Where to begin! Catch up and another Award!!

Well, I have been popping in to read some blogs every now and then but haven't had the time to actually sit and write a blog post for ages.  Christmas has been, gone and is now a distant memory, we're well into the New Year and the school holidays are slipping away just too quickly.  We've squeezed in a fair bit and now just have the joyous buying of school shoes and kit still left.

Those of my facebook friends are probably up to date but for those of you who aren't I'll share a few of our highlights.

When we first arrived in Australia 3 years ago, 3 days before Christmas, we found ourselves at Bar Beach on Christmas Eve, eating fish and chips that were out of this world and wondering what on earth we were doing here!   We loved it so much that we have made it into a little tradition.  This year we even managed to get a family photo taken by a lovely girl who was also waiting patiently in the very long queue - we were glad we had phoned ahead to order.

We even managed to get a photo of John and me - honestly can't think when we last had a photo without children hanging off us!

Christmas Day was lovely.  The kids are allowed to open their stockings as and when they wake up (pretty early this year but thankfully they know not to disturb us!) then one present before church.  This year's theme seems to have been Lego (again) with lots of books, some pj's and other things thrown in.  We opted for sea food and then cold ham, salamis, bread, cheese and olives etc for our feast.  We had heaps left over and had friends for lunch on Boxing Day to help us finish it off!

More Gingerbread Houses!

We've had the usual tennis camps, walks, days at the beach and pool, and even managed 4 days away in our tent.

She's got a great serve!

Kind brother helping Meg with her new Ripstik walking from Warner's Bay to Spear's Point

Sydney on New Year's Day 

Football at One Mile Beach (also Meg dived through her first waves and loved it so much we had to bribe her out of the water!)

Sausage sizzle dinners at the pool

We bought it a couple of years ago but hadn't used it before.  In fact we haven't tented before (other than the boys in the garden) so were delighted that our friends, who are seasoned campers, came with us.  The tent is so huge that they had one 'wing' while John, Meg, Robert and I had the other and the 3 boys had their own 3-person tent.

Room with a view

The Locals

We had a great time, apart from one night of quite scary winds, the weather was perfect for us ex-pats.  The kids had a screen ban, including ipods, so got their amusement from playing pool, table tennis, football, swimming, flying kites, catching Soldier Crabs, face-painting (Jonathan is quite the expert), making paper, climbing trees, drawing, reading, writing stories, glass-painting, learning to play the guitar, hunting for snakes (we saw a python!) and eating!

Early morning Parkour!

Pool at high tide

er... brotherly love...?

At home I insist on a quiet half an hour after lunch to read which we tried fairly successfully, it also morphed into "Rachel's Craft Hour" so the afternoons were lovely when it was too warm for racing around.  Next time we'll go for longer - such a great time.  The boys taught us some fun games to play in the evenings when the wee ones had gone to bed and Chris serenaded us with his guitar.

Our Camp Photo!

Despite some ribbing I started another Granny square blanket when we were camping, again, I'm using a self-changing yarn in blues and greens which I wasn't sure about but bought in the sale.  It looks better than I was expecting and the boys are already fighting over it!

I've also been trying to be a bit creative when I get the time!  I made a few sets of coasters with my lovely new machine along with mending endless pairs of shorts and jeans.  I've been trawling pinterest for ideas for things to make with scraps of fabric that I've carried around with me for 20+ years and have been really inspired by some very clever people.

Also this scarf which I can't wait to wear!  It's from the Isar pattern, that I can't remember how I got to, which was easy to do and more of the colour change yarn!

So now we're back to thinking about routines, Husband is back working, although he's on sabbatical until July-ish which means he'll be working here (never good...)  and I'm looking to start applying for jobs since nothing positive is happening with regards to Teaching.  Jonathan will start High School and Meg will start at the local Public School with Joseph.  She has mentioned a couple of times that she's scared but she'll be going with the rest of her class from the Infant's School and will  make new friends very quickly I'm certain.

