Baby De Rooy Update

I am 23 weeks now so I thought I should give you an update.

Things are progressing as they should be and all scans considered, everything looks great. Ours is already a hyperactive child, who wriggles and kicks at all hours of the day and night. Most of the time it's cute and tickly but sometimes (especially at night when I'm trying to sleep) it becomes a little overwhelming.

Al is excited because he can now feel the baby moving - I guess the pregnancy is not so boring for him anymore! I have told Al that he will have to start reading or talking to the baby soon so it knows his voice.

Last weekend we went on our first baby shopping adventure. Saturday we went to retail stores checked out the big 3 - cots, prams and car seats, and bought a couple of small items (baby Cookie Monster blanket...so cute!). Then Sunday we headed off to the Brisbane Baby & Kids Market for some secondhand options. Managed to pick up a cot and a bath cheap, so it was a worthwhile trip.

BREAKING NEWS! - Please welcome Zechariah John Blackley into the world....our nephew! As I was typing I received a text message that my sister had (finally) delivered her first child. He was 10 days overdue so he must have loved it too much inside to want to come out!

On hearing the news, Al said now we have to have a girl so there's one of each. Unfortunately we don't have a choice in the matter so we'll just have to wait and see what God has in mind. Everytime I go for scan I have to remind them not to tell what the gender is because we want this first one to be a surprise.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Mighty Zeus - god of thunder!

I have never, in my life, specifically the bit in the NT, experience a storm like I did at Lihir Island last week.

Firstly, the lightening was so bright that it woke me from my sleep - I thought someone had turned on the lights in the bedroom. Then the thunder came. It was so violent it shook the house.

I stayed awake for about 20 minutes just listening to the storm.....and then the power went out. For those that have lived in tropical environments (hello Gove-ites!) you will know:
storm + power out = no aircon or fans = sticky and humid sleep
As soon as saw the power go out I got up and opened all my windows to try and give some airflow. About 3 hours later the power came back on (YAY).

When I got into site the next day I was talking to one of the Admin assistants about the storm. I said "the thunder was so bad it felt like an earthquake" to which she replied frankly "it was".
WHAT THE?

Yep, apparently after the power outage but during the storm there was an earthquake registering 6.1 on the Richter scale. Now before you get too excited, its epicentre was in the New Britain province (Lihir is in New Ireland) so we only felt relatively small tremors - but still an earthquake!

I'm going back to site next week - hopefully the tectonic plates have settled down a bit.

Master Chef Australia - Cabbie division

Every now and then you will get a really chatty cab driver who is dying to share their views on something with you. You might recall my blog - Political confessions of a taxi driver - well this follows the same lines only this time the cabbie was only too eager to share his culinary expertise.

It all started when we were stuck in traffic. Brisbane is notorious for one tiny problem bringing to whole CBD to a standstill. This time it was the impending test match at Suncorp between Aust & NZ.

Al called and told me he wouldn't be home till late. I then volunteered to make a dinner 'that would keep' so that he could re-heat when he got home. Spaghetti was the suggestion, if I recall. Upon ending the call the taxi driver piped up and said "You know what goes really well in spaghetti? - Masterfoods sweet & sour sauce". And it all went downhill from there.

Apparently adding a jar of Masterfoods Sweet & Sour sauce to your spaghetti bolognaise is the way to go. I can hear a million Italian grandmothers scream......

And it gets better. After touting the goodness of adding sweet & sour to your bolognaise, he then went off on a Gravy train - Gravox to be exact. Apparently, its not only good for a sauce, but a marinade as well. And not just beef, any meat will do.

I gave up listening somewhere in his ravings about the joys of soy (sauce) but continued to politely agree and 'smile and nod'. It was Friday night, it was late and I had encountered a long and exhausting week.

Needless to say I went home and made my spaghetti bolognaise - without the Masterfoods sweet & sour sauce - just couldn't bring myself to do it.