Happy Birthday Christian

That time of the year has come again and this year Christian decided to have a party at our place to celebrate. The original plan was to head down to the river and have a barbie before heading back here but storms with hail and gale force winds were forecast and so we made the decision early to can the park idea.
Our patio has recently been finished and so we brought down the bbq from Margaret's place and went out and bought some patio blinds and a gas heater to make the night as comfortable as possible. Of course, as I'm sure you could have guessed, the storm didn't happen and although it was cold with a little bit of rain, we probably could have gotten away with going to the park anyway.

Ah well, such is life.

Christian had plans to have a few drinks and although I normally would have joined him in this I had plans the next day with Barb. Christian and Barb actually have the same birthday and each year we always have problems scheduling their celebrations. Barb wasn't doing anything big this year though so I offered to take her out to lunch for her birthday instead. I went one step further though and planned to do lunch on Rottnest Island. The idea of being hungover and on a ferry in what would probably be rough seas was not what I call a good time and so I made sure I stayed away from the booze.

For Christian however it was another matter. The last time he had a couple was on his birthday last year and that was the first time most people had seen him drunk. Everyone however agreed that he is just delightful when he's drunk and were going out of their way to get him into that condition. One thing you must understand about Christian is that he's very closed mouthed, he rarely talks but is very sarcastic. When he's had a few he gets very chatty and is absolutely hilarious.

There were quite a few people who couldn't make it as they were away or had other plans and a few people couldn't stay for long and so it was just a small group of us although unfortunately for my neighbours we weren't a quiet group. Lots of photos were taken and also a goodly amount of video and so I'll share some with you next. I'll only upload one video as it's quite long and they take forever to load.

Quite early on in the day we realised it was going to be a 'crazy hat' night. Kat and I were wearing hats to begin with, not because they were crazy but because we just like hats. As the course of the evening progressed more and more hats (the majority of which actually belong to me) were paraded about.



Lance works with Christian and is such a super nice guy. His hat unfortunately wasn't crazy enough to be part of 'crazy hats' but I just didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise.



Mike D made use of the clear skies and little remaining sober time to work on the headlights on Kat's beamer. A beanie and a hoodie aren't exactly crazy but come in useful when it's cold.


The kids nagged for cake and so we made Christian come inside and much to his disgust we all sang Happy Birthday to him. It was absolutely atrocious - we were out of time and out of tune. Snoopy was quickly cut up and eaten in a surprisingly short amount of time. Apparently dogs are quite delicious!


Christian pulled out his Kangol beanie shortly afterwards to ward off the chill and those who were not familiar with it made fun of it's bunny-like ears. It keeps his warm though so he has grown quite adept at ignoring the fun made of it.

I found this photo to be rather amusing as it appears that someone has pulled the plug on Christian. He resembles one of those blow up men that decorate the roofs of shops at sale time.
Perhaps I should start feeding my husband more?

I own two 'train conductor' hats and soon they were both being modelled by various people. The Mikes seemed to like them rather a lot.


The party started in the early afternoon and so even though it seemed late, the night was still young. It was half seven when this photo was taken.


Christian's hatred of the camera tends to evaporate when he starts drinking and so I actually managed to get quite a few pics of him over the evening. This is one of my faves.

Isn't he just adorable!


We set up our Dart Board and had fun playing Burma Road for most of the evening. Dart and drink don't seem to mix that well though and by the end of the night we'd completely lost one dart and had only the flight of another left.


Mikey tries to look like a nasty Russian in my pink beanie. Perhaps it was the sheer amount of vodka he'd consumed?


His Swiss Milkmaid look was pulled off slightly better.


Although Christian had had a few drinks by now, he still wasn't properly drunk. The Mikes in particular weren't happy about this and so they proposed another bottle shop run. When they came back a drink that Christian called 'The Nectar of the Gods' was made which consisted of Vodka, Gin, pineapple juice and lemonade.
It didn't take long for it to have an effect.


I managed to sneak up on Christian and have a photo taken with him.


Barb hates having photos taken and she will be so mad at me when she finds I've posted these next two photos. I think they're really nice though so I'll take the tantrum she throws with a grain of salt.
I'm a bit annoyed that I didn't get a photo of Jo and Barb when Jo was still there. Everyone seems to think that they're twins but I can never see it. Then again, I don't think I really resemble either of them so perhaps my judgement is lacking. Everyone else seems to think I look like them.


Kat is very much like a sister to me and so it was nice to have a photo taken of me Barb and Kat.
I really like this photo :)


Mike accuses me of being more cuddly than normal when I'm drunk but I'd just like to ask who has who in a headlock in this photo? I'd like to point out that I was sober when this was taken. I'm just a cuddly person anyway.


Chiaki was also sober throughout the evening and so the poor thing had to put up with a lot. I took a heap of photos of these two though because they're just the cutest couple.


I wouldn't even ask...


