival in the Rocks

Doughnut-hole robot at the Aroma Festival

Coffee cup reading at the Aroma Festival

Camel rides past the Opera House - Aroma Festival

Anne and Tom's Visit to Australia

Matthew's parents were just here visiting Australia for the first time, and we had a lovely time together! We showed them around Sydney, then we went to Melbourne for a few days, drove the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, then headed to Adelaide for three days, then back to Sydney. It was fun showing them places we'd been before and also exploring new places together (it was our first time to South Australia).

We visited four different wine regions: the Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, McLaren Vale and the Barossa Valley in South Australia. 

We saw heaps of animals at Healesville Sanctuary (near Melbourne) and Cleland Wildlife Park (near Adelaide). I even got to hold a koala at Cleland, which was very exciting for me, and was one of the highlights of my entire time in Australia so far! :)

We also saw wild koalas for the first time while driving near Cape Otway, Victoria. Matthew spotted the first one, and we pulled over immediately and took pictures, but he was quite off in the distance. Then we got back in the car, drove a bit further, and started spotting another and another; it was pretty awesome! Here's a video of one of the wild koalas eating some dinner.

A few photos from along the Great Ocean Road.

Anne and Tom at Cape Patton Lookout

At the Twelve Apostles

At the Twelve Apostles

Here's the album with the rest of our photos from the trip.

Anne and Tom's Visit to Australia