During Easter Kims Family had borrowed a house at Mackarel Beach, so we went up there the whole family, Kim and her three sisters, her brother in law, her dad and two nephews and one niece.

The only access to the beach is by boat from Palm beach one hours drive north of Sydney. There are no roads or shops on the beach. The ferry only leaves once an hour and only between 9am and 6pm. The beach is on the opposite side of Pittwater from Palm Beach and it has got a community of about 50 houses.




Most of the two days we were up there it rained, so we spend the time indoor eating, playing games and sleeping. The TV and VCR was out of order and the place didn't have a DVD player. At least it did have a CD player so we could listen to music.

We cooked dinner on the BBQ and the Kookaburras came to get fed. They were really tame, so you could touch them which is exceptionally rare.

I was on breakfast duty both days, so the first morning I made Bacon and Eggs for everyone and the second day I made pancakes. Sometimes it was a little stressful with that many people in the kitchen while trying to make breakfast, but it went alright! I am coming from a fairly small family,so I am not used to have that many people around.


Easter Monday Kim and I played golf at Mona Vale golf course which is one of my favourite courses to play on.



It is right next to the coast and the course is normally in a great condition. Even though the course is long it is not that difficult.

I was playing pretty average on the first nine holes but improved my game significantly on the second nine and managed to play a number of the holes at par. On one of the holes a Currawong (big black bird) flew down and stole Kims golf ball. I had to chase after the bird for 200 meters until it eventually landed in a tree and then dropped the ball.

This weekend we rented a house at Lake Macquarie in a place called Overnight Reflections at Fishing Point near Newcastle.


The place is an easy 1.5 hours drive north of Sydney assuming that there is light traffic.

It was a fantastic and very relaxing weekend. The house was right at the water, so we could hear the water and see the full moon (almost) reflect in the water at night.



Saturday afternoon we went playing golf at Toronto Golf and Country club. This was quite an experience. The course itself is nice enough although it needs some maintenance (especially the bumpy greens)...but some of the people playing there should not be allowed onto a golf course.

One of the players stole Kims golf ball and on several occasions started bashing up his own golf bag while shouting Fu...k!!! Fu...k!!! Fu...k!!! Obviously it wasn't a great idea confronting him regarding the ball. We were planning to complain to some of the members of the club...but there was no-one else around and eventually we lost track of the guy (fortunately...because he was quite scary).

In the evening we went to a very expensive restaurant (even by Sydney standards) at Warners Bay...it was ok, but not a place I'd recommend. Kim and I wanted a bit of a special night out to celebrate and this seemed to be the best we could find outside of Newcastle itself. From living in the Newcastle area years ago I know that it is hard to find a decent restaurant up there...most people regard fish'n'chips as a romantic night out!


Anyway...the place we stayed at was very nice although it troubled the owner of the place that we didn't want to have breakfast until after 10.30 in the morning...what IS WRONG with these Sydney people!!! Kim and I enjoyed catching up on some sleep and just relax without having to rush around for set meal times, be a tourist etc.


Especially Sunday troubled her at we didn't want to check out until 2pm because we wanted a snooze. She even sent down her grandchildren to make a bit of noise to wake us up.


Anyway...it was actually quite amusing and Kim and I didn't mind, the woman running the place was actually quite sweet....and $300 for the two nights in a lake front cottage was good value. It is definitely a place I'd go back to.

This Saturday Kim and I went to Hunter Valley with a couple of her Colleagues from Epicor. They had one of her colleagues visiting from the US office.

I was invited along as Joanne was the driver and kim doesn't drink, so I was the only person who could drink with the visitor (I didn't mind :-) ).

Normally I go for all the red wines, but I decided on this trip to dry some of the white wines, especially try and find a nice bottle of Pinot Grigio...which I eventually did at the Bimbadgen Vineyard.

Kim also bought a couple of really nice desert wines that I'm sure I will be allowed to share.

Saturday Kim and I want to see La Traviata in Sydney Operahouse.