Right, now the video that I'm about to show you is a documentary style movie taken by Mike. It's wobbly, definitely second rate and will most likely be not at all amusing to anyone not actually present that evening. And I will just point out now that it was Barb who decided it would be a good idea to do a load of washing while my laundry sink acted as an eski.

I am fully aware of the fact that no Oscar nomination will be forthcoming.




We actually had a really early night which was more than fine by me. The Mikes were a shockingly bad influence on Christian and had him sculling beers at one point. He got that drunk that he couldn't walk and couldn't even stand up. After people started vomiting all over my floor and bottles were getting dropped, I made the decision to poor my hubby into bed about half eleven.

Even though Christian was horribly sick the next morning, he asserts that he had a fantastic time and I'm really happy that he did. I'm also really happy that I got so many videos since a lot of the night seemed to be a blur for my beloved and it was good to show him just exactly what he got up to.

I'm an evil woman ;-)

Cruising

It's not even half way through November yet but we're well into the swing of Christmas Parties for the year. I'm attending three work dos this year, one for my current branch, one with my old branch and a generic bank social club charity ball.
On Saturday I went to the first one of the season - a river cruise for my current branch. I managed to convince Christian to attend one of them and I think in the end he was glad he came. Whereas at my old branch everyone is much older than us, the people I work with now are much closer to us in age and so we have more in common.
We had to fight our way down to Barrack St Jetty as there was a festival on in Northbridge, a Justin Timberlake concert plus a Muse concert all happening at once. It's a miracle we managed to find parking within a ten block radius of the jetty!
Anyway, it was a fantastic night and I managed to get lots of photos which, naturally, I'll share with you all, whether you like it or not!

This is Jess and her partner Paul. Jess and I work on the business line together although she's recently been trained up in sales and will soon be leaving the teller's line.

This is Clelie, Rachel and Elaine, the blonde brigade.

This is Laura (on the right) and her partner Leanne. Laura is the third member of the business trio and works out processing the express business deposits. Laura and I get on fabulously and had a wonderful time that night. Last Thursday I cam into work all frantic because I'd had a bad dream that when I met Leanne she didn't like me. It was awful! But Leanne was just gorgeous and apparently likes me (and Christian) lots so I was very relieved! We've already agreed that we'll all get together soon for another night out because we all get on so well.

Oh hurrah, there were Christmas Crackers at the tables and for some reason most people found it entertaining to wear them.
Our table didn't participate...

This is Kristie-Lee who works in sales, her fiancé Lee and our branch manager Di. Both Kristie and Di are such fun, you always end up laughing around them.

This is Heather, my team leader and Kay, our business manager.

Rachel is our old team leader and looks absolutely fabulous now she's left the bank. I envy her, I really do. Mid thirties and retired!!! It's just not fair!

Laura, Leanne and I wanted a Titanic photo but we were all too scared to actually climb up on the front bit (not to mention that we'd probably have been kicked off the boat for doing so) so we settled for this.

They're just the cutest couple!

A photo of Christian actually smiling! I should post the one of him looking positively grumpy but I think I'll stick with the happy ones.
Everyone commented that they love his shirt which you can't really see in this shot. It's got a manga type picture on the front and back and we discovered a lot of manga fans on board that night.

Kristie-Lee grabbed my camera later that night to make sure that Christian and I had a photo together. I tried to tell her I'd (surprisingly) already gotten several but that didn't deter her. (I should mention for those who care that this is the dress I was wearing the other night for those who wanted to know just how low cut it was!)

Christian then took several photos of Kristie-Lee and myself. K-Lee didn't like them much so kept on making Christian take photo after photo until she found one she liked.

After all of that she much preferred the photo that I took of us.

This is Grace, who I'm training at the moment. She's such a lovely lady and is so helpful. Her first day in the branch and she's answering phones, jumping onto the meet-and-greet desk. Such a trooper!

Ok, now he's starting to get annoyed with all the photos...

After a while, I went back inside and Christain stayed outside playing with my camera. I'd wanted to get some pics of the city but we were having trouble with my night mode and all the different settings. But a few of them worked out quite well.
I love this shot.

And this one.

And this is a photo I took at the beginning of the night as we were leaving the jetty. Perth has our own Hollywood sign! How cool is that! I think they only put it up for the Red Bull Air Race and I'm sure they'll take it down soon but I thought it was cool. Now, it would have been really tacky if they'd shoved it up on the hill at King's Park...

We all went out to the pub after the cruise had finished and then headed into Northbridge, hoping to catch the end of the festival. We were too late though as it had already wound up for the night and so we did the nerdiest thing - we stopped off outside of the Northbridge branch and peered in making comparisons to our own branch! Lets just say I don't think I'd like to work in Northbridge as there's no glass partition between the tellers and the customers. Talk about dodgy!

