I'm back - Did you miss me ?

Hi everyone,

Sorry to stay away so long, stuff just gets in the way.

I'm not caught up on email either :-)

I thought I’d check in and bring you all somewhat up to date.

DH got laid off from his job (this is one that was literally around the corner) so is just retired now. He’s not looking for anything else.

I don’t have any consulting gigs on the horizon, but I’m content to have the summer off.

So far I’ve worked 50% of the time since taking the company early retirement package, and that is just fine with me. (They have since laid off 1000's of people, and decimated my department, so it was a good decision to leave when I did.)

I finished up my project at xxx Insurance Company in Feb, then we went to Australia for most of the month of March. DS and DDIL moved there in Sept. 2007.

We had a great time visiting them, as we hadn’t seen them in 2 years. Here they are.

We spent one week together (all 4 of us) on the Gold Coast (near Brisbane) which is a beach resort area.

It has the most gorgeous beaches I’ve seen anywhere – very wide and clean, great waves, warm water. Perfect. We went to great restaurants, and had a couple of BBQs and picnics. Visited a National Park, played mini-golf, relaxed, swam, hiked. Did a little shopping.

Sydney (particularly the area where they live - Newtown) has lots of ethnic restaurants – Turkish, Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, African, Caribbean, you name it – and we had fun trying them out.

Here's me at Doyle's with a yummy seafood platter, with fish and chips featured prominently!

On a visit to the Art Museum of Sydney, I noticed this.

See the woman on the left?

Yes, she is knitting a sock.

I had a chance to visit the largest yarn shop in Sydney, Tapestrycraft aka J. Morris, and bought some very soft Merino wool.

I also went to a nice button shop - All Buttons Great and Small - and got coconut shell buttons for my February Lady sweater.

They lend an exotic touch, don't you think ?

DDIL's parents had us over to their house for a BBQ and we enjoyed that too. They are warm, lovely people. Both are school teachers.

Our flight home had a 2 day stopover in Tahiti on the way back, and that was VERY nice too.

I do have some news. DS and DDIL are expecting a baby! In October. They told us the news when we were there, so that was pretty cool.

Yes, DH and I will be grandparents soon! Very exciting. So, I guess we’ll be back for more frequent visits in the future.

Of course I don’t feel old enough to be a grandmother – I still feel about 30. When did this getting old happen? I never noticed it. ;-)

Naturally, there are lots of baby knitting projects planned and on the needles. I will discuss these in my next post. Baby knitting is loads of fun !