Surprising Jeff

I honestly believe that the best part about gifts is the giving rather than the receiving, especially when you put lots of thought and care into purchasing a gift that your loved one will cherish forever. This is exactly what I did for Jeff’s 27^th Birthday and to add a little more fun and excitement, I kept it all a big surprise!

In the early hours of Tuesday 23^rd April I woke Jeff up, handing him some clothes and told him to shower and get ready, his birthday surprise was about to begin. I’ve never seen him wake up so fast before and bounce out of bed, he was so excited and so was I!!!!

Little did he know what awaited him that day but I knew he’d love the surprise I’d organised and boy was I thankful the day had arrived because I’m not sure I could have kept my mouth shut for much longer!!!! I set his GPS and he followed it into the unknown which he soon found out to be the airport for a flight to Sydney.

The whole hour and a half in the air he kept looking at me with the biggest smile on his face and we both tried (without luck) to nap while we could. He was so excited about what was to come that he left his phone in the car and had to retrieve it before boarding our flight and left his backpack on the plane and had to run back for that too!!! Anticipation obviously makes him lose his mind hahaha!

I waited until we were safely on Sydney soil before I revealed where we would be off too – the Hilton on Gorge St for the night!!! Ok, so I was pretty freaking excited about this part of the surprise and couldn’t wait to see what the Hilton was like (AMAZING by the way!)

I had decided that I would leave the main surprise til last and would race into the hotel room ahead of him and put it out on the bed for him to discover. Unfortunately check in wasn’t until 3pm so we spent most of the day exploring the city shops, eating croissants for breakfast and sampling some of the best gelato I’ve ever tasted! 

 At 2pm they FINALLY let us into our room where I quickly ran in and shut Jeff out while I got his surprise ready. I stood back, looked at it sitting on the bed and was so excited for him that I literally bounced to the door to let him in!!!!!

The look on his face was priceless ‘Tickets to see Josh Groban in the Sydney Opera House TONIGHT!!!!!!’ Winner!!!! This surprise was already a HUGE success and Jeff was thrilled. Actually, he was beyond thrilled and couldn’t believe I’d kept it a surprise and also that he hadn’t found out himself and booked tickets. Phew, glad that didn’t happen!!

We spent the rest of the afternoon napped in the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in…. I’m pretty sure it was in fact a cloud! Late afternoon it was time to get ready for this very special night!

We both had an amazing night that we’ll never forget and will forever cherish. We ate Chinese food at Circular Key before the show, admired the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera house all lit up and of course took stacks of photos! We then settled into our seats in the Opera house Concert hall and completely enjoyed every second of the very talented Mr Josh Groban and his stunning music. He’s also a very funny guy and had everyone almost falling out of their seats in fits of laughter.

We were totally unaware of time and before we knew it, 2 hours had past and it was time to leave. We left the Opera House with the biggest smiles (which is kind of fitting as his last song was called ‘Smile’) and set off to find dessert. We sat in the Guylian Chocolate Café with the harbour as our backdrop and enjoyed chocolately desserts while Jeff rang his family to tell them what had happened to him today.

I can officially say the whole birthday gift was a major success and Jeff could not take the smile off his face for days! Not only did he have an amazing time but so did I and it was so special to do something completely different to normal. Back in 2007 our first ‘real’ date was to see Josh Groban play in Brisbane and I had promised Jeff that if he ever came back to Australia we would see him play in the Opera House. Well, mission accomplished!

But it wasn’t quite all over just yet as I had one more little surprise to reveal over breakfast the next morning. Still buzzing from the night before I asked Jeff if he’d like to see the show again and of course he said yes! I handed him a little envelope which contained two tickets to see Josh Groban’s show in Brisbane that Saturday night. This just seemed to top the whole surprise off perfectly and gave us both something else to look forward too!

The Saturday night show was fantastic, dare I say even better than the Sydney show! I almost had to restrain Jeff when Josh Groban stepped off the stage and walked down the aisle next to our seats for a little meet and greet with the audience. He also invited a lovely young lady from the audience who had asked to sing with him up to the stage. Even I was shaking with nerves for her but she did a wonderful job at singing The Prayer with him.

An amazing couple of days that I certainly will never forget and that I’m sure Jeff will cherish! We are so blessed to be able to do these special things together and I’m so grateful that it all worked out perfectly. Praise the Lord and a HUGE thank you to my Mum for all of her help and for finding out about the show in the first place!

