Flat Chat

June has been such a busy month for us and it apparently flew by before we had a chance to do anything about it! On the work front Josh has ccontinued to settle into his new role and Kristi has been dealing with the aftermath of the Arana move - as we know, just because we made it through the actual move doesn't mean we're home free yet ;) Kristi's colleagues thanked her for her work in the fit out/move with this beautiful flower arrangement (along with a bottle of wine and a voucher for a massage, which she can't wait to use)! She was also fortunate to make some wonderful new friends in this move process, and had a celebratory 'We're Almost There...' girl's night out with the architect/interior designer (Virginie - left) and the furniture supplier (Odette - right) at Gingerboy last Thursday.

Outside of work we have both been spending many hours studying over the past weeks...Josh's WSET exam is this coming Monday (fingers crossed it goes well), and Kristi is happy to report that she passed her first practical massage exam and now is ready to provide relaxation massage services to anyone who is happy to be a practice dummy! Now she is on to athletic massage, learning all about pre-race, post-race and maintenance massage for athletes.

Besides work and study we have managed to fit in time to catch up with friends - many folks are off on holidays now so it was fun to touch base before they departed. And of course we've made time for a couple of new movies, most recently Ironman and Prince Caspian, and we can't wait for the release of Kung Fu Panda this week! It has been great to be so close to a nice movie theater (and it's an extra bonus that now Kristi can get in at student prices!)

Rugby Union

We're running a bit behind on posts to the blog, we always seem to be posting about last week! That being said, last Saturday we enjoyed our first experience of Rugby Union. This time we watched the Australian National Team (the Qantas Wallabies) take on the Irish at the Telstra Dome. A much larger venue and crowd, and also seats a lot closer to the action! We went with a group of Josh's colleagues and had an absolute blast. The game was a nice mix of action and entertainment, with some fantastic runs by both teams throughout the game. In the end, the Australians took home the victory after working hard to keep the Irish out of the goal in the closing minutes. We stuck around after the game to watch the interviews and ended up chatting with one of the Aussie players - turns out he's the same age as Josh, it just doesn't look like it when you see him.

We Came, We Saw, We Ate

Last weekend we enjoyed celebrating the Queen's Birthday by taking advantage of the extra day off to enjoy a short tropical get away up in Queensland - which was until now a large gap in our Australian adventures. We enjoyed two days of snorkeling and diving on the Great Barrier Reef and a third day soaking in the sun on the beach in Port Douglas before heading back to reality. We learned it was a wonderful time to enjoy Queensland - not too hot, not too cold, and not too wet (as in rainy)!
Some of the highlights of the trip included not getting sea sick on the boat trips to and from the reef, Josh seeing his first shark while snorkeling, seeing a Maori Wrasse that was almost as big as us, and getting to hold a pineapple sea cucumber. Our first day on the reef was spent just getting used to swimming again, and also trying out the Christmas present camera for real. When we went out to dinner our first night in Port Douglas, we realised that we could now recognise most of what was on the menu from our snorkeling of the day! Ocean trout (also known as a sweet-lip) looks just as good as it tastes ;) On day two we decided to switch boats and also try some introductory scuba (of course with more support from the underwater camera). Below is a short video clip that Josh was able to capture of Kristi's second dive of the day (we weren't allowed to bring the camera on dive #1 for safety purposes).

It was good that we relaxed while we could since the week back brought lots of activity for everyone. Josh ended up having to take his first sick day since moving to Melbourne, and the months of planning for moving the Arana office and lab finally came to an end with the actual move event happening on Thursday. The move went as good as could be expected and after a 12hr sleep Friday night Kristi was back to normal for the weekend. Josh recovered as well and is back into the thick of things with Accenture and the new teams he is leading. The next big adventure is a trip to the top-end in Darwin and Broome, can't wait!

