Wow! I haven't blogged for some time. I knew that my initial vow to blog everyday was too hopeful. What a lot has happened since my last blog! - quite a few minor things (eating, sleeping, reading childrens books - hehe), but also some major things such as our unofficial schoolies 2 to Phillip Island.

I spent a week in Heidi's 5 star luxurious beachouse - but many other people came and went and stayed: Heidi, Loren, Sam, Sarah, Daniel, Simon, Brendan, Cathy, Jason, Renee, Caitlyn, Vicki, Jack... We spent our time there in a similar way to Kennett River - except for one catastophe, the dvd didn't work on the first day! Shock, horror... Some may have seen this as a chance to reconnect with our earthy, non-technological roots and get back to nature - but not us! We tried every way to get it to work but in the end had to plead Cathy and Jason to bring up another dvd player in the car. As a result of this dvd defficiency we all spent our time for most of the week in different pursuits; such as swimming, reading (for me Schindlers List and Alias Grace - Daniel's book), playing poker and nintendo 64 and .... cooking!

This was definitely a dessert filled week with meringues, cakes, muffins, cookies, jelly, trifle, chocolate pudding and banana cake all on offer. I hope Heidi won't mind me sharing her wonderful chocolate pudding recipe with you:

Chocolate Pudding
2 ozs butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup S.R flour
2 level dessertspoons cocoa
1/2 cup milk
vanilla
Cream butter and sugar, add unbeaten egg and vanilla- mix well, then fold in sifted flour and cocoa alternatively with the milk. Put mixture into greased dish and sprinkle over it a topping made by mixing 1/2 cup of sugar and 2 level dessertspoons cocoa. Finally pour 1 and 1/2 cups hot water gently over it and bake in a moderate oven (6 and 1/2 minutes in a microwave).

We had a cocktail night where Sarah invented a Ventnor Sunrise which lived up to it's name ;) and drank quite a lot of strawberry champagne. The days were filled with shopping at Cows (and spending $2 on dodgy lucky dips) and at the beach - either the local 'wild' beach or the overpopulated Smith's Beach. We went for long walks along the beach and some brave souls rediscovered bike riding (and bike helmets!) The last day those who remained cleaned up and tried to fulfill Vicki's 'challenges' which involved Heidi eating 5 eggs, me eating massive amounts of yoghurt and tinned fruit and Vicki almost collapsing from overdrinking fruit juices.

Since we returned I have been lazing around - and learning to drive (a rather frightning experiance in research with all it's massive hills and gravel roads - i just looove handbrake starts!) I don't think I'm ready to be let loose yet on the unsuspecting driving population.

Last night was Louis's party - which was fun until I became really tired at about 11 o'clock. My favourite part was dancing in the deserted garage with heidi, caitlyn, lachlan and various other randoms. Oh! we also had the rather dodgy year 12 reunion - 3 months later! It was a sausage sizzle and year 12 video watching night where everyone ignored each other (except for friends).

I hope you enjoy the photos of our fun week together - before everyone goes in different directions - to uni and travelling.




Vicki asleep on the hotplates...





Cathy and Vicki at the beach.









ME!







Hello little liver, only 72 hours to go... the Broadway Musical!







Heidi, Vicki and me on the way home.









Caitlyn - eat that orange!









Renee (or Toad) in her beautiful new hat









Leila making the arduous journey up from the beach to Heidi's beach house.









Sarah mixing a Ventnor Sunset.










Hello Heidi!






Renee








Playing pictionary






Vicki and me (in a towel sandwich)







Daniel...









An action shot







Ventnor!! We finally made it.