the best of 2013

So 2013 was a pretty good year overall for us, apart from the last month or so. I thought I would take the opportunity to reflect on the year by doing a best of review of things!

Best thing we did in 2013

Definitely our trip to New Zealand would top this list - we spent a very memorable 3 weeks in New Zealand with the girls, and my sister-in-law and brother-in-law. We saw glaciers, waterfalls, fiords, thermal wonderlands, Hobbiton, snow-capped mountains, stunning scenery, vineyards, Maori Cultural Shows, rainforests, lakes, and more.

Most exciting thing we did in 2013

I think the family would agree that the most exciting thing we did this year was speeding down the canyons in New Zealand on the Shot Over Jet boat, at break-neck speeds.

Best Book Author for me in 2013

I found a new author this year - and have started reading two of his series, the Zombie Fallout Series and Indian Hill.

Indian Hill stars a young man called Michael Talbot who finds himself abducted and on-board an alien space vessel fighting in gladiator type games against other humans to the death - games designed to find out our strengths and weaknesses prior to invasion.

Zombie fallout starts out with people getting vaccinated against the swine flu, only to die and become reanimated. It is a day-by-day recount of the Armageddon that ensues.

The reason I like this author - great central characters, stories told with a sense of humour, twists and turns, his ability to build tension and keep you interested in the story. I also loved the narrator he used for the books - he used the same narrator for both series.




Best Books I read in 2013

It's really hard to pick a best book that I have read this year - so I thought a couple were worth mentioning in addition to the Indian Hill and Zombie Fallout books mentioned above. A really mixed bag here, and in no particular order.


This book was written in the 1950's, but for me it stood the test of time. This post apocalyptic novel is slower moving than the books of today, but it still kept me interested.

Essentially a science-fiction murder mystery. Well thought out, with Peter Hamilton's trade mark themes of space travel, long-life, and a gazillion characters. About 40 hours of reading - another EPIC effort.

Young Adult science fiction - a slightly different take on the alien invasion, with teenagers and children as the main characters.

A fascinating insight into the workings of The Company (aka CIA) during the cold war, really a series of stories covering multiple generations. Once I got past the first hour of reading it was totally engrossing.

I listened to this book in our min-van as we travelled around the South Island of New Zealand. Such a beautiful story told over many decades with intertwining stories of multiple characters. It starts with an inn-keeper in the 1960's on the Italian coastline, when he is starstruck by an American actress.

By the end of this book I thought I was reading a James Bond movie on steroids, with a fairy tale ending.  The book is centred around an on-line fantasy game called T'Rain - where fantasy spills out into reality. If I had to pick one favourite this year, this would probably be it - I gave it 4 and a half stars.

Best Series of Books I read in 2013

I have also continued reading books in series that I had started in 2012 or earlier - I think it's a testament to how much I have enjoyed those series. Here is my short-list:

I started this series this year, and thoroughly enjoyed it. A series of espionage books featuring a CIA super-agent called Mitch Rapp. An action packed and fast paced series.



The second book in the Lunar chronicles. The first book was Cinder (based on Cinderella), this one was loosely based on Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale. The difference is that these fairy tales are based in a world where cyborgs exist, and the monsters from the moon led by an evil queen have devious plans for the population of earth.

I have continued reading the Outlander series with the third and fourth instalments of this historical fiction series with a touch of time travel - fantastic reading.

I finished the WWW trilogy by Robert Sawyer - I really enjoy this series of books featuring a sixteen year old blind mathematical genius. This series was about the emerging consciousness of the world wide web - an entity known as Web-Mind.

I find it hard to put these books down - I have read about five of these this year - the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Very much erotic-romance mixed with vampires and the supernatural. Can't wait for her to write more of these - I've run out!

I read the rest of the Mortal Instruments Series, which of course has now been made into a movie series starting with the City of Bones. There is apparently a sixth book of this series coming out.

The Bloodlines series - a spin-off from the Vampire Academy books. I think I actually like this series better. Features the relationship between an alchemist and a vampire. They are releasing the first Vampire Academy movie in 2014 - but I must say it doesn't look anything like I imagined!

I finished reading Michael Grant's Gone Series - a series of six books. One day everyone over the age of 14 disappears and a dome appears over Perado Beach - this series is the story of the children and their fight for survival against starvation, lies, plagues and more. 

I am very much a Preston & Child fan - have read all but two of the Pendergast novels featuring Agent Pendergast of the FBI.

This book was the third installment in the Steampunk Chronicles. Set in 1897 steampunk version of London, and continuing the tales of a young duke and his entourage;s fight against the evil Machinist and his automatons.

