One more wedding idea....

I forgot to list another wedding option that we have considered: The Spotted Chook, a lovely B&B in Montville. We stayed there and just loved it and the hosts Jane and Leeroy were just so welcoming and warm. The food was amazing! There are four rooms and a gorgeous cottage called Amelie's Petite Maison (in which we stayed). For a wedding, you need to book out the entire house and cottage for 2 nights. It is a really great spot and I know that the food would be fantastic. I have some great photos of 'The Spotted Chook' but they are saved on a separate hard drive that Sachi knocked off the top of the computer the other night. She was jumping onto the computer to get up onto the shelves above because once, maybe six months ago, she saw a gecko up there! And maybe, just maybe, this ever-hopeful puss thinks there might be another one there.... So she knocked the hard drive off and it isn't working now. Hopefully we can get it to work again. Luckily for her she is just so fun and sweet that I can't get mad at her! And hey, this is HER house, we are just the slaves who live here to keep her fed and warm. She is here more than we are. And that will teach me to have things saved in only one place - have learned my lesson again.

So that was another wedding option....There are just so many amazing spots!

A bit more to share...

My last post for the day now....

We have been growing some roses. They are just in pots now as we are not sure where to plant them. We need to make some decisions about what we are doing as far as doing up our yard/gardens. When we finally get a deck, how big will it be? How much space will be left in the yard? What will we do about a garage? We will probably tear the shed down and have something new. Glenn would of course like a bigger shed and somewhere in which he can work on his cars. We need to be able to park his truck somewhere and two cars.

Glenn has done a lot of work cleaning things up in the yard. He has cleared all the rubbish that was down near the back fence and cut down a number of trees.

We can see straight into the neighbours' house now so Glenn is keen to put up a fence like what is down the side of the yard. They also wanted us to chop down the big mango tree as it shades their yard but not if I have anything to do with it!

Glenn has been moving lots of dirt from the back and side garden beds to the side of the house where he has put a water tank and will build some sort of path.

He laid some pavers at the front door as we have lots of red dirt around the house that gets tracked in but we still have lots of work to do with this.

So we need to plan our garden ideas....I saw a good idea on 'Better Homes and Gardens' the other week that would be good for our shady areas so will save up to do this, fairly inexpensive so should be okay (http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=8093003)

Then...where to plant the roses? We have had some nice roses so far but there aren't any flowers at the moment:

I am feeling a lot better now after the laparoscopy I had in April and the advanced laparoscopy in June. My doctor found some endometriosis in the one in April so this has been removed....took a few weeks to feel okay again but at least that is done now. So have to wait at least six weeks after the surgery in June and then can start to look at IVF again.

Wedding plans - getting nowhere

We went to the Bridal Expo in March and I filled out a form to attend a day on North Stradbroke Island to see the wedding venues over there. We went on a beautiful Sunday towards the end of June and it was such a nice day. We invited Mum and Dad to come along too as, like me, they hadn't been there before. Glenn has worked over there a few times in his scaffolding days.

We certainly saw the Island at its best with the weather.

Firstly we went to the 'Little Ship Club' at Dunwich. I really liked this spot and we had quite a bit of time to check it out and enjoy the view and the huge amount of food and drink that the very generous manager put on for us. (BTW the whole day was free! including the transfer to and from the island). Dunwich is on the bay side of the island so you are not seeing the surf beach and the club is not new of flash but it was so relaxing and I felt very comfortable there. The manager seemed to be very keen to do what he could to ensure that if you were to have a wedding or reception there that it would run smoothly. It is certainly a great venue for lots of people and if you got lovely weather as we saw that day it would be fantastic.

Then we hopped on the mini-bus and looked at some of the accommodation/houses you can rent on that side of the island and around Amity Point. We then went to Point Lookout to Amis Restaurant, which has a really gorgeous view. The food would certainly be something special there - from the samples we tried and the look of the menus. The restaurant is marketing itself as a boutique wedding/reception venue and I could imagine that you could have a really excellent meal there and it would be a great venue but would the guests all go for the food?....I know I did! Glenn unfortunately didn't try much of the food as the little bowl of pumpkin soup had prawns in it and then we had some lovely fresh oysters - natural and some with a really nice sorbet on top. He is not keen on oysters! Oh well he missed out - they were great! Then we had little dishes with kangaroo and he liked them.

We saw some more accommodation venues and then went around to the Surf Club which was at Point Lookout as well. There is a lovely spot next to the surf club where lots of people choose to get married if they are wanting to have their ceremony on the beach.
The surf club has magical views as well but it was quite windy on that side of the island that day. They don't seem to put meals on etc - you need to hire a caterer. There were a few wedding-associated businesses at the surf club - photographers, a caterer, celebrants...with little displays and business cards. It was good to talk to some locals about the possibilities of a wedding on North Stradbroke Island.
There are many other spots for weddings and receptions on the island...heaps of possibilities.

