A scroller, but read right to the end - or at least look at the pictures!

Erin and Peter and family arrived on the 23rd and on the 24th we went to Port Adelaide. We (well, Erin and I :oP ) wanted to do two things there that only operate on Sundays: the markets and the dolphin cruise. After a look in the markets we walked halfway across the bridge and back, when I saw this sign on a cable box:


It was very hard to read in the photo due to glare, and still isn't clear after reducing brightness to 0% and increasing contrast to 98%. It says "Men Link Behind" - ok, but I'm not sure why we need to know that. Maybe so we don't inadvertently look behind the cable box.

My kids, neices and brother-in-law playing on the anchor at the end of the bridge (but thankfully not behind the cable box):


Here's almost everyone on the Dolphin Cruiser. They are the only wild dolphins in the world that live in a city.

Father Christmas left a good stash that night for the boys to find in the morning:


This is the Star Wars Lego Wookie Catamaran which I gave the boys. It's very cool; it came with that second ship with the two stormtroopers, and three other characters, one of whom has a light-up light saber! It has trapdoors that open to drop bombs and a launching missile. Liam is very good at Lego regardless of the age on the box, and built this almost entirely by himself:


I was kicking myself at the family Christmas celebration for not having my camera! I later found that I hadn't forgotten it, it had fallen out of my bag in the car. I will post more on Christmas when I steal photos from other people!

On the 28th, the boys finally got to try their new bikes. Liam loved it and zoomed around making all sorts of sound effects and "WOO HOO!"s. Ethan found it hard work since he couldn't bring his pillow with him, and once after the bike tipped him off, he dropped it when trying to pick it up. He said "I didn't do it, the bike did it!" .... Calvin ....

Another Ethanism from shopping that day:
Me: "Let's go to Billy Baxter's (cafe) and see if they have a free table so we can get ice cream."
EJ: "Or a four table or a five table."

Me: "You're funny EJ!"
EJ: "It wasn't supposed to be funny." (glares)
Me: "No of course not, I know exactly what you mean."

And here we are on tonight, the second thundery night in a row (You might have noticed the unseasonable clothes in the photos). After the boys were in bed, I took some photos of the amazing colours of a thunderstorm rolling in at sunset. These photos face north/north-east so the sunset is behind me.



Finally, I put the camera on high speed and shot off photo after photo. I guess I took about 60 and deleted almost all of them until I caught the shot I wanted:

DOH!

Found this poor spider in Buster's water dish when I went to feed him this morning:


It's not the one from my lounge room! This one is smaller. And it should have clicked here to see the correct way for a spider to drink, or here for the correct spider life jacket, and then it wouldn't be so dead.

PS: I don't think Buster can read.

Please leave a comment just to see if it works, as I have been told "my comments aren't showing up", and I can't work out why. I haven't selected moderation so it's not that. The spider should have selected moderation though.

Also today's stuff

I forgot to say, look at these! I dug them out when the rain started and we painted one each. Liam did the angel who has lovely swirly wings; EJ did a very creative candy cane (when I finished painting he wanted to use my blue paint); and I did the moose frame. Yes, it should be a reindeer but it looks like a moose and the packet says moose.

Stuff

"They" predicted a big storm yesterday and "we" were advised to check gutters and batten down the hatches. So I dug the best compost ever! out of the drains that go under the block (irrigation sumps). I tidied the yard and parked the bunny in the safest possible place and gave the gutters a quick check and swept so the debris wouldn't get back in the drains. Some lucky plants got some very nice compost and the I used the sweepings to rebuild moats around the fruit trees.

It was hot this morning and then the forecast thunderstorm came in! The first thunder we heard was about half a second after the first lightning we saw, so that was kinda close! And HEAVY RAIN - but - for about 5 minutes .... hardly a drought breaker, but there's more coming as I type this.

So the weather has been either too hot or too wet, both of which suck during school holidays. The boys are bored of staying home so after the haircuts (complete with gel for the tousled look):




















... we went to an indoor playground to use some energy for a while. Air-conditioned and dry.

That's about all. "No news", as Grandma B used to say.

Drive safely, Erin and Peter, see you soon!

Christmas Lights

We went for a walk around the block at bedtime to hunt for Christmas lights. Surprisingly, there weren't many up, and a couple that were up weren't turned on. There's a house in the next street (funny that, since we only went around the block) that always does a very good show. The pic doesn't do it anywhere near justice but here it is anyway. You might notice Liam's ducks wanted to come too.



Scroll down, the next entry is today as well....

Liam's Party

Liam's birthday party was yesterday. I have started having his party at the start of the school holidays because if we wait until his actual birthday two weeks later, most of his school friends have gone away. My house and yard have nearly recovered from having 16+ kids here! Yes, that's two ice-cream cakes.


One of his favourite presents is a liquid sand picture. He fell asleep watching it last night, and today offered to let the fish have a look at it, which they were very happy to do. The first pic shows the set up and the second pic is supposed to look like the fish are swimming in the liquid sand picture, but it's a bit like playing "spot the fish".


We have 3 fish; I think there are only 2 in that photo; a white one and a grey one with stripes.

And now fooooorrr..............FIRE OF THE DAAYYYYYYYYYYYY! This is the view from my house this morning. All finished now anyway.

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Firstly, THANK YOU to Mike at "Ian's Mr Computer" for fixing my laptop. I have been sooo bored living without it for a week! Nothing worse than a bored hosuewife, eh. Very good service there, I can recommend them. :o)

Luckily I still had my camera so now I can bore you with an update of the past week.


