This year we celebrated Christmas eve with the boys.

5 days before Christmas I still hadn't taken our annual family photo even though I had the concepts loosely worked out in my head.

I knew that I wanted to do one in the kitchen and one evening when Kim decided she wanted to experiment with cooking brownies I decided to set it up and talked her through the concept and what I wanted her and the kids to do.
It worked out better than expected.



Kim also wanted one of us unpacking gifts.

This one was a lot harder to set up as the light was critical.




The last family photo we did was a simple one taken in the morning at Maroubra beach.

In one of the shops at Eastgardens I found a wall full of these inspirational notes for 2015.

A couple of days ago the kids were playing in the park at Kims dads place while a big storm was approaching.

The light was beautiful so I couldn't resist snapping a couple of photos with my phone.

Kim has never learned to ride a bike. One day at the park she borrowed Kaylas bike and gave it a try.

She did pretty good considering that she's never done it before.

Here is some quick snaps of some public artwork that I find really cool.

This artwork I found in the Macquarie centre.







It is thousands of plastic balls suspended from the ceiling.

And this grafitti is from Redfern...I wish all grafitti was this well done.

One day we went with the kids to the opera house to experience a play called "The tiger who came to tea" which is based on a childrens book of the same title.

We had borrowed the book week before and read it to the kids so they were very excited and the play was really good fun and well made.

One of the sad events of the year was the attack on the Lindt cafe in Sydney where a lone gunman took the patrons as hostages. He was eventually shot by the police after killing two patrons.



All of Sydney laid flowers in front of the cafe as Martins place.

A couple of weeks ago we went to Daydream island in the Whitsunday islands at great barrier reef.

This was a great opportunity to check out some of the natural beauties...





...such as Whitehaven beach.











We spent a lot of time playing at the pool and at the beach.





The resort has a massive inland lagoon with lots of stingrays and sharks that the kids loved.






Aiden and Lucas were allowed to touch some of them including this live shark.



and stingrays and star fish.










And on the island there were lots of kangaroos.



A beautiful place.





And I did have time to do a bit of creative shooting.





Eventually it was time to say goodbye to the island with a vulcan salute.

In early November I did another open studio day. This time a mini day with less models, hair and makeup and studio setups.

As usual it was good practice and fun to work with the various models. I think I did get some great photos and there were a lot of lessons learned that can be done better next time.


Model: Charlotte de Lucey


Model: Jessica Garcia


Model: Tanika de Alwis


Model: Britney Williams


Model: Tanika de Alwis

Compared to the other times I was doing a lot more natural light photography this time and some of it in nasty and not very flattering direct sunlight. I think I still managed to get some very usable results out of it.


Model: Nikki Doan


Model: Nikki Doan


Model: Amy Hill



The hardest thing for me is still the communication with the models and the creation of a vision that is different when you are on a fixed set.


Model: Jessica Garcia


Model: Jessica Garcia

This Sunday we took the ferry to Manly.



It is a beautiful trip past the opera house and the boys were very excited being on a boat.














At Manly we went down to the beach. It was a calm day so the boys had a lot of fun at the edge of the water.










After that Kim did some shopping, we had some fish'n'chips and we also had an ice cream.

Again this year I went into the city to have a look at Vivid Sydney. This is a festival of light and music in the city around Circular Quay, The Rocks and the Opera House.

On the first few days of the festival it was raining a bit, but one evening when there was a clear night I went into the city leaving Kim and Aiden at home.

I managed to get a couple of good photos I think although I spent way too much time on photos of the opera house and therefore ran out of time.








This was the third year of the festival and I found this years festival much more creative than the previous years.


Anyway, here are some of the more interesting photos from the evening.

This weekend we made another trip to Centennial Park to go for a walk, have lunch & coffee and take some photos. Is it becoming a regular event so expect some more post in the future.

This Sunday the park was car free, meaning that everyone had to park outside the gates rather then drive into the park. It meant that there was a lot less people in the park which made it even more enjoyable. The trees as beautiful with their golden yellow and red leaves.


It is currently Autumn in Sydney and lately the weather had been fairly miserable and even this Sunday when we went to the park it looked a bit dark and gloomy at first. Fortunately the grass and leaves were fairly dry so I could do our 11 Month photos of Aiden. At first he didn't like the leaves at all, but after a few minutes he warmed up to the idea and started having fun playing with them (and eating them).








