Sydney International tennis tournament

We went to Sydney Olympic Park to see the men's finals (doubles and singles). I got to sit in the umpire's chair on one of the warm-up courts.

In the men's doubles finals, one of the teams were twin brothers. They were wearing the same thing and you couldn't tell them apart.

The men's final was between Jarko Niemenen (Finland) and David Nalbandian (Argentina). I got Jarko's autograph at the end of the match.

On the night, they officially named the venue the Ken Rosewall Arena, and the tennis legend Ken Rosewall was there to open it. I got his autograph later too!

Mountain pizza

The mountains would be a quiet place if it weren't for all the tourists in the holidays. At my favourite pizza restaurant, they give the kids a bit of dough. You can make what you want and then they cook it for you in the pizza oven. Well it so busy on the night we went and I was getting so hungry, that I made mine into the pizza I was having to wait so long for...

Bolt

Bolt the movie came out on New Year's Day, so we went to the cinema in the mountains to see it. The cinema now has 4 screens! And there's hardly any adverts before the movie. If you don't get there on time, you miss the main feature (like what happened when we went to see Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa). For this movie, we got there early, and they kept repeating the same ads over and over until it was time for the movie. They can do things a bit weird in the mountains.

Fireworks on New Year's Eve

We didn't do fireworks in the city this year. Instead, we escaped to the Blue Mountains and went to the local golf club. The night sky is darker up there and so the fireworks were awesomely vivid and seemed really close, just as good as the ones on the harbour. They even showed up on my mum's camera phone.

Blue Mountains on Boxing Day

We went up to the Blue Mountains for a week. I took my PlayStation and nearly finished my Batman Lego game (all 30 levels) in between entertaining visitors and going for bushwalks.

I did a really long bushwalk, going down the Giant Staircase, walking along the bottom of the valley, then coming up the Furber Steps. I nearly beat my mum who took the Scenic Railway coming up!

The big tree is a turpentine tree which is one of the biggest and oldest trees in the Blue Mountains.

A very merry Christmas

We drove around the city to see the best Christmas lights.

There were some awesome ones, even in the Blue Mountains.

On Christmas morning, I checked outside and found evidence that Santa had been: his reindeer had eaten the carrots I put out for them.

I got a lot of what was on my Christmas list. Some of my favourite presents were my Batman Lego Playstation game, my Kevin 11 car, my test tube alien, and my dancing Wall.E speaker.

Biking around the bay

I managed to ride my bike for 7km around the bay.

On the way, I did some birdwatching and photography.

We stopped for a drink towards the end, but it was still tiring.

Sydney FC

The week before Christmas, we went to see Sydney FC play at the Sydney Football Stadium. The club is owned by the actor Anthony La Paglia, but the team wasn't very good. They got beaten 4-1 at home, and one of them was an 'own goal'! I was more interested in the football songs than the game: there was some very loud singing going on.