Each year on Boxing Day, the Grangers have a BBQ and Bocce competition at their house in Austinmer. This year, Sydney put on a gorgeous day for the annual event. The sun was shining, the sky was blue; it was the perfect antidote to cure Christmas Day indulgence.

Each year, names are randomly drawn to form mixed teams of two. The draw is created and one round is played by all teams. The winning teams of round one go into the Cup (Winners) competition. The losing teams of round one go into the Plate (Losers) competition. The two competitions are then knock-out format and are contested until the Winner of the Cup and the Winner of the Plate are decided.

This year's event saw a few welcome changes to the competition rules and regulations. A $5.00 entry fee was introduced with the money allocated to a prize pool. All teams were in the running to win either $100 (The Cup Prize), $80 (The Cup Runners up prize) or $15 (The Plate prize). The games were also shortened, with each game now consisting of three ends. (In the past we had played first team to five points, which could sometimes take forever.)

After a hard day of Bocce the Plate grand final was a contest between Team Greg / Julie and Team Patrick / Jess. Greg and Julie triumphed in the end and won the Plate and took home the $15 prize money (don't spend it all at once!). Team Andrew / Daphne and Team Max / Sharon played for top honours in the Cup grand final. Team Max / Sharon beat out Team Andrew / Daphne to take the ultimate Bocce prize, the Cup.

It's quite interesting to look at the list of past winners of the Bocce competition. In the past the Boxing Day Bocce competition has been won by Andrew & Kay (Cup 2003), Kay & Brendan (Cup 2002), Andrew & Max (Plate 2002) and Sharon & Jess (Cup 2001). Maybe next year we can run a betting competition as well. (photos)

This year's Boxing Day Bocce competition seemed to go on forever. We started with an odd number of couples so there were 3 repechage rounds. The talented Richard Daley and Prudence were the lucky team to be in each of these second chance games. This occassioned much complaining all round (it happens every year :D).

In the end, the grand final was a competition between Andrew & Kay and Sharon & Don. It was a close game but Andrew & Kay came out on top. Andrew was in the winning team for the second year in a row (we'll definitely have to put a stop to that next Boxing Day). The prize to the winning team was my beautiful gingerbread house which was kindly donated by the winnning team to the kids at Austinmer. They descended on the prize like a pack of hungry wolves. It was demolished with astonishing speed. (photos)

Well I must admit that I have been very slack as I haven't added a new (proper) note for a long time. We've put lots of photos up because December was a very busy month. So here is what happened:

• Chris' 28th Birthday - Chris' birthday party was a month a late (his birthday is actually in november). Better late than never I guess. Once again Anh laid out a feast of vietnamese food! My favourite are the vietnamese spring rolls, although they are a little tricky to roll and mine would often fall apart as I was eating it. Anh had also made a impressive ginger bread house which we quickly demolished.
  
  
• Sun Christmas dinner - We attended a Christmas BBQ thrown by Andrew's boss, Michael. We had a lot of fun playing with Linus, Michael's four year old son, and all his toys! Especially his yoda mask and lightsaber.
  
  
• Nat and Luke's Christmas Dinner - Luke has become a gourmet chef! For dinner we had pork wantons with sweet chilli jam for entrée, a lime and ginger sorbet to cleanse our palate, roast spatchcock with vegetables for mains, and a platter of white chocolate parfait, cheesecake and pannacotta for dessert. Each course was complimented by a different wine, selected by our sommelier, Sue. And with Nat's funky wine charms, we never lost track of our wine glass. It was a very successful evening!
  
  
• Boxing Day Picnic - We actually managed to make it to Austinmer for the Boxing day picnic this year (Last year we were prevented by the fires), although the picnic was held on sunday 22nd instead of boxing day. Maybe next year we'll get it right! Competition was fierce in the annual bocce tournament with the (winners) Cup going to Kay and Brendan and the (losers) Plate going to Andrew and Max (who was subbing for Mrs Middleton). Max and Andrew were the winners of the grand final play off. Julie was most unimpressed, she thinks Max rigs the draw so he can win :D
  
  
• Christmas Day - It was rush, rush, rush on Christmas Day this year. Andrew and I spent the morning with my parents at Pyrmont and we then travelled to Goulburn to spend the evening with his parents. Once again Santa was very generous and we received many cool presents. I think Oscar scored the best presents though. It seemed like everyone wanted to play with his new toys.
  
  
• Davina's house warming - Davina has recently purchased a 2 bedroom apartment in Redfern and she had a huge party to celebrate. I think she managed to squeeze about 50 people into her small 2 bedroom apartment. It was standing room only!
  
  
• New Years Eve 2002 - Yay! Another good new years eve. Two in a row, it must be a record! Sue had a party at her house in Lilli Pilli and we had a great time! We played Andrew's new board game, Cranium, which was most amusing. It is a cross between trivial pursuit, pictionary, scrabble and charades. Mark's impression of Mr. Bean was hillarious. We also established the connect4 rankings, grandmaster Andrew, followed by Daphne, Jess, Sue, J, Natalie, Luke and Mark.
  
  

I hope your festive season was as fun-filled and exciting as ours!

Photos are now up for the Boxing Day picnic (Click here). This is usually held down at Austinmer, however because of the bushfires we couldn't get down there. So we relocated to a park in St Peters.

This year's Bocce tournament was won by Sharon and me, yaaaaay! We beat out Trevor and Andrew (ha ha ha!) for the trophy, woohoo!