Tuesday, December 12:

Ethan's kindy party for the end of the year. Father Christmas came to give all the kids a present.


Wednesday, December 13:

Woke up to find this lovely, long-legged lady in my lounge room. Yes, that is the flash reflecting off her eyes, but at least she posed nicely for the photo.


Her leg span from end-to-end of the second pair of legs is about 6cm (a bit more than 2 inches).

Also on Wednesday, the rescue helicopter also flew low over our house and I took this photo as it was descending to land behind the other houses. I assumed it was parking there to wait for the fires as it was a warm day, but it is also being used for surveillance of schools during the holidays to help catch vandals.


When I took EJ to kindy later we went on a detour to find the chopper and also took this pic of the view, to show that we live on the edge of civilisation. Our house is down there somewhere.


After kindy one of the kids' dads brought in his police bike (BMW) and let all the kids sit on it (one at a time!!). Here is EJ about to crash through the kindy gate:


Friday, December 15:
A couple of people contacted me to say the boy on the Westfield sign looks like EJ. EJ posed next to the sign and tried to imitate the boy's expression for comparison! I can see the resemblance, but moreso if EJ had had a haircut recently:



Saturday, December 16:
I have been finishing off the organisation of Liam's birthday party as much as I can today. There are of course things that need to be done at the last minute (tomorrow) but I want to be organised as we also have a street party tomorrow, and I knoooooooooooow how my street parties! It won't be over for at least half a day. Hopefully the weather isn't too hot tomorrow as I will have about TWENTY kids here and I really don't want them all INSIDE!

PS: Can I upload vids to this site? I have one of Liam's talking carrot.

Concert of the year

EJ's preschool Christmas concert was last night. It wasn't all Christmas songs; some were, others were just songs they had learned this year.

It was in the hall in the other school which shares the campus and the kids were in four groups, all doing the same thing at the same time, and it was very well done.


This (above) is EJ's group; he's the one wearing red shorts, a white Christmas t-shirt, and punkin hair. Even though Liam and I were in the front row, it was still impossible to get a good photo, as they danced in a circle and EJ's back was always facing me. Occasionally they moved but I couldn't get a good pic then either.

Liam was fascinated and thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience, as you can see here:

Hell is gone and Heaven's here...

...sings Robbie Williams.

About 5pm I got entirely spontaneous and grabbed the body boards I had put away for Christmas and off we went to the beach. 34C/93F and 60 000 Adelaideans are off to see Robbie tonight so it was the perfect time to be somewhere else.

We went to Henley Beach - also a spontaneous decision, and a good one as the beach was nicer than the one we usually go to, and spacious (thanks again Robbie!), and had lots of car parks. We even got a space under the jetty.

I didn't take anything much with me and thought on the way there, as the radio kept reminding us of the fire in Onkaparinga and "residents are advised to activate their bushfire action plans", that maybe it was really dumb to leave my phone in the house in bushfire season. Onkaparinga isn't anywhere near us, but we could see the smoke clearly all day and saw a water bomber (there were three there) as we were driving. I saw smoke from a fire which was closer to home this morning.

It was fun though to have no watch or phone to tell me the time (although I was constantly aware that we always have to be home by 8 to medicate the dog and bed the kids, and my mental clock did well to get us home at 7.52). The boys were so excited when I opened the boot and presented them with new body boards. They nearly forgot to say "Thanks, Mum!" but the excitement and appreciation on their faces said it all. Liam was also suddenly very cool and strutting around being a cool dude.

Being spontaneous and all, we went into the water with clothes, but being 34C and all, the clothes weren't much. The boys were wearing more grins than clothes and loooooooved every minute of catching every little wave as the tide came in. I didn't even bring my camera because I didn't want it to be wet or unattended, so there are no pics of EJ and Liam thinking they are now pro surfers, and no pics of the fires. But it was nice to spend time with the boys and not to have to worry about posing them.

Liam's imagination went 100k per minute and came out through his mouth all the way home. We have a new camp shower outside (saves time and strictly limits water usage, and waters the lawn too, and no I don't shower outside but thanks for asking). We won't use it all the time but tonight the boys rinsed under that, cleaned their teeth, and fell asleep straight away! Yep, even Liam!

Happy Anniversary

Happy First Anniversary, Sean and Louise!

Here is a rose for you from my garden (grey-watered too!).

PS: It's the 3rd here!

There aren't enough weeks in the day...

Today

First we went to see Father Christmas. Luckily we were first in line, but the boys still found plenty to play with while we waited, being in the toy department and all. This is a scan of a digital pic so I hope it comes out ok:


Then we played on the little indoor playground in TTP before having coffee with Grandpa B at Billy Baxters ... well, some of us had coffee, others don't need it ... and lunch with Granny J and Grandad Bob in the food court. And a little bit of shopping-type stuff.

Then off to a small car display with our mates at Autopro, Golden Grove. It was the FPV&XR Club so it was all Fords, except for an old La Fayette from Kenwood car audio - it sounded like a movie theatre!



At home we relaxed a bit and pottered around then put up the Christmas treeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!! The lights are on but they're hard to see in the day time.


Then I did the cooking/eating/laundry/dishes/blah/etc stuff and it was time for story/teeth/bed. The end.

Not.

Then I tidied 7 rooms, cut my nails now that they're at the stage of being 3 different lengths, cleaned a bathroom, put washing away, and then at nearly 10pm I was - for some reason - tired. So here I am blogging. The end.