Rugby League

Last Saturday night we joined colleague Dan to experience a Rugby League game. We watched the Melbourne Storm take on and white-wash the Canterbury Bulldogs at Olympic Park Stadium. We probably should have done a little more research into the game before, but we seemed to catch on pretty quickly. It was a fast-paced game with plenty of fireworks as the Storm tryed and tryed again. We had a great time and were especially glad we had the telephoto lens to play with as we were a bit removed from the action.

In the next couple of weeks we will be attending a Rugby Union game - Qantas Wallabies vs. Ireland. Should be a great game and we're keen to see the differences between League and Union (we're doing a little more research this time).

After the game Dan showed us a few tricks with taking night photos. We were happy with our first stab at 'Melbourne in the Dark'.

Growing Photogs

It has been now been many months since we printed any pictures to continue filling up our amazing Australia book (awesome templates courtesy of Kirsten!), so last weekend we made a point to find a local place to print. The people were great, the service was fast, and we'd almost forgotten how much fun it is to actually look at physical pictures rather than just see things on the computer screen. The same place also happened to have a few sets of tripod legs for sale and Josh *somehow* brought along the tripod head he'd already purchased just to see how it actually looked on a set of legs. We had a good time extending and collapsing a couple of models, which just happened to be on sale, so we left with our pictures and a brand new set of Gitzo legs - happy Josh!

With the serious week of work we had (Josh starting a new role managing a new team, Kristi going through final preps for moving her company into another office) there almost wasn't time to think. Luckily we did manage to fit in a couple of fun nights...we caught Indiana Jones on the big screen Sunday, and then attended the opening of Shine A Light at the IMAX on Wednesday.

This weekend we were back in Port Melbourne for some errands and Josh again *somehow* knew of a photo place that rented camera lenses. We now get to play around with a Canon 70-200mm L-series lens for the weekend! On our walk back to the apartment we had a lot of fun playing with the extra zoom. Even better was finding a crisp $10 note on our walk!

International Food Day

Today Arana had an afternoon celebration of international cuisine with a gold coin donation to raise money for the Australian Cancer Council. Everyone brought international dishes and then there was voting and awards for the best sweet and savory delights. Folks were not limited to foods from their own culture, but nonetheless Kristi chose to make All-American Martha Stewart Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies and brought home the bronze medal in the sweets category - a big THANK YOU goes out to the dude for the perfect idea! Those folks that came in last in the competition were given the wooden spoon award (an actual wooden cooking spoon), which is an interesting/odd tradition.

Josh's team had their own form of international cuisine as they headed out for Yum Cha at the Shark Fin House in Chinatown for lunch. As you can see, there were some interesting animal parts on the menu...crunchy chooks feet!

An Old-Fashioned Binge Weekend

When we looked at this weekend on the calendar, we knew it was going to be a doozy. Now that we've actually made it through, we can say for certain that it was - but we've survived, we've got bootcamp tomorrow and we're off into another week. (Not sure whether that is good or bad yet!)

Friday started the fun with a gathering of Josh's colleagues to celebrate the hard work that has been put in over the past 5 months, and to finally relax a little bit. Our little apartment held everyone pretty well - only slightly cramped. Plenty of food and drink - and we had a blast listening to our team Mix Tape guessing who had selected which tunes. This time is a bit sad for Josh as it also marks the beginning of the end of his first "real" team-leading experience. In the next month everyone will likely be off working on other things - but its been fantastic working with this group of folks and he's learned quite a lot in the process.

Saturday continued the theme as Josh started a full weekend of wine classes as part of his WSET 3 certification. He spent most of the cold and rainy day at Shadowfax Winery in Werribee touring, tasting and shivering with his classmates. A few good wines, and a few duds but lots to absorb in such a short time. The class continued all day on Sunday with even more wines (many more good ones in Josh's opinion) and luckily a drier day to enjoy.

In-between classes, Saturday night we were invited to an informal wine tasting hosted by our friends Greg and Jo. Cabernet Sauvignon was the order of the evening along with Indian food and some "magic" tricks demonstrated by the very creative group. Sadly the tricks didn't come out until after the wine tasting so we won't be duplicating them at parties anytime soon.