Food and Wine

Most people know that my sister and her husband are in the business of making and selling wine. But what I saw during my recent trip to SA is how big this business is becoming. Justin has actually become somewhat famous in SA. He was on the front cover of the Adelaide Magazine (SA's equivalent of the Sydney Magazine). I've scanned the cover (above) and the pages from inside (below).

And while I was in SA, Country Style Magazine came to Emma and Justin's house for a photo shoot. The Lane family will be gracing the Country Style pages in the December edition - so keep your eye out. While the photographer was there I managed to get a shot of the Lane Family - - this is about the best photo I managed to get. It was hard to capture all five of them in the same frame. Apparently QC magazine are wanting to interview Justin as well, and there were write ups about their wine in The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald while I was there!!

The images from above are from the Redheads Website, which is the studio winery that Justin runs. If you go to the website (http://www.redheadswine.com/) you can find out more about this arm of their business. Emma tells me that the website is actually a bit old and aimed at the UK market, but worth having a look anyway.

The wine bottle pictured above right is Viottolo Shiraz. This particular wine received rave reviews including 95 Parker Points. Robert Parker is apparently a renowned wine critic and 95 is a very high score. The concept of Parker Points ia a bit foreign to me, and I guess it doesn't really matter to most people (except that it helps to sell more wine). All I can say is that it was great fun drinking their wine and I really loved some of their quirky labels (a couple of which I've posted above).

I actually made a label myself before I left to go to SA - for my nephews. I put the labels onto transfer paper and ironed them onto a shirt for each of the boys. I had visions of taking a photo of all three of them wearing these. But of course that proved impossible. It was difficult enough to get a photo of them all together, quite aside from the logistical challenge of having the shirts all clean at the same time.

Anyway, the shirts were a hit. Oscar in particular loved his and I was very pleased when he was most reluctant to take it off.

Of course wine and food go together and we were treated to a very special dinner while we were in SA. Emma is a bit of a gourmet foodie and has several friends who are chefs. One night while we were staying at Aldinga Beach, Emma's friend Dustin asked us if we would mind critiquing a three course meal he wanted to practice for a competition he was planning to enter. The rules of the comp were that all of the ingredients had to be local produce and each course matched to a local wine. So part of our task was to taste several different wines with each course and come up with the perfect match!! Terrible task I know but someone's gotta do it.

I can't actually remember all of the fabulous wines that we tasted and I can't exactly remember what each course was, but I think it was something like this:

Entree: Sweet Meats with Asparagus and Lemon

Main: Grilled Tailor with Poached Egg and Hollandaise sauce

Dessert: Blue Cheese Icecream with Romano Macaroons (the most unusual dessert I've ever had).

Noah's Dinosaur Party

While I was in SA, my nephew Noah turned 2. Emma went to a lot of trouble organising his all singing, all dancing, all roaring DINOSAUR party.

One of the biggest hits on the day were these linker balloons. They have little toggles on the ends so that you can tie them together. Oscar and Noah loved them, and I really love this picture of them running around with them. I didn't like the background, but the beauty of digital images is that you can remove what you don't like in photoshop.

A well as countless linker balloons, there was a jumping castle, complete with in-built slide. Hand painted dinosaur murals (How does Emma find the time!!!???).

And an amazing dinosaur cake.

I think one little dinosaur found the whole thing a little overwhelming at times. But when the cake was served he seemed to enjoy himself very much.

The party was a dinosaur sized success and everyone had a great time, including two very naughty grown ups who got on the jumping castle at the end of the party and were busted when the castle man came to pick it up!!

With everything that Emma has on her plate, I can't believe that she was able to organise this party, make a dinosaur cake, paint dinosaur murals and cook enough food for lots of very hungry people. I could barely manage to have a daily shower when Ben was five weeks old.

I heard a couple of Emma's friends talking about her on the day. The conversation went like this:

Friend 1: "Is there anything she can't do?"

Friend 2: "Have girl babies."

With and Without Him

Yesterday Ben and I went to visit Mel and Luka at home. Mel has had some trouble with Luka's sleeping, but after putting in a lot of effort things are going really well. One of the things that Mel has had to do is be very consistent with Luka's routine. This has meant that Mel can't really leave home for very long. So Ben and I, together with Kel and Elliott caught up with Mel and Luka at their home. It was nice to see the boys together again. They were really interested in each other. Elliott even had a go at eating Ben's hand and Ben had a go at pulling Luka's ear clean off his head. I'm pretty sure no malice was intended and the boys all sat around together having a good old chin wag. Am sure they'll be great mates.