For Christmas I got a couple of tickets for the opera from Kim. It was an opera I hadn't see before and the stage setup was really good and the performance was excellent. Kim had gotten us really good seats...we had front row seats in the dress circle upstairs.

During the performance they were broadcasting the show to the steps in front of the operahouse as well as to one of the parks in Melbourne. They wanted to show what Opera is like to a wider audience.


Afterwards we had dinner at Circular Quay close to the Opera House.





Sunday we drove down to Catherine Fields to Camden Lakeside Country Club to play a round of golf. Sasha and one of his friends dad visiting from Canada also came along.

It was really hot, so for the first time I was actually glad that we were driving a kart rather than walking the course. The guy from Canada was almost dead by the time we got back to the club house.

I played a really good round (43 points stableford, HCP 13) and Kim played almost at her handicap.

It is obvious that there is a drought on. Most of the lakes were dried out, I was looking for a photo online to post here, but the course is totally unrecognisable because of the missing lakes.

This year Kim met her targets at work. This meant the she got invited to Hawaii (with a partner...me) as part of the Chairmans club.

We got back two weeks ago and had a fantastic trip. The first few days we spent in Honolulu at Waikiki Beach...we got to see all of Oahu, went snorkeling and Kim went shopping. One night we all went to a shooting range in Honolulu.


After this we went to Kauai where we were staying at a big resort. Here we went snorkeling, sailing and played golf.

There was parties every night and we also managed to find a bit of time to ourselves.






See the rest of the photos from our trip here: Hawai Photos/Slideshow

In Mid 2006 I went to a work meeting in Krabi in Thailand.

This happens to be a few kilometers away from one of the best rock climbing destinations in the world. So, after the meeting I took a few days off to go rock climbing.

Kim happened to be travelling in the Northern part of Thailand with some friends who had to leave on the same day my meeting ended. Kim flew down to Krabi where I picked her up at the airport.

Unfortunately it was rainy season, so most of the time in Railay it was raining, but we did manage to get one day of climbing done and the rest of the time we spend in the restaurants and playing cards.


Click here to see more photos from: Thailand/Slideshow

I have now started adding photos from 2005. For this I have created a new blog just for 2005, the plan is that I will add blogs for the remaining years as well.

Click here to see what happened in 2005

I have now added photos from 2004. The highlights from this year was a trip to the United States and Canada as well as a family trip to Egypt. This was also the year that Australia entered the war in Iraq, so there are a couple of photos from the anti war demonstrations.

Click here to read about 2004

In Mid 2006 I was in Portugal for our International Partner Conference with the company.

It was a week of being busy setting up for the conference, socialising but also a lot of fun and partying.


Click here to see more photos from:Portugal/Slideshow

I quite regularly head up to the Blue Mountains to go Rock Climbing.

We normally camp overnight and then depending on the weather and temperature decide on the day what walls we are going climbing on. The photos in the gallery are a selection of some of the photos I've taken in 2006, but there will be more to come in 2007.

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of photos of me climbing as I tend to forget to pass my camera to someone else.

Most of the time I go with my friend Sarah, but she has now moved to Canberra so she doesn't come up there as often as she used to.


Click here to see more photos from: Climbing in the Blue Mountains/Slideshow

On the 4th of June 2010 my grandmother (on my dads side) passed away being 90 years old. She had a stroke about a months ago and was unconscious for a long time.



She did regain a bit of conscious to the point where she could nod and recognise people.

After this her condition deteriorated but her being such a tough woman she was hanging on in there.

Eventually she couldn't hand on any longer and passed away. She was the last one of my grandparents and she was burried on the 10th June, 3 days after my son was born, so unfortunately they never got a chance to meet.

Tonight is my GCC break day (Only 11,000 steps today compared to over 20,000 yesterday). I celebrated this with a glass of wine...and then I though why stop there.I could take a cool photo as I was pouring the glass (my second).




I did do a bit of playing around but I found that it worked best if the flash was able to burn out some of the details and illuminate the wine from behind.

Flash was positioned on the floor (glass on a chopping board on a chair) @ 1/4 power...the background is a white wall.