Best Restaurants in 2013

My vote is definitely for Soju Girl in Civic. It's located on Northbourne Avenue and is what I like to call new vogue Asian cuisine featuring Asian tapas dishes. Very tasty and innovative. Dave and I enjoy coming here every school holidays when the girls are in Goulburn, and we have taken them here twice as well. Their desserts are also very special - and we normally order a few of them!

My personal favourite is the Smoked Trout in Betel Leaf with Coconut Chilli Dressing:

Dave loves this one, the Katsu of Chicken with Kimchee and Pineapple Caramel:

 And the girls always eat a whole bowl of edamame beans:

We have also enjoyed two really nice meals at the Thai restaurant - just outside of Belconnen Mall - Chong Co Thai. It's a fairly large restaurant - but the service is quick and the food is fantastic.

As far as Sydney restaurants go, it's pretty hard to go past Braza - the Brazillian BBQ restaurant, where you can eat as much BBQ meat and side dishes as you can fit in. There is a selection of 28 different meats. If you are there on Saturday night, you are also entertained with some very scantily clad dancers and drummers (both male and female). This picture is of a recent trip where we went to Braza with our friends Mark and Michelle, and their boys Liam and Shaun. We also went with Les and Julie of course! Jazz will try almost anything once - this time she tried the chicken heart (one of the 28 meats you can try!)

Best Casual Dining in 2013

Two casual dining places stand out for me this year - Grill'd, who do excellent burgers and are located at all the town centres. The girls also love to eat here, especially Jasmin, who enjoys a good burger.

The second place I would recommend is Guzman Y Gomez - a Mexican joint located in Civic (where they also do slushie Sangria and Margaritas), and now opened in Belconnen Mall. Very nice Mexican food! Once again Dave and I tend to eat here when the girls are in Goulburn, and now when we eat at the food court in Belconnen - we will definitely be eating here.

Best Songs for 2013

Looking back over my playlists for the year I've narrowed the best songs down to the following (this is based on how often both me and the girls listened to these songs in the car):

Hall of Fame - The Script
I Cry - Flo Rida
Skyfall - Adele
Beneath Your Beautiful - Labrinth
When I Was Your Man - Bruno Mars
Crazy Kids - Ke$ha
Feel This Moment - Pitbull
Walks Like Rihanna - The Wanted
Thank You - MKTO
Still Into You - Paramore
Acapella - Karmin
23 - Mike Will Made It
Burn - Ellie Goulding
Timber - Pitbull
Warrior - Havanna Brown
The Monster - Eminem
Hey Brother - Avicii

Best Movies for 2013

The best movie for this year for me was definitely Star Trek Into Darkness. I could watch this one over and over.

Other favourite movies released this year included:

Pacific Rim - LOL - what can I say, I just couldn't help liking this one! Probably made it onto a few worst film lists but I loved it.
Gravity - Yes, I know - what a surprise. Dave and I only went to watch this one as there was nothing else showing. Doesn't have huge rewatch value - but definitely a movie to see on the big screen.
Warm Bodies - Warm and Fuzzy Zombie movie, so cute!
The Wolverine - Got to love the Wolvie!
World War Z - edge of your seat scariness and action.
Now You See Me - I really wasn't overly enthused about watching this one, so it was a very pleasant surprise!
White House Down - my guilty pleasure. Not sure what it was about this one, I just liked it!
Iron Man 3 - loves me a good super hero movie
The Croods - this one made me laugh!







Best TV Shows for 2013

There is so much good TV at the moment, but if I had to narrow it down to a couple, my list would be:

1.  Game of Thrones
2.  Person of Interest
3.  The Blacklist
4.  Almost Human
5.  Arrow




Well I think that sums up my best of 2013 - thought I would leave it just as the best of, don't like to dwell on the worst of things myself.

Six on Saturday

1.  WOW!

We are having a day at home. The girls are still in their PJ's amd it's 3:15pm in the afternoon.  They are in the study playing Minecraft together - Dave is in the study too playing League of Legends. I can hear Jasmin suck her breath in every time Dave swears! I have done absolutely nothing all day (except a couple of loads of washing, change a couple of beds, drink a couple of glasses of wine, surf the internet and do a couple of pages of our New Zealand photo book - *** sigh ****).

Gratuitous picture of New Zealand:

Have been working on the Franz Josef and Fox Glacier pages today.... this is a picture from Sentinel Rock of the Franz Josef Glacier - we did a one an a half hour return walk to the glacier - with stunning waterfalls on the way!