During this year, we have looked at a number of venues for weddings/receptions. After the wedding expo, we went to a number of function venues and none of them really appealed. It confirmed for me that I don't want a function centre with chair covers and all the bits, average food, package deals and no atmosphere.

So far we have liked:

• a beautiful boat called 'Circa Spirit' which is based at the Gold Coast. A teacher from my school had her reception on board. They paid for the 'Circa Spirit' to come up to Redcliffe and they went out on the bay for a few hours - they had a beautiful day and she tells me it was so relaxed and so easy. They do finger food, teppanyaki, BBQ or more traditional meals. We really like this option but we are wondering how good it would be for kids - might be a bit boring? And it certainly costs more to get them to come up to Redcliffe. We looked at it at Marina Mirage where it is based and it could work doing it down there too if people were prepared to go to the Gold Coast. You can get married on board if you want to; they will taxi a celebrant back to the mainland for you or you could married and then go on board.
• Another teacher from school got married on the hill at Shorncliffe. The jetty there is great but up on the hill at Upper Moora Park there are some great views.
  She had a breakfast wedding which is probably a good idea as it gets quite breezy up there in the afternoons. Another of my friends said that her sister got married up on the hill there and had lots of picnic blankets and had a caterer make up picnic baskets for everyone. She said that it was relaxed and lovely.
• At Sandgate there is a restaurant called Sonomas. It's on the road facing the bay at Sandgate. We really like the owners there and he has done heaps of weddings. We saw a late afternoon/evening wedding reception there and we talked to David and he assured us that there would be heaps of food if we went for a finger food type thing - the menus look good and the price is very reasonable.
• Our friends Ross and Charmaine suggested Barton's Rose Farm at Kalbar out from Ipswich. It would be a good place to have a lot of people for a very very cheap price. It is a pretty spot but a bit of a drive. The owners will put on tea/coffee and scones, jam and cream. I was more keen on this one last year when you could also bring other food but for insurance reasons now they will only let you have the food that they prepare and that just means the scones. There would be some great spots for photos.
• One of the first venues we visited was Glengariff Winery/Estate at Dayboro. It is a lovely spot and Glenn and I could totally imagine our ceremony in the spot that they had with a super sound system, overlooking the valley and mountains. The owners were lovely but it is probably moving back to the function centre thing....but it does have atmosphere. I don't know why I am not so keen on the function centre thing. I guess I just think, "What do you DO at those type of weddings?" You just sit around or you dance....I guess some of them work out okay, probably depends who you have there and if the food and drink and music is good or not. I really liked this place but you would probably need to hire coaches to transport most people there and back so that they could have a drink and not be trying to drive back to whereever they were staying.
• Another option is the ladies who used to run 'Waterlily' Restaurant at Margate on the waterfront at Redcliffe. They have moved to the Sunshine Coast and have a catering business now (Waterlily Food) so if you picked a park or something that could be nice. They have good food and you could probably do the picnic basket thing with a smaller wedding. I contacted these ladies at one stage and they also suggested The Spirit House at Yandina. They said that it would be a "fabulous place to get married with beautiful surroundings, very romantic and very good for photos." Leanne, one of the ladies from Waterlily said that she could help out with taking photos if I liked as she was a photographer from a previous life.
• We looked at the wedding venue at The University of Queensland. I wasn't keen on the function rooms but it was certainly a lovely spot with nice spots for a ceremony and photos.
• Mum suggested The Boroughs Cafe and Wine Bar at Scarborough. It certainly is a great spot, will have to go back and eat there again. They do seem to have good menus. I am not sure if the website info is up to date because I am pretty sure there are different owners now. Last time we went there for breakfast there were not too many people there and we had to wait AGES for our food. The time before that I went there with a small group from my work and we were the only people there except for one other couple and again we waited a really long time for our food. Not sure if things are better now or if we just had bad luck so will have to check it out again.
• And of course there were the lovely spots on North Stradbroke, really liked them.

So you can see that there are lots of options - and there are way more than what I have listed here. Too many I guess!