My other social engagement yesterday took place after dark and DID NOT include Ben. Yes I've been out without the boy before, but last night was the first time that Kel, Beth and I have been out together without our sons. We revisited Raj's Corner (where we met fairly regularly during antenatal classes) and then finished the night with coffee and cake at the Eurobar. It was fun to catch up and have a really good chat (so much easier without having to look after the little fellas). I can't reveal the details of our conversation. Suffice to say that we all know each other a bit better after last night!

Arriving in SA

I know it was a long time ago now, but with everything that's happened in the last 6 weeks I haven't had a chance to put many shots or news on the blog from our trip down South. It was a really hectic trip!! We arrived in Adelaide on 6th September. Dad and SongXin had driven from Coffs Harbour the day before and so we flew to Adelaide together. Our little posse was rounded out by my good friend Tracey who met us at Adelaide airport after flying in from Brisbane. Just getting from the airport to our accommodation was an adventure in itself. I'd booked a pretty small hire car (to save money - Matt was proud of me) and even though we'd all been careful to pack lightly it was a tight fit. With four grown ups and a baby in a tiny Toyota Yaris there was much re-organising of gear before we were finally able to shut all five doors.

Dad, SongXin and Tracey stayed in SA for four nights and while they were there we camped down in the most beautiful beach house at Aldinga Beach (20min drive from Emma and Justin's house).

Here's Tracey cuddling up with Ben in my luxurious bedroom.

.. and this is the spectacular view from that bedroom!!

Aldinga Beach is very beautiful- with the green hills rolling all the way to the ocean. Here we are on the beach soaking up the Spring Sunshine.

Of course - the whole reason we went to SA was to meet Fergus. Who was (and is) very cute. I couldn't get over how teeny Fergus looked next to Ben. I really found it difficult to remember Ben being that small!

And while Fergus seemed pretty curious about Ben it would appear that Ben was more interested in looking at the camera...

... or grabbing his Uncle Justin's nose.

Good to See Ya Dad

When Matt got home from work today he was just in time to have a shower with Ben. Ben hadn't seen his Dad since Saturday morning. You can see from this photo how glad Ben was to be in the shower with his Dad. Sometimes I think Matt has it so easy. In addition to the fact that Ben is always so pleased to see Matt at the end of the day, it would seem that Ben has decided that the only nights he'll sleep through are the nights that Matt is on duty (Tuesdays and Fridays).

Maybe Ben is so good for his Dad because Daddy is such an excellent surfer teacher.

Or maybe it's because Ben likes the way Daddy irons his clothes (Mummy has an entirely different technique).

Weekend At Nanna's

Ben and I packed up and shuffled off to Mum's place on the weekend. Matt has his final exam for the CPA on Friday so we thought we'd give him a bit of time to focus on the books. Ben loved hanging out with his Nanna and Nanna loved hanging out with Ben. The weekend was lovely. As usual, Mum cooked some amazing food and looked after us very well indeed.

To top it off Scott, Rachel and Jack Moore came to visit. Jack is a real cutie.. and he's old enough now to be into everything. He decided that Bosley (Mum's cat) had some yummy looking dried biscuits and some tasty water. Jack also gave Mum's peg bucket a real work out and found some very interesting tassels to play with!!! Rachel and Scott are really going to have their hands full in 2008. Rachel is due to have their second bub (a little girl) on New Year's Eve.

Ben's First Tooth

On Friday the tip of Ben's first tooth broke through his gum. Since then, the tooth has been inching it's way out (very slowly). I tried to get a shot of it today. This is the best I could do. You can just make it out (on his lower gum).

It hasn't seemed to worry him too much. And he seems to be enjoying munching on teething rings and rusks.

At least I think he's happy about the rusks?

Geez I'm Lucky

I just had one of those moments that remind me how lucky I am to be a Mum. I was giving Ben his 10:30pm bottle and I felt overwhelmed with love for my boy. Obviously I always love him, but sometimes, when it's just me and Ben, late at night when the world is really still I feel quite overcome with emotion and totally connected to this beautiful, tiny person. He was lying in my arms, very relaxed, drinking away, half awake half asleep. The room was dark and the house was quiet. He smelt so nice and his breathing was so beautiful. At moments like these I feel so lucky to have all the nice things that go with having a son but I also feel lucky to have had the sleepless nights, the cracked nipples, the post natal depression and of course the diarrhoea and the vomiting. I would never have had this amazing human experience without all that. I just had to come and write something on the blog because I don't want to forget how nice it feels right now to be Ben's Mum.

