Helloooooo!

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Life has finally settled down a bit (only to be now in the run up to Christmas!!!).

I have finished my project that I have been working on for around 8 months and I was glad to finally hand it over. Now I can get in an get some scrapping done. I have sorted some photos and papers ready to go and I have about 6 layouts sitting ready to go.

On Thursday, Brendan and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary. Hard to believe how quickly that time has gone. I feel so truely blessed to be in such a wonderful, happy marriage and to have the life that I do - sigh! We went away for the weekend up the coast to a new resort called Rumba - very nice. It was great to relax by the pool and have a cocktail and we also went for a drive to Montville and had a look around and then a picnic lunch. Went to Moo Char for dinner - beautiful. Was too hard to come home and really great to spend some time together without the children.

The kids have been busy with birthday parties and the usual cricket and music. Chelsea had another performance for strings where they played really well for only having learned for part of the year. She has to hand back her hire violin which means that we are up for buying another one in the next few weeks. She does really enjoy it so I don't mind spending the money.

We had a lovely afternoon at the park two Sundays ago and I took my camera and took candid shots of lots of the kids playing, just mucking around with my camera which is good for a change.

A couple of weeks ago I went to see Bjorn Again - the ABBA tribute band at QPAC in Brisbane. It was so much fun - I can't remember the last time I enjoyed myself with friends that much. The girls I went with were friends I have known my whole life and we have all grown up with ABBA. We also had a wonderful dinner together.

Amazingly, I don't feel too stressed about Christmas this year. I have started buying a few presents. We are having at least one family party at our house this year but it means that I will have to get in and give the house a huge clean - not really a bad thing.

The uniform shop is going to be sooo busy in the next few weeks. I have some lovely ladies to help me out though.

Stay tuned for some layouts shortly.

Ohh, that long!!!

It really has been ages - time is flying away so quickly!

We have done heaps lately. We went away in the September school holidays - firstly for 5 days up to Golden Beach Caloundra. This was exactly what we needed after the big first part of the year that we had as well as a very exhausting but fantastic holiday to NZ. We really just went to the pool, the beach, watched movies, fished and went out for dinner - very relaxing.

This photo was taken from our unit at Golden Beach looking towards Caloundra during the first dust storm.

In the second week we went camping with my Mum and Dad, Brother and Sister-in-law and two other couples. We travelled down to a place called Washpool National Park. It is near Glen Inis in New South Wales. It took about 5 hours drive. I had been camping there twice before with my family but 20 years ago. It is such a beautiful spot. The only trouble was that the bridge that connects the parking area to the camp ground was washed away in a flood and we had to carry out stuff across the creek. We had a human chain of people - would have been hilarious to be a fly on a tree - so to speak. It was well worth it though and we had a lovely relaxing week with plenty of nice food and drink! Hence I put on the obligatory 3 kg. I bought a badminton set which was a big hit with everyone (no pun intended) and we also had plenty of games with the all the board games everyone brought with. We had such a laugh playing Balderdash for the first time - Brendan was so good at it. We also had 5 families there so we each had a night to cook dinner for everyone. We bought a camp oven and used it for the first time to make dessert and main and they were both very yummy - as was everyone's dinners.

Since coming back from holidays, it has been back into things full on. Chelsea went to Music Camp for three days and has really come on in leaps and bounds with her violin. Thomas is back playing cricket on Saturdays again. I just love cricket season and I really enjoy watching him and his team play. They have all matured since last season and have really got it together. Thomas made 28 not out so was pretty pleased with himself.

I have also been continuing to get my project done as well as some design team work and classes for Scrapbook City. Here are a couple I did last week as well as my November Class.

With it nearing the end of October, Christmas is all the talk. I really only seems like a couple of months ago that we were celebrating it last year. We are supposed to be having Christmas at our house this year so we really need to pull out finger out and get some stuff done around here. It is always good to have a deadline - especially where my darling husband is concerned.

I am going to Bjorn Again on the 14th of November with some fellow die-hard ABBA lovers and I can't wait for that!

