What a lovely, relaxed weekend with friends! An impromptu lunch, a walk, tea, a fire. The Popstar spent a couple of hours with the girls from her class, celebrating her birthday, then I went for a drive with Nicole and took my artwork to the gallery to get it ready for the exhibition next weekend. Ahhhh the serenity.
Chocolate Factory. Lolly World. And Happy Birthday Rick.
cafe time
desert time
Awwww!
Little birds making a blanket nest.
Say cheese!
Of course we couldn’t walk right by the Christmas Shop…
The husband and the girls.
Ahhhh. But what is it about Friday afternoon that gets me pondering the meaning of life and all?
The things that make us happy. It’s the simple things, isn’t it? The Popstar and DaisyBaby were delighted this week with ribbons from our local Crafty Type Shop.
And this interior I just love. My one and only comment is that it’s probably a little too masculine for my tastes. But that is to be expected since it belongs to two men.
And I can’t help but wonder what happened to this poor man in our household Legoland. It looks like a ghost town. Would somebody clean those pizza shop windows already? It’s just unhygienic.
I have a spot on my buffet where I keep a handful of books that I intend to read in the Not Too Distant Future, or that I am currently reading. This is it at the moment.
I’ve started The End of Poverty but can’t seem to get to the End of The Book…it’s full of wonderful ideas and comments but has a few too many charts and graphs for my liking. I would really like to know how to end poverty so I’m determined to read till the end of the book! I hope Sachs or Bono tell me the answer eventually.
I’ve started Oprah, but I wish it was written with a little more impartiality…yes, I know she’s not God, but she’s not the devil either.
365 Manners Kids Should Know is fantastic. Of course a lot of common sense in it {like Say Please, Thank You and I’m Sorry} but it never hurts to be reminded about the niceties of life. And it has prompted me to start a list {on my Big Family Whiteboard} of age appropriate etiquette for The Popstar and DaisyBaby.
I just finished The Kids Guide to Service Projects and I was disappointed. Even though I knew it was for older kids, my hope for it was that it would give me some ideas to work towards with my own kids. Problem is that many of the ideas in the book involve long term projects and writing proposals and reports. I’m more interested in actually helping people straight away, and in projects that are not too long term as my life is quite hectic with little kids and I don’t want to commit to something I can’t sustain.
The only book that isn’t there that I’m currently reading is An Autobiography by Mohandas {Mahatma} Gandhi. I’ve only just finished the introduction, so I’ll have to keep you posted on that one.
I can’t wait to sink my teeth into The Male Brain and The Female Brain. But I think I’ve got enough books on the go at the moment!!
Happy weekend to my loyal followers {and by that, I mean the one that I have which is my mother, lol}. I hope your weekend is as balmy as mine is shaping up to be.
We went camping this weekend. Let me start by saying that I’m not a camper. However, I’ve been twice in the last 6 months because the kids just love it. We had all our gear packed up on Friday afternoon as a light rain set in. The husband assured me not to “be alarmed” at the weather; which is actually quite alarming. He was certain the rain was only a passing patch and it would clear up. He likes to browse BOM. So we thought It Can’t be Worse Than Last Year, and set out with trailer, kids, and supplies in tow. He has now informed me that he was deceived by BOM because something about the isobars not shifting for 12 hours and some trough was doing something blah blah blah blah when it shouldn’t have blah blah. Anyway…
…it rained all afternoon, all night, and drizzled a bit the next morning. The sun struggled to get a glimpse of us through the clouds in the afternoon. Despite the weather {which was 100% better than last year!} we had a lot of fun. The kids slept exceptionally well considering that the first night in a new place is always a little sketchy. They all played together really well, ran around in the light rain, ate far too much snack food, and crashed in bed at 7pm. Unfortunately the rain on the tent was pretty loud, so they woke up a couple of times during the night, and then were wide awake by 6ish. I remember when I used to be a morning person.
That day lots of other friends dropped buy to visit and sit around the campfire {it got off to a smoky start after all the rain – but turned into a beautiful fire}. We had Sabbath School with the kids – sang songs, did some crafty type activities, and had a story. That afternoon Jerry and some of the other Menfolk set up a swing and harness from one of the trees and the Little People lined up Cherub-Like for ages to take turns on it. It really was a site to behold. The lining up nicely, I mean, although the swinging was also breath taking.
The Popstar giggled her head off
Look mum, I dug a hole!
The kids had SUCH a full day Playing and Adventuring that they absolutely crashed into bed at 6.30. We sat around the campfire eating and talking. Then I heard a “mum…” from the tent and went in to check on the girls. The Popstar cried a bit then proceeded to vomit on her sleeping bag, me, and herself. It was really gross. We carried the poor little darlin’ out of the tent in her stinky sleeping bag, and put her in a warm shower to wash all the vomit off. Then we put both kids in the car and drove home. We didn’t have any spare bedding for Pops since she vomitted on her bag as well as the mattress. The tent had a horrible vomit smell in it, and we thought what if she is really sick and vomits through the night? {I suspected it was merely the result of the oodles of food she’d crammed into her stomach that day, but couldn’t be sure of that}.
Thankfully Yellow Rock is only half an hour from home, so we were home by 9.30, put the girls in their own beds. Then the lovely job of rinsing out all the clothes and bedding. Thank God it wasn’t at 3 am instead!! The Popstar woke up bright and early, cheerful as anything, so we all headed back to camp to pack everything up.
Daisy taking photos with our camera
Phew. And there goes another weekend of my life {that I’ll never get back} spent camping.
Toasting Marshmallows {arsemallows} and drying gumboots.
I’m so glad to be home! No matter how delightful Nelson Bay is on a sunny day, it’s great to be back in my own bed. We rented a house for 3 nights, just a few minutes walk from the beach at Anna Bay. It was beautiful weather most of the time, although a little on the windy side. The girls settled in pretty well, the first night being a bit unsettled, which is to be expected from my kids. We found out on the last day that Daisy is cutting her 2 year old molars which explains a lot of her crankiness over the weekend! Poor little mite. She also didn’t get much daytime sleep as we were at a conference for 3/4 of the day on Friday and Saturday, so I’m really proud of her and Poppy and how well they behaved all things considered.
We woke up on Saturday with a haziness in the sky and thought OH NO! the dust storm is back! Which it was… but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the first one, and it blew over very quickly. There was also a fire near Nelson Bay which looked pretty scary for the people who lived in the houses right on the fire line. It was a VERY windy and blustery day, really dangerous weather for a fire. Thank God it was on the sheltered side of a hill, and the firemen had it out quickly.