The wine is a Southern Sisters 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot...not a bad drop for an everyday wine.

I did another photo session with little bob. He was going "More, More...." and Mummy was going "Not again!".

Anyway, had the chance for a couple more creative shots.







Not sure if I like the reflection in this shot...so I may have to re-do it.

Here is another GCC photo

I am currently participating in the GCC (Global Corporate Challenge). This is a team event where each participant has to do more than 10,000 steps per day using a pedometer (step counter) for the next 16 weeks. I will when convenient take my camera with me an try and do something creative.

This was day one where I walked to a meeting in North Sydney over the Sydney harbour bridge. When I got home I did some tilt shift effect to it so make it more toy like:

It is now week 35 and the baby is expected within the next 5 weeks (hopefully at week 40). Kim is getting pretty big and yesterday I used the opportunity to take a couple of photos of her belly (and a worried dad)...evidence below.



I alto tried to take a couple of nice ones as well as some artistic ones.




I would have taken a lot more, but even though the baby was saying "More, More..." the mummy ran out of patience...maybe I'll get another chance during the week to take some more.

Some time ago I saw a photo of a kiwifruit and wanted to see if I could do something similar. It took a bit of experimenting, but eventually I got there. First a thin slice of kiwifruit (I chose to keep the skin on for effect), a couple of toothpicks to lift it off the surface and then one toothpick to hold it upright.

20 cm behind the flice I positioned a flash (SB600) firing at 1/64 power. Camera is set at 1/250th sec, f13, ISO 200 @42mm (on Nikon D50)....viola:

Last night we went to the Sydney Opera House to see the ballet Coppelia with The Australian Ballet.

It may be the last time for a while that Kim and I get the chance to go and see a performance together for a while.



It was a great show and I can highly recommend it...the story is nicer and easier to follow than The Nutcracker. Coppelia herself doesn't dance much (she is a doll), the story line if mainly centered around the other characters in the story...no one dies (come on...it is not an opera). It is just a nice love story where the right people get eachother in the end.

Yesterday we went to Chris and Yvonnes wedding. The wedding itself was a traditional catholic wedding held in one of the churches in North Sydney.




Kim was having a bit of a cold so to save herself (and the baby) we decided that I'd go to the wedding ceremony alone representing both of us. Chris asked me if I'd video the ceremony using his new camera...I hope it turned out alright as I'm not all that familiar with taking video. I did manage to take a couple of photos (using my spare hand) during the ceremony.




Later in the evening the reception was held at Wolfies at Circular Quay at the Rocks in Sydney. After resting in the morning Kim was fortunately able to join me at the reception. It was a really nice evening and we got a change to meet some of their friends who'd flown in from the US.






During the evening the photographers did a slideshow with some of the highlights from the wedding.






Needless to say that I was pretty hung over the next morning. I didn't take a lot of photos, but above you see a couple of the ones I did take.

I borrowed some more toy cars from my nephews (A bit more willing this time). This time I wanted to do the shoot entirely using light painting. All the following photos are created using a single LED torch with CTO and blue flash gels in front of it. No photoshopping has been done to any of the photos.

They have all been shot at 15 seconds @ f22. The base is a glass chopping board (the writing on the board shines through in a couple of places).

Last weekend we went to Cabramatta to have my car services and also make a bit of a day trip out of it.

Kim had a haircut while the boys has ice cream.



She also went past the show shop where they sell boots in her size.




Aiden got a new Lightning Mcqueen pyjamas that he was very excited about.




Lots of street food about to make you hungry.










So Lunch we had...





All very tiring.

One of the last days when the kids were still a bit sick we though we'd get them out of the house and go to Darling Harbour.

Aiden wanted to go on the tea-cups even though he was still suffering a bit.

A few weeks ago I was in Melbourne for work.

On the way back Kim called and said that Aiden had a really high fever (41+ degrees) and that she was going to get him to the hospital because she was afraid that he'd collapse like he did last time.

I jumped on an earlier flight and went straight to the hospital and spent the night with him. He was really miserable and it took 5 days (fortunately not in the hospital) before we got the fever under control.



