Busy Weekend

Wow what a mad weekend. The boys headed up to Sydney to see Ben 10 Live show at the Entertainment Centre. It was good to see the boys doing something together (although with trains being replaced by buses and timetable muck ups etc they didn't get to spend much time in Sydney).
As for the girls... well... originally this weekend was supposed to be taken up with Tasha's dancing Medal and Scholarship day but due to all sorts of muck ups and politics at dancing we didn't end up dancing this weekend. So what does a girl do to cheer herself up? Of course we went shopping! It was going to be just Tasha and I but at the last minute Kaysha joined us too. The girls had heaps of fun - I think we looked at every pair of shoes in Westfield Warrawong! They had lots of laughs, took pictures together in the photo booth, climbed on kids rides and generally just had a fun day out.
And to top the day off we called into see the King family on the way home!

Sunday was our hard work day. Mum and John had a large pile of crushed terracotta delivered for their new garden paths and needed it moved around the back! Kyle and I shovelled and Tasha and Tony did the carrying and we actually got the job done in just under an hour which was a lot less than we had expected (mind you we did all kind of collapse after as we just kept plowing through the work). The finished job looks really good.

Last weekend Jane and Cass came over for a catch up and I did get some scrapping done. Not overly happy with it as it seems very basic but it is the only scrapping I have done recently so I thought I had better share!

Aussie Gal

I had to put this photo up just for Miss Tash. She went to a lot of effort and was upset that no-one got to see her so I told her we could post it here! Today is the last Friday of the month which means monthly get-together with the Combers and the Hutchburys..... the theme this month was aussie bbq so Tasha went into OZ overload. I forgot to take full length pics but she had "beach hair", her aussie bandanna, a singlet top, boardshorts and thongs!

We raced around to get ready in time to drop Kyle off at youth group on the way to dinner. The problem was that when we got to Gail's we found out they had postponed dinner until next week :(
So we had grumpy old man here as he had gone down town today to spend money that we really didn't have on groceries to make something to take along to share. Hmmmm NOT HAPPY JAN!!! And a cranky Tony is not fun..... Anyway we got to come home and have some of the yummy seafood pasta that Tony had made and it was decided that it was so yummy it was good we didn't have to share ~L~ Oh and now we have enough for leftovers for tomorrow!

The birds and the bees.....

Well birds and the flowers really!
Just a couple of pics to share with you. The first one is a pic of our shed! Over the past month we have noticed two seperate nests show up - clever birds.... tucked away from the wind, roof over their heads etc etc. Both had eggs and we could see them from Tasha's room without going near to disturb them. This week we saw our first chick. Okay it looks a little scruffy and scrawny but we can't wait to see it grow. These flowers were a gift from my wonderful friend Jane. I love fresh flowers and I couldn't tell you when I last had a bunch in my home. They are beautiful, glorious colours and an amazing scent. Thank you so much Miss Jane.

Weekend part 2

Sunday was a really nice day and after taking the girls down to Nowra Fair for a spot of window shopping we headed off to Lyrebird Park for Kyle's soccer presentation. Tasha and Tegan headed straight to the trees and started climbing! I got a few pictures of the girls that I was really happy with but this would have to be one of my favs.

Kyle has been playing for Shoalhaven United Youth B team this year. They have been lucky to have tow great coaches in Dave and Jason who have supported and encouraged the boys. Under their coaching Kyle's game has improved dramatically and he was rewarded with the coaches trophy for best and fairest player. Well Done Kyle!!!!!! Can you tell I am a very proud mum?

Then we headed home and the girls headed off to the park to go visit their "secret place" which is actually a treehouse built beside a playground just near Tegan's old house. The girls then came home in a panic as there was a grass fire near her old house. The girls were in a bit of a flap so we went back to make sure her place was fine. By the time we got back the fire brigade had it under control (even though they had managed to get 1 of the 5 fire trucks there bogged!!! Good thing the fire didn't change direction!

Then I took the girls out to McDonalds for a final play together before Jason and Amanda came and picked Tegan up Sunday night. It was over way too quickly but I am sure Tasha loved the surprise and she is now counting down the days until January when Tegan will come down and spend a week or two with us!

Stunned.......

I have been reading through a series of books lately by an author named Lee Child and quite fittingly was reading this excerpt a couple of days ago
"Present somebody with an astonishing sight, and it takes about 3 seconds to develop. That was his experience. They look at it, they see it, their brain rejects it, their eyes bounce it back again and then it sinks in." Tripwire, Lee Child
We got to see that first hand on Friday night when Tasha got a massive surprise. Her best friend Tegan who moved to Qld 3 months ago walked in our front door! We had 3 -5 seconds of Tasha sitting totally still (luckily I had been pre-warned so I had the camera ready to go) Then she jumped up from the lounge and the squeals and the hugs began! She still claims we were trying to kill her by giving her a heart attack!
Tegan stayed with us from Friday night until Sunday night - way too short a period but it was great to see her. These girls have a great friendship and talk a couple of times a week via MSN. They tend to end up buying the same clothes and quite often come out looking like twins (although we did note that although they had bought matching jumpers Tasha's was in Black and Tegan's in pink.) Their t-shirts, however, were exact replicas.

