Last weekend we celebrated Andrew and Nicole's engagement with a picnic at Clarkes Point Reserve in Woolwich. After the grown up part of the day was over, the kiddies headed to Woolwich Hotel for a few post-party bevvies. A few drinks later and the night deteriorated rapidly. Like any good gossip column I'm going to give you the juicy news without naming names. The low-down: someone got a nasty bump on the head, someone vomited, two someones were refused service because they were pished, and two someones were too hungover to go canyoning the next morning.

Congratulations Andrew and Nicole. We hope that you enjoy this very exciting period in your life. (photos)

My work trip also happily coincided with Jane and Grant's engagement party in Ballarat. Andrew flew down on the Saturday morning, I met him at the airport and we drove out to Ballarat. It's always great catching up with the Darbys in Ballarat; they always make us feel so welcome.

Jane and Grant's engagement party was held in the Adelphi room at GeeCees. Tara, Tim, John, Andrew and I spent the evening picking songs on the electronic jukebox and commenting on each other taste in music. You'd receive either an accusatory finger pointed in your direction and a "why'd you pick that?" or a nod of agreement in your good taste. By the end of the evening Tara and I had hit the dance floor. We had plenty of room as we were the only ones on it. We spent half our time boogying to our excellent song picks (The Final Countdown, Material Girl) and the other half sprinting across the room to enter more songs into the juke box (and prevent a stupid girl in a target outfit from lining up horrible, non-dancey songs). I also taught Tara some of our funky dances (the Air Hostess dance, the Shopping trolley dance) so she can spread the good word in Ballarat. Congratulations Jane and Grant. We hope that you enjoy this very exciting period in your life. (photos)

Three years ago, when I first visited Ballarat, Bodhi was a beautiful, bouncing 6-month old boy. Now, he's three and can officially be known as Bodhi the terror. He has so much energy! On Saturday afternoon, Andrew and I played "Let's find Bodhi's off button" with Bodhi. Apparently, it's his belly button. You just have to tickle him to turn him back on. It may appear from the photos, that Bodhi's diet consists entirely of chocolate cake. Well, he is a chocolaholic, but Tara and Tim do feed him vegetables on occassion.

It's been non-stop this week. It's been a crazy week for my head, my diet and my liver. We love Natalie very much, but we're glad she has gone back to London. I'm not sure I could have kept up the pace for very much longer *G*.

While she was busy gallivanting around Europe, Natalie missed out on our engagement celebration and Sue and J's engagement celebration. So, on Tuesday, Natalie treated us to an engagement dinner at XO in Surry Hills. I'm such a food ignoramus, I thought the name of the restaurant meant kisses and hugs. XO is actually an Asian invention, a spicy sauce made from a combination of dried shrimp, dried scallops, garlic, and other seasonings. It's named after a popular but very expensive type of brandy, which is fitting as XO sauce is quite expensive as well.

I can add XO to the funky bathrooms list. They have cool sinks, where the water comes from a pipe which drops out of the ceiling. I sneakily managed to take a photo. Although, I kept putting the camera away when I thought I heard someone coming. I'm not sure many people would understand why I would want to take photos in a bathroom.

When dinner was over we headed next door to the Clock for the necessary after-dinner cocktails. We had hoped to partake of the lovely concotions at Bar Cleveland but their cocktail bar is only open Thursday to Sunday. Strike one for Bar Cleveland! (photos)

On Friday evening, we finally got around to celebrating Sue and J's engagement with dinner at the Rose of Australia in Erskineville. It was quite an amusing evening. Next time you see Sue ask her for a demonstration of the international symbol for "whole baby barramundi on a bed of asian greens". (photos)

We had two celebratory engagement events on the weekend. On Friday evening we had dinner with Kylie, Trevor, Brielle and Sean at Matsuri in Surry Hills. On Saturday evening we had the official engagement dinner with our families at funkychef.com in Pyrmont.

Matsuri is my favourite Sydney Japanese restaurant. Their food is delicious and their sushi and sashimi is always so fresh. However, they are a little too concerned with getting the maximum number of people in and out every night. We were told that we could only book for 6.30pm or 8.00pm and if we booked for 6.30pm we'd have to be out by 7.30pm. It's all very well for a restaurant to want to maximise profits but do they have to be so transparent about it? Oh well, the food makes up for the poor treatment.

The sushi/sashimi combination boat is the best option on the menu. Mouth-watering sushi and sashimi and it comes in a funky little boat. Trevor liked the boat so much he considered smuggling it out underneath his shirt. Somehow I think boat shaped breast implants on a guy might have been a little bit conspicuous. (See Kylie, the photos are up! We do love you!)

sushi/sashmi combination boat	sushi/sashmi combination boat	Brielle, Trevor, Kylie, Andrew, Jess, Sean

Our official engagement dinner was held at Mum's new favourite restaurant, funkychef.com in Pyrmont. The owner of funkychef used to be Steven Spielberg's personal chef. This means we are now only 3 degrees of separation away from Steve and only 4 degrees away from pretty much everyone else in Hollywood. How exciting! *G*. (photos)