Out of Quarantine

My goodness it's tough having Adenovirus. The gastroenteritis was awful but the social isolation was starting to get a bit depressing!!! Thankfully, this week, Ben and I were able to rejoin society.

Kel & Elliott, Beth and Alfie, Nic & Darcy, Maz & Jacob, Ben & I

Today we met with the Mums and boys from antenatal class. It had been a while since we'd managed to connect with this group, so there were many very noticeable changes in the boys, as well as the appearance of cups, rusks and pureed food. Much conversation was had about teething, crawling and the dreaded return to work. It's amazing how quickly our boys are growing up and our maternity leave is drying up! There was one VERY grown up boy there; Beth's nephew Joel (pictured to the right), who became our official photographer for the day.

I was also able to have a very lovely night out this week with Catherine, Renee, Veronica and Emily. Matt stayed at home with Ben while we dined at 'The Other Place' on Beaumont Street. So good was the night that I ended up going back to Catherine's and taking off my clothes!! Pete, if you're reading this - it was all very innocent- just a simple exchange of garments for a very specific purpose.

Feeling Much Better

Ben is totally on the mend. After ten very tough days of vomiting and diarrhoea he seems to be completely cured. He has gone from doing 13 poos in one day to a much more manageable 2. Also he seems to have his appetite back and drank an all time record amount yesterday; 1350mL. I think I'm gonna have a very hungry boy on my hands for the next few days at least. It's nice to have him back.

Frequent Flyer

In the last month Ben has been on 4 planes!!! He's pictured above with SongXin and I at Williamtown airport. The plane in the background is the one we caught to Melbourne (where we caught a connecting flight to Adelaide). One of Ben's boarding passes is below. He's simply described as 'INF'. I guess you can't expect to have a boarding pass with your name on it until you actually pay to be on the plane. Ben was such a good traveller. He smiled at all the flight attendants, obligingly sat on my lap in his special 'infant safety harness' and then went to sleep. He slept during all four legs of our journey. What a star!

Nice Boots

Way back at the beginning of Sept, we had a mini birthday celebration for Matt's sister Jane. Jane's birthday was on 14th September, but because I was going to SA, Trent and I conspired to surprise Jane a little early. So on 4th September we had dinner at our place and presented Jane with these boots. It was a bit of a mission keeping the boots a secret. I'd had them on lay by for ages, but then all of a sudden Jane started looking for boots and saying that she might actually go and buy some (Jane hardly ever splurges on herself). Anyway, all this talk was another good reason to bring the birthday forward and it would appear that Jane was pretty happy with them! I reckon she looks pretty darn hot!!

Ben's Kryptonite

Our good friend Beth had a birthday party a few weeks ago and we were all asked to dress up as "Superheros".

Matt wore a batman suit with lots of muscles. Ben and I had matching outfits (made by me). I didn't actually come up with a 'Super' name for myself or for Ben. The main aim was simply to wear tight stuff with our undies on the outside. I also manged to include a few sequins which always add something to dress ups. Apart from Matt making a five year old cry (when he beat him at Singstar), it was a really great party.

Everyone went to a lot of effort and looked fantastic, especially the birthday girl and her Super Husband. The recent news in regard to Ben's Superhero status is that I learned today what his very own kryptonite is .... After successfully collecting a choice sample of Ben's poo yesterday, it was sent off to the good people at Symbion HQ and results of their analyses came back today. Now we can squarely lay the blame for Ben's recent misadventures at the feet of Mr Adenovirus Type 41 (or type 40 - the test wasn't sensitive enough to distinguish between the two). So I did a little bit of reading about Mr Adenovirus and I discovered a formidable enemy. For those who are interested, a summary of what I found is below. The good news is that Ben should be clear of the little bugger within a few more days. He's already much improved today and we haven't had a vomit in over 24hours!!!

Adenoviruses were first isolated in human adenoids (tonsils), from which the name is derived. They are 90 - 100 nanometres wide and are nonenvoloped, icosahedral viruses containing double-stranded DNA. The virion has spikes that aid in attachment to the host cell via the coxsackie-adenovirus receptor on the surface of the host cell. There are 51 immunologically distinct human adenovirus serotypes (6 species: Human adenovirus A through F) that can cause human infections ranging from respiratory disease (mainly species HAdV-B and C), and conjunctivitis (HAdV-B and D), to gastroenteritis (HAdV-F serotypes 40 and 41). Adenoviruses are unusually stable to chemical or physical agents and adverse pH conditions, allowing for prolonged survival outside of the body and water. Adenoviruses are primarily spread via respiratory droplets, however they can also be spread by faecal routes.