On Sunday it was our four year wedding anniversary and the day got off to an ok start. We slept in, watched a few of our shows and then headed off to soccer. After soccer it was getting rather hot (36C) so I suggested to Christian that we head off to the beach. Now, considering it was our anniversary, I assumed we'd go by ourselves. Christian however invited along Kat, Mike and Mike.
Now, to be fair, I usually invite them everywhere we go and I really enjoy spending time with each of these people, however, I didn't really want them coming along that day. Not just because it was our anniversary (although that was a large part of the reason) but mainly because Kat, Mike and Mike are the last people I want to go to the beach with.
To explain further, let's just say that I don't really like the beach much. I rarely swim and this may be influenced but the fact that every time I try to get out of the water Greenpeace come and try and coax me back in and when I refuse they pour buckets of water over me to keep me moist.
As you may have noticed, I have rather big self confidence issues. I have about enough self esteem to fill a thimble, if that. Now, Kat is one of those absolutely gorgeous people who everyone wants to be like. Her partner Mike is a health fanatic, rides everywhere, six pack, whole kit and kaboodle. Other Mike is rather athletic too and almost as skinny as Christian.

Then there's me.

I was in tears before we'd even left the house and was feeling like shit. Christian couldn't understand what was upsetting me but being both a boy and almost 20 kilos underweight, he was never going to get it.
And so we got to the beach and I sat on a towel and watched everyone frolic in their bikinis and boardshorts, hating myself more and more as the minutes dragged by.
We had a barbie afterwards and I felt even more isolated as the night went on since I can't really participate in conversations about getting high and which elicit drug you'd like to try next.
That's just not me.

And so the night finally came to and end and I got home and went straight to bed, feeling more lonely than I've ever felt in my life.
Not the best way to spend our anniversary night, that's for sure.
And the worst part about the whole thing is that it's entirely my fault.
I just can't let go and be myself. Not everyone is going to love me for who I am but I can't accept the people who do and to be happy with that and be damned to everyone who doesn't. I care way too much about what other people think of me and I let it affect my confidence levels.
I messaged Christian this morning after he'd left for work to apologise for ruining the day and he made me feel a little better when he messaged back with 'Don't worry, we'll have plenty more to get right'.

I just hope that I don't end up ruining them as well.

The many Mikes of Nettie

I guess it's been a long time coming, I mention so many different Mikes, that really this post was inevitable. As you can see in my bday post, I was going to explain who they all were there but it got a tad long winded and so I thought I should do a separate post. I was trying to have this one show up after my bday post but blogger had different ideas so it'll be kind of backwards but try to keep up!
So here goes.

Nettie and the Mikes.


So, I'll start from the left shall I and explain who each one is.

The first is Mike, my brother's partner. I think I'll just call him Michael, to try and ease the confusion. You would have seen photos of him on here before from Whiteman Park and Caleb's Spiderman party. Scott and Michael got together about three weeks before Christian and I got married and it's one of those regrets now that he was never invited to our wedding.
I think I've mentioned before that Michael is a cadet journalist with the state newspaper and he does really well at it. Both Scott and Michael both had to work the next morning after my birthday dinner so they couldn't stay around too long. But it was wonderful to catch up with them and I consider Michael to be as much my brother as I do Mikey.

Next in line is Mikey, also known as Wolfbyte , Super Intelligent, Hunky Sex God Brother Mike or Mino. Mikey is actually my oldest friend, I've known him since our first year in high school and we often reminisce about the fun times we had back on our Earth Care camp or mucking about with our mate Rob in Home Ec.
It's because of Mikey that I met my husband and in return it's because of me that he met his wife! We've often been told we look like brother and sister and so it's fitting that we now are brother and sister. The 'in law' bit just gets dropped as it's really rather pointless.
Mikey would have to be one of the funniest people I've ever met, I always come away from reading his blog with tears of laughter rolling down my cheeks. He has such a way with words.
We also have a lot on common, a lot of shared interests. By the way Mikey, have you finished that story you've been meaning to for about the past 15 years now? Cos I haven't!

Next in line would be Sexy Mike, although I've since been calling him Krusty the Clown as his hair is going a bit crazy and with all that facial hair he's looking a bit like a wild man. Sexy Mike got his name from back before he and Kat got together and we needed a way to differentiate between the Mikes. Kat worked with both Sexy Mike and Mike but I called them both Mike so we never really new which one we were talking about and since she rather fancied Sexy Mike, she wanted to make sure I knew which one she was gushing about!
Now, I'm not usually into buff, muscley guys, but I must admit there is something sexy about a guy with a six pack, a tatt that runs up his arm and part way onto his chest, running about shirtless. So Sexy Mike it was.
But don't be fooled into thinking that he's a bit male modelish when it comes to intelligence. Sexy Mike is bloody smart. And stubborn. Having a debate with him quickly turns into an argument and is more frustrating than my conversations with Christian (and that's saying something). And if you don't believe me, try having a conversation with him regarding the human habit of drinking milk...

