Perfect afternoon of work

Last week I got to go to my first "Lady's High Tea," which was a fundraiser for The Cancer Council. I have never been to high tea, nor do I drink tea, so I wasn't sure what to expect. But, I'm hapy to say, I LOVED it! It was held at a very nice hotel in the Gold Coast, the Surfer's Paradise Marriott Resort and Spa. We walked in and were greeted with pink champagne and live harp music (you can see in the piture below). It was a fundraiser for women's cancer, so the theme was "touched by an angel" and everything was pink (as you'll see in the picture of the amazing desserts).

This is a picture of me and my friend Lisa, who was one of the 2 guests-of-honor at the event. Lisa gave a speech about her experience as a young woman with cancer, and she did an amazing job. She had all of us in tears. Her speech was really great, and she had her family, including her beautiful little 2 year old girl Charlotte, there for support.

So, besides the wonderful speeches, and lots and lots of tea (which was really good by the way!), we did a lot of eating. And let me tell you, the food was amazing! I couldn't decide what to try! Look at all of this!...

There was actually savory food too, but these pictures are much prettier :) By the end of the day, I think I tried about 7 different desserts, and all of them were delicious. The whole was was really fun, and in total, there were about 70 people there. Several different magazines and newspapers were there, and I even got on the news that night! This news story was much better than the last one I was on the news for (for those of you who don't remember my Denver news premiere, I was interviewed about a man who was exposing himself to women in Wash Park!). I must be moving up inthe world :)

Happy 4th Birthday Reese!

We spent last Saturday down in Mullumbimby at our niece's (Reese) birthday party. Here's the birthday girl blowing out her candles...

The party was really nice - weather was perfect, and the kids had a jumping castle that kept them very entertained. So, Colin and I got some good "baby time" with the twins :)

We thought this was hilarious - the two girls fighting over the bottle of beer. We are going to be terrible parents! We actually babysat the twins overnight that night. We spent the night at Colin's parents house, but the twins stayed in our room and their parents went home to get a good night's sleep (the first in nearly 8 months!). It all sounded like a great idea, but after getting up 5 times between midnight and 6am, I realized that I could NEVER handle having twins of my own! I don't know how Kelly does it! Anyway, in the end it was fun, especially since that's when we got to give them back :)

Barossa Wine Valley

We've been wine tasting again... and this time be brought enough wine back with us to last the rest of the time we live in Australia! Well, it was actually so much wine that we had to ship 3 of the cases back, so we're still waiting for one to arrive. Here's our favorite bottle...

Just kidding - we actually did try to buy one, but they don't sell them anymore. The kind of wine in that bottle is actually one of our favorites! We just have to settle for normal-sized bottles. Anyway, we went to the Barossa wine valley 2 weeks ago because we had a 3-day weekend. So, we flew out early Friday morning and came back late Sunday night. We had the best time! We stayed in a private chalet that was built into the hills, and the views were amazing. There was also a hot tub in the chalet, and a kitchen which was fully stocked for us to cook breakfast. Plus, there was a free bottle of wine and chocolates waiting for us when we arrived - I loved it! Here is a couple of pictures of the place we stayed.

The Barossa Wine valley is very similar to the Napa Valley, only not as pretentious. The wine is amazing, and the people are very friendly. Colin and I actually went to the Barossa the first time I ever visited Australia, so it was nice to back now that I'm a resident :) On Saturday, we hired a driver to take us to the wineries so we could both do wine tasting and not have to worry about driving. It was so much fun! Although, the website that we booked it on showed a limousine, and we got picked up in a mini-van...hmmm, I think we were tricked :) It was completetly worth it though, because it was just the 2 of us, and we got to pick exactly where we wanted to go. Since a lot of our favorite Australian wineries are in the Barossa, there were a lot we wanted to try. I think we got to 8 different wineries that day. And we tried several wines that cost $225 per bottle! Needless to say, those were not in the 4 cases we brought home. We finished the day on the deck of our chalet sipping (more!) wine and eating cheese :)

Ooh... and I almost forgot...as part of the lunch we got with our "tour," Colin had his first coffee!

Ok... I lied... it's a hot chocolate, but it sure looks like a coffee :)

I hope everyone is doing well, and I can't wait to see you all in November - only 9 weeks to go!

Daffodil Day

It was Daffodil Day at work on August 24th. I know - I'm very late in posting a blog about it! It was actually a really fun day at work. Daffodil Day is The Cancer Council's biggest fundraiser - last year we raised over $1.3 million statewide. Anyway, the daffodil is the international symbol of hope, and it is also our organization's logo. So, on Daffodil Day, we sell fresh daffodils and other daffodil items (pens, pins, teddy bears, etc.) throughout the state. I spent the day driving around the entire Gold Coast delivering fresh daffodils to all of the volunteers who were selling them for us - they were at over 40 different sites! And then, to top it all off, when Colin came to pick me up from work, he had 5 bunches of fresh daffodils for me that he bought from some of our volunteers at a mall near our house. So, not only was he supporting the charity I work for, he also got me lots of beautiful flowers. How good is he?? :) Our house was full of daffodils...