happy-christmas-and-merry-new-year-and-all-that

Thank goodness the Christmas chaos is over. From about 2pm December 25th (just after lunch with a tummy full from yummie baked pumpkin and potato – mmmm!) I’m content and ready to start enjoying the Christmas holidays. Anything before that is just rush, rush, rush, spend, spend, spend!

Christmas this year was a lot of fun. As I posted earlier, Eastonroyce and I went to Coffs Harbour for a two week holiday. I swear we took half the stuff we own over with us. Between us we took 4 computers – sad, I know – Nintendo Wii, most of the games we own and tonnes of packaged presents. On the way back it was pretty much the same, only the presents were all unwrapped and we were piled high with a tonne of extra games and DVDs we bought while shopping. Poor little Quin had to sit at my feet as there was no room anywhere else for the little guy. Good thing he slept most of the trip – the secret formula? Quin + Favourite Red Blanky = Sleepy Puppy!

Overall the weather in Coffs was surprising. It rained pretty much the whole time we were there, and half the beaches were closed due to a low pressure system causing havok off the coast. Damn good thing we didnt go for the beach! Instead, we spent two weeks of pure enjoyment shopping, (a new store has tonnes of anime!), watching anime, and playing computer Games. The games of choice being Super Mario Galaxy, Portal, C&C Generals: Zero Hour and Half Life 2: Deathmatch. It was fun having Eastonroyce’s brothers around cause we essentially just had a two week LAN! I have since discovered I am not as prone to motion sickness from playing first person shooters anymore, and I’m not too bad at them either. Plus, I ACTUALLY finished Portal! (and I still can’t get that crazy cake song out of my head).

Quin was the centre of attention the whole holiday. Eastonroyce’s family have never owned a dog before, so having a puppy in the house was quite a novelty. Quin was the star on Christmas Day with his cute little santa hat and christmas neck frill with bells on it. The cheeky pup caught me wrapping up his present the night before, and obviously suspected it was for him as he kept trying to steal it while I was wrapping it! When he finally got to open his present, he spent half the morning sitting in the pile of wrapping paper chewing on his new toy.

We all got the best presents – I got Eastonroyce some stuff from think geek including the 8 Bit Tie, remote control battle tanks, and and awesome home podcasting kit for his radio station, plus music CDs and DVDs. I got tonnes of Zelda stuff, new Wii remotes, Super Mario Galaxy, lots of ornamental things for home, new speakers heaps of manga and other awesome stuff! (plus far too many chocolate bars and ferreros – YUUUUMMM!). Together, Eastonroyce and I got a Wok and gardening equipment and Eastonroyce got a workbench and toolkit for the house! We spent Christmas day sitting out on the back verandah enjoying the weather, eating, and playing nintendo. Very relaxing!

On New Years day we did a trip to Dorrigo to see the Waterfall which was a lovely sight and hiked down to the basin to find a single little duckling swimming by itself. After that we went to the Skywalk and were amazed by all the Police Rescue vehicles, Rescue workers and even a helicopter flying around. It wasn’t until we saw the news that night that we discovered that someone had been missing in the wilderness for the last 4 days and they were finally retrieved. We had a delicious picnic lunch and walked on the skywalk to enjoy the view over the trees (Eastonroyce changed my camera to bark everytime a photo is taken which was rather embarrassing). We then stopped in Bellingen on the way home to check out the Old Butter Factory. There is tonnes of lovely craft shops there, but dang they were expensive!! I fell in love with a star necklace that I would have loved to buy but it was $105! We had a coffee then headed back to Coffs and spent the rest of the afternoon dozing.

The rest of the holiday we spent going for walks in which Eastonroyce and Quin took it in turns dragging each other up the hills, more shopping and more games. Two weeks of pure bliss! It was a much needed break. Eastonroyce, Quin, and I got back home on Sunday night and are now back into the daily grind of work. Ah well. If we work hard, we may be able to afford another holiday!