Saturday also involved a catch up with Jane and Cass which was lovely. Unfortunately as per usual I forgot to get the camera out whilst they were here. :(

Family weekend away

Wow what a weekend - our annual family weekend away this year was a big one! what an emotional ride we have been on over the last few months so it was nice to get away and just have fun.
I drove to Sutherland and managed to park the car without collecting any random cyclists or adding any bumps or dings to the car (YAY ME) then we hopped on the train and headed into central.
After a slight detour when Tasha saw the Raben Footwear shop we went and checked into our motel. This seems to be the place to stay. Cass and I have been here a couple of times and we have come here as a family before as well. Convenient location... literally across the road from the doors of the Sydney Entertainment Centre... just across the road from Paddy's Markets.... a block from Capitol Theatre... and easy walking distance to Darling Harbour and Cockle Bay..... oh and Tony's favourite -- an amazing buffet breakfast. The other big plus for the Holiday Inn..... Just a couple of doors along is Cold Rock which (thanks to Haylee) is Tasha's FAV place to call in. If you haven't been there before basically you pick your favourite ice cream flavour, pick what extras you want ...... hmm lets see choices include smarties, flake, mars bar, strawberries, nuts, fudge brownies, sour worms, caramel, mars bar, raspberries etc. etc. etc..... then they mush it all together for you. Sounds kind of weird but tastes YUM

Then we headed to the Capitol Theatre to see the matinee show of Wicked. As usual just happened to bump into someone from Nowra. Hope you enjoyed the show Janelle!

It seriously was just as good the second time around. Interestingly this time the cast was quite different. We had Jemma Rix as Elphaba, Bert Newton as The Wizard and Tim Campbell as Fiyero. When Cass and I went these three parts were played by different people. Have to say Tim Campbell doesn't fill out the costume as well as Rob Mills but he does dance a lot better! Everyone loved it. Tony even stated afterwards he could understand why I wanted to see it a second time (which from him is HIGH praise). Kyle was mesmerised and Tasha thought it was "Brilliant but they kept talking about feelings - YUCK!"

Then we wandered over to Darling Harbour to get some dinner and have a look around. The kids were amazed by the buskers and the amount of people walking around (oh and the fashions - "Does their Mum let them out looking like that?" ~L~)

Then after we had some dinner we introduced the kids to the Lindt Cafe at Cockle Bay. Mmmmmmmmm Lindt.........................

Kyle had a caramel tart and I had a blueberry/chocolate mousse layer cake.

And this is the scary result when you introduce Tasha to a strawberry dipping platter! Talk about sugar high. this girl does not need alcohol when she gets older. Just give her a spoonful of sugar! After polishing this off she was singing and dancing and jumping around Darling Harbour.

Sunday we had a relaxed breakfast at the hotel before heading over to Paddy's Markets to do some shopping and then heading back up to the trian station as Tony had to be home by about 2pm to get ready for work.

We're off............

....... to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz!

woo hoo - some slightly excited people here (oh and the kids too ~L~)

A week in review

Wow - so much has happened in the last week and my blog has been sadly neglected. I have posts in edit mode just not quite up to publication yet. So lets see if I can update:

* Tasha turned 12 and had a 5 day celebration starting with a party/sleepover on the Fri before her birthday, a special birthday party with Nana on the Sunday and then on her actual birthday (Tuesday) she had a cake at school (loooong story - will catch you up on that one when I get around to publishing her birthday post), then she had cake at dancing before racing home getting changed and having dinner out with the family .... which included her Dad which was a massive treat, it is not often we have dinner midweek with Tony.

* Wednesday was counselling appointments for Kyle and we are slowly getting there - working out programs for school etc.

* Saturday morning we had an early start as Tracy and Jacob moved out into a place of their own (well shared with her brother Ben) so the weekend involved lots of carrying, moving furniture and then some more unpacking

* Sunday was spent de-cluttering our lounge room and setting up the rumpus room for the kids (which has been Tracy's room for the past 12 months). I wish I had a pedometer to count the number of trips I did between the lounge room and the back room with armloads of books etc. We were also able to pull the boxes out of the shed that were filled and thrown in there in a hurry 12 months ago.

* Sunday was also the day of the big winds were we spent the day without power. The power went out briefly about 9am. Came back on long enough for Tony to go around and reset all the clocks before it went out completely! We rang Integral and got a recorded message saying it would be back on the next morning. The kids took advantage of having the rumpus room back and the boxes out of the shed to play board games.

* We rang Integral back late afternoon and spoke to someone who told us the power would be off until Tues. So out came the candles, torches and camp stove (which didn't work). After a nudge from a friend we treated ourselves to takeaway dinner. Then as we headed home we noticed the streetlights starting to come on! YYYAAAYYY Power. We got home just in time to hear everything starting to turn on and warm up.

* Sunday night Tasha's runny nose suddenly escalated into a fever of 39 and 2 days off school (including her first day off dance classes in 2 years - thats when you know my girl is sick!)

So today is Wednesday - Tasha went back to school today - still has a runny nose but the fever has gone. Tomorrow is a trip to Wollongong for another specialist appointment. This weekend is our big family weekend away! We try and do something as a family once a year and this year it is a thank you to the kids for the way they have coped with the changes in the house. So we are heading up to see Wicked on saturday afternoon - can't wait!