The things we have to consider are:

• NUMBERS: whether or not we invite everyone in our extended family? My family is certainly pretty big if you invite all the aunts, uncles, cousins and their kids on Mum's side. By the time you invite immediate family on both sides, the aunts and uncles and some friends you are heading for 70-80 people. If you invite cousins and their partners...over 100. And Glenn doesn't have too many people to invite if he just invites his immediate family, some friends and the aunt and cousin and her husband who live in Australia. Of course, should we be inviting his relations from NZ? The numbers thing impacts considerably on the budget and the venue. I would really love to have something with everyone that I want there but it gets so expensive depending on what you do. I know that we could do something really inexpensive that gets everyone there...but is that what I want? Not that I want the Cinderella coach and all the trimmings, nothing like that!
• VENUE: do we pick somewhere closeby or somewhere a bit more...interesting? I know it's handy for everyone if we get married near home and there are some nice spots. If we pick somewhere not near here people have to look at whether to book accommodation etc. , we need to look at how they get there and back...I've always liked the idea of making the wedding into more of a weekend away than just all over in a couple of hours. I remember reading a bridal magazine years ago when we were on holiday somewhere and this girl got married at Kingscliff and everyone got together for dinner on the Friday night at the pub or somewhere, then they got married on the beach the next day and it just sounded really nice to do something like that. I like it down that way too!!!! Oh there's just too many choices....
• BUDGET: Well basically we have NO money for a wedding...so that probably limits my choices considerably. Glenn needs to pay a very large tax bill first...then we will be doing IVF again - goodness knows how many cycles we will have to do but we can't really put that off anymore because we are both getting too old and it will have no chance if we wait too long. And we would so love to build an outdoor area onto our house so that needs money too.....I know we don't have to do that yet but we would so love to be able to use our spa again and be able to utilise an outdoor space like a deck. So maybe the Rose Garden or a BBQ/party are the best options...I would really love a nice fun wedding with everyone there that is not too tacky, with some class but relaxed and not over the top....but I don't know if that is in the realms of possibility for us with no money saved up for a wedding. I know that Mum and Dad have said they will contribute some money but I feel pretty bad at the age of 37 (I'll probably be even older when we actually do get married) getting them to pay anything.

I have seen a dress that I just love and it would be perfect for a beach or tropical type wedding. It's only a few hundred dollars but would probably look better on me if I lost some weight...so am working on this now...but then I will be doing IVF soon so I don't dare to buy it as if I actually get pregnant, may not be able to wear this dress. Although it is one that you could wear again. If I want to lose some weight, is hard to know which size to buy.

Everytime we start to get excited and plan and look at saving some money for this...all these things get in the way and I just give up. I know it should be about the marriage, getting married - not the wedding.

A few times we have seriously discussed going away and getting married in New York (I know another couple who did this and it sounded so nice) or on an island. When we have mentioned this to our mums, they both say that they would like to be there...and we feel we would be in trouble if we did do the eloping thing! But Glenn's family has no money to go anywhere.....so then they couldn't be there.... But I have thought about that, going away, getting married then coming back and having a party. Glenn can't get holidays though....would he be able to arrange some time off to allow us to do this? Would I be sad if no one that we knew was there with us? Or is this a better option at our age and much less complicated.

Whenever I have done a budget for one of the options above, once you start to get a few people, I always think, "Geez for that money you could go and have a great holiday somewhere...would that be nicer?" Someone said to me the other day that as long as we have a party and get some nice photos that is all that matters.

It would also be nice to have a fun wedding though....I have had dreams of something nice for so long. I have waited a long time to get married! And maybe we will never get to have children so I feel like I would like to have something nice for our wedding....but I really don't want to spend a ridiculous amount. Actually that sounds pretty sad - what I mean is that I would like to have something positive to focus on - planning a wedding would be nice I think.

I know we could do a simple afternoon tea and that would be cheaper but I would like to be able to party on a bit more than that. Oh is so hard to know what is the right thing to do and does that match with what I want.

I am never good at making these sorts of decisions and I suppose that right now I just need to concentrate on losing weight, getting ready to do IVF again and saving some money. I don't want to be a 40 or 40 -something year old bride though!!!! I know that we could go to the Registry Office anytime...one of my friends has told me, "NO! Registry Office weddings are so depressing, I'd rather you get married in the gutter than go there!" (she has been to one, I haven't).

I keep entering competitions to win weddings or win money....I was so hoping we would win the competition on 'The Great Outdoors' recently where you could win a wedding and holiday on Vanuatu...and the prize included taking 8 others over with you! How cool would that have been and then the decision of what to do would be made for us and the cost sorted and we could have had some people there with us and I wouldn't have cared about offending anyone who couldn't come cause you couldn't pass up an opportunity like that. It sounded perfect, but alas we didn't win.

Maybe I am just making this into too big a deal.....Glenn is so easygoing, he will just do whatever as long as it is not too expensive... I don't want to sound like a drama queen; I just wanted to see the options so far in writing.

