Christmas Day

Merry Christmas! After firstly being woken by the tropical rainforest that apparently lives outside my parents house (I don't remember the parrots when I used to live here...) and then Megan jumping on me at 7am, it was time for presents. Megan did politely point out though that she had been up since 5am and we were lucky that she waited until 7am to shake her reindeer bells and wake everyone else up. After checking out Santa sacks it was then time for presents under the tree.


After presents it was time to prepare our Christmas lunch. As we bypassed the Stamford this year, we decided to create a ''money can't buy" lunch menu. Everyone pitched in and we had a great lunch... with many leftovers.

Mum created a great table setting - our theme this year was silver, blue and white (Lisa - you should take some notes). After lunch it was time for a swim and a power nap. With our batteries recharged we headed next door to check out what Santa had left Connor and Caitlin. After presents, a neighbourhood 'friendly' game of Scattegories was played while Caitlin and I watched DVD's. And now it is time to rest before sales tomorrow!

Christmas Eve with the Family

In the usual Gribble tradition we hosted Christmas Eve for the extended family. As always, there was more than enough food and drinks to satisfy everyone. After some snacks, Santa made an appearance and there were presents and many laughs had all round - who knew that Santa was a comedian! Santa in action....

Santa and I (after he'd handed over the goods)...

Then I had a personalised visit with Santa to make sure he had my list down pat...

Only one more sleep!

The Night Before Christmas...

Well, actually it's still the morning before Christmas. Had breakfast with Nat at Continental Cafe this morning - always a great breakfast and surprisingly not all that busy. Couldn't resist the 2o% off sign in the window of Ultra Suite I had seen on the way to breakky, so made a quick stop off on the way home which was well worth it - I picked up a Sass & Bide bargain. Just about to pack up and head to Mum's... will need to cart along all these presents. Meg was complaining that there weren't enough presents for her under Mum's tree... we'll see what she thinks once I had mine to the pile! Merry Christmas!!

Virgin Blue Christmas Party

Virgin Blue chose a new location for this years company Christmas Party. Marquees were set up at the cultural forecourt at Southbank. It was a great location right next to the river. It was a pretty big turnout - around 3700 people!! Sarah came along with me to experience her first VB party:

As can only be expected of a Virgin Blue party, there was many drinks on hand, and a few live bands played late into the night.

Close Encounter with ROBBIE WILLIAMS

He was here to entertain us, and he certainly lived up to expectation - Robbie Williams came to Brisbane last Wednesday. Megan, Pat and I had been looking forward to seeing him for ages and it was well worth the wait. And when he came on I nearly had a heart attack... check out his shirt!!!

All in all in was a fantastic show - I'll definitely be seeing Robbie again!

Megan and I waiting for Robbie...

Christchurch - New Zealand

Just a quick trip across the Tasman to support Pacific Blue with some of their recruitment. Christchurch was unusually cold for this time of year - especially for a Queenslander!! The Pac Blue team is quite small - but it was very interesting. I didn't really get much of an opportunity to check out the city, but this is the very cute (and very small in comparison to VB!) Pacific Blue Head Office.

HR Team Christmas Party

Well, it's that time of year - Christmas functions are filling up everyone's schedules. In tradition that was started 5 years ago, the HR team embarked on a day of lawn bowls, bbq and drinks to celebrate the huge year we have had. I had only been part of this team for 4 weeks at last year's event, and looking around this year it's amazing how much we have grown. We have gone from around 15 people to close to 50 in just over a year!! No wonder it's felt so busy! It was a nice hot QLD day and there were plenty of cold beers to combat the heat. There were some bowling shenanigans from time to time, but overall it was a great (and very long) day. We started out around midday with lunch and I think I

finally made it home after about 10pm - a veeeerrrryyyy long lunch!!

Tash in bowling action

And here I am with Miranda a bit later in the night...

Iona and John's Wedding

On Saturday 2nd December Iona Fitzgerald officially became a Tait. Mrs John Tait in fact. John and Iona had a lovely low key affair starting with a park ceremony at St Johns Wood. Iona's dressed looked amazing, and the bridesmaids had very funky and unusual outfits. After the ceremony we all headed to the Powerhouse at New Farm for some drinks and nibbles. It was a lovely affair with lots of great memories.

Posing for photos with Trent