He is very funny at the moment, he is starting to crawl a lot faster and would try and get to the camera so I had to keep crawling backwards to keep the distance between us.

Friday night Kim, Dylan and I joined a number of Kims friends on the Abba cruise on the Sydney Harbour.

Dylan had completed a writing assignment we gave him a couple of weeks earlier (to write a 500 word essay about our easter holiday) and as a reward we took him along on the cruise.

The boat was a fairly small boat (almost house boat sized) and probably fitted around 80 people onboard. The Abba band was pretty good. The singing wasn't brilliant, but still very good entertainment and they managed to get the boat rocking. We even managed to get Dylan up dancing (even though we didn't give him much choice).




^{(oh...this photo is intentionally blurred...I tried to create a cool effect by zooming while I took the photo with a rear-curtain sync).}


It was a beautiful calm night, so it was nice to once in a while go up on deck to enjoy the view of the city line. Vivid Sydney had just started so Circular Quay, The opera house and The Rocks was all lit up. I will be heading in there one of the next few nights to take some more photos (I tried to take a couple of photos from the boat but Abba was rocking it too much ;-) ).



I hope Nikon will soon announce the D800...my old D50 was really strugling this evening with the low light conditions and I didn't bring a Tripod along.

Last night Kim and I went to the James Blunt concert in the State Theatre in Sydney. Kim (and to some degree myself) is a big fan of James Blunt so when we heard that he was coming to Sydney we had to get tickets.

The concert was brilliant and it had a lot of energy to it. He played both some of his old songs as well as some of his new ones.




The stage was set up with all these LED panels so that they could project videos, images, colours and patterns onto them to change the mood depending on the songs played.

On the weekend we again went to Centennial Park to go for a walk enjoying a gorgeous Autumn day.


Aiden was a bit tired and wasn't really in the mood to have his picture taken.



This time we brough Dylan along for him to get some exercise (watching too much TV otherwise):

It is getting cooler here in Sydney...the last 2-3 days have been freezing with temperatures at 16 degree during the day (cooler at night). We have turned on the heater in Aidens room as he kicks off his blanket.

One advantage is that there are some beautiful leaves in Centennial Park...

Monday Aiden went to the day care centre (we send him to daycare once a week for him to learn to interact with other kids and more structured play) and the teacher there helped him create a painted "Mum" sign as a Mothers day gift (It is Mothers day on Sunday).

Kim was very proud and asked me to take a photo of it for her to post on facebook. My response was "Sure, I'll go and grap the compact camera"...to which she responded that she wanted a good picture using good lighting so I should go and get my big camera.

So I went ahead and took the following photo of the mum sign using some of Aidens toys as a backdrop.




...but Kim said that she can't use it because it is too good and isn't realistic enough...back to the pocket camera ;-) !

This Easter holiday the family rented a house at Lake Conjola 220 Km south of Sydney (past Jervis Bay). We drove down there Friday morning (about 3 hours) with all our clothes, food etc.It was a four bedroom house for 8 adults and 5 kids, so always something happening somewhere in the house. Aiden was a bit shell shocked on the first day until he got used to the surroundings etc. We had brought our travel cot (a tent) for him to sleep in, in our bedroom and this made it a bit easier for us to put him to sleep.

Every morning the boys went out fishing in Chong's tinny (aussie word for boat). I went along on the first and last day (the other days I valued my morning sleep) and on the first day I caught a 25cm bream...one of the two legal catches during the week. Chong caught a fairly large flathead on one of the other days.


The beach was about a 15 minute walk away from the house walking through the caravan park (On the first morning there was a coffee van parked there and much to Kims dissapointment it was gone all the following days). It it fairly cool this time of the year so none of us went swimming, but it was fun to run around and take some photos. Aiden is getting used to go to the beach and is now quite comfortable sitting looking at things (He has now finally started commando crawling after 10.5 months).
















And at the beach we also had some fun with some 'silly' time.







In the evenings we were playing blackjack...always interesting as we play for money and some days you can be really lucky and others really unlucky. We also played charade where each team should guess movie titles by only showing gestures...which to a large part ought to be X-rated (or as least KC's turns should be).




