Goodbye 2008

Once again Christmas has come and gone, closely followed by the biggest night (for some) of the year. We started the festivities as usual with a Christmas Eve party at Karen's place. A great night was had by all and what better way to get the parties of the next few days started than with Champagne, Christmas Pudding and Carols. Well, they were on the telly, inside.

This Christmas our family gathering was held at Aaron's place in Cranbourne. He did a great job of 'doing Christmas' and we all had a lovely lunch and a fun time as Mum, Maree, Jarrod, Bill and I joined him for the big day. A smaller gathering this year as other family members remained at home in Holland, Perth and Qld but we did speak to most of them during the course of the day.

The celebrations continued on Boxing day at Healesville where we joined our good friends Astrid, Hans and Bianca for their annual 'leftovers' night. A wonderful afternoon and evening was spent with them and their many neighbours. No driving home as we stayed the night at Sanctuary House, a great little resort next to, (yep you guessed it), Healesville Sanctuary. The next morning we decided that we would visit the animals as we had not ever ventured in even though we are in and out of Healesville all the time. We had a great day and it sure is worth a visit.

After a phone call during the week from Jarrod and Jane visiting from Perth we met them one night for a drink and saw the Christmas show at Crown. It was good to catch up with them both and hear of all their holiday adventures. They had been here for a few days and were leaving the next day for Sydney.

New Year's Eve was a fine cool evening, very different to last years heatwave and so we decided to get out and about a bit earlier. We walked into the city and watched the 9.15pm family fireworks and then continued on up to Lygon St where we had a yummy dinner at one of our favourite restaurants. Once finished we walked back to town where we joined the many thousands of people just in time to see the midnight fireworks. A double banger, you might say. We managed to make a quick getaway from the city and a short while later were back at Crown raising a glass to 2009 and thinking of all our friends who were still to bring in the New Year.

The next day we had a quiet one spending the afternoon at the movies watching Australia. We both enjoyed it very much and were glad we saw it.

We both hope that you all had a wonderful time at Christmas and we wish everyone a Happy New Year for 2009.

Until next time.............