So 2012 looks set to be a big year for us all.  I'll be 40 in March and I'm so delighted that my Ma and Pa will be coming to help us celebrate!

And before I forget, I was really touched to be nominated for the Leibster Blog Award by Sonia from Sonia and Fred.  Apparently it is an award that is to be given to Bloggers with less than 200 followers, "Leibster" meaning 'Dearest', 'Beloved' or 'Favourite'.  Thank you Sonia!

Now to spread the bloggy love -
1. Kristen at Cozy Things
2. Lynne at Pieceful
3. Kylie at Blue Teacups
4. Emily at Unravelled
5. Karen at Gooseberry Jam (although I just noticed she has 201 followers!)

These are blogs I look at regularly and am inspired by in one way or another, please go and have a look for yourselves.

See you soon!

Sea and Scarves

Hello!

It's the Queen's Birthday Long Weekend so we're all chilling out here, no (organised) sport to race around for and nowhere we have to be - how lovely!  Unfortunately the weather is not so lovely this evening and not looking too great for the rest of the weekend. 

We've had a very cold but sunny week and on Wednesday I headed out on an excursion around Newcastle with Miss M's Year 2 class.  We started off at Fort Scratchley, overlooking Nobbys and the entrance to Newcastle Port.    I just love this view and have quite a few photos of it from lots of different angles!

After lunch and a spot of whale-watching, we went to Miss Porter's House, a house owned by the National Trust and kept as it was when the Misses Porter lived there.

She looks frozen, doesn't she!

Smallest Boy and I got out yesterday and watched the HMAS Newcastle parking up (I know, there's a proper term for parking a ship, but I don't know what it is!).  It is open for people to visit tomorrow so the boys are thinking they might like to go and have a look around.

Then, since I had my camera and zoom lens with me and had heard about the whale and dolphin activity on the radio, we thought we'd see what we could see at Bar Beach.  We didn't have to wait as we could see a pod of whales on the move immediately!   There have been dangerous surf conditions and warnings for the last couple of days, so I wasn't 100% sure at first but I did get a few pics in the end.

As for my woolly activities, I have made myself a scarf!  I was fiddling around with stitches as I find the weather cold-but-not-that-cold if you know what I mean! 

I wanted something a bit more open and found this one at Lilibeth's Garden which uses a UK treble treble stitch.  I just kept going until I'd used up 2x 50g balls of wool and soy bean mix yarn.  It reminded me of my lovely friend Emma's post about fishing nets she had seen on holiday in Majorca.  You should check out Emma's Blog anyway, she is a very gifted knitter and crocheter and has one of her patterns currently in Inside Crochet.

Enjoy your weekend where ever you are what ever you are up to!

Doings and Makings

Thank you for all the lovely comments on fb and here about Smallest Boy's birthday cake.  It was certainly time consuming but well worth it.  I am going to need to do some kind of course though, as I make the same mistakes every time and still can't work out how to avoid them! 

Well Smallest Boy is quite determined that he is still 2.  I'm not sure what the problem with 3 is but frankly he is sticking with 2, thank you very much.  He received a parcel from our Fabulous Fairy God Mother in Scotland today.  She has a gift for being able to give just the right present (in fact I received a truly gorgeous one from her myself yesterday).  Smallest got a sticker book of cars and trucks.  I had only twigged to the fact he likes vehicles 2 weeks ago when I took along some books to read during music lessons.  He ignored all the ones on animals, jungles and insects and went straight for the one on trucks!  Gold Star Auntie C! 

We spent a long time outside sticking and repositioning! I was in trouble for thinking that when he was finished, I could use his book to prop up my camera to play with the self-timer!

I finished off a Bamboo and Wool scarf for a friend's birthday, then made up a few of these little face washers, inspiration found from Catherine here, pattern found here.  I made them up really quickly in an organic cotton.  I'm thinking 7 of them tied up with a ribbon could be a cute present. 

I must head to my bed.  We all have to be out of the house by 7.15am, packed lunches for all, not to mention all the football kits and music books that will be required after school and need to be ready before we all leave.  Good night all xx