Blue Dog

Some time ago the little people had a glorious time doing chalk drawings on the back verandah. With absolutely no respect for the masterpieces beneath her, Jessica proceeded to have a lovely roll. What can I say, pictures were destroyed, hearts were broken and a blue dog resulted (which soon diverted the attention of those traumatised by smudged pictures).  This was crayola pavement chalk and let me tell you it took weeks to fade.

I love Jess' face here. It's her "I think I've done something wrong but I'm not sure what" face.

Lots of rain forecast over the weekend so I'll take time to do another post or two. Have heaps of photos uploaded to share.  Lots of crafting and indoor activities planned.  See you then.

Back again

I've been away from blogging for so long that I thought the easiest way to catch up was to do some little photo collages. Very clever of me if it indeed works! Those of you who know of my technological capacities may clap and cheer....now! The above montage gives a snapshot of what has been going on in my neck of the woods over these past rainy months. You'll see some crafty things on the go, some crochet - 2 almost completed blankets; and some embroidery, crochet pretties that are completed! These are in the picture at bottom right. I've had inches and inches snipped off my hair as the central image shows. Much easier to look after although still has a mind of it's own.

A quilt show was attended at Maleny with my Mum which was a lovely day out full of oohs and aahs and 'I could never be that patient!'. The annual Orchid Show hit town and gave me a thumping big case of orchid envy. I do have a number of orchids which I must admit thrive on my neglect. Seeing the orchid show however made me want MORE in every conceivable spot around the home. I kept my head however and left with only photographs. The dull, dark photograph scrunched at the bottom of the montage depicts the dull, dark, rainy days of which we've had plenty. If it continues I fear we'll have an outbreak of vampires. Finally a snapshot of Wonderful Man and myself on a rare day out together. We headed up to Noosa to a gallery for a squiz.....more about that in a later post. 

Here we have some of the fabulous art that the little ones churn out when they are here in my 'art studio'.  Children's artwork is one of my very favourite things - so bright and happy and naturally expressive.

I have some exciting news that I will share in a later post but for now, here's a visual hint.....

If you'd like a closer look at the pictures simply click on them and they'll pop up lovely and big for you to see.

So very funny

Not an original post of mine but I strongly encourage you to head over and check this out. For those of you who love animals and who are acquainted with my Sophie and Jess you'll find shades of them here. Brilliant post Allie! For another laugh head over to the Attic (on my blogs sidebar) and visit Lucy to see her son's Little man biscuits. LOVE IT.

Special Day

Today is Jeff's and my ninth anniversary. I've been really happy and excited about it all day and tonight we went out to a local restaurant to celebrate. As is the way of life the past 9 years haven't turned out as we may have imagined. We've experienced disappointments and setbacks, accidents and ill health but we've laughed and loved and shared many wonderful adventures and special moments. In many ways our time together feels both longer and shorter than it has been. I feel as though we've been together for always. Then, when I look back over the experiences of our time together, I find it hard to believe that so much time has passed. However long it's been and no matter what has happened in between then and now I wouldn't change my decision to live my life with him. Best. Decision. EVER. Happy Anniversary sweetie. xxx

Vancouver , Stanley Park

Hello! Here we are looking particularly windswept on the trolley bus. The trolley is a tourist hop-on-hop-off service which we rode for 2 days. In typical fashion the drivers point out areas of interest, tell stories, provide history of the area as they drive you around. There are many stops throughout the city and you jump off wherever you want to explore and hop back on when you are ready to head to another venue. We often walked between bus stops and then jumped back on to rest out feet. Another bonus was that it stopped one street over from our unit so it got us close to home at the end of a long day.
We ventured out to Stanley Park both days that we rode the trolley and were very pleased to have done so. The Park is Vancouver's oldest park and covers 1000 acres. It's situated quite close to the city centre yet seems quite separate as it is on a little piece of land that juts out into the harbour. There are many beautiful gardens (I've contained myself to one photo, knowing others are not quite as taken with gardens), as well as areas wooded with hemlock, cedar and fir. There were many walking trails throughout the park that meandered in and out as well as a long walk around the seawall that edged the park. All were quite well used at all hours of the day. On our first visit we were most surprised to see a cricket match taking place. Don't really think about Canada being a cricket playing country. It was lovely to see the boys out in their whites.
Just near the kids aquatic play area we found this little beauty (photo above). It is a drier! You push the button on the right and stand inside and air gets blown all over you to dry you. How cool and funny is that! Obviously you don't dry in 2 seconds flat in the sun like we do here so technology was introduced.

