Woolley Family

In recent years I have made an effort to give less "stuff" as gifts, and focus on experiences.  This started a few years ago when I was thinking about a gift for my niece, who is the same age as my daughter.  At the time I had an "Entertainment Book", and came across a voucher for a Segway experience at Currumbin Sanctuary and instantly knew that this would be the best gift for her.  Not only would she have fun, my daughter and I would also go along and it would be a bonding experience for all of us.  We still laugh about the time my daughter fell off her segway in front of the Cassowary enclosure (only the most dangerous bird ever). Since then we have seen plays and musicals, played virtual reality video games at Holoverse , attended the Matt Hollywood magic show at Sanctuary Cove , played Supagolf with the kangaroos watching at Sirromet Winery , Sand Tobogganing on Moreton Island and have done another Segway at Southbank .  These experiences have been grea...

A while ago I entered a competition to win a few weeks of Hello Fresh deliveries.  Hello Fresh sends you a box of ingredients and the recipes to make dinners with the ingredients provided. I didn't win, but I did receive a phone call offering me an introductory family box containing 4 meals for 4 people at $79.95, which is a significant discount over the normal cost of $139.95.  I took up the offer and on Monday evening our first box was delivered. Unfortunately the eggs did not enjoy the trip and my first job was to clean egg off everything else in the box.  I let them know and they credited my account for the eggs. Besides the egg incident, the box was well insulated with cold packs to keep the ingredients fresh. With four recipes and four family members I decided everyone could give this a go, and told each person to pick a recipe card and a night.  The recipes went up on the fridge and we were ready to get started. Night 1: Nasi Goreng with Chicken ...

On January 3rd we embarked on our fourth cruise with our friends, the Penney family.  We have known the Penney family since our kids were very young, with our youngest children born only 2 weeks apart. Given some potential medical concerns, we chose a New Zealand cruise as it would have been fairly easy to access high quality health care if needed. This was the first time that the Penneys had cruised. We had previously done two P&O cruises to Vanuatu and New Caledonia, and a Disney cruise from Florida to the Caribbean.  This time we were cruising with Princess on the Dawn Princess. Comparison of Cruise Lines It was interesting to note the differences between the ships.  We found that the P&O ships had a much younger demographic, with a party atmosphere and an emphasis on the nightlife.  The Disney cruise of course had a heavy family focus. We found the ship, the service, the shows and the theming to be exceptional on the Disney cruise but did not...