Christmas is here again!

It comes round so quick!! Kevin was on nights this year, so we had present opening after he arrived home from work about 8am. Here Grace shows off some writing paper she has just unwrapped.

Once Kevin had slept off his night shift whilst us girls went to church, we spent the afternoon with some dear friends. Here you will see the feast we had. Beautiful!!

Our friends always make such a wonderful effort, the decorations were fabulous as always.

Here, Anna is unwrapping her Nintendo DSi

Kevin poses in his Pjs before he goes off for his sleep

Ann is delighted with Mario Karts for the Wii!

Happy Birthday Anna!

Yesterday Anna turned 10 and celebrated with a groups of friends at a bowling party. SpongeBob was the theme. Our good friend Lorraine made a wonderful SpongeBob Squarepants cake and Anna blew out 10 candles.

Anna goes for a strike

Here is Anna in her birthday hat (thanks IKEA!)

holiday highlight

It was only a few weeks ago that I discovered I had a family member living here in Australia. My father's brother's daughter (ie a cousin of my Dad). It was an absolute pleasure to meet Maureen and her husband Tony today whilst here in Victoria. We had a beautiful lunch at a local hotel in Geelong.

Grace is impressed with her 'frog in the pond' dessert

Anna shows off her dessert.

Me, Kevin and the girls with Maureen and Tony.

More of Victoria

Cape Otway lighthouse

Teddy's lookout

Warrnambool

London Bridge

Port Campbell

The Great Ocean Road

After moving house twice in the last year, we felt the need for some more travel, rest and relaxation...this time our destination was Victoria and we drove The Great Ocean Rd. It was a spectacular drive with some beautiful coastal scenery. The only down side was, it was very cold!!! It felt like being back in England during autumn/winter. It still amazes me, despite having lived here for almost four years what a huge country Australia is and that is why it was so cold down South!! I guess it is only just the start of Spring, and Spring in Brisbane is often better than British summertime! In Victoria, being that much further away, it was still winter as far as I was concerned, and their winters are much cooler than Brisbane ones!

The Twelve Apostles

More Apostles

us on a rainforest walk

Dance Fever 2009

The year soon comes round again. It doesn't feel that long ago that the girls were dancing the night away with their school pals at their annual dance challenge. This year, both Grace and Anna has to dance with girls due to a big lack of boys in the upper school (they have all moved on to boys schools!) Grace and Larissa did very well this year and made the finals for the waltz, they looked stunning (and so very grown up too!)

Here, Anna and Jessie strut their stuff in matching dresses. They made the finals for the Mumbo watched by their very proud Mum's.

Here, the professionals show them a fantastic bit of Dance Fever.

Moved house!

AGAIN!!!

This is our 5th home in under 4 yrs....we'll stay here now. I'm fed up of moving!!!

Grace waters the new lawn and gardens.

Fly me to the moon.....

Happy 40th Birthday Kevin: you're flying to the moon!!

As Kevin was not keen to have a party to celebrate his big day, I arranged a balloon flight as a special surprise (Kevin was keen to just go to work for the weekend!!). Anyway, an early start to drive the 40 minutes across the city to the meeting point for 6am and Kevin was taken by bus to 'the launch site' in Jindalee.

After half an hour of unpacking the balloon from the trailor, and filling it with air from a fan, and then hot air from the gas cyclinders, the passengers were allowed to board:

A few more blasts of hot air and they were away!! They took off at approximately 6.50am as the sun rose for the day across Brisbane city:

The girls and I followed the balloon (and the bus driver infront) in the car and stopped a couple of times to wave to them (although they couldn't see us as they had far more exciting things to look at!) It was a shame we couldn't predict where they were to land as it would have been fun to see. They almost 'crash landed" as the balloon basket hit the ground at 23km/hr skidding along on on it's side until it came to a stop! Apparantly, it was funny!

After the event, we were all taken to The Sofitel, a 5 * hotel in Brisbane city for a 'gourmet' breakfast. It was delightful. Kevin enjoyed a good 'old english' with sausages, eggs bacon etc.I had an omelette, cooked to order as I watched. I also has smoked salmon, sushi, bread and cheeses, and I didn't have room for pancakes, waffles and criossants, although Kev squeezed some in!!

Almost there....

Busy busy busy......

Sorry for the lack of updates recently....it's been soooo busy here, I just haven't got round to posting anything. There's so much going on with the house etc but all too boring for blog posts. Had a few troubles with some leaks (naughty people, probably children, who have nothing better to do, have been going in to the house at weekends and turning the temporary taps on!), but this is all resolved now as the house is all locked up and being sorted inside. We're at 'fixing' stage. This means that we have all the main stuff done and they are fixing door handles, lights, fans, taps etc. More pictures to follow soon!

The Ugly Duckling and The Beautiful Hen!

Anna made her debut stage appearance this week when she starred as a hen in a production of "The Ugly duckling". Anna joined a local theatre group at the beginning of the year and is loving being part of it.

Anna did a great job as a hen....she held her wings beautifully and she even had the walk off to a fine art!

Next semester the theatre group will start preparations for a pantomime to be performed in November. Watch this space!

Church Camp

This weekend we went away with our church family to Natural Arch on the Gold Coast hinterland. It is located right on the border of Queensland and new South Wales.

We've had a lovely relaxing weekend hanging out with good friends, playing board games, enjoying walks in the rainforest (except for the leech's!) and of course some spiritual input too!

Hollywood on The Gold Coast

Today we took a trip to Movie World....a Warner Brothers theme park on the Gold Coast. It reminded very much of Disney really, (but not as good...you CAN'T beat Disney!).

It was fun to do some new rides,

meet Shrek:

and Scooby Doo

and watch the stunt show

It's all house stuff again!

Sorry, it's all posts about house building again....This is the latest photo!

The brick house......

28th April

29th April

Roof complete!