Until next time.

xxx

Busy Month

Its been a bit of a busy month and I have been slack in updating.

In the last month we have done heaps of things. We went away up the coast with my immediate family for our yearly get-together. We stayed for 3 nights in a beach house and had a great time. I actually got to read part of a book which was nice. The kids had heaps of fun down the beach and even went for a swim - our silly winter weather!!

Chelsea had her first violin performance. All the schools that are taught by their strings teacher came together for a concert. They had the beginners, junior and senior groups and Chelsea's group did very well considering they have only been learning just over six months.

I have been teaching classes again at Scrapbook City as well as still trying to complete the project I have been working on. It is taking me much longer than I would like as I have had a lot of business stuff to deal with lately as well. Here are the classes I have coming up in September and October.

We had my cousin's wedding last Saturday and my niece and nephew were the page boy and flowergirl. They were so cute!

I have been spending some time on Facebook lately - I just joined up - so I have been neglecting my blog a bit. I haven't really had that much to say. It has been a bit same old the last couple of weeks. I am struggling at the moment to get a large project done and my mojo has taken an indefinite holiday!

Some family things to mention:-

Thomas started guitar lessons and we bought him a new guitar. He has been at me for a long time to start so I figure he is not going to give up on the idea! He is enjoying the lessons and his teacher is a young guy who plays in a band.

My parents have two French people staying with them at the moment - Pierre and Carolin. It has been great to spend some time with them and get to know them. Their English is getting better and we don't have to resort to charades like we did when we first met them. We will be spending some more time with them this weekend as well as the rest of our family and we are all looking forward to it very much.

Chelsea is at me to get her hair cut into a long bob. I don't know if I am going to give in yet as I just love her hair. It might thicken it up a bit though as it often looks a little limp and straggly. Stay tuned for if I gave in or not!!

I saw the Twilight movie the other night. Unfortunately it didn't quite live up to the enomous hype that it had been given. I may have to read the book - as recommended by everyone I saw it with. I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button last night and I enjoyed it although it was very long.

I did a Design Team layout last week:

Back to School, Sports Day, Work!

Well we are back into the swing of things - school, work, etc. It is kind of good to be back into a routine again and I was desperate for just a few quite seconds to myself - phew!

I took the kids to see Ice Age 3 which was really good. The kids enjoyed it. We also went to a great play centre that is not far from us which is always a hit with the kids and they have the best hot chocolate in the world which is a bonus. I saved all my scrapping mags to take and read while they played - win/win!!

I have been letting the kids do some cooking in the last few holidays but now with Masterchef being the favourite program in this house at the moment, they planned a menu, we went shopping and they prepared a dish each for me for lunch one day. I yelled out at one stage "Are you nearly ready" and Chelsea says "Just plating up now Mummy"! The food was great but boy - what a mess!

I am back teaching classes at Scrapbook City for the next three months - here is a sneak of my July class.

I am doing a rather large scrapping project for someone at the moment which means not much time for my own scrapping - I am going to try and fit in doing my NZ holiday album though, otherwise it will never get done.

I sucumbed to the world of Facebook. I said I was not going to join - I am really addicted to the games and I have been wasting too much time this week and procrastinating over getting some important things done. I will have to be better next week.

Tagged

I was recently tagged by the lovely Annette - sorry it has taken me sooo long to reply!!

8 Things I look forward to (in no particular order!!):
1. Holidays
2. Warmer weather
3. Scrapping
4. Getting dinner cooked and on the table
5. Spending time with friends and family
6. Getting into bed
7. Checking my emails
8. The mailman coming

8 Things I did yesterday:
1. Went to Scrapbook City
2. Did 3 loads of washing
3. Ironed
4. Helped Chelsea make a Coconut Cake
5. Had a sleep in
6. Filled the Car up with petrol
7. Had a glass of wine
8. Ate dinner with my family

8 Things I wish I could do:
1. Go on another overseas holiday
2. Have more time to scrap
3. Get up to date with my ironing
4. Have a really, really long hot shower
5. Stop procrastinating
6. Have enough money to pay for a cleaner
7. Go away for a week with my hubby
8. Be a more patient Mum

8 Things/Shows I have watched lately:
1. Masterchef
2. Bold and the Beautiful
3. Random Acts of Kindness
4. News
5. Today Show
6. Days of our Lives
7. A Current Affair
8. Rove

Not very interesting but done all the same.