2.  Scrapbook Layouts

I have been a little busy - I'm not sure doing what - but I have only done a couple of pages in the last two weeks. Here they are:

Surprisingly they are pictures of New Zealand. The first one will go in one of the girls albums, the second will go in Eliza's album as they are pictures of her in Auckland.  I just noticed that both of them are rather pastelly (is that a word?).

3.  Helpful Homework

Eliza has to do helpful homework this term (in addition to her projects and other homework). This week she is helping cook dinner every night.  I have always worried about what would happen if I wasn't here (I know very morbid!), but the thought of the girls eating take-out every night does not make me feel very happy at all.

Now that the girls are old enough, over the last couple of years I have been teaching the girls what constitutes a healthy diet, and giving them some kitchen skills. As a result they know their five food groups and have an idea of what each food group contributes to their well-being, they can cut ingredients using knives using a variety of techniques, and they can measure out ingredients to help. I think I need them to start cooking reading a recipe without me.

Jazz always jokes about watching Jamie Oliver 15 minute meal episodes and just following along and doing what he does ( *** inner smile ***).  I think if I was to pass on (by accident of course - as I have no intentions of going anywhere) then they would probably be OK, and Dave would probably be eating more vegetables, chicken and fish and perhaps less red meat (the girls aren't huge fans - although they are rather partial to Asian dishes with good quality cuts of steak).

Anyways - here are a few pictures of Eliza helping this week.

Eliza helping make lamb meatballs for Minted Lamb and Risoni Soup on Monday:

Eliza topping and tailing green beans for Honey Mustard Beef Stir Fry on Tuesday night:

Eliza making sugar syrup for home-made lemonade on Wednesday night:

Eliza cutting up salad vegetables for dinner on Wednesday night to go with the grilled fish and home-made potato wedges. We had very chunky salad that night!

  
Thursday night Eliza wasn't feeling well so she didn't help with dinner (she was on the lounge fast asleep). It was so unnaturally quiet - you can always hear her talking or singing normally.

Friday night she prepared the chicken for Pesto Pasta with Rosemary Chicken - she added fennel seeds, rosemary, salt and pepper to chicken breasts and pounded them until the were thinner).

4.  Family Movie Night

Another great family movie night - watched yet another Superhero movie - Fantastic 4. Dave bought the blu-ray with both 1 and 2 on it.  The girls are really enjoying the superhero movies - and really enjoyed watching the second Wolverine movie at the Cinema last weekend.  Jasmin did a movie review on Wolverine in her homework last week as well - "It was amazing! I give it 4.5 stars out of 5......".

5.  July Project Life.

 A summary of our July. Highlights included Fiona's birthday. Week 1 school holidays in Goulburn for the girls, eating out and movies for us in Week 1 school holidays, Disney on Ice in Sydney, the girls doing the grocery shopping and Nan visiting week 2 of the school holidays.

Week 27 highlights - Eliza's special day at school - "the olden days", Fiona's birthday (my sis-in-law), new hair colour, a visit to Nan for her birthday, and dinner out at the Asta in Goulburn.

Week 28 highlights included - the girls spending the first week of the school holidays in Goulburn, Dave and I going to the movies and eating out, dinner at Phil and Janene's and Disney on Ice.

Week 29 highlights included Nan coming to Canberra to look after the girls for a couple of days (many board games were pulled out and played with), dinner at Soju girl on Tuesday night, hail on Saturday, making cupcakes on Sunday.

Week 30 - was cold and foggy, the girls made dinner on Saturday night, Jazz made mains and Eliza dessert. Family movie night on Friday night and board games on Sunday (it was a quiet week!).

6.  Reading

A couple of books since my last post:

I always enjoy the Preston and Child books - for one thing they are well edited, some books just astound me with the number of spelling and grammatical errors. The Book of the Dead was the third book in a Trilogy, and it had a satisfying finish and a surprising end. Neverwhere was just way too short - not a bad book, but not enough guts to it. Peter F. Hamilton is always a good read, and always a "big" book to read (thank goodness I listened to the audio book - otherwise I would be likely to donk myself in the head falling asleep in bed reading and it would hurt, a lot). Yes, I am a sucker for the J.R Ward books - great erotic romance with Vampires and plot LOL! She covers one characters story per book, and amazingly she manages to introduce new characters every couple of books - she could make this series last a while (which is OK with me!). The Diamond Age - disappointing - I did not enjoy it as much as Reamde, the end was a little lack-lustre.