Catching up on things during the holidays

I typed a long post a week or two ago with several photos and then lost it all! Anyway, I promised I would post a pic of the flowers that Lauren sent me:

Of course Sachi had to check them out as she does with anything new that enters our house:

Well what have we been up to?

I'm currently on school holidays but the days are ticking away so quickly. I started with a list of things I wanted to do and while I have been busy every day, I haven't gotten too far with the list. I should know better by now.

We had the weekend at the Gold Coast staying at Tugun. Mum and Dad had booked a unit for a week and they and Alex went from Sun-Fri and we came down on Fri afternoon when Glenn finished work. The traffic was pretty bad and it took us over 2 & 1/2 hours to get there and once we arrived it started to pour rain and there were strong winds - so needless to say we didn't go for a walk on the beach on arrival. It continued to rain and be quite windy for our time there except for a small window on Sunday morning. However it was still nice to get away and relax.



It wasn't raining (for a few minutes) when I ventured onto the balcony and filmed this little video. (It is pretty shaky, was on my camera not the movie camera). But you see it was a bit of a windy afternoon.

We caught up with Susie whom we used to see often when we lived in Brighton. Susie owned a shop called 'Beach Chic' and we used to hang out there a lot and drink coffee and chat to Susie. I did some craft classes there and it was often just Susie and I so we did lots of chatting and coffee drinking. I miss it! I used to spend a bit of money on the lovely homewares in there too! Glenn is probably glad the shop isn't the same now. Susie sold her shop about two years ago and moved to the Gold Coast. She now has an online store (http://www.kahunabay.com.au/shop/index.php) but she is mainly importing lovely things from overseas and finding shops to sell them. We met for a drink at Alto and had a really great dinner at Mario's at Broadbeach and ate too much and talked for hours. It was so good to see her again!

Some more pics of Sachi:

She looks really fat in this pic! She really isn't as big as she looks here. She loves to sit (literally) on her bottom when cleaning herself. Glenn reckons she looks like a fat panda bear when she sits like this so we call her 'Po' when she is sitting in this rather un-ladylike position.

I have more to tell but am going to publish this post now so that I don't lose it again!

Mid-June update - what a catchy title!

It's been a while! I vow (again) to try and be more 'regular'....with my blog writing that is.

We have a long weekend in Queensland - today is Monday and I'm enjoying having a day off. I've been trying (once again) to get through my paperwork at home. I have stored it up for so long and have a great system now for organising/filing my papers, after attending a fantastic workshop at kikki.K at Chermside shopping centre last year (see https://www.kikki-k.com.au/catalog/index.html). It was soooooo good - I love that kind of thing and I've really tried to take all the tips I learned on board. Because I hadn't sorted/filed/thrown out papers that one ends up with for many years, it's been a huge task to go through them all, get rid of lots of it and keep the things that I need/want to keep. So this weekend, I'm trying again to keep at it, to keep working through my piles of papers. I'm just as bad at work, unfortunately, so have to keep at it there too.
This is the 'good bit' that I have done so far - as you can see, kikki.K did pretty well out of me!

Now for the embarrassing bit...this is what I have to tackle today!

At the moment, Sachi, our adopted pussy cat, is lying on my desk, enjoying the sun, so guess I won't be getting much done there till she moves or I move her.

So you can see, I'm really getting a lot done so far....but this is something I wanted to catch up on as well today.

I promised Lauren I would show her my engagement ring...so here 'tis:

Okay better actually go and do some work now seeing as it is almost halfway through the day and I was going to get this done this weekend!

Almost Christmas 2007

How very slack of me, not posting for a whole term of school! Oh well, here we are almost at the end of 2007.
It's not that nothing has been happening, just that I always think that what is happening won't be that exciting for others to read.
To Lauren and Ted - we will miss you so much this Christmas but you will have such a great time spending Christmas and New Year's Eve in places we can only dream of...thinking of you and sending you lots of hugs.
Am on holidays now, loving that feeling of not having to think about work but haven't really slowed down yet - that starts tomorrow, can't wait.
What's new? Have joined the gym, will really have to get into it in 2008; have just done another IVF cycle - fingers crossed; Glenn and I are both well and always busy with something to run around and do or something to do to to our house; trying to sell my car as we have too many cars around here!; a few staff are leaving our school - all ones that I will really really miss but am happy for them starting new chapters of their lives; my birthday is in a couple of days - eeek!!!!; Sachi is bringing us much joy and laughs every single day; Helena and Lewis (niece and nephew) have just been to stay for the night and we had a great time - so great to see them and spend some time with them; Glenn has been working long hours and is so tired but doing okay; been going to acupuncture weekly sometimes more often and am really enjoying it....

Okay, will update again in the New Year - bring on 2008 with lots of love and joy!!!!