A disappointing result at trivia last night. We came fourth. Why is fourth disappointing? It's the only place in the top 5 that doesn't receive a prize (vouchers for 1st, 2nd and 3rd and a bottle of wine for 5th). Our name was inspired by Tony Abbott and we walk away empty handed. Prophetic perhaps? (We came first when we were called Julia Badger-ard.)

Here's your chance at some of the questions from last night. Could you have changed our fortunes?

1. What battle beginning with 'B' was a major offensive fought in the Ardennes region of Belgium, France and Luxembourg from December 1944 to January 1945?
   
   
2. Who did Kenny Rogers meet on a "train bound for nowhere"?
   
   
3. If Churchill was still alive, how old would he be turning this year? 116, 126 or 136?
   
   
4. What government agency was renamed to FSB in 1951?
   
   
5. Which two of Queen Lizzie's four children were born in 1950 and 1960?
   
   
6. Pristina is the capital of which autonomous region in the Balkans?
   
   
7. What musical features Dorcas, Ruth, Liza, Alice, Milly, Sarah and Martha trying to reform Adam and his brothers?
   
   

You know the drill. Guesses in the comments. No cheating with Google. Blah blah blah.

Imagine the Royal Easter Show. There are rides, food stalls and families with young children in attendance. Now add beer. Lots and lots of beer. And now you have Oktoberfest.

Along with the food stalls and rides, each of the major breweries has a tent at Oktoberfest. In these tents you can hang out, drink steins of beer and eat ginormous pretzels and hot BBQ chooks. In the tent you must find a table and seat, then you can flag down a friendly barmaid and she'll keep you supplied with food and drinks for the duration of your stay (a generous tip on your first round will ensure that she remains attentive.) Some of the barmaids are impressively strong. We saw some barmaids carrying five or six 1-litre steins. I struggled lifting just one of those steins.


Drinking beer is the number one past time at Oktoberfest. This means that if you do want to get a seat in a beer tent you pretty much have to turn up when the tent opens at 10am. You then spend the whole day in that tent because if you leave you lose your seat. You won't be able to get a seat in another tent as they stop letting people in when they reach capacity.

The beer drinking starts at 10am (what else are you going to do when you're in the beer tent? Listen to the oompah band?) and you drink 1-litre steins. I wasn't a beer drinker before my visit to Oktoberfest and even though I was only drinking Radlers (the German name for a Shandy - beer and lemonade) by the end of our two days at Oktoberfest I'd drunk enough beer to become accustomed to the taste.

Apparently Oktoberfest made me into a better person. At the end of our time at Oktoberfest Andrew said to me "you know hunni, I didn't think it was possible to love you more but I do now that you're a beer drinker."

More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.

Our visit to Oktoberfest was part of our Beerfest trip to Germany in 2006 (eek! almost four years ago). We spent a week or so in Germany with Tash and Nat. This is the first entry from that trip.

Here are some shots of our presents in action.

Hannah, Sarah and Ellie are walking like Egyptians in their new belly dancing scarves. I also made the girls personalised mini birthday cakes.



Here is Susanna giving Alice a big welcome kiss. (Thanks for the photos Leah and John!)

John and Leah's little girl Susanna turned 1 in June. Happy Birthday Susie! For Susanna, I made Alice.

I used Wee Wonderfuls' Olive pattern to make Alice. It was one of the most challenging projects that I've sewn so far. Getting the legs in was the hardest part. You have to sew already stuffed legs into the body and there isn't a lot of room. I had to get advice on the pattern instructions from my sewing expert (thanks Nat!) and even then it took me 3 attempts to get it right(ish). On the 2nd attempt I sewed the legs in backwards (oops!).

Alice hung around in our living room for a while before I packaged her up and sent her to her new owner in Vancouver. She freaked out Andrew one night when he fell asleep on the couch and then awoke to find Alice staring down at him.

I'm happy with how she turned out even though she has some very obvious flaws. They just add to her charm (that's what I tell myself anyway). I'm looking forward to another go at the pattern. I might try the Archie pattern next.

Eliana Veitch turned five on Monday. Happy Birthday Ellie! In the time of uni stress, we also missed the twins' birthday. So, we invited ourselves over to dinner at the Veitch's the other night and we brought presents!

For the girls we picked up three Belly Dancing scarves while we were in Egypt. They have lots of coins on them that jingle as you move. The girls loved these! They spent the better part of the evening "belly dancing" around the living room. I also put together a CD with a few belly dancing songs so they had the appropriate theme music for their dancing. To go with the Egyptian theme, we included a book called The Egypt Game. I haven't read it but it's a Newbery Honor winner so I'm hoping it's good.

Instead of wrapping paper, I made drawstring bags to put the presents in. On each bag, I embroidered one of Allsorts' Pretty Maids. There is an Irish, a Japanese and a Spanish girl in traditional dress.