Happy Valentine's Day!

I took this photo on my morning run. The gardeners of Discovery Bay have obviously been planning for Valentines Day for sometime now!

What did you get up to for Valentine's Day? We had a fab day, filled with lots of Valentine's love and all my favourite people!
I started the day as a total tai-tai and got my nails done - I haven't done this for about 6 months. The girl doing my nails thought it was hilarious that anyone could go without a manicure for that long.
In keeping with the spirit of the day, I chose the cutest ever love-heart theme.

My nails. Too cute! I was so excited

Then I caught up with two of my best girlfriends for lunch. We lived in Shanghai together, and had babies there too. Now we all live here. It's so wonderful having enduring friendships like that when you are an expat. I don't know what I'd do without my girls!

Then it was time to be joined by our boys for some Valentine's cake and jumping on the trampoline to Avril Lavigne. So much fun! I honestly thought that being a stay-at-home mum would be like this everyday. While that may not be the case, it's days like this that make it worth it.

The boys had a really hard time waiting to have cake so that they could have their photo taken. Look how happy they look knowing the treats they are about to receive!

Too much excitement! 

Too much sugar!

Too much sugar means too much trouble for mums! 

Then we had a wolf and a crocodile jumping on the trampoline. I took the matching animal beanies to be a sign that the mums have great taste!

Total sugar high! 

Valentine's cuddle!

Next, Henry and I called my Nana and his Great-Nana for her birthday. She turned 86! She said she got loads of cards, phone calls and had eaten so much cake that she was too full to eat any dinner.

Me with my Valentine, blowing kisses to my Nana. 

Finally, Lachlan came home and cooked us dinner. Henry got stuck into the garlic butter snails. 

What a great day! So much fun!

Beautiful Sydney

We've just returned home from 10 days in Sydney. We rented an apartment on the beach in Bondi, and the weather the absolutely idyllic. It was certainly hard coming back to Hong Kong's coldest winter for a very long time, especially knowing that we own a house at Bondi - right near the beach.
When we were there, I had visions of Henry and I going for swims at the amazing 50 metre ocean pool Icebergs in the morning, and hanging out with a coffee at the Grassy Knoll in the afternoons. Bliss!
But the best part about Sydney, (apart from seeing all our wonderful mates), was the running.
There are so many incredible runs - along the ocean cliff walk, around Centennial Park, through Dover Heights and Watsons Bay. It's so beautiful that I'm sure you could never be bored. I've come to the conclusion that there is no excuse for not being a professional athlete if you live in Sydney.
Of course, it pays to remember that visiting is very different to living somewhere, and that when you do live somewhere, it's not always summertime.
Here are a few photos that I took on my runs. I had to stop myself from constantly stopping to take pictures. Clearly I've been living in Asia too long!

Bondi! My first run - pretty incredible to be greeted by this view. 

So happy to be out running

Just one beautiful ocean pool - Bronte 

Imagine running along this path everyday. Incredible!

The view of the city fro Dover Heights. Even on a cloudy day, it's still pretty impressive

Check out the swell - it was hard to not stop and watch the surfers

I wish I could do that!

One of my favourite places in the whole world; Bondi's "grassy knoll"

It's just like Baywatch only better; Bondi lifeguards, you can rescue me anytime. 

If you do get sick of the beach, there's always multiple cross-country options in the park. On this particular run, I did the outside loop which is around 8.5km of soft, grassy surfaces. Running heaven!