Walking along the sea wall we were very fortunate to see a whale! We saw it twice in three days actually so lady luck was definitely shining on us. It was about 20m off shore so very close. Evidently whales are not frequent visitors to the harbour so this was special.

Vancouver

After a long 30 hour transit (lots of waiting around airports) we finally arrived in the very lovely Vancouver. We had a fantastic location in the city within walking distance of most things and with a variety of bus routes running by our door. The above photo is taken from our unit on the 21st floor. We could see the water and mountains in 2 different directions from our dining room which was a treat.

We spent the greater part of one day visiting Granville Island, seen above. It was within walking distance of our unit and we took this as we walked over the bridge. The markets here were our point for visiting and we were both in raptures. Me over the fresh produce - huge punnets of berries, stalls of gorgeous vegetables and herbs, the brightest coloured salmon you've ever seen, fresh meats and I could go on. All I wanted to do was shop up and go home and cook up a meal worthy of the produce. My sweet, darling husband however nearly went into a state of paralytic indecision when he came upon this counter (which goes on around the corner for much the same distance). His not-to-be-denied sweet tooth almost went into meltdown at all the sugary goodness awaiting it. We are so very different!

We shared a table and a huge punnet of cherries with the sweetest Chilean lady who lives in Sydney with her daughter. She was off on a cruise to Alaska as were nearly all the other Aussies and Kiwis that we met.

Another day we spent wandering down to Gas Town which really emphasised the European feel of Vancouver with wrought iron lamps and fixtures, cobbles, cafes and the like. We took an obligatory look at the steam clock which was a novel experience. It appealed to Jeff's mechanical engineering background, where as I was rather more taken by how it blew steam and tooted like a train to signal the hour. Oh my sophisticated views. Upon reflection it was lucky we took these early in the morning before the crowds set in and swallowed it in a sea of people. We found that shops opened later than at home so we beat the crowds by chance rather than good planning.

I shall post more on Vancouver and our trip tomorrow. Sorry it's taken so long, I didn't have blog access whilst on the road and have hit the ground running since I arrived home.

Road trip

We recently went on a weekend roadtrip out to the Bunya Mountains and Kingaroy. We wanted to show Kathrine a bit of our extended local area before she returned home to Denmark. The above playground was something we stopped near on the trip out. I included it to show that many of our playgrounds here have shade covering to provide sun protection. Our schools also have No Hat, No Play policies as part of the sunsmart programme. We have the highest incidence of skin cancer in the world here so these measures are important. Now you girls in the Northern Hemisphere will know what I've been talking about when referring to the above shade covers!
The Bunya Mountains are about 2 hours west of us and are a popular place for winter get aways, bushwalking and wildlife watching. The wallaby and her sweet joey pictured above where sitting conveniently, next to the path near the toilets and little information hut. They were quite at ease letting me get close.
Funky fungi that reminded me of Avatar.
The cloud rolled in when we were on the track to Paradise Falls, fortunately most of the rain missed us. I walked to the first falls and then let Kathrine and Jeff head off for the longer walk while I read in the car.
I just love cows in paddocks particularly when the sky looks so promising!

Ahhem. Hang head in embarrassment. This post is from August (it's now October) and I just found it in my posts to be edited. Better late than never I suppose.