Ok, last but by far least is Mike, also known as Brooksey. I'll usually just call him Mike though as I tend to see him most out of all the Mikes.
I met Mike about three and a half years back, after Christian had been working at Pie for about six months. Mike used to go out with Julie, who is Daniel (Mikey's brothers') best friend. Mike also went to school with my sister Barb and I went to school with his twin sisters. I tell you, it feels a bit Tasmanian around here at times!
Mike works with Christian but apart from that, they also play soccer together twice a week, we play squash with Mike every Monday and we'll usually see him socially once a week too. There has yet to be a time that I've gotten drunk without Mike being there and so I'm quite happy to say he's a bad influence on me! But I always have fun whenever that happens although he does tend to beat me up a lot when he's drunk.
*sob* That wasn't really a door I walked into ;-)
Oh, and Mike is the one I perv on when I go to soccer. It's no secret I think he's hot but the couple of times I've mentioned that to him he's freaked out a bit so I tend to not bring it up any more. My older sister thinks it's scandalous the way I act around him, although Christian doesn't seem worried and I guess that's the important part. I think it's because I'm about as far from Mike's idea of the perfect woman as you can get so Christian's not at all worried!
Mike's also got a very comfortable shoulder to fall asleep on, so I must regrettably inform Alex that's he's been replaced ;-)

And that's a quick summary of all my Mikes. I hope it's helped clear up a bit of the confusion for you all!

Happy Birthday Chatterbox!

Last weekend both Christian and Barb had their birthday (do you know how many headaches a shared birthday causes???) and we went out Go Karting and to dinner to help them celebrate.

Christian won the night at Go Karting (as he usually does) and got a very nice trophy for his efforts. My niece Darcie thinks it was 'Birthday Luck' (gotta love the brutal honesty of children) but I tried to explain that Christian wins everytime he drives a Go Kart so there wasn't much luck involved at all. But he had a great time and everyone seemed to have fun (except for Barb who had a slight mental breakdown regarding getting the kids to Mum but that worked out ok in the end).

After dinner we all came back to our place to have a few drinks and I was surprised to find Christian partaking in the revelry. Christian may have one drink occasionally but that's all he has. I've never seen him drunk as the only time he's been drunk was his bucks night and I obviously wasn't there. But he decided to have a few and his drink of choice was Pulse (one of those energy drinks with vodka).
I'm a bit hesitant to give all the credit to the alcohol as it could have been the caffeine (Christian also never consumes anything with caffeine in it), but after a couple of drinks he got rather ... different.

Barb describes Christian as 'The Iceman' as she claims he never shows emotions and never speaks. I must admit that in company, it takes a lot to get Christian talking and even then he's quite reserved, except for his cutting sarcasm. But once you get a few drinks in him, you can't shut him up!
I knew it was going to be fun when he swaggers outside, gives me the thumbs up and announces 'I'm Pulsed!'
Man is he a funny bugger when he's drunk! I've told him that he'll be drinking with me on more occasions as I spent most of the night laughing harder than usual. And the next day I had so many people message me commenting on how much of chatterbox Christian was and how good it was.

I think everyone got to see a different side of him.

Barb also had a good time but she didn't drink. She tried but after one sip gave it up as a lost cause as she had a bit of a bender in Kal a while back and now can't even look at a bottle of booze without feeling ill. Mum had taken the kids so it was nice for her and Mike to just sit back and relax. They didn't stay too long past midnight however since with three kids getting sleep is a bit of a novelty. Best take advantage of the opportunity when it presents itself!

Oh, and also over the weekend, Mike (other Mike) and I swapped cars like we'd said we'd do a few weeks back. Before we left for Go Karting we had a bit of time to kill so I suggested he take my car for a spin. It's the first Corolla he's ever driven and he seemed to like it. When we got back he offered to let me drive his GTR to Wanneroo where the Go Karting track was and after my initial panic, I accepted his offer.
I've never driven a four wheel drive before or a turbo (the GTR is a twin turbo just to add to my panic) so it was very different to my little car. I was very worried I was going to break something but as Mike pointed out, his clutch is pretty much stuffed and if I broke it, it would just be putting it out of its misery.
So I drove out there and didn't break anything which was good, and then I also drove it back and had heaps of fun.

We also had a really good chat and, unlike Christian, who is such a natural at driving a car that he doesn't understand where I'm coming from, Mike actually got what I was saying. For example, I've never been able to heel-toe so he told me about how he learnt to do it and made me feel a bit better about no being able to do it and also a little more confident to give it a go. We also said that when summer comes we should take out cars down to the drags so we can see the time difference between my car and Christians' (his is almost the same but is super charged) and I found that Mike didn't laugh when I said the only thing stopping me from doing that was I can't do a burn out and I'm scared I'll make a fool of myself when I'm warming up my tyres. Apparently he felt exactly the same way with his old car and that's one of the pluses with this one - 4WD means you don't have to.

So it's been good to have someone to chat to about crap like this who a) doesn't laugh at me and think I'm silly or b) like you lot, are falling asleep while I talk about it ;-)

Anyway, I'll leave it at about that for now. Nothing else too exciting has happened except for going to see Transformers (that movie rocked!).
I'll catch you guys around later!