I would also like to mention my sadness at the passing of Michael Jackson. He was one of the first artists I really loved growing up and I love all of his music. My children both have his greatest hits on their Ipods as well and were really sad at the news. It was such a shame that his mental capacity didn't match his enormous musical ability. He will be missed.

The reason I haven't blogged

We have been away on holidays in New Zealand!

We had the most amazing, fabulous time. It is the most beautiful place I have ever been and I really ran out of adjectives to describe the scenery. I have to admit it was very, very cold but because I had taken lots of warm clothes, thermals, etc, we were dressed for the conditions and it was really only our feet and hands that felt cold. The warmest it probably got was about 10 degrees and it was -3 when we were skiing and that's not taking into wind chill.

Some of the highlights of the trip was our fantastic weather whilst skiing at Mt Hutt for three days. Chelsea was the little champion skiier of the kids and by the end of the second day was coming up on the chairlift with me and beating me down the slopes! Thomas was getting quite good by the end but was too chicken to come up the chairlift. I was going very well, and had only had one stack by the end of the second day when the boys talked me into coming up and trying a harder run - I ended up having a massive stack and I have a bruise on my hip that is 14 shades of purple but I got down (eventually) and I felt a huge sense of achievement. The runs there were far more challenging than any others we had experienced before.

We spent a morning in Christchurch before we picked up our motorhome and started travelling around on the 5th day. We saw the city sights, the beautiful Avon River, Lyttleton Harbour and at night we went to a Maori Show (Ko Tane) where Brendan got chosen to do the Haka (he he!).

The next day we travelled north to Kaikoura and visited a winery, the Maori Leap Caves and were priviliged enough to witness one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. We were told that there was a waterfall in the rainforest where baby seals would come to play. We had to see for ourselves and it was amazing - a beautiful waterfall and here were about 30 baby seals swimming and playing in the freshwater in the middle of the rainforest - you really had to see it to believe it. We then drove to Hamner Springs and had a swim in the thermal pools.

We left Hamner Springs the next day and drove to Lake Tekapo - it started snowing on the way while we were driving and it was quite difficult driving but we got there OK. Lake Tekapo was beautiful and we had the most beautiful spot in the motorhome park. The kids had a ball playing in the snow while I took about 100 photos of the lake trying to get the perfect one!

The next day we drove to Queenstown and I managed to get some beautiful photos of the reflection on Lake Dunstan - I was very happy to get these. When we got to Queenstown we went on the Gondola and Luge. We had dinner that night in a cool restaurant called Lone Star. I just loved all the architecture and buildings in Queenstown - as well as the stunning scenery.

The next day we did a ride on the Shotover Jet - this was amazing fun but absolutely freezing - I had about 6 layers on and I was still cold. We then had a big drive from Queenstown to Dunedin and went out to dinner to a place called the Baaa Bar!

In the morning we did the Cadbury Chocolate Factory tour which was a highlight for everyone and Thomas especially could not stop raving about all the "free" chocolate he got! It was interesting to try some varieties we don't have in Australia and the chocolate fountain was very cool. We had another big drive to Christchurch that night.

On our last morning we went to the Orana Wildlife Park for a couple of hours before it was time to drop our motorhome off and get to the airport. The highlight of the park was handfeeding the giraffes.

We saw heaps of sheep and snow-capped mountains and beautiful turquoise blue water and rushing rivers - SPECTACULAR! We would love to go back and see all the things we didn't have time to see this time.

All in all it was fantastic and all feels a bit surreal. We had great weather all-in-all and I can't wait to get scrapping all my favourite photos. I ended up taking around 550 - that's after deleting some along the way - tragic I know!