The royal visit

November 2010 was a fun month!
after nearly two years here, we finally welcomed parents to Sydney.
Sham's parents arrived the morning of Saturday November 6th. I left about 30 minutes after they arrived! My friend Jason was getting married, so off I went with some friends from work to his wedding, not to return until the next day - giving Sham some quality time with his parents!

Here are some pics from Jason and Emma's beautiful wedding:




The first weekend was Diwali weekend - so we took the parents to Parramatta to a mela... We saw more Indian people there than we have seen in the ENTIRE time we have lived here!





That week, Sham did lots of the Sydney must do tourist things during the day, and I joined them after work!

Mum and dad at Bondi


Mum and Dad at Manly!


Sham, Mum and Dad at Sydney Sky Tower


The following weekend, the parents visited Perth where they spent time with Shams cousin Shilan and his family as well as seeing various business contacts.


For my birthday weekend, we all went to New Zealand for a few days. It was really nice to meet Sham's cousin Malik and his wife Makilah who live in Auckland with their kids Imran and Aisha and to see the Blackshah clan again.



We all holidayed in a place called Paihia which is a three hour drive from Auckland in some lovely waterfront apartments. Check out our views!



We had a lovely day out on a boat (despite my sea sickness) and the highlight of the day was without a doubt the dolphins and whales we got to see!





Sham and Ajay even managed some physical activity!


Back in Auckland, dad toured the Indian convenience stores and we all got to spend lots of time playing with the kids...





When we got back to Sydney, we had a few days left to show mum and dad the rest of the touristy things left to do.
We spent their last full day in the Blue Mountains before coming back into the city for dinner at Darling Harbour. We couldn't have planned it better as they were switching on the Christmas lights that evening, so we got to watch the fireworks! I am having a few issues with the video we took, so I will post that on a later blog entry.
We ended the evening with a rather profitable visit at the casino!

It was really sad to say goodbye to mum and dad - and I doubt the goodbyes will ever get easier so we have to not think about the goodbyes and just remember the fun we have when they are here!

Next official visitors are Shak and the boys, but we do have surprise visitors with us at the moment in the form of Rikki and Nikki's cousin Hanisha and her husband Amit.

Bye for now Kunj
x

One I forgot a while ago!

Every weekend, you guys in the UK have various XFactor related status updates... the thing is, if I start to download them, Sham will most definitely KILL me! So I watch the odd clip on youtube so I know who you are talking about!
Anyway, we have an Australian version on at the moment too (but I can't watch it cos it is soooo bad!)... and a while ago, Neal got some tickets to go and watch some live auditions! It was a lot of waiting around, average singers and on-demand cheering and booing.... camera's weren't allowed, but here is a sneaky one from my phone!

October 2010 - so far, so busy!

We are only just over half way through the month and it feels like we have done lots and lots has happened!

The first weekend in October was a long weekend and as is the rule with long weekends, it rained NON STOP!
Unfortunately, this was particularly bad news because my colleague Tanya was hoping for an outdoor wedding..
Despite Plan B (an indoor wedding) having to be actioned, our first wedding in Sydney was lovely!




On following Friday, we woke up to a text from our friend Chris to tell us that while we were sleeping, Baby Roebuck had arrived!!
Baby Roebuck is actually called Fraser and he had arrived very early that morning!
Now anyone who knows me will know that teeny tiny babies terrify me... but there were two reasons that Fraser is a bit different... I have known about him for pretty much as long as his mummy and daddy have, I was his first visitor and I know that I will have a lot of baby sitting duties with this little man so there was no way Hels was going to let me get away with not holding him!


I am glad we visited them in the hospital as two days later, I was diagnosed with laryngitis... I was gutted to be missing out on cuddles, but pleased that Helen was sending me daily picture messages!

On Sunday 10/10/10, Sydney harbour bridge was closed so thousands of people could have a picnic breakfast on the real grass they had laid down.. we were lucky enough to have tickets to take part!



It was my friend Fiona's birthday, so we gave her a money-can't-buy birthday present... the only catch was, we all had to wake up VERY early (and I had lost my voice completely by now!)
It was a great experience (although, another weekend, more rain!) and if ever you are allowed to drink champagne at 7am, this is it!






This weekend has been spent at a first birthday party and helping Neal with his exciting new purchase... a flat... but more about that later!

We hope you are all well and have had updates from quite a few of you recently - those that haven't, please tell us what you are up to - we miss you!!
xxx