After that Lucas got sick and then Kim as well....what a week!!

Here is some photos that I have taken from various places including work.

They don't really belong anywhere but it is a pity to not share them.

One day walking from the train station I walked past this pair of sandals under a tree. I don't know the story behind them or the reason why one was taped up.

Did the owner climb the tree and then vanish? Did he (I assume it was a male) walk away bare feet? Where did he come from (Bata is a big brand in Africa and India)?



This next one was taken on the train. I was bored and notices this girl with a small swallow tattoo.




One day I was at Warriewood for a work meeting a dropped past Narrabeen beach (where I used to live). It was a beautiful day to have a play with the panorama function on the iphone.



Here is another panorama. This time from Town hall in Sydney.

We had our annual conference there and couldn't resist getting some photos of the beautiful architecture with my phone.





A couple of weeks ago I went to Melbourne for work. On the way we flew over the Snowy Mountains and I could see the snow there.




Here is another one from work that I took ages ago. When we all moved to the Campus from the city we were invited to hand our own avatar on this wall (mine is hanging somewhere in the top left hand corner).




Here is a photo from the campus itself. It is a cool place to work. Just a pity it is so far from the city.

It is not often that I see Aiden engaged in painting at daycare (he used to be reluctant to get dirty, but now he loves it).

Here he is working on one of his masterpieces.

Lucas loves reading books...he can sit and look at books for hours if he is allowed.

One day at daycare all the other kids were playing loudly in another room and I found him in a separate room sitting quietly sitting in a small cardboard box reading by himself.

The kids are really excited whenever they get something with Thomas (the tank engine) on it.

Latest is Aiden's new Bath rope. He was so excited that he asked me to take a photo.

It was Kim's birthday on the weekend.

In the morning the boys and I woke her up with singing Happy Birthday to her.

In the evening we had a babysitter so that we could have an evening just the two of us. We went to the Bridge Room restaurant in the city, food was nice!

Yesterday we decided to do a little excursion to Circular Quay and the Opera house with the boys.

The both love trains, so we took the train into the city so that they could have the experience.



It was a cold and windy winters day here in Sydney so standing still for too long was freezing.



But it was great getting out and also get another family photo.

Recently Kim bought Aiden a yellow bumble bee umbrella and gumboots.



They will come in handy now that winter is here.

I finally managed to take the 1 year portrait of Lucas that I had planned and it turned out really well I think.



He is a big boy now and he is able to walk by himself (took his first unassisted steps just before his birthday).

The other day we went to Centennial park to take some 1yo photos of Lucas using a balloon.




What we had in mind was to take the photo down a row of trees.



...but it was impossible to get both the balloon and Lucas to behave in the same photo and the light wasn't great anyway with patches of sun and shade in the middle of the day.

We instead tried to be creative with other photos.

A couple of weeks ago we went to centennial park to take some photos of Lucas for his birthday (see separate post).

I also took this photo of Aiden running across the bridge at Centennial park.

Here is some more test shots of Lucas...his facial expressions are priceless.

The other day I was setting up for a portrait using my new beauty dish strobe.

I was using myself as a subject and this one turned out rather well.

Sculptures by the sea is on again and Kim and I managed to find a couple of hours to go and have a look.

I was carrying Lucas in my backpack and didn't bring my camera, so these photos are all shot with my phone...I seriously regret that I didn't bring my larger camera.

Recently I have been doing a lot of work with a client in the Governor Macquarie Tower in Sydney CBD.

It has been great working in the city as the commute is a lot easier and more interesting in general.

This is the building I have been working in.

One day Kim and I managed to go for a romantic (and long) walk from Coogee to Bondi and back along the coast.



It was a beautiful day and this area have some of the worlds best beaches and coastal views.

We have started giving Aiden and Lucas a bath together when we are not too rushed. They are playing very nicely together in the bathtub.

Lucas is starting to be able to walk by himself and stand for long periods of time without holding onto furniture. The longest we have seen him walk so far was around 2 metres.