One of the days I did a bit of creative photography. I showed KC how she could make window blinds look like a nice sunset even though it was grey and overcast outside.





The place had a pool table and this inspired me to the following photo of Kim playing pool.



And I played with the kids colour pencils.




I also did one night photograph on the only clear night we had. I should have spent more time out there, but it was late and I though I'd have a couple of nights ahead where it would be possible.





This year we had agreed that each of us would cook one meal. My meal was Saturday lunch time and I was doing pasta and I has pre-cooked it from Sydney the day before so it was nice and easy. Kim was doing an Indian curry in the evening.

When we ended our stay Kims dad said that this is the best food he's ever had on our holidays together.

This weekend we went with the Heng's onboard one of the last Tall Ships of Sydney harbour called 'Svanen. The day before it had been pouring with rain but we were lucky that the day we had booked was dry and sunny most of the day.

'Svanen' was built in 1922 in Denmark in Fredrikssund of danish oak frames, where she traded as a grain carrier between Denmark and Greenland for the tuborg beer company until 1969. She and James Craig are now the last tall ships in Sydney (The Bounty was sold to china some years ago).




She ain't a big ship, but large enough to carry about 90 passengers.

The interior of the ship is almost in its original state. It is still possible to see all the hand chiseled timer in the cabins.



The ship itself is pretty much still operated as it was back then (although she now has a motor...not sure if she would have had that originally).



And all the rope work is still the way it should be as well.







The cruise lasted a couple of hours and during the trip we were served lunch, beer and wine. This was one of the special deals that Kim had found us so it ended up being a great day.

Every year there is an Ester show at Fox Studios...it is not as big as the show out at Homebush, but it is a lot closer to where we live and entry is free.

Last year and again this year we brough Dylan there as it is difficult for his mum to go there. We normally allow him to get 1 ride or one game at the show, but because we this year brough Aiden along he got three rides as we though we'd check how Aiden would reach to the rides.

The first ride that Dylan chose was a Camel ride (Although they are not actually camels, but Dromedary's).




Afterwards he was complaining about how smelly they are.


In the mean time Aiden was watching the action (It was a pretty cool day and he had been sick the week before so he was dressed in his bunny outfit).



We tried to get Dylan to look scary with some of the local performers, but I think this is the best he could do.



After this I took Aiden and Dylan on the Ferris wheel and the Merry go round.






These are Waaaaayyyy to scary for Kim, so she was waiting down on the ground taking photos.

The traditional Tuk Tuks of thailand are now completely gove from the Phuket area and have been replaced by mini taxis.

These have been fitted with big music subwoofers and tv's in the passenger compartments.

The Kids loved riding them...especially the 'green' ones. We used them to transport us to most places.

The pool at the hotel was great.

The kids loved it and it was nice jumping in the pool after an excursion out and about.













It really boosted the kids confidence swimming there.





If it had been up to Kim's family then they would have stayed at the pool the entire trip and not have left the hotel.

There was also a monkey show with a larger trained monkey.

Apparently in the past they used trained monkeys to fetch coconuts for them and they demonstrated how they trained them.







Kim's dad had his photo taken with the monkey.

They also had a snake show at the elephant place.

Some of the snakes were very poisonous such as this monocled cobra.





And the huge king cobra (which kept coming over the safety barrier).



Chong and I volunteered to hold the python.












I wonder how often the snake guy has been bitten by his snakes.

At the place we went riding elephants they had a group of little monkeys that we could hold and feed.

They were chained to their little houses which was a bit cruel, but the kids loved seeing the monkeys up close.










The kids thought it was very funny when one of them grabbed my nose.

One morning we went on an elephant ride with the family.

Kim had been on elephant rides before and is terrified, but she was still brave enough to do it again (She was screaming that she wanted to get off most of the way).






It was an amazing experience for the Kids.









They got to see the big animals up close.

One one of the first days we went to the beach at Kata. The hotel had a shuttle bus to the beach which was an easy 10 minutes walk away.

The beach was actually surprisingly nice with warm water.



About two months ago a sailing boat stranded on the beach during a storm. No one has claimed the boat and a few attempts of lifting it off the beach has failed.



We told the kids that it was a pirate ship, so they wanted to have a closer look.











Kims dad didn't want to go in the water, but decided to keep to his thing with wearing warm clothes in hot humid weather.