Crap, crap, crap

Well, apart from only a few things, everything has been rather shite lately.

It's been the end of the financial year so work has been really flat out, there's so much shit going on over at MoH that I'm about to wash my hands with the whole thing, Boo and Ro are going away on holiday so for the next two weeks I won't have anyone to chat to on msn and we've finally been getting some rain (which is a big yay) but it means that I haven't been able to get out and about to take photos of Bimpkin. I'm running out of time to do that as Alex gets back in two weeks and I need to have the gnome arrive in time. I have a couple of pics so maybe I'll have to leave it at that and hopefully Bimpkin will make his way back to Perth if Smerk volunteers to be a host...

Anyway, I'll not go on and on about all the crap that's been happening as that doesn't make for a fun post so I'll fill you in on the good stuff.

Work-wise I've been told I've got a permanent place at my current branch which is what I was hoping for. I really do love it there and it's much better off for me targets wise. It will be a challenge however as there are so many new entrants that there's not a lot of experience and the experienced tellers there are really lazy (on the whole) so there'll only be one or two of us who carry the workload. But I can handle that...

I've had a few late nights recently (again) which meant I didn't get online to say bye to Boo and Ro before they left for Wales as I've been sleeping in a bit longer than normal. Wednesday we had soccer, Thursday we went and saw Rise of the Silver Surfer (as Mike so aptly put it 'I feel dumber for watching it, but it was rather entertaining'). On Friday I went to the pub after work for farewell drinks as the Team Leader has left. I got felt up by Mr Ugly Universe '06 while standing at the bar. I was too shocked to do anything but glare and move as far away as possible but in hindsight I would have loved to have slapped the bastard. But it was a first for me as no one's ever attempted to pick me up before so I'll hopefully learn from experience.
After the pub Christian and I went round to Richard's workshop again so he could do some tuning on his Levin. I spent most of the night helping Mike change his dash lights to coloured LEDs. We had a choice of blue, red and white globes so we spent about an hour just moving them around and seeing what all the effects looked like with mixing the globes. Eventually we decided on just the blue ones and it looks really good.

Yesterday, being the last Saturday of the month, was the night Minimal Exposure play at the Velvet Lounge (our mates Lachlan and Adrian who DJ) so Christian and I made plans to go see them. However, last minute, as I knew he would, Christian piked on me, saying he wasn't feeling up to another late night out. So I scrapped the plans to have a few drinks, donned my Designated Driver hat and swung by to pick Mike and Richard up on my way through.
It was a really good night, even though Lachlan was too sick to mix so he stayed home but Adrian was there and he was really good.
It was so packed there, as there was a US DJ who was on before ME as a guest performer, much busier than I've seen it before. Mel and her boyfriend Jann were there too, so it saw all five of us trying to squish onto one couch. Mel sat on Jann's lap, Richard was next to Jann, then me and then Mike made himself very comfortable by trying to squash me to death. By the end of the night pretty much everyone there had sat on me, or fallen on me, or lay on top of me, until I finally asked if I had suddenly become a couch.

Now I am known as Mrs Couch.
*sigh*

But it was heaps of fun, we had a lot of laughs during the night. At two thirty we headed off home, discovering on the way that my rev limiter kicks in at 8000 rpm. It wasn't by accident either, Mike wanted to know so when I dropped them off, my car was boycotted to satisfy his curiosity. I'm sure he'll regret that as we've promised to switch cars one day and his GTR will be at my mercy, muhahahahahahahahahah.
I can't wait actually, although I am just slightly scared of driving his car as it's quite a bit more powerful than anything I've actually driven...but it should be fun nonetheless!

And that's about it for now. Sorry, another boring post about cars and crap, I'll try and make the next one more interesting!

Here you go, Ro

Ever since my new found ability to get inebriated, I've been promising Ro photos of a drunk Nettie. I've yet to deliver on that promise as I've always gotten distracted when I'm out and about and just plain forget to take photos.

Well, last night we had a thing at our place and I managed to get rather drunk. I seem to have developed a knack for it actually. I also managed to remember to take photos.
So Ro, here they are babe, just for you.


This is Mel and I, me after about 6 Smirnoff's and Mel after almost a full bottle of wine. We were having a competition to see who went the most red and I think I won. But I had so much fun, Mel is just such a blast to hang out with. We laughed the entire night.

We hadn't seen Jason since we played mini golf with him and so we were really excited when he said he'd be able to make it. He spent most of the night playing wii with Christian and laughing hysterically at things that weren't that funny. He hadn't been drinking so God knows what he found so funny.
Maybe we're just funny people?
He hadn't seen Charlie goes to Candy Mountain or Dr Tran so we enlightened him. He found them to be funny too, but then again, so do most people.
We also played thumb wars quite a bit, and he beat me every darn time. I think all that time he's been spending at the gym has been dedicated to strengthening his thumb muscles!

