2012 in Review

2012 was a fabulous year for us. Amazing, exciting, busy and fun!! Here is my 2012 in review.

JANUARY saw us celebrate our engagement with those who matter most in our lives (well, most of them anyway!) with a big party at the local sporting club. I used my 30th Birthday present from the Englishman and jumped out of a plane (attached to someone else with a parachute of course!). The Englishman's parents Kate and Dave came to visit and we spent time with my family.

FEBRUARY started with a Sunny Day wedding for my awesome cousin and his gorgeous partner in crime - a perfect sunny day for a beach wedding! Next was a holiday with Kate and Dave - shame about the weather but we had lovely time anyway, picking strawberries, cooking lovely meals and watching the storms!! We ended Feb with a 30th birthday for a good friend - lots of food, fun and little people.

MARCH started with a visit to my Pop in his new home - not where he wanted to be but there were no other options. Some comedy, A birthday for a Mummy-to-be friend, a boozy dinner at a friends house, and a very welcome discovery - we had our own little baby on the way!!! Another wedding rounded out the month.

APRIL started with Easter and a camping trip to Tiona with friends. Another 30th, this time decked out in 80s gear! We bunny-sat our friend A's gorgeous bunny Sootie, hung out with lovely friends for Anzac Day and took a trip to the Gold Coast to celebrate an engagement for some other sunny friends.

MAY started with another engagement party for QLD friends, but a little closer to home thank goodness! The Englishman caught a nasty flu and was bedridden for a week - not fun at all. Luckily he recovered in time for a house party which he DJ'd at, and a very important day for him - becoming an Australian citizen! Followed by another important day - turning 30. In the midst of all this my Mum made Mother's Day a little special for me with a cute book :). We ended the month with the Englishman's birthday celebrations, including a meter long pizza at the local pizzeria!

JUNE started with chocolate milk cravings for me!! Two weddings on the long weekend - one via Skype, the other at the State Library. We had my 20 week scan and found out we were expecting a boy! Huge surprise for my Mum! I attended a baby shower for a dear friend and discovered how intolerant I can be of drunk people when I'm sober.

JULY's highlight was a last minute "baby moon" to Fiji for a week - perfect weather, great accommodation, lovely people and an all round relaxing holiday! We had another 30th for my wonderful friend C which included a cake with macarons on top - yum! We became an Aunty and Uncle for the first time - so wonderful!!! And started work on our little monkey's nursery after picking up the family furniture.

AUGUST began with a weekend in the Blue Mountains with a lovely group of friends - food, olympics, birthday celebrations for C's hubby and lots of fun with the Little Girl. Cooking (including a croquembouche!!) a new iPad, hormonal mood swings, a Hen's night, and Monkey's cot started to look like new. We rounded out August with another gorgeous family wedding!!

SEPTEMBER started with a catchup with my lovely 'Uni' girls which included some baby news! I found out I was suffering from Gestational Diabetes and we started getting ready to sell the Englishman's car, Ruprecht. Another baby shower and another Hens Day/night.......and a Baby Shower of my own, in Newcastle :-) Our new lounge arrived and we had a trip to Ikea!

OCTOBER was a busy month! A second baby shower for the monkey and I, 2 weddings (both beautiful!) and I finished up work and started maternity leave!

NOVEMBER started off with some lovely time off work, being social and getting important things like hair appointments and massages in before the monkey was due to arrive on the 19th. Lucky I got stuck straight into them though as he decided to arrive 11 days early, on the 8th of November. Little Billy made a reasonably quick entrance into the world at  7pm on a Thursday and our lives totally changed, forever.

DECEMBER brought a bit of experience and some challenges - going out for my birthday for dinner (success!!), staying with my parents over Christmas (success but hard work for them) and a quick change of plans for New Years when Billy got a bit sick. We brought in the New Year at home instead of at the J's house, but still managed to celebrate with a bit of an impromptu bbq, a view of the fireworks, homemade pizza and a glass of bubbles or two.

2012 has been insanely amazing and good. We have had so many opportunities to celebrate life and everything wonderful about it, watching our friends and family tie the knot and start their little families, and ended it with a wonderful family Christmas and a New Years at home with an amazing view.

I can't wait to see what adventures 2013 will bring, with the Englishman's parents coming to visit, our planned trip to the UK and watching our Billy grow for his first 12 months!

Dinner at Aria

My Englishman and I at Aria

It was my birthday over the weekend – one of the big “0” birthdays. As has become a bit of a tradition for my Englishman and I, dinner at a fancy restaurant was on the cards. The Englishman had booked 6 months ago and had not told me where we were going. I found out on my birthday morning when I opened one of my presents and found a Matt Moran cook book “Dinner at Matts”. I knew straight away what that meant – we were going to Aria for dinner!!!!

So on Monday night, we both got dressed up to the nines and caught a taxi to Opera Bar. The weather was abominable but there were still a lot of people about, being so close to Christmas. We had a drink at Opera Bar – a beer for the Engilshman and a ‘Twisted Collins’ (fig and pear flavour) for me – and looked out at the dreary scenery. Then, up to Aria for dinner! We chose to have the Seasonal Tasting Menu with matching wines as this gave us a chance to try a few different dishes in small doses and really get a feel for the food.

The food was overall, delicious. It was well cooked, well seasoned and beautifully presented. Some of the dishes were served on black stone instead of traditional white crockery, which fitted with the dishes. What appeared to be a 7 course menu however was really a 10 course menu! With 2 appetisers (one at the very beginning and one between the mains and dessert) and petit fours with coffee, it was a LOT of food. Plus matching wines which couldn’t go to waste!

We had a number of different people look after us throughout our evening. The gentleman who took our order, got our cutlery (and brought more at ‘half time!’) and took our photo was friendly, had a sense of humour but remained very professional. The woman who mainly served our dishes and explained them was a little dry and humourless and almost looked like she wasn’t interested in her job. The sommelier who served our wines however, was fantastic. Knowledgeable, but not reading from a script, she gave us lots of information and really explained why each wine had been chosen to match each dish. This was great as a few of the wines seemed like an unusual match until the sommelier explained and we then tasted. Then, they made sense.

We had great seats in the restaurant – right at the window with an unobstructed view of the Opera House. It was perfect for people watching! The restaurant was a little noisy however – it was very busy although there were a few empty tables, and the air con above my seat was a tad too cold.

Neither of us was impressed with the toilet facilities. There was nothing wrong with them per se, however they were pretty standard and without any of the trimmings you would expect in such a high end restaurant. They really just had lots of clean hand towels, but that was it.

This was my dessert - just a bit of Birthday 'specialness'!!

If you’d like to see what we ate and what I thought of it, check out my website, Monstercake, for a run down of the menu and my ‘review’.