Dan jumped out of a plane today...

Dan's been talking about doing a sky dive for the longest time now, so this year for his birthday I decided to up the ante and really surprise him (I've been a bit bad on the birthday presents for the past few years - I took him on holiday instead; Hong Kong, Deep South, New York. He doesn't seem to count them as presents though).

I have to say that I think the wrapping was the highlight for me - I got a helium balloon and one of those little parachute men, so when he opened the box the little man flew into the air.

He was supposed to jump yesterday and woke up like a child on Christmas Day, but after a few 'don't come yet, there's low lying cloud' texts it was finally called off. The weather wasn't looking great this morning either and we weren't sure if it would go ahead, but at 2pm we got the text, got on our bikes and cycled to St Kilda.

He loved it....

I did mess up the photos though - I didn't realise the DSLR was in manual so we have a bunch of blurry shots. Luckily we forked out for the official photo and videos...

Valentine's morning at the NGV

Either there aren't many card options in Australia, or Dan and I have been spending too much time together because we bought the exact same card!

Yesterday we cycled over to St Kilda in the hope of paddle boarding but the wind was too strong and with my skill level still being in the amateur zone I would have just ended up fighting against the tide the whole time or five miles down the other end of the beach. So after walking around the pier, checking out the beach volleyball competition and grabbing an ice cream we peddled back home, did some grocery shopping and spent the evening with Netflix.

We spent most of this morning checking out the Andy Warhol exhibit at the National Gallery of Victoria. I don't think it was quite as good as everyone was saying, but we killed a few hours and made this cute little video...

Australian Open

I have had the best few months working at Tennis Australia - it means you get to spend half of the day watching or reading about tennis and still be doing your work!

Qualies was great, everyone thought I was crazy going out to watch the unknown (to them) tennis players. But I don't believe you've been to watch a slam until you have watched it all the way through from the start. The ones that go for the final rounds are just the glory chasers.

During the tournament I was on the afternoon/night shift, so I wasn't starting work until 3pm most days, leaving me the whole of the morning free to go and watch tennis. And believe me when I say that I took full advantage of it - I sat on every court, watched so many matches, used my free meal credit to buy lunch, and had such a good time.

Dan joined me for the second round on Wednesday, and then for the women's semi-finals to watch Serena and Jo Konta play. 

And now I can finally say that I have been to all four grand slams!

Weekend away to Philip Island

We seemed to pack so much in this weekend on our little trip to Philip Island. After going there for the Moto GP in October I was desperate to get back there so we could see the penguins.

You won't see any photos of the penguins because there is a strict no photography rule, but take it from me that there were so darn cute with their little waddle and the way their wings flapped about.

It was a bit cloudy on Saturday morning when we left Melbourne so I switched around the itinerary and we headed to the pelican feeding at San Remo, I was amazed at how huge those birds are! Next stop was a picnic on the beach, and we happened to stumble upon a surfing competition. It was so windy though we only lasted about 10 minutes before we went and sat in the car to eat our lunch!

After that we visited the Nobbies, had a game of mini golf, had fish and chips (and some amazing gelato) in Cowes followed by a late night out at the penguin march.

On Sunday we spent most of the day at the Moonlit Sanctuary and saw loads of aussie animals. But the highlight was definitely feeding the wallabies and kangaroos. We even got a great photo for our Christmas cards!

We drove the Great Ocean Road

After a few failed attempts due to bad weather we finally managed to drive the Great Ocean Road this weekend. It's supposed to be one of the best ocean drives in the world, but  it was up against some steep competition following the Pacific Coast Highway.

And while I don't think it was comparable to the PCH, it did have one exception...wild koalas!

 

It was two long days of driving, and probably a bit ambitious for a weekend, but I think we saw all of the major sights, and we even snuck in a helicopter ride over the 12 Apstles.

Neighbours Tour

Well this had been on my bucket list since we found out we were coming to Australia - visiting the set of Neighbours.

I haven't watched Neighbours since I was about 11 years old, so pretty much all of the storylines and characters that the guide was talking about went straight over my head...

We won a preview of The Block

Now when Dan and I moved here we soon became hooked on The Block - it's a renovation TV show where teams of two are each given an identical apartment in the same building and renovate a new room each week. At the end the apartments are auctioned off and they get to keep all of the profits. The show was on pretty much every night, so it became quite addictive very quickly.

Anyway, each year they hold an 'open for inspection' where the general public can walk around the apartments and see the finished designs before they are auctioned off. Dan and I had been planning to go for weeks when one of our friends messaged me to say that we could win preview tickets - we just had to submit an entry with a compelling reason why we should be allowed to tour the apartments before the general public.

So I got to work and came up with a little poem…

We flew into Melbourne just two months ago,
Without many buddies and nowhere to go.
So one cold Sunday night, we turned on the TV,
And met 10 new friends, covered in brick dust and debris.
For four nights a week, as we sat down to dinner,
We watched all the reno and picked each week's winner.
We love the Scandustrial, oh yeah it's true,
And still can't get over Whitney's bidet with the loo!
So just to sum up, we can't get enough of The Block,
And not sure what we'll do once they've auctioned off each lot.
We planned out November around Open Inspection,
But to get a preview...well, that would just be perfection. 

And we won! IT. WAS. AMAZING. I loved getting to see in person everything that we had watched of the past couple of months.