quick trip to Sydney

Jetstar had cheap flights to Sydney.  So I impulsively booked them for our family to go down and visit the cousins in January.

We had a great time.  Stood in front of many iconic Sydney landmarks.  Ate much delicious Sydney food (is it wrong to wish a Sydney Lebanese restaurant with side businesess in Italian Gelato, Turkish Pide and Greek Baklava would open up in our suburb in Brisbane? - this is my regular diet I Must Eat When Visiting Sydney).

(warning - long photo blog post - smooshing in photos from a whole week into one post...possibly not wise)

Six cousins on the steps of the Opera House (the seventh cousin was small and at home).

Watching 'Wind in the Willows' in the Botanic Gardens - excellent! (thanks Aunty Katie for the ticket presents!).

This cruise ship was enormous.  I'm not sure I would like to be on such a large ship.  I would be disaster managing the whole time.  Pretty sure they don't show 'Titanic' as their on board movie.

Lunch in the back yard with all the fam.

Smiley boys!  Love it.

These are the three second born cousins.  In their own families they are a bit of an outlier - but put them together and the genetics makes sense.

Granny and all her grandkids.  In the sun.  Squinting.

So lovely to see the cousins playing together - even though we are states apart they get on well.

We visited my friend's farm in Gerringong.  Completely gorgeous and lovely to see them for an all too brief catch up.

Some of her chickens.  Producing tasty eggs in their chicken caravan.  The is truly organic and free range.  Impressive.

I pretended to drive the quad bike.  This was tolerated.  I didn't want to take off and dump all of the children out of the trailer.

A man and his pigs.  Or, as I visualized them, tasty sides of bacon running around.

Thanks for the lovely catch up Fi.  If you like, you can live close again.  Because I miss you.  Although I am pretty sure Brisbane cannot compete with your farm view.

On the way back from Gerringong we went to this awesome trampoline park.  I didn't jump (after two children I felt I couldn't adequately guarantee the wiseness of doing a lot of jumping) - but the girls and Chris had a hard core hour of jumptastic fun.

A special shout out to Aunty Katie and Uncle Matt, who had our children for three days extra in Sydney while we went back to Brisbane.  I guess it is our turn next to send us your children!

Did I mention I love the food in Sydney? mmmmmm Gelato...

quick trip to Mudjimba

After the hecticness of Christmas our family needed some serious cricket watching, puzzle doing, bike riding and beach time.  So we headed up to Mudjimba for a few days to re-connect and learn each other's names again.  This is how I always feel after Christmas.  The year kind of hits me in the back of the head and it takes me quite a few days to stop making lists, checking them, ordering people around and organising things.  Chris would put forward a compelling argument that I never really stop with the lists - it's just that when work and church commitments take a break over the summer season the list making focus switches to him and Jobs Around The House.

The north shore of the Maroochy River is a great place to take dogs and active children for a long walk to tire them out.  And great to have a long walk with old friends.

This dog leaps into water whenever she can.  I think if I had trained her properly she would be one of those surfing dogs.

The river was beautiful, although here were a few moments on our walk where the path was not easily discernible, and we despaired of ever reaching the carpark before dark.  The DRAMA.

We made it back ok.  In case you were wondering.

Scooter the dog even discovered she could balance on a boogie board.  When coaxed.

We made an afternoon visit to Aqua Fun Park at Coolum.  Well worth the $15 to jump around on their inflatable water things all afternoon.  I seriously needed much upper body strength to hoist myself onto the equipmnt, and a couple of times lay on my side flapping like a beached whale until someone took pity on me and hauled me up.  I had many unexplained bruises after this experience.

Yes I went down this slide as well.  It is a lot steeper and taller than you think it is.  But peer pressure made me do it (I'm looking at you Katy).

Thanks Mudjumba for the rest and Mum for letting us stay in her house!

a farewell to grade seven

What a night!  Weeks of planning came to fruition at the grade seven graduation last night.  Annika had planned her outfit ages ago, and we had a lovely friend do tricky braids in her hair (cause that's the thing this year.)

She looked so beautiful!

What happened to this little girl - wahhhhhhh

Anyway.  I loved this dress she chose for herself.  Age appropriate and funky.  A very hard to achieve combination in the early teen fashion range.

And lovely four strand braids done by a friend.  I tried to watch so I knew how to do them.  Got a bit lost.  Might have to youtube it....maybe.

Such a proud family moment.  We all smiled at the camera at the same time.

Oh...and Annika finishing grade seven of course.

She received an English award - yay!

Annika also wrote the end of year song for the whole grade to sing.  It was pretty awesome watching about 150 kids sing a song that your daughter had written - with actions and everything.  It sounded amazing.

Proud grandparents.  It was great how they all dressed to match (unintentionally..).

We are so proud of her, feel so blessed, and we looking forward to what high school will bring.

Not nervous about that part.  Or having a grade nine girl.

Not at all nervous.....

Breathe.

wide eyed Christmas show

We are in the middle of the puppet Christmas season.  We have ten shows booked.  Ten!  With all sorts of different audiences and venues.  I wrote the script a few weeks ago, and included six puppets in it.  We have had to pad out a little bit of the script to give me time to change puppets, as some of the changes happen very quickly.  And then the puppets change costumes.  I probably should have thought this through a bit more...

We painted a new Christmas backdrop after excellent backdrop sewing support by the wonderful Kerrie.

And also endured heckling and input in rehearsals by our resident three year old critic.

Performing the sixth show!

I have my hand inside that pink puppet there.  Cheeky thing.

I have really enjoyed the show this year.  It involves a persistent chicken, a Diva Dizzy, a director called Pam and a slightly inappropriate camel.  And a lot of talk about the real story of Christmas, when God stepped into the world.

What a privilege to tell the old old story that is always new with wonder.