The New Gadenne Car!

Yes, we’ve had our ‘new’ car now for about a month but its worth its own post after the all deal we’ve been through.

If Jeff had his way, our new car would be bigger and better and faster but being the sensible (some might say boring) person that I am, we bought the same car we previously had – Toyota Carmy Altise however it’s newer and has far less kilometers. 

To keep my techno gadget husband happy, it also has a reverse camera and a fancy CD player with bluetooth.  

It’s a great car and we feel very blessed to have it! 

The Week our Car was Stolen

Friday nights after a busy week at work are so blissful! I sat in bed playing on my iPad, almost too tired to keep my eyes open but content and happy with the hard work I’d done during the week past. I forced myself to stay awake a little longer to enjoy this blissful contentment and happy in the knowledge that I wouldn’t be bothered by 6am phone calls. Eventually I turned off the lights and drifted off to sleep by the background sound of the television.

At 2:30am (I think) I was woken suddenly by Jeff shouting my name from the other end of our house and my heart skipped a beat when I heard ‘Carmen, our car has been stolen’. What a shock! No one ever thinks this will happen to them but it did happen!

We didn’t even hear them take the car rather in the early hours of the morning my phone beeped to signal a voice message had been left. Jeff listened to it while I slept and it was the local police alerting us to the fact that our car had been involved in a drive off at a petrol station. After listening to the message, Jeff checked the driveway and that’s how he discovered the car was gone!

What followed was a whirlwind of phone calls to police, insurance, friends and family. We met with the police and went for a drive to try and find items of ours that had been thrown from the moving car. At 5:30am I sat exhausted on the floor of our office watching the sunrise, as Jeff made countless phone calls.

I gave up at 6am and dragged myself back to bed and straight away fell asleep. What a night, a night I’d preferred not to have had.

A few days later our car was found about 150km away from home. It was trashed and many of our personal items were stolen. A few days after that the car was written off by the insurance company and now we are on the search for another car. It’s been a crazy and expensive couple of weeks for us. I’m extremely grateful to God that no one got hurt and I just hope things settle down and get back to normal quickly! 

Powerless

On 27^th January 2013 we were hit by a very minor cyclone. I’m not even sure we could call it a cyclone, rather the signs that a cyclone had been near us. Apparently we had mini Tornados hit the coast too and our township but whatever came through, it was fairly severer. We had lots of rain, so much so that for one day we were flooded in.

Flooded in!

The Kiwi says it was definitely a Cyclone... still can't find the little guy :(

We had wind, crazy, crazy wind that uprooted trees everywhere. On to roads, houses, fences and by far the worst…. our power lines! Okay, so not the power lines directly outside our house but the gale force winds took out all of the main power to almost all of the coast and hinterland area. Not only that but we also had no phone reception or landline connection. Thousands of people were left powerless and cut off from the world!

For 3 long days we were without power and were almost completely isolated from the whole world. We couldn’t make any phone calls at all or get online to find out how long our power would be off. We tried very hard to save the food in our fridge and freezer by filling esky’s with ice but 3 days were just too long and we ended up throwing almost everything in the bin.

Our fridge for 3 days... did I mention it's a good idea to make sure the plug is in the bottom of your esky. No? That's cause I learnt the hard way and came out on day 2 to find a half flooded kitchen floor. Opps!

Did I mention without power we had no hot water? NO HOT WATER!!!! We had a few showers at Mum and Dad’s place but after 2 days they had no hot water left either. I had two ice cold showers before Dad rigged up a battery to power our hot water system. We also made a lot of trips to our friends place 20 minutes away who had power so we could charge phones, laptops and my ipad. We also used that time to sooth our cravings to be online!

But you know what? I learnt a lot in those 3 days. I learnt that I rely on electricity more than I could ever have imagined and I also learnt that I can live without electricity. By the 3^rd day I knew I could make food that required no cooking, I could have a cold shower, I could do my washing by hand and I could find other ways to entertain myself without Facebook or instagram. But no matter how much I could live without electricity, I am SO SO SO SO glad that I don’t have to! I’m very grateful that God created this amazing resource for us to use because it makes life easier and more pleasant!

Playing UNO to pass the time and living by candle light!

Who would have thought, 3 days without power could teach me so much! Sometimes life gets tricky just to teach you a lesson! Don't miss it!