Alister's 33rd Birthday Party

First off, sorry we haven't posted much in a while -- been busy with traveling for work and work and visitors and trips around here and all sorts of craziness. However, we're back, and you'll see a number of posts below on recent trips we've been taking.

This weekend our friend Alister had a birthday dinner party at his house which we attended -- it was a great group of people, and a lot of fun to help Alister celebrate another year.

Click on the pictures to play inline, and if you click again you can see the pictures full screen.

JVP in the House

Our good friend Julia recently travelled from London to Sydney for a work trip plus it was her birthday so she celebrated it down under in style. She stayed with us for the week and we had lots of fun catching up and paiting the town red. Well we went to see the fantastic musical Prisilla Queen of the Desert so maybe we actually painted the town pink. Carl was in the US for most of her visit so it was fun having Julia as a flatmate while he was gone. She is always good fun, great company to have around and a fantastic friend! During her visit she found a beautiful print at the Paddington Markets that she had to have but it was rather large. We were a little nervous as to how the print would get on the airplane but no with problems and no extra charge later it was on the plane and back to London with Julia. Here are some pictures of her visit as well as the size of that print.

Life on the Hawkesbury River

Carl got back to Sydney after a long flight from San Francisco and that evening we had dinner with his former colleague, Eric and his family who had been traveling around Australia on vacation. It is always fun having visitors from home in Sydney. No rest for Carl, on Saturday morning we headed up to Jane's uncles holiday house on the Hawkesbury River two nights of relaxation, eating (lots of eating) and a little tennis. You have to get to the house by boat, and when you get there you really feel like you're in nature. The house was beautiful, the setting so peaceful, and the company fantastic. Hawkeye and Jackie were very gracious hosts and we had a lot of good laughs by the fire with them. It was a great way to ease back into work for Carl after a long trip away.

Beautiful Byron Bay

If you can believe this... it is cold in Sydney and it rains in Sydney and it rains a lot! All the locals here say this is the coldest winter they can remember in a long time. We thought this was the land of sunshine and warmth all the time but not so much in the winter time. (I still can't get my head around winter being June, July and August) So to escape the rain we went up to Byron Bay for a weekend getaway. Byron Bay is close to the Queensland boarder about an hour flight north of Sydney. Our dreams of no rain were not exactly answered it ended up raining on Saturday but that did not stop us from exploring the lovely Byron Bay and the very cool town. We went on a hike to the lighthouse and from the shores we could see humpback whales spouting in the water. Also in Byron you can step on the most eastern spot of Australia. On Sunday the weather was beautiful and sunny and we did get to feel a little bit of sunshine on our skin. See our slideshow here with all the pictures from our weekend getaway.

Weekend at Vittorio's

While in San Francisco, I spend a great Sunday down in San Jose at Vittorio's house. We had a lazy afternoon catching up, hanging out with Paola and the kids, and as usual getting stuffed on the never ending amazing appetizers from the kitchen. Luca and Laura are growing up so fast, and it was great to be able to see them -- so amazing to have seen Laura from when she was just a little baby to now.

Hopefully, we'll get to see Vittorio in Sydney in a few weeks!

Independence Day in SF

I was back in San Francisco for work for the fourth of July, and one of the highlights of the trip was arriving and getting my new camera stuff. Tracy and I had a deal that I couldn't buy more stuff for the camera unless we were really continuing to use it, but since we were, I upgraded our lenses. So, for the fourth of July holiday I took my new lenses (a 2.8 24-70 and a 2.8 70-200) out in SF for some photo taking. Most of the photos you'll see on this blog from now on will be with these lenses.

It was nice to be home for a bit, but always sad to be away from Tracy, so it was great to get back. Here are a few of the pictures I took in SF.