News & Updates from Vicki Avcin ~ AusCrafts · Page 73

Well the final instalment of my trip to Brisbane today. Of course spending my time with my daughter and seeing the rest of the family was top of the list and that includes seeing the furbaby grandies too.

Milo is a chocolate lab and 10years old and sadly is just about blind now, Grayson, the grey cat that adopted Paul and his family and my daughters border collie Jaylee Lots of cuddles and hugs with them while I was there.

My sons son, Riley took great delight showing me his excellent little boat he made from a cereal box and telling me how he made it even down to the lines drawn to look like planks.

I think he did an excellent job with it.

One of the must dos was go to Sushi Train. I swore (up to about 5 years ago) that Id never eat sushi….. raw fish just didnt appeal to me.

But my daughter dragged me along on one of my previous visits 5 years ago to a Sushi Train and I found that it wasnt all raw fish.

I now love sushi and my visits there always include lunch at a Sushi Train. All those plates in the picture arent mine! We had some favourites and a couple of others just to see what they were like. Must say I liked it all even one with a bit of wasabi on it.

One of our lunches was at Café 63 and we had one of the lunchtime specials a Green & Gold Burger.

All the menu items are named after worldwide icons of some sort ie famous people, landmarks, even Santas reindeer. (Green and Gold for Australia).

It was huge and for the price, fantastic value. Never heard of a burger with a hash brown on it before! And the coffee was excellent.

So that wraps up my recent trip to the big smoke until next year when Ill have another list of must do which will probably include most of my favourites that I did this year.

PS If you missed my news last week with more of my holiday, it is on the news page on my CUP page as there was a hiccup last week.

For those whove been following my BrisVegas trip you will know that another one of my must do items was go out to Brisbane Airport and watch the planes come and go.

So on the Wednesday we went out to the designated area where people can go and watch planes landing and taking off.

I am always in awe of these big steel birds that seemingly come and go with ease.

Unfortunately it wasnt the time of day when the international flights come and go where one sees the really big planes like the A380 (especially Emirates and QANTAS) fly in and fly out so I had to be content with a variety of domestic airlines coming and going.

Just love the sound of the engines throttleing up and the reverse thrusters! There were quite a few people also doing the same thing, clicking away with their cameras.

One chap in particular (in photo), I thought looked familiar, and I also knew he was in a YBBN spotters group I am a member of.

I struck up a conversation with him (about planes of course) and he asked me Were you the lady that was First Officer in Bowen around 2006/2007?

Yes that was me, and then I remembered where I knew him from.

I signed him up to the brigade and trained him and issued him with his Firefighter Minimum Skill, the first level of training.

He now lives in Brisbane and works at the QANTAS maintenance shed and spends his spare time out at the spotters pad photographing the planes.

He is now a member of the neighbouring brigade to when I started in the Fire Service. Small world!

My furry grandbaby Jaylee came out for the drive with us and seems she enjoyed plane spotting from the back of the car too.

So another one of my adventures ticked off and something I will do again when Im in Brisbane. Seeing two planes a day arrive/leave our little airport here just isnt the same when one can see around 20 or so planes in an hour.

The purpose of my visit (besides my wishlist of things to do) was to see and spend time with family.

My daughter met me at the train and it was an emotional greeting.

She had had a very tough week at work so it was good that shed already put in for a couple of weeks of rec leave already.

During the previous week my heart was aching for her and the case that unfolded during the week and I was wishing I was already down there to support her.

But probably better that we had more time to be together and talk it out than if shed still been working as wed only have a few hours each day to talk.

So I arrived on the Monday and we got lots of time together. Tuesday morning she told me to pack an overnight bag as I was going to one of my sons for the night.

Although both he and his wife were working, the kids were on school holidays so plenty of time to catch up with them all.

I cant believe how tall theyve grown. Chloe is taller than me and Riley is catching up quickly. Beautiful kids (not that Im biased or anything!). Wednesday morning my daughter came over to pick me up and we then went over to the stepsons place.

He was working but his wife and our little Axl were home. Unfortunately Zoe and Zac werent at their Dads place this week so missed out seeing them. We dont have any access to them when the mother has them sadly so couldnt even go and say hello.

But the time spent with little Axl was worth it.

He got so excited and was trying to show me all his toys, his books, telling me all about his favourite movies and plucking up the courage to pat Jaylee, my daughters dog who had come for the drive with her.

Wednesday night and Thursday was spent with my daughter before leaving on Friday morning on the train. I hate the train leaving the station. Im always in tears for about quarter of a hour as we leave Brisbane as Im sad to leave.

I always leave a little card somewhere at her house with a little message. This time I hid it in her study books that shes studying for her detective exams. She found it the following day. So a wonderful week spent with our beautiful family…… and cant wait till we see them again soon.

Well last week I told you I was heading to Brisbane to spend a week with my daughter. Well sadly its all been and done and Im now home.

I said in last weeks news that I had 3 things on the list to do and yayy I did them all and more!

One of the things I wanted to do was go have a chocolate fix at Max Brenners and Im happy to say that was ticked off with my daughter and her partner.

It was a cold rainy night and the night before I left to come home and this was the last item to do so we headed off down to Portside at Hamilton.

Not only is this where the cruise ships dock but it has many many restrauants from all nationalities including max Brenners.

So what did I end up having? Did you pick it from last weeks news? Well I indulged with the Praline Meringue Puff Extravaganza.

It was a giant praline meringue stuffed with vanilla ice cream, topped off with strawberries and caramelised pecans and smothered with chocolate of course.

It was huge and wasnt sure Id get through the whole lot but I did!! It was accompanied with a hug mug of classic dark hot chocolate. These little hug mugs are great to warm the hands on a cold raining night.

My daughter had Banana Praline Crepes and her partner had a Chocolate soufflé. Ive now had my yearly chocolate binge and thoroughly enjoyed it.So that was one of the wonderful events during the week.

Ill have more news about my BrisVegas visit next week.

Well Monday morning I head off to Brisbane (Brisvegas) so I am writing my news up before I head off as I wont be able to submit it till after I get back.

Im going to stay with my daughter for the week where well spend some quality time just talking but I always have a wishlist of things I want to do.

They are pretty standard as its things I cant do here. One is go to Sushi Train, and although we have similar here the choice and taste isnt what it is like at the place we go have have lunch.

Then there is the airport trip.

Brisbane Airport has an area for plane viewing where you can see pretty much all the airport and you can get fantastic sights of the big birds landing and taking off.

Last time we went at night time and although we saw the big 380As taking off we were further away down near the fire station, as the viewing area is only accessible during daylight hours.

So this time I want to head down there during the day.

Then my all time favourite is going to Max Brenners. This is a chocolate shop where everything is chocolate. Soufflés, pizza, waffles, fondue, drinks, all with lashings of cream, ice cream with strawberries and/or banana and of course lots of chocolate.

So the really big decision I have to make is what to eat.

Going to be so hard to just stop at one. Maybe it will be a couple of trips to dine in! Max Brenners (Chocolate by the bald man) is Australia wide and also internationally in the USA, Israel, Russia and Japan.

I really urge anyone who is a chocolate lover to visit a store if you are ever somewhere that has a shop.

You can dine in or purchase chocolates by the pound to take with you. So the really big decision I have to make is what to eat. I will let you know what I chose in the next newsletter.