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So, perhaps I should tell you about the last 12 or so months. It appears that I've been so busy, so caught up with life and all that, that I've been totally slack at updating my blog. Well, sorry :p Here's a brief summary:

Last September, to celebrate Loretta's birthday, we went down to Byron Bay for a nice romantic weekend. We stayed at the Renaissance Hotel at Ballina, which was just brilliant. It was by the river mouth, and had an awesome spa and everything, it was really nice :) Went to the beach, went to the Macadamia Castle, walked along the board walk, an absolutely lovely weekend.

Then, in November we went for a long weekend camping out on South Stradbroke Island. We went across on the ferry, I took the XTrail for a drive :) Camping was heaps of fun, it was so windy when we were pitching the tent that we thought it was going to fly away! I also discovered that the XTrail, with road tyres anyway, is really crap on soft fine sand. Oops :p I did manage to get us back out, but it was pretty close!

Christmas and New Years was a blast, I spent Christmas with Loretta's family. It was the first time (in a long time anyway) that I can remember having a family Christmas celebration, and it was really very nice :) I got Loz a remote control car, much fun to be had!

In January, I tee'd up with Paul Henry and his Porsche 968 CS and we went down to Tasmania to compete in Targa Wrest Point. Unfortunately, we had a MASSIVE brake failure - the brake hose to the right front calliper broke - so we missed a whole bunch of stages. Fortunately it happened in a place that gave us lots of time to stop... We didn't have a service crew so we scavenged Repco for parts and tools, and managed to get it all running again to finish the last few stages of the event.

Valentines Day, we went for a romantic day trip down to Springbrook National Park. We had a picnic, and we went for a walk down to the waterfall, it was really amazing! There was a lot of rain, and the waterfall was absolutely bucketing down, Loretta and I stood under the thundering water, it was AWESOME! On the way up, we came across a girl who was just about dying of asthma, so I ran all the way to the top to alert her friend who had her medication, gosh I was totally buggered after that! After visiting the Best Lookout In the World (or something to that effect) we had a really good dinner at a restaurant called Pancho's - Really Really Good Food!

February also saw the visit of Mum and Dad, it was nice to spend time with them again, and they also got to meet Loretta's parents :)

Dad and I also went on an Adventure Riding course with Adventure Rider Training. Initially I rode a KLE500 and dad a DR650, but unfortunately I broke the KLE (oops) so had to share the DR650 with dad for the rest of the course. Learnt heaps, fell over heaps, had a bucket of fun, wish I could do that more! Todd was a great instructor, and he had an awesome set up to learn in, good fun :)

Uncle Keng also brought us fishing, and since then I've been a bit hooked! Loz and I have been fishing a bit since, she even bought me a fishing rod for my birthday :)

Easter Sunday saw a whole new start to a whole new chapter of my life - Loretta and I got engaged!!! It was a really special moment, shared in a little playground, sitting at a miniature table at a miniature cafe :)

April, and Targa Tasmania rolled around yet again. This year, I sat in the silly seat with Paul Henry in the Porsche 968. We had all new brakes, and all new suspension, and the car felt great! Day 1 was pretty good, Day 2 started absolutely brilliantly with a blazing time through the Sideling - I think we came in 2nd fastest! We continued to climb up the leader board, until unfortunately on Day 4, we started having some major gearbox issues. We lost all the syncros, and the clutch started to disintegrate, which meant we couldn't rev the car past about 4000RPM. Not so good since most of our power came up higher than that! Day 5 saw the failure of the intercom, which really didn't help matters. It was a switch to "let's get to the end!" mode, and we slowly fell back down the leader board. Miraculously, we made it to the end, coming in 17th outright in Early Modern, 4th in Category and 2nd in Class. :)

This weekend just past, Loz and I went up to Mt Tamborine for a really relaxing, romantic weekend getaway. We stayed at the Avocado Sunset Bed and Breakfast, walked along the sky walk, went horse riding, had a champagne hamper, went fossicking for thunder eggs, drank lots of wine... It was a really nice weekend away <3

And in summary, that's what I've been up to! How has your year been so far?