Another person I've found myself getting drunk with is Mike. Actually, every time I've been drunk both Mel and Mike have been there. I think maybe they're bad influences on me...anyway, Mike is also a heap of fun to have a few drinks with.
I did have my hair in pigtails earlier in the night but Mike decided twirl them around as fast as he could until it pissed me off and I punched him. Didn't work, I at odd times have the patience of a saint and so he pulled them out in disgust. When I'd done them though my hair was wet so I had a huge kink in my hair when it came down that looks a bit funny. Please feel free to laugh amongst yourselves about it ;-)
This isn't the best photo of him but it's the only one we managed to get with both our heads in the frame, courtesy of Jason. Everytime we tried to do the hold-the-camera-at-arms-length-and-click thing, we'd miss.


Christian avoided all my attempts of getting a photo of him but eventually Mike managed to pin him down so I could get one. The fact that my hubby only looks amused and not pissed off was the icing on the cake.

Finally, for some reason or another, we'd found it highly amusing to put empty Smirnoff cartons on our heads. So of course we had to get a photo of that.
Just to embarrass ourselves.
I hope you appreciate the lengths I will go to for your entertainment :)

Mikey was there earlier on in the night but I didn't get a chance to get any pics of him as he left early to go home to help with the kiddies

So there you have it. I hope you like them Ro.
Oh, and as you can see most of the red I put through my hair has decided to wash out, leaving it kind of brown again.
*sigh*

The plague ridden corpse

So, I've been a bit sick lately.

Well, quite sick actually for most of last week. It started with the dreaded lurgy that's going round here and quickly affected my asthma. I soldiered off to work on Wednesday and Thursday but by Thursday night I was feeling like complete shit. I couldn't go two minutes without trying to cough up a lung and was pretty miserable.
So you can imagine I wasn't too happy when Christian announced he was going out for the evening to work on his car.

I'm sure you all know me well enough by now to know that that didn't go down too well and I made sure Christian knew that. I was sick, I felt crappy and I really didn't want to be home alone. Even though my husband didn't think a draughty workshop was the best place for me to be, he must have felt some pity for me as he allowed me to tag along.

Now, I don't know about the majority of women out there but I actually rather enjoy nights like that (not the being sick part - the sitting around watching guys work on cars part). Not too sure why, but I'm quite content to sit back, watch the action and engage in conversation. I think maybe it has to do with helping my Dad out as a kid. I didn't actually do much when he was working on the car or one of his carpentry projects (hold this, fetch that, get me a cuppa) but it was more about keeping him company. I'd sit there for hours and we'd just chat about everything and nothing.

I don't seem to have grown out of that so the prospect of hanging out in a workshop instead of being home alone was quite appealing. The workshop belongs to Mike's (Brooksey) house mate Richard and they were going to be helping Christian change his fuel filter. Usually a five minute job, this turned out to be 'that job' on Christian's car that was proving to be a royal pain in the arse. There's always one thing.
The problem was that Christian couldn't actually remove the fuel filter as one nut seemed to be stuck. No matter what he did, Christian just couldn't get it off. So Richard was going to put it up on the hoist for better access.

Three hours, several different attempts to remove the nut, the fuel line half removed and a risky power saw job later, the fuel filter was free. The little sucker just didn't want to come off.
Against everyone's better judgement the boys resorted to cutting the connection between the nut and the filter with a mini saw thingy (no bloody idea what it's called but it's too small to be a saw, too different to be an angle grinder and that about exhausts my knowledge of power tool names). The fact that we had sparks flying everywhere right next to the fuel line didn't escape anyone's notice. We just chose to overlook the fact out of frustration and stand by with a fire extinguisher at the ready.

I stood about as far away as I could.

In Peru.

Only kidding.

So, the night was going well. I had actually perked up a little by then. When I first arrived I had announced that a plague ridden corpse in the corner adds to any social gathering and Mike agreed I looked like shit. I informed him that he looked just as bad given how sick he'd been and from the hacking coming from the far side of the workshop, I gathered Richard was ill too.

So I was a little surprised when both of them had lit up within five minutes of us getting there. I'm not a smoker myself but I fail to see the point of inhaling more shit into your lungs when you can't breathe as it is.
I'm not an addict though so who am I to judge???

Richard disappeared for a bit later on in the night and I heard him coughing amidst a plume of smoke and couldn't help but pass a comment about the whole thing. He turned around as asked 'Would you like some?'.
I did a double take and realised he was smoking a joint and almost freaked out.
Nice, naive Nettie doesn't do stuff like that!
I just really wasn't expecting it there of all times! Yeah sure, at a party you kind of expect it, even if you don't partake yourself but on a Thursday night while working on a car ... no, didn't see that coming. Made me a tad uncomfortable to say the least.

Anyway, about half eleven the old fuel filter was off and the guys were working on getting the car back together with the new one and I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. Mike offered to drive me home and normally I would have declined (I really hate putting people out, it's rude) but I said yes because I just wanted to have a sleep, plus I couldn't allow an opportunity to have a ride in the GTR pass me by. God, I love that car!

