good lord

i have been a horrendous blogger.

here's a bit of a photo diary from our recent weekend in adelaide. when i say recent i mean nearly a month ago. whoopsies.

dad and ems, if you're reading this, i'm dead. KIDDING can you please email me your photos from the rest of the trip after our camera died and i had a tantrum? thank you x a million x x

tonight, my dinner was colourful.

geez, i've been a boring blogger of late haven't i?

i have been busy making baby shower invitations, and busy wasting money i should be saving for new york buying clothes i really need, and y'know, just being boring busy.

sometimes its quite nice to just chill out. spend some weekends at home, doing not too much.

we have the same middle name, no big deal.

valda may rowntree. or grandma whitehair if you're max or tom.

my grandma.

isn't she just the cutest? and just quietly, i don't think the middle name is the only thing we have in common. we talked about it today. we decided we're the clumsiest people we know. and we can both cry at the drop of a hat. and we love cooking shows.

she is everything grandmas are supposed to be.

she's kind and sweet and she knits and she always has bandaids and hankies and nail files in her bag when you need them. she feeds the dozens of birds that call out to her from her back steps every morning. and she makes the best mashed potato. and she sings and whistles as she meanders around the house. and she has the best collection of audrey hepburn movies you've ever seen. and she always has the freshest magazines and papers at her house. her house that hasn't changed a single bit since i've been alive. and i'm totally ok with that.

i still remember the days i used to be shorter than her.

and the days and days i used to spend at her house in the school holidays when she would take me to museums and galleries and exhibits and zoos and aquariums. and spoil me rotten with mcdonalds and ice cream for lunch.

visiting her house is still just as excellent as it was when i was younger. except now, instead of loving her foxtel for the endless cartoons, i love poring over her photos she's collected over her 85 years.

today, i learnt that her mum used to think she was the height of fashion, looking at pictures of her cutting around in furs every chance she got. i also learnt that my grandma used to be quite a star performer as she showed us photos of her in costume, ready to go on stage for the grand opening celebrations at luna park.

we looked at photos from her wedding and laughed about the "olden day" fashions, like long gloves and bonnets. she told us about how she used to call grandpop "a skinny pom, and he used to call me a fat aussie!".

we talked about her dad and her brother, looking at photos and comparing their features to members in our own rowntree clan.

we found some war bonds filed away with her photos. yeah. war bonds. i don't know what you did today, but i touched some paper from 1947. i felt like i should have had white gloves on.

we giggled a lot about grandpop. the phrases "let's just tell grandpop we had sandwiches for lunch", "what do you want for breakfast?" asked whilst eating dinner, "god, strike me" and "can you pass the salt?" had us laughing until our eyes watered, imagining him looking down and rolling his eyes at how ridiculous we were all being.

so this is my grandma. and i love her to smithereens. if i turn out half as lovely as her, i'll be doing great.

weekend wonders.

here's some snapshots of our weekend.

we hung out with our brilliant friends kat, ben and aaron to squeeze the very last drops out of my birthday. we went out for mexican and stuffed ourselves silly. kat made me an incredible cake and everyone spoilt me with the best gifts. (maybe i ate some of said cake for dinner tonight). 

it was a pretty fun night, despite what the photo of aaron may lead you to believe. the boys ate this ridiculously hot chilli sauce, so hot that they had to ask the waiter for a glass of milk and benny even cried a little bit. 

tee hee hee, little girls. says this little girl who was too scared to even try it.

we also slothed about on the couch, visited my grandmama and blu-tacked some family photos onto our wall of beauties. and right now we're topping it off with some midsomer murders and listening to the rain.

hope your weekend was delightful! x

25 today

all i wanted for my birthday was:

1. cake
2. a dinner date

what i really got was:

1. a morning alarm in the form of some very sleepy happy birthday singing from bond at 6am.
2. some amazing gifts from my lovely boyfy, even a couple of surprise gifts i didn't know about. and if you know me, you know that's no mean feat since i ruin pretty much every surprise i'm involved in, as surprise giver or surprise receiver. one of my gifts came from here. let me know if you guess what one it is.
3. delicious breakfast in bed
4. a gorgeous sunny day
5. a free ride to work on the bus
6. a couple of surprise packages at work from my gorgeous family and a super friend.
7. a delicious homemade cake from my work friends complete with candles.
8. a special delivery of beautiful flowers to my desk.
9. a supreme dinner date with bond to porteno, where i ate so much incredible food i felt a bit sick - including the world's best dessert. it was like a cross between pavlova and peanut brittle and trifle.
10. a phone call from my wifey in the uk

i am truly truly lucky to have such wonderful people in my life to help me celebrate my 25 years of living.

thanks everyone for making my day super special. (especially you matthew bond you lovely man x).

i hope your saturday is filled with warm tea and beautiful rainbows and maybe even if you're lucky a combo of the two.

t.h.e.h.i.v.e.s.

sweet lord i love this band.

if you have never seen the hives live before than i urge you, for the love of your unborn children... make sure you see them at least once before you die.

they never disappoint me. i've seen them the last two times they've been to australia - the last time being 3 freaken years ago - and each time i walk away just as in love with them as ever. i haven't been able to stop listening to them since thursday. i even stayed up super late after the gig to watch them on youtube.

 a band that comes out on stage in top hats and tails, tell the crowd to "shut the fuck up and let me speak!" and prance around hands-on-hips are always going to get my vote. and the fact that i could look at pelle almqvist all day always adds to the whole experience.

there was only one person in the whole crowd who had a better night that me and that's this guy:

how ridiculous is that?! getting pulled up on stage by the worlds greatest band to play bass guitar in their closing song. i don't know how to play bass at all but i was still very very jealous of him.

til next time hives, you sexy swedish rock lords. it better not be three years til you're back.