Mothers Day and Layout Share

I have to start this blog post with something that Eliza said to me on Monday - the day after Mother's Day.  Both Eliza and Jasmin had forgotten to give me the cards they had made at school for Mother's Day - and Eliza being in Year 2 had also made me a bunch of crepe paper flowers - as she has given them to me she has said "Mum, I love you more than I love playing Minecraft!".  LOL - this is quite the compliment in our household.

I had a lovely Mother's Day - Dave managed to work out how to make me a coffee using the coffee machine (something he does very rarely), and I got to drink it in bed whilst I read (and waited for the girls to get up, wrap my Mother's Day presents and make me some cards - using my scrapbooking supplies of course). Nothing like leaving it until the last minute (only because they hadn't had time during the week without me being around!).

I got to open my pressies in bed, and then we got up - went to the mall, where I enjoyed Sushi Train with the girls, and then we went to "Star Trek: Into Darkness" - loved it. What's not to love with all that sci-fi goodness, action and eye candy on the screen!  I didn't even have to cook dinner (I point this out as I am the one that makes all the dinners) - we ordered in Crust pizza, and I even got to pick the pizza :-)

We managed to squeeze in a visit to Goulburn on Saturday to catch up with our own Mothers (I also had to pick Dave up in Goulburn as he had business meetings in Sydney to attend with Julie and Leslie, while I held the fort up at home).  I managed to snap a couple of pictures - one with my mum (which Jazz took), and Dave with his mum (which I took). When I look through my albums, there is not a lot of pictures of me and mum, or Dave and his mum, so it was an excellent opportunity to do so.

I have only managed to do a handful of layouts over the last two weeks. Better some than none though!  I have been trying to do a couple of layouts to put in the girls albums of their trip to Fiji last year (when I have completed a couple I can move on to doing some NZ layouts for them). I normally do a family photo book, but I like to include a couple of layouts in their own albums, of them on their holiday.

This layout is of Eliza at the Sheraton Resort on Denarau Island - just a few of the things she did around the resort:

This one is of what Jazz got up to around the resort at Denarau Island:

These pictures are of Jazz snorkelling on Mystery Island - about 40 minutes from Denarau Island - she had such a great time, and so happy that she had the courage to snorkel!

Over the last couple of weeks we have also had a couple of birthdays to go to.  The first was my nephew's 18th birthday.  Where have all the years gone?  He just had a quiet family function at home, and then afterwards had a couple of friends over for the night and some quiet celebrations. He is a nice quiet boy, who loves to watch movies, game - not the going out partying type of guy.  He is just such a good kid, a real credit to my brother and sister-in-law.

My sister made the most excellent cake - made in the shape of a gaming controller!  I put together a photo board of photographs of him from 0 to 18.

I had a few too many pictures to put on one layout, so tucked them into a pocket on the top left of the layout, and tucked the journalling behind the main photograph at the bottom.

We also had my Mother's 71st birthday to go to.  We had a nice BBQ at my sister's place, and we all brought along salads, and other BBQ stuff.  Hellie of course made another excellent birthday cake - a cake like a chocolate box and it had roses chocolates in it.

On the layout I mod-podged some birthday banners onto the background, and added plenty of other banners and pennants for a celebratory feel. I converted the pictures to black and white.

I have managed to keep up with Project Life as well, completing all my April layouts.  It's fun looking back on what we have done over the month.  My memory really must be going with old age as I've forgotten what I've done this week, let alone what I have done a couple of weeks ago.  These pages help me remember all the great things we have been up to.  Here is my April summary page an a couple of the Weekly pages for April.

I am still keeping up with my reading goal.  I am at 49 books for the year and according to the goodreads web-site 9 books ahead of schedule.

I have enjoyed almost all of the books I've read (pics are below). The ones that were a disappointment were "Armour", "Nine Princes in Amber", and "Crystal Gardens" was no where as good as some of other Amanda Quick books I have read.  "Reamde" was a pleasant surprise - a little slow at the start, but a satisfying read by the end.  I loved "Indian Hill" the Mark Tufo book - I have found both the books I have read of his very entertaining and his sense of humour just clicks with me.  Diana Gabaldon's "Voyager" continued the Outlander series and was an excellent third book - so hope that the company who has purchased the option to make a movie/TV Series actually does something with it!

I completed reading the "Infernal Devices" series by Cassandra Clare - specifically so that I could read "The Mortal Instruments" series, as the first book is released as a movie in August.  I am looking forward to seeing "City of Bones" on the big screen.  The other book worth mentioning was the "Mongoliad" book 1, which was co-authored by a number notable authors - including Neal Stephenson. It certainly wasn't what I expected - with a tale set in the times of Genghis Khan.

Well - that's it for this week!