So despite how sick I was, I actually had a really good time. Probably not everyone's cup of tea, but for me, it was an enjoyable evening.

And now it's time to bring this rambling post to an end.

Make a wish

Last night we went to a quiz night for the Make a Wish Foundation.

My friend Mel is a volunteer for the Foundation and I'd been looking forward to it for weeks. I love quiz nights but I'm not all that good at them. Christian may be a repository of odd facts and trivia but I don't seem to retain it. But I do like to be involved, plus we had planned to go to see Minimal Exposure afterwards (our mates who DJ at the Velvet Lounge) so I was very excited.

The night was held at Gloucester Park, a dog racing place in Perth, a slightly more upmarket venue than last year where it was apparently just held in a hall. Most of the people at out table work with Mel and Christian so it definitely had a pie Networks feel about the night.

The quiz was supposed to kick off at quarter past seven so Christian, Mike and I got there at seven as I do hate to be late for things like this (much nagging was involved on my part but I won't go into that right now). I think by the time it actually did start, it was past eight and I had to put up with snide comments from Christian such as 'Gee, it's such a good thing that we got here early Annette, I really would have hated to be late'. I guess it did give us a chance to have a couple of drinks first though, to be honest I was probably slightly drunk by the time we started. Seeing as I had been designated the role of scribe for the evening, it didn't really help as my handwriting is shocking enough as it is usually. Mike kept on buying drinks though so who was I to argue?

There were eight rounds and a couple of extra questionnaire things they did to raise extra money and our table started off with a perfect score. I was very excited that I knew the answer to the first question (Which Utah city is home to the headquarters of the Mormon church?) and found that overall the questions were actually really well spread out over a variety of topics. The next round we weren't as good however and we had gotten even worse by the third. By round five our scores had been 10, 9, 8, 7 and 6 respectively but we couldn't overcome our pride to keep the pattern going by deliberately throwing questions. We're not that geeky.

I think by the time everything was finished up it was past eleven and by that stage I was reasonably drunk. I'm sure there are a few of you out there who would be quite proud of me and my new-found ability to get intoxicated, however I'm sure my Dad isn't one of them. I've since found out that he actually is reading my blog from his new home in Canada so I'll take this opportunity to say 'Hi Dad!'.

It had fallen to Christian to be designated driver so he piled Mike and I into my little red car and we set off for the Velvet Lounge. Being my car, I forced the others to listen to my choice of music and I was pummelled with insults the entire way there. For some reason the boys found Mark Owen's British twang to be highly annoying. I have reason to believe Christian doesn't like Mark Owen solely because little Markie was my first love, not Christian but I'd have a hard time proving that ;-)

We stayed at the Velvet Lounge for a couple of hours, highly entertained by the people dancing. There was one guy there who would have rivalled the gay guy at that club we went to in Edinburgh, I just wish you guys could have been here to laugh along with us.
The music was really good mostly, however towards the end another couple of guys got up and butchered it so that put an end to our running dance commentary...
I'd just like to state here for the record that I didn't get up and dance, mainly as I'm just too uncoordinated to look reasonably cool while dancing. I dance a bit like a Wiggle on acid but without the talent.

Around half two we decided to leave, dropping a very drunk Mike off at home and trying not to laugh when he assured us he'd be fine to get up at 7 the next morning to go Paintballing. I saw him at soccer today and needless to say, he didn't make it.

And speaking of soccer, Christian's ankle is finally good enough to start playing again. He played last Wednesday and after he'd survived that half hour game, he decided he'd be fine for the 90 minute scratch match today. His ankle held up reasonably well during the game, probably better than Christian on the whole. Not playing for six weeks has made him a little out of condition so he subbed off a bit, but I'm pretty sure it won't take long for him to get back into the swing if it.
And in the meantime, I get back into my 90 minute perv sessions, which I have missed horribly!
And that's about it. I won't post the photos I took last night because really, they're not that exciting. You've seen photos already of most of the people there and sitting around a table doesn't exactly make for exciting viewing.

Oh, and just in case you didn't know, it's Salt Lake City ;-)

As promised, the second post

I sometimes worry about posting twice in as many days. Not so much that I'll bore you buys (because I'm sure you just wouldn't bother reading more if you were bored), more that I worry my first post will be overlooked.
A Spiderman party is a momentous occasion and one that deserves it's limelight :)
So, if you've stumbled upon this post, please make sure you continue on to the next, so the Webbed one can be fully appreciated.

Having gotten that out of the way, I now give you the promised pictures of the trackday.

This is Christian's Levin GTZ. It's his dream car and although he had some issues with fixing a fuel line this morning and swore his head off at the car, he really doesn't want any other. I guess you could say that Neville (that's the car's name but with a Kiwi accent) is my only competition ;-)


This is Mike's GTR, and today was the first time he had done anything like this in it before. He imported her from Japan ages ago and only recently got it registered so he wasn't pushing overly hard. Mike's been gradually upgrading his car, he started out with a R30 then got a 31 and now has the 32. He won't keep going though as the 33 is a tosser's car and the 34 is just crap. But this is one sweet car! At the end of the day Wazza, who was running the day let the guys take me out for a spin so I got a go in Neville but Christian couldn't push it as his brakes weren't the best and then Mike took me out in the 32. I came back with this silly grin on my face that I couldn't wipe off.

