Merry (Belated) Christmas!

I know it's a few days late, but Merry Christmas Everyone!

My Christmas was a good one and consisted of drinking too much in Glenelg on Christmas Eve and a very hungover first half of Christmas Day. But despite the hungness we still openned our pressies, had quiche and coffee cake for brunch, and the turkey was in the oven all by 10:30am!!

Sunset Bar at Glenelg Marina, Christmas Eve

More on the turkey... on Christmas Eve we were aimlessly wandering the market trying to decide where to get a turkey from and as we passed by probably the most expensive exclusively fowl selling stall we heard the man behind the counter yell 'Everything in this window $10!' Surely he didn't include the giant turkey sitting there in that low, low price. I asked him how much the turkey was, he told me half-price and chucked it on the scale... the baby was 6.7kg, more than most babies haha, and should've cost nearly $80! He said we could have it for $35! Sold! Of course it was the only thing that fit in the oven the next day, but oh well!

 Oven hog

  

Around the time the turkey was beginning to roast our English friend Rob and his pseudo g/f from Tiawan came over for the day. We all played a bit of beach cricket and football and volleyball throughout the day and ate our giant turkey with all the trimmings (except cranberries, forgot about those) at around 5pm on the table on the back patio, overlooking the dunes and ocean. Oh yeah, did I mention this was my first attempt at turkey and it came our perfect? When we started carving it it was looking a bit dry but after the first slice or two oh boy was she a juicey one! We also had Andy's made ahead gravy (a la Jamie Oliver), roast potatoes, roast carrots and parsnips, and stuffing. For dessert we had coconut and white chocolate cream peach shortcake. I felt stuffed for the next two days and we still have a ton of turkey in the freezer.

Christmas Dinner

Watching the sunset on Christmas Day

The Ashes

The newly completed Members stand at the Adelaide Oval, ready just in time for the Ashes 2nd test!

Last week Andy and I took Friday off work and went to watch the cricket. This wasn't any cricket, it was The Ashes, second test. It was at the Adelaide Oval in North Adelaide and we went for the first three days of the five day test match. England emerged victorious on Day 5, bringing the series score to 1-0 (the first test, in Brisbane, was a draw). We had General Admission tickets which meant we could stand or sit on the grass of The Hill. We ended up standing for half of each day and sitting in 'silver' seats for the other half. No one was checking tickets so the worst thing to happen was being asked to move by the actual silver ticket holders, but that didn't happen because we chose our seats well hahaha. The new Members stand was finished just in time for this test but alas it was always a third or a quarter empty! It looks good though.

The first two days were days of excess: plastic cups and plastics cups of mid-strength beer, XXXX Gold (the only beer they serve on the grounds, still $6.20 a pop for 3.5%), sun and heat (it was clear, blue skies Friday and Saturday, and well above 30 all three days, 38 (That's 98F folks) on Saturday.) and of course the Barmy Army . They sang some lovely songs, like We All Live in a Convict Colony to the tune of Yellow Submarine, and More Sense Of Humour to the tune of Waltzing Matilda:

Once a jolly Aussie sat down at a cricket match

Sat in the shade of the BARMY ARMY
And he sat and he sighed and then the poor Aussie cried
Why have the Poms got more humour than me?


MORE SENSE OF HUMOUR
MORE SENSE OF HUMOUR
WHY HAVE THE POMS GOT MORE HUMOUR THAN ME
Cos I'm thick as a brick
I'm a seventh generation skip
That's why the poms got more humour than me


And so the Aussie sits there
And he starts to think a bit
Thought he'd make a song
That his mates could enjoy
So he thought up a song
And it didn't take him very long
(Falcetto) AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE
OI OI OI

Source

Many of them were dressed up (see the horse below). I believe that it is the Amry to blame for making a day out at the cricket a great one (the atmosphere they create rivals music festivals, watch video below), although I'm sure going with a diehard cricket-fan-from-birth, who could answer all my dumb questions, helped... and also that our team was winning.
Sunday was a sober day, even the smell of beer made me want to vomit, but we witnessed Pietersen bat a double century (big deal in cricket) before rain ended the third day at the tea break.
It was a great weekend overall and I will definatly welcome another weekend of cricket in the future even though I am a hurting unit this week :)

 Horseman on The Hill amongst the Barmy Army on Day 2

 (it was at least 36C at this point)

Day Two with our free Vodafone radios

The Historic Scoreboard on Day 3

Amongst the Barmy Army

30 Days has Movember...

Today is December first and last night Andy got rid of his mustache. The mustache I made him grow for Movember. I documented its growth daily and watched it flurish into an impressive, manly stache. I know I should've set up a prostate cancer page for the cause, but didn't even think to do it until about Movember 15th! Next year, next year...
So now, without further ado, here is Andy's Movember:

 Movember 1st

 Movember 2nd

 Movember 3rd

 Movember 4th

Movember 5th

 (must've been laundry day, haha)

 Movember 6th

Movember 7th 

 Movember 8th

 Movember 9th

 Movember 10th

Movember 11th 

 Movember 12th

 Movember 13th

 Movember 14th

 Movember 15th

 Movember 16th

 Movember 17th (haircut!)

 Movember 18th

 Movember 19th

 Movember 20th

 Movember 21st... lookin good.

Movember 22nd 

 Movember 23rd

 Movember 24th

 Movember 25th

 Movember 26th... the sleeping mustache

Movember 27th 

Movember 28th

 Movember 29th... gave it a little trim

Movember 30th!
(It was gone 30sec after this pic was taken)