Dino Don's House: Accommodation for our wedding, Sept 2007

Morgan and Rachid's Wedding: September 18, 2007

In the midst of all our own wedding preparation madness, some very close friends also got married. It was with great pleasure and a kind of sense of surreal irony that I could go to my high school best friend's wedding on the very same week as our own wedding! The two Danielles in my life, also dear people long in my life, Danielle Williams, and Daniella Bohill, were married round about the same time as well. We missed out on Danielle's wedding, a whole village in Morocco, with several sittings, many changes of dress... and Daniella's was up in Boston two weeks before us.

Morgan and Rachid had a delightfully simple wedding on a gorgeous fall day. I was really so glad to be able to be there.

Pennsylvania in September 2007, Before the Wedding

This September was a mixture of pre-wedding madness, -a thousand miniscule decisions and a lot of running around, and great pleasure in catching up with friends and family, mounting excitement as overseas wedding guests began to trickle in.

Jolie and Lovely Lena. Jolie did an amazing job on the flowers, nearly all of which came from the gardens of her clients and were a lot of local wildflowers. We met a few times to hang out and to discuss all things green and bloomable, and we got to do some of the flower picking too!

My dad came along and helped us pick out a kilt for Craig. We suggested he could wear one too, an idea which seemed to quietly percolate through his head and suddenly resurface later on.

We spent the first week staying with Eileen and Ewald, ever gracious hosts and warm, wonderful people.

Takumi was the first guest to arrive. We had time to hang out together, we ate at a late night diner, saw some jazz with my dad. And we also went along to watch my nephew Cody's soccer game with the whole family. Pictured here is my sister Beth, her husband Bill, Cody and Dylan.

The next guests to arrive were Cathie, Craig's mum, Coralie, her sister from Botswana, and Tim Riley, a good friend from Melbourne. We took a pleasant walk through the nearby Ridley Creek State Park and had a big breakfast at a cafe owned by two of Zoe's sisters, Willow and Rainy.

The rest of the Robertson clan arrived: Craig's brother Neil & his partner Stacey, cousin Gary from the UK. We had some drinks, nibbles and laughs on our balcony in our swish new home.

Winter in Melbourne: May to September, 2007

Yes, I know it has been ages and ages since we've updated our blog! And now everyone wants to see some photos of the wedding. But before I could add them (they're coming!) I had to catch up on a few images from adventures over the winter here.

A trip to a winery on the Mornington Penninsula for Mother's Day

Back to the Penninsula, to a brewery for Sean's birthday

Winter Feasts, with Shiatsu friends Sean and Penelope, while Rod and Craig slaved away trying to stop the government from dredging the bay.

Making the Paper to use in the wedding invitations

Business Brainstorming Retreat with Zoe's new business partner, Katerina. We went up to her dad's amazing place in the country to do some work on EASLI.

We had a Robertson family weekend away for Cathie's birthday.

Zany New Housemate: From May, 2007

One of our closest friends in Melbourne, Zane, moved in with us for a few months from early May, in preperation of his upcoming world trip, starting with China where he is hoping to get some filmmaking work.

Zane is a marvellous person, and something of a phantom housemate. He gets up about 4-5:30 a.m. to start his day with some writing and is out the door by 7 a.m. He comes home from his editing job and either rugs up in heaps of winter gear, a jacket, scarf etc. and watches a film outside so he can abuse his lungs and liver with wine and cigarettes or he climbs straight into bed. We are more fortunate with Zane sightings on the weekends when he can often be seen as above, in lounge mode but not far from the computer.

Annabelle's Visit: April 23-28, 2007

One of Zoe's oldest and dearest friends, Annabelle Wax came for a very quick five day visit after she had been in New Zealand for several months. We hung out in Melbourne, eating, dancing, walking and talking. We went out with our good friend Zane and Anna killed us in Texas Hold 'em poker. Anna had just gotten her first taste of the sea in NZ, and had fallen in love with sailing. So we tried to help Anna make her decisions about whether to return to the US or sail off into the Pacific Islands or enter a skipper school to get some sailing and boat chartering credentials. It was a breif but really lovely time together.

We went on a camping trip down the Great Ocean Road, to our longtime favorite camping spot. Annabelle and Craig had a surf, we had a few walks by the coast and even ventured a dip in the icy sea at an amazing cove.

Craig, Joel and Andy still looking at the waves after a good morning's surf

Craig and Annabelle

Morning walk to the beach from our camp site

Wallabies camped with us too

Sleepy Koala still manages to keep his balance

Picnic Breakfast and Morning Yoga on the wild beach

Fresh from the cold Autumn sea, we had this spectacular beach to ourselves

Anna developed some sort of rash after arriving at our house, we wondered if it was the New Zealand sandflies, or perhaps German Measles or some kind of disease. It was after the camping trip and a sleepless night in the tent for Anna that we realized she had picked up bedbugs in New Zealand sleeping on a boat. Thus most of the end of her trip was spent thoroughly cleaning all of our sleeping bags and then drying them at the laundromat. But two months on, there is still no sign of bedbugs in our house.

Easter Vacation: April 8/9, 2007

The blog has been slowly slipping away, receding into our again busy lives, busy I guess, since about Easter. But I am going to catch everyone up on the last two months or so, though details might become vague at times. It has been a busy period for us, we have entertained wildly different notions on what to do with our lives back in Melbourne, mostly different work directions. The constants have been our lovely house-nest and all the great friends and family who we've been catching up with.

Easter is a reasonably big deal holiday in Australia, a good 4-5 days of public holiday, school holidays for about a week, and beautiful early Autumn weather for everyone to enjoy. Over our week of holiday, Craig and I set to work on the back deck and garden. We sanded down and re-oiled everything, and planted heaps of flowers, herbs and vegies. It was very satisfying work.

We also had a big Easter lunch at Craig's mum's house with Craig's brother Neil and his girlfriend Stacey. I insisted on a backyard Easter Egg Hunt, and as always there was one tiny egg noone could find anywhere. It was a gorgeous and relaxing day. We realized it was the first time the whole family had hung out together for years and years, and indeed that combination of people have never gone away together before. This lead on to the idea that we should find a holiday house somewhere in the countryside to have some easy access to nature and to go away with special groups of people. We spent a bit of April and May looking for a shack in the bush or nice home by the sea but these plans are now on hold for a few more months.

We went out for a day hike at Kinglake National Park, enjoying some surprisingly quiet forest and met a few wallabies as well.