The Ultimate Lego Experience

Something really cool happened to us this week.
As you know, we really love Lego at our house. And this week, we were lucky enough to experience an ultimate Lego fan moment.

This year, Lego is celebrating 50 years in Australia. They have been celebrating with the 'Festival of Play' all year. Back in October, they asked the question 'what would you do with 50000 green Lego bricks?".

Well, I don't know whether I told you, but we've been making our own Christmas tree out of Lego. Oliver and I made one last year, and he and Anthony made this year's one. It's s nice change from the usual gacky ones, and it brings a little bit of fun into a time of year that we don't usually enjoy all that much.

Anyway, I sent them a photo of last year's tree:

And the next thing you know, we had won!
We had to keep it a secret for a couple of weeks, which was hard, but we (kinda) managed it.

So anyway, on Wednesday, Ryan McNaught, some lovely public relations folks and a whole bunch of media turned up at our house. Along with a 2m high Christmas tree made out of green Lego bricks.

It was a lot of fun watching Ryan, Anthony and Oliver put the tree together, and even more fun to see the media circus! At one point there were about 15 people in our tiny living/lounge room, plus a bunch of cameras and lights. They took lots of really nice photos (some of which are available here), and interviewed Oli, who was well and truly sick of holding the 'let's put a star on the tree' pose by the 37th time:

After everyone had left, he said 'I never want to see another camera again!'.

We got some good coverage; in the Australian, AAP, the Canberra Times, WIN news and the lovely photos on the Festival of Play website. My little fella was a celebrity for a minute - especially at school - but I'm hoping it's not his only 15 minutes of fame.

Everybody asks us what we're going to do with a massive Christmas tree. Well, we know that we can move it around the place pretty easily, as we packed it all up and took it out to the Cotter yesterday for the CLUG (Canberra Lego Users Group) Christmas party. It transported very well, and didn't take all that long to take down and put back up.

So, we thought it would be nice to offer it to a few different venues next year, where it can be displayed to raise money for charity. We will probably also take it to the Brick Expo next year too.
In between, we'll probably leave it up. I'm no good with indoor plants, so we can take the decorations off and put it in the corner! Anthony's building a shed out the back that will be a rumpus (Lego) room, so that will be a good spot for it.

All in all, a very cool experience! Thanks Lego and Ryan McNaught!

Things That Make Me Feel Good - Haircuts

It's important to feel good. I've spent a lot of my life worrying about other people, and trying to make other people; sometimes (but not always) at the expense of myself.
As I said a few times in my older blog posts, I have spent a lot of time over the past three years trying to improve myself. I'm still working on the weight thing (more later), but a significant part of this is finding things that make me feel good, then doing them. Regularly.

Yesterday, I had a pretty crappy morning at work. You know, one of those mornings where you just can't do anything right. Being the semi-perfectionist that I am, I get pretty cranky when I make mistakes. And I made more than one.

Luckily (for my work and for me), I'd already arranged to leave early and have my hair done. And it made me feel much better.

There's something about devoting a significant amount of time to yourself that seems to make everything right. And for me (I have waist-length hair at the moment), it's nearly 3 hours where I sit and relax and all the attention is on me.

I love the chat with the hairdresser (I've finally found an awesome one!), I love the cup of coffee and the trashy magazines, I love having my hair brushed and washed and manipulated, I love love love the glorious head massage, and I love the way my hair feels afterwards. Light, clean and shiny.

All of this adds up to me feeling really good. Confident, gorgeous and just for a little while, trouble free.

So today I'm celebrating hairdressers. One of the good things in life. Thanks Becc!

First, an update

As you know, my life's not generally as exciting as that of the glitterati, but for a normal person, I've had some cool stuff going on this year. So first things first, a quick update. The year in pictures:

In March, I bought a new car:

Her name is Ruby Scarlet, and she's just lovely.
We were also due to go ballooning in March (on what would have been Sam's 16th birthday), but it was too wet. But we did go one foggy morning in April:

If you've never been in a hot air balloon, can I suggest you try it? It's a truly wonderful experience!


Of course, it wasn't all fun and shiny red cars, I did have to work. But, oh, that's right. I have a very cool job. We do some interesting things:

In April I also did my Sh'Bam instructor training. And then I went to Sydney and did Sh'Bam with 300 super-fit hotties!

And then in May, I went to Melbourne for a dear old friend's 40th. And I saw Prince. He was very cool.

Then we went to Sydney and walked across the bridge.

And swam  in a rooftop pool in the rain:

We bought some goats:

(They're gone now. They were a bit stinky! And they needed more room - and edible trees - than we could give them!)
We walked up some mountains:

And we played with Lego. In Sydney and in Canberra:

And most recently, in Milton:

(We'd lost Wally. But lots of people found him. I'll tell you about it sometime).

 And we welcomed a new member of the family:

Meet Rollo!

So yeah, all in all it was good. Good, yeah.
And before you ask, yes. I did have a nice year. And spent a lot of money. And was lucky enough to do some really cool things with my family. And that's what life (and this blog) is all about now.
I'm sure I'll get to tell you more soon. I hope you'll join me!