When Ben was Eating

Life's tough for Ben at the moment. He's still sick with this awful gastro thing. I changed no fewer than 10 pooy nappies yesterday. Things have improved a little today and he reduced his output to 6 pooy nappies. We thought he was through the vomiting side of things, but after being very grizzly all afternoon he bookended the day with a massive up chuck. Poor little fella. It's all a bit worrying and I took him back to the GP today for a check up. The assessment is that Ben is still moderately dehydrated, but all we can do is more of what we have been - try and keep the fluids up to him, keep a close eye on him and take him to hospital if he gets worse. He's lost a little bit of weight, but hopefully when he gets rid of this thing his appetite will improve. My mission now is to try and catch a poo as it comes out of his bottom and get it to a path lab within 30 mins. I also have to be very careful not to get any wee in the sample - good job he's dehydrated and there's nothing much coming out of his kidneys anyway.

With all this going on, Ben is understandably off his tucker. We introduced solids about three weeks ago but at the moment his intake is virtually non existent. If you could have seen him 5 days ago!! He wasn't so sure when we first started, but he very quickly developed a love for pumpkin and any other vegetable I offered him. He's also tried beef, lamb, apple, pear, banana, yoghurt, custard .. and of course rice cereal. Ben's pictured above showing me how well he's emptied his bowl - some did actually go into his mouth!!

In other Ben related developments... we have now replaced his capsule with a seat that faces forward. Ben seems to really love it (as do I, even though it's pretty distracting). I'm constantly looking in my rear vision mirror and getting lots of big smiles from my boy.

Ben has also managed to sit without being held (if only for a few seconds).

He's also getting stronger on is tummy and looks like he'll crawl at any moment. Generally speaking he's getting quite mobile. I'll put him down on his back and he'll roll about and get himself in all sorts of weird and wonderful positions. Here he is scoring a try for the baby wallabies team (someone's gotta keep Australia's hopes alive).

As well as rolling and shuffling about, Ben has taken to holding on to his feet. He loves doing this, I guess he's gotta keep those hamstrings supple if he wants to graduate from the joeys to the wallabies team.

Ben's also been making some great sounds. Lots of boos, baas, goos, gaas, burbles and raspberries. He's also been sucking on his bottom lip and making a very cute little popping noise. Apparently the sucking might be a sign of teething - but we haven't seen any pearly whites yet. I've actually been quite amazed at how Ben keeps doing all this stuff (apart from eating) even though he's been so sick. When I was sick all I wanted to do was go to sleep. But Ben just throws up and then gets on with whatever he was doing. He's such a little trooper.

Blog aBeckett Takes a Hit.......

... and the rest of the team go out in sympathy (more about this below).

The poor old blog has really suffered lately. The main reason for this is that I lost my camera somewhere between Adelaide and Sydney. I left it on the plane and was hoping to have it returned. I've now given up on this and have also said goodbye to my phone which is hopefully keeping the camera company somewhere out there. All I can think is that whoever has my phone and my camera must need it more than I do. Luckily I'd downloaded my shots from my SA trip to Emma's computer before I left. Emma has now given me a CD with all those shots so I have some digital data to work with! Hopefully I'll manage to find the time to blog about my trip sometime soon. I also now have a new camera ... which should help to get the blog back in business!! And I have a new phone (same number as the old one). It's been a very eventful month (another reason why I haven't had time to blog). But hopefully things will quieten down for a bit and i can start recounting some of Team aBeckett's adventures.

So.. what's with the photo above? Ben and I are pictured sharing a bed in the Coff's Harbour Hospital Emergency Department. This is about when Ben and I were at our worst during a bout of gastro (which conveniently timed itself to hit while we were in Coff's for Dad and SongXin's wedding). You can see I'm holding an orange thing, which is frozen hydralyte (oral rehydration solution). I was very happy to have as much of this stuff as I could keep down. Especially after the staff threatened me with a very scary looking cannula and 2 Litres of IV fluids.

Matt also had the bug, but had recovered by the time this shot was taken. I'm now much better, but Ben is still suffering a bit. So we've gone into quarantine. We're holed up at Team aBeckett HQ where even
the plants need some serious hydration intervention.

The bug seems to be extremely contagious, with Mum also falling victim on Sunday night. Ben's cousin Oscar bought the bug with him from SA and was the last of his family to still have the bug. All of them have had it except Fergus and we can only attribute his fortunate escape to the fact that he is exclusively breast fed (good stuff isn't it!!).