This year we traveled to Phuket in Thailand along with Kim's sisters family and her dad.

We had to fly via Bangkok, so we were a bit worried how the kids would handle the long flight (especially Lucas), but everyone handled it reasonably well.

The boys were very excited to be going on a big aeroplane.

 

Once we arrived to Bangkok it was pretty obvious to see that they were very excited.

The only thing that never made it all the way to the hotel was our stroller. We lost it somewhere between Phuket airport and the hotel...but wasn't a big loss and hopefully someone puts it to goo local use.

It is time to renew Aiden passport and like last time there were a lot of outtakes that we could not use, but which were quite funny.

Here is some more photos of my grandma and grandpa on my mothers side.

Here she is with her sisters (my grandma on the far right)



Here is some of her when she was young.






Here is one that I assume was taken in 1969 based on the date of the photo.



I think this one if my grandpa when he was young.



And here is some more.







And here is some family gathering photos.



I think it is her brother on the left. And my cousin Mette on the right.



And this is with my grandparents on my fathers side (left to right bedstefar, mormor, morfar, bedstemor, mum and Claus).

During the winter we went for a walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Here are some of the photos from the walk.

On fathers day we used the opportunity to do some family photos with the boys as well as Kims dad.

Aiden and Lucas sometimes loves to play with boxes and other items that are in the recycle bin inside.

One morning they had used the boxes to create a farm...not bad!






...and then there is the silliness...

Years ago Aiden got a little fluffy toy tiger as a gift.



Over the last couple of years this has been the most treasured toy to the degree where him and Lucas is sometime fighting over it. They sleep with it and they bring it to school to do show and tell.



It reminds me of the comic called Calvin and Hobbs - with a little boy and his toy tiger often getting up to mischief.

Now that Aiden is a school and Lucas at daycare they are invited to heaps of birthdays.

One evening Kim took Aiden to a birthday and in the meantime I took Lucas for a little desert treat at Choc Top in Rosebery.

The menu looked delicious and not know that they were so big I ordered one for each of us. They also gave us a free ice cream because they were slow.



I felt so sick afterwards and we didn't even finish it.

It has been a while since we did a family trip with the family. Kim's dad is getting older and it is getting harder for him to do longer extended trips.

The family found a nice house at Scarborough just an hours drive from Sydney. It was a beautiful coastal home with room enough for the whole family and with the conveniences of a large kitchen, a fireplace and TV for the kids.





The inlaws recently got a dog and she made it on the trip as well.



More importantly, it was just a short walk to the Scarborough hotel for coffee in the morning.





And also plenty of beaches nearby.

We are trying to keep the boys (and ourselves) more active on the weekends. This weekend Audrey asked if we wanted to join them for an easy walk at the Royal National Park (about 30 minutes drive from home).



The walk was along an old horse carriage trail (Lady Game Trail) and was fairly level and easy walking the whole way. We made it well past the half way mark where there is an old watering station for the horses before turning around.



I think the kids eventually managed to walk almost 7 kilometers without too much complaining which is pretty far for their little feet.

For a long time I had wanted to introduce the boys to Camping. Since Kim had never been camping either and wanted a certain level of comfort we looked around for suitable location within easy reach from Sydney.

We eventually settled on Cattai National Park as it has a lot of amenities such as flushing toilets, hot showers and allows camp fires.

Kim also asked some of our friends if they'd like to join, so we ended up going three families together.





We bought a new tent which by most standards is huge, but has plenty of space on rainy days (which we didn't have) for cooking and eating inside the tent as well as air mattresses for sleeping on.
We also had a camping table and chair and amazingly we were able to fit it all into the booth of my car.










Apart from Lucas getting a little cold during the night it went very well. The boys had a blast of a time making up games, eating food (constantly), fishing (no bites) and eating roasted marshmallows.













I also tried a Danish specialty, 'SnogBroed' (Twisted Bread) which consists to of a sausage and bread dough wrapped around a stick and then baked in the fire. Mavis made one that turned out perfectly - unfortunately everyone was too full from eating to really have a go at it (Maybe next time)



In the evening and morning there were lots of kangaroos in the camp ground, which the boys quickly chased away.

For Aidens 6th birthday we invited his friends to a game of bowling.