If you’re like me, you most likely have family that lives in all parts of Australia or the world. Myself, I have family that lives in Melbourne, Noosa (Queensland), Mansfield (Victoria) and even Papua New Guinea. When you have family that lives not so close to home it can be hard to keep in touch or even visit them on a regular basis.

We all have those excuses not to take the trip to see our family; we get caught up in work, we’re too busy, we can’t afford it and the list goes on and on. And because of this, we don’t end up taking the time to see our family and we may even lose touch with them.

For me it really hit home last year, I fortunately didn’t lose any family members or anyone close, but unfortunately my friend lost his father and my girlfriend lost her grandfather (at the ripe old age of 96!). And it got me thinking, my grandmother moved to Queensland a number of years ago and I hadn’t seen her since she made the move. Sure I rang her on her birthdays, sent her birthday and Christmas cards, but that’s just not the same as spending time with them. I also had an Aunty and Uncle that lived in Queensland and I hadn’t taken the time to go see them either, the only time I’d seen them was when they’d make the time to come to Melbourne.

I’m not super close to my grandmother or Aunty and Uncle but that wasn’t really the point, so I put all those common excuses aside, booked a trip to Queensland with my mother and girlfriend and went to visit my grandma. We had a great time and most importantly was able to spend time with my grandma and see my Aunty and Uncle, and we got in a bit of R & R for ourselves.

My grandma just turned 95 (fingers crossed I’ve inherited her genes) and going strong, but you don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring or how much time you have left with someone, and family is always important no matter what. I guess what I’m trying to say with all this is put aside any excuses and take the time to see your family and make sure you stay in touch, as none of us can predict what tomorrow will bring.

Peter Folk

For those who know me well, they know I’m a big kid at heart. I own a lot of movies and quite a few of them are kids movies (I still enjoy watching the old Disney classics). Well what some may or may not know is I’m a huge fan of Lego, and I know I’m not the only one!

Back in January of this year, I was lucky enough that my girlfriend did her research and found out about the Brickvention expo. I believe it was the first time that they ran this expo in Australia and it was must attend for any big Lego fans like myself, and judging by the size of the crowd, I’m definitely not unique in my love for Lego. I was seriously like a big kid in a candy shop.

They had many different and awesomely built displays, there was even a huge Lego replica of the Golden Gate bridge, which I had only just seen the real thing for the first time a few months before hand. It was out of this world, if only I had a big enough room in my house to dedicate it to building Lego. My girlfriend can also be a big kid, so she jumped at the chance of having a photo with the Lego Tigger!

They had random Lego displays to show off what people could make themselves, to displays of various landmarks around the world, like the Sydney Opera House and Big Ben in London. And of course they had displays for Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. The best displays for me were the ones that involved the big boats, the trains and planes, especially when they were zooming around their Lego world.

Now of course when you go to one of these events you need to buy yourself a little souvenir. Unfortunately the R2D2 Lego pack was a bit pricey, so I settled for the train. As a kid I loved playing with my train set, so this one was a no brainer. I’m still in the process of building it, but I’ll get there one day and will hopefully get the tracks and room to play with it too.

I may be a big kid, but I’m happy to admit it!

There I was on the 18th of August looking out the window at the big Qantas A380 about to take me on my journey to America! After about 14 hours in the air we landed in LA, and made our way to our first stop, Anaheim.

Of course the only reason we’d be in Anaheim is to go to Disneyland. For the next 3 days we toured around Disneyland and Disneyland California Adventure Park, and believe me you need the full 3 days. Now I’m not a big fan of rides, I went on a couple, so while my mate was checking out the rides I walked around to discover what Disneyland had to offer. If you’re not a big fan of rides like me, there’s still plenty to do and see! My two highlights from Disneyland were the fireworks show and the magical light show at the California adventure park (a must see!).

After our three days of Disneyland, it was time to head off to the other side of the country to see the big city, New York. Staying right at Time Square, which is really great to see at night, and always packed! This is where we were to spend the next 6 days. While my mate went and saw the Broadway shows, I trekked around the city all day! There is plenty to see in New York, and well I saw most of it. From the 9/11 memorial, Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Central Park (man it’s huge) and grand central station. And believe me there’s plenty more to see and do, you even see places here and there by just randomly walking around (I even saw the famous 5th Avenue Apple Store, I’m a huge fan)! And of course, I did go and see one Broadway show, being a big Disney fan it had to be Aladdin. If it ever comes to Australia, I recommend you go and see it.

After New York we set off to Chicago, unfortunately we didn’t do our research on Chicago so there’s plenty more we could have seen in our short time there, but we made the most of what we had. If you ever go to Chicago I highly recommend the Tommy Guns dinner show, great entertainment and very friendly staff. On top of this we couldn’t go to Chicago and not go on a mob tour. Apparently Al Capones millions are still hiding somewhere, so I may have to go back and explore. And my mate and I are quite fond of burgers, so we checked out The Cheesecake Factory, not only do they have awesome cheesecakes but they have a massive menu and awesome burgers, just wish they had one in Melbourne!

After Chicago it was back to the other side of the country to visit San Francisco, where in our few short days there we took advantage of as many tours as possible. Day trip to Muir woods, one of many national parks you can visit, and finished off by the city night lights tour, awesome tour. And of course we got to see the Golden Gate Bridge. Now we couldn’t go to San Francisco and not see Fisherman’s Wharf (we stayed right around the corner), and see the absolute highlight of my trip, Alcatraz! My friend and I are both horror fans we saw Alcatraz at night. Unfortunately there were no ghost stories (the hospital ward was a bit freaky though), but it was one amazing tour. At first I was sceptical of an audio tour, but it did not disappoint and was very interactive. If you go to San Francisco just make sure you see Alcatraz.

Now we’re off to our final destination, after about 3 weeks of travelling, and it’s time to relax and I couldn’t wait. This was my favourite destination I must admit, but I prefer the tropics and beaches over cities, so I was a bit biased. We couldn’t go to America and not visit Hawaii! While in Hawaii we did two tours, one was Pearl Harbour, an awesome tour where we saw the USS Arizona memorial and got to check out the USS Missouri. The other tour, well that was a huge day, up at 4am and didn’t get back to our hotel until after 10pm. It was the Volcano national park tour. We had to fly across to the big island where we were taken around the volcano national park, and toured a bit of Hilo (the main city). Our guide was awesome and showed us some cool spots. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see lava and we missed out on seeing the glow from the volcano at night, but it was still a must do tour!

After getting the tours out the way, it was time to relax on the beach and get a tan! I just couldn’t get enough of the sun and beach. After 7 days in Hawaii and an awesome 3 and a half weeks of holidays in America, it was time to head home! I definitely want to go back and check out America again, so much more to see and do.

In my role as Client Services – SMSF, I take care of the day-to-day administration of our clients Self-Managed Super Funds, and will generally be your first point of contact with the office, and you’ll always be greeted with a smile and enthusiasm.

One thing people may not know about me is that I’m an Apple enthusiast, and I’m not talking about the fruit. I’ve used Apple all my life and wouldn’t dream of turning away. I follow the main rumour mills and can generally tell you all there is to know about Apple. I own pretty much every product in their line-up, with the iPad being my latest addition.

Here’s some handy help hand gestures for your iPad:

Using four or five fingers with each you can do the following:

• Pinch and you’ll go back to the home screen
• Swipe Up and you’ll unveil the multitasking bar (helpful in completely closing apps)
• Swipe Left or Right and you’ll be able to switch between apps that are open.

Note: You must have multitasking gestures on, under settings in the general tab.