Christian hates having photos taken and in most of them he is either giving me the bird or he turns quickly away so I only capture the back of his head.
This was one of the latter.

I actually managed to get a pic of Mike today but how someone so damned hot can be so unphotogenic is beyond me, it really is. He always looks as pale as a ghost and stoned in all the pics I have, but this is one of the better ones...oh, and I've told him he needs to have a haircut. It's getting a bit mullety and that's never good.

The track is outside of the Belladrome in Midland where they do a lot of cycling. At the top of the hill outside the back of the dome are a couple of sea containers. One of them had this cute picture of a crocodile on it. I'm now annoying Christian by singing 'Schnee schni schnappy, schnappy, schnappy schnappy'



This is just a picture of a rope that was hanging down from the dome. I thought it looked like the place a depressed cyclist may come after losing an important race...Christian came upon me taking the shot and could only laugh at me.

Lastly this was a photo I took of the clouds through the pine trees. Not overly exciting but I thought the clouds were quite nice today.And that's about it really. I froze my arse off all day (May could possibly be not the best time for our international guests to come, but we survived Edinburgh, I'm sure they'll survive here) but it didn't rain a lot, only a bit of drizzle here and there. It was a fun day, I always enjoy these things even when I'm not driving and I was very excited to get a ride in the GTR! Plus, these days are always good for a perv! It might be just me but towards the top of my 'What makes a guy hot' list is the ability to drive hard!

Ok, I'll leave it at that for now, probably until next weekend! Bye guys!

Spiderman 3

No, not the movie. My nephew Caleb, who is Spiderman mad celebrated his third birthday today and in honour of this momentous occasion, a Spiderman party was held.

As part of his present, Barb and Mike bought Caleb a reversible Spiderman suit, worn normally and it's the traditional red and blue suit, tun it inside out and it's the creepy black suit from the latest movie. What I think is so adorable about it is the inflated chest muscles on it. He looks so cute!


Barb is famous for the birthday cakes she makes. She's made everything from a train, a Barbie fairy garden, a dog, a dinosaur, numerous dolly varden cakes, even Hanky, the Christmas Poo. She wanted to make Caleb a Spiderman cake and started working on these elaborate spiders made from moulding icing but in the end she wasn't happy with them so didn't use them. Eventually she ran out of time and at 2 in the morning before the party she whipped up the cake below featuring Spiderman's mask. She says she's disappointed that it didn't turn out the way she wanted but I think it's bloody fantastic!


In addition to the Spiderman cake, Barb went whole hog with the licensed party paraphernalia. The kids had a Spiderman tablecloth, cups, plates, hats, lolly bags, drink bottles, even the balloons were blue and red. Caleb just loved it all.


Jo and Darcie drove up from their place for the day and also brought Shiver with them. No longer a tiny puppy, Shiver has shot up and is now the same size as Malta. The two of them spent the whole day playing in a rather exuberant fashion, knocking several children down in the process. I took a photo of them and contrary to what it looks like, they're not trying to a) kill each other or b) make lots of dingo/mastiff babies.


Darcie grabbed hold of my camera at one stage and took a few photos, mainly of me. She's the right little professional, telling me to stand up, sit down, do this or that. She also demanded that I stick my tongue out. It's by far the best photo so I thought I'd share it with you (and best as in centred and in focus - it's a rather shocking pic of me in general)


Scott and Mike also came and it's amazing just how much like my Dad my brother is becoming. The resemblance is amazing!
It was great to catch up with them and I just want to say a huge congratulations to Mike for making his first front page of The West Australian. He scored a coveted position as Cadet Journalist for the state's paper and has had quite a few articles published so far but this was his first front cover. It was an article about a 97 year old man who has just taken up helicopter flight lessons, but Mike says he'll be much more excited when he gets a breaking news front cover. I say he kicks ass anyway!

Oh, and looksie what I got! A photo of Mike (Wolfbyte) actually being affectionate towards Malta. He was complaining earlier how he never wanted the dog and how annoying she is but shut up soon after I pointed out he's actually admitted on his blog that he loves her, even though it was in the middle of a rant about how annoying she is. Then I walk in the house a short while later and low and behold, the two of them are snugged up on the couch having a cuddle.
Not that this is going to change the world or anything, I just wanted to have proof that deep down he thinks she's alright!


So, that's about all I have to report on the Spiderman party. You should get another post with photos this weekend though as there's a track day tomorrow that Christian is taking his GTZ down to and Mike (Brooksey) might turn up with his GTR. For those of you who don't like cool cars, it might bore the crap out of you, but tough. I didn't get to be Deputy Curator in charge of fast cars for nothing!