Happy Birthday to Me!

I turned the ripe old age of 34 and what a great age to be! I woke up to many Birthday messages, phone calls, texts and visits. A lovely lunch with school friends uncovered the most wonderful surprise present of an accompanied 3 hour photography short course. The person running the course will also lend me a camera which I can try out. My birthday present from Malcolm will be a new camera! My birthday present from my parents will be to actually do the running around and buying while in Singapore before our holiday in April.

As I was admiring all the beautiful photos of Cinderella Castle at WDW taken by DISboard members, I was hoping that I would be able to have great photos myself from our trip come this December. So now I have just over 9 months to practice, starting with our cruise to the Mediterranean. I am now trying to read the photography magazine that Malcolm bought as well as photography forums to help with camera choice.

As we drove home today from a yummy Japanese Birthday dinner listening to Disney podcasts, it really became apparent how lucky I am. The kids have picked up our Disney infatuation. They now constantly ask to play "Disney Trivia" where we try to stump them with questions about anything Disney. Their retention rate is incredible! We are about to go on a Disney cruise, I will have a fancy schmancy camera to take great Disney photos with, I found out that there is a Disney store in Rome, and I ended up only paying half price for Malcolm's birthday present because of a stuff up. Life is good!

Superstar stories

We finally managed to get ourselves to Bill's at Darlinghurst to celebrate the becomings of our second superstar. Ok, so we stumbled into Bill's accidentally while trying to find breakfast and escaping the rain. We were wondering why the place was nearly full at such at ungodly hour on a Saturday morning. We really didn't think that anyone else in the world was up, dressed and ready to start their day at 7:16 in the morning. At exactly 8:14, we snagged the last non-communal table at the famous eatery.

There seem to be something trendy about having tables that are communal. LongGrain is another establishment that comes to mind when I think about sharing tables. I personally don't mind it, however, I think the poor waiter wasn't quite selling it well to the lone gentleman in his mid-fifties who came in after us. The big table by this stage was full and he made sure the man understood that "this is the dining atmosphere" that is Bill's before offering the gentleman a seat with a lone young lady at a table for 2. "We all have to share". Malcolm and I couldn't help chuckling to ourselves but we weren't chuckling for long as we waited, waited and waited some more for our menus to appear. This same waiter then proceeded to take our order, forgot it, came back to take it again, gave us 2 extra drinks we didn't order whilst omitting a much awaited sunrise drink.

We are happy to report though that the food was enjoyable. The whole family devoured bircher muesli, ricotta pancakes and scrambled eggs like there was no tomorrow. By this stage, we had a line of would-be breakfast munchers waiting for their turn.

Oh, and I forgot the point of this little entry! Our little Lara was chosen as class caption. This made me quite happy as I really didn't expect it. Who would have thought! And as Sharon correctly pointed out, we now have to seriously consider a career change for Lara. Being a shot-put extraordinaire is no longer sufficient. We are talking about head-girl material here, perhaps even politician grade stuff.

Go Lara go!! Now Jonah, you know what you have to do...