Weddings, Parties, Anything! (A long one, sorry!)

Liam's 8th birthday: December 30th

Here is the birthday boy with a present from EJ and me.

It included books, a racetrack and an electronic Pokeball - shown below (which is, of course, what people keep their Pokemons in), and a heap of other stuff.

Liam was invited to a wedding on his birthday. He really loves both the bride and the groom and really wanted to go. He changed his mind when we got to the non-airconditioned chapel on a stinking hot day! But it was still a nice wedding, including bagpipers (EJ: "WHY do they have to keep doing THAT?!"), and a horse-drawn cart for the bride.

Then home again for the small family afternoon tea (remembering Liam already had his party at the local swimming centre). We had already purchased an icecream cake but then Liam decided he wanted a number 8 cake because it can be decorated as a racetrack, and I decided I would do it because you really only get one chance at having an 8 cake. Complete with go-kart, motorbike, tree, cones, and ramp:

Here's Liam serving the icecream cake, after he'd blown out his candle. The 8 candle is actually from my 8th birthday! The gold candle in the foreground is for Little Sean who would also have been 8 that day, and it was blown out by his brother Samuel, who is just in the bottom left of the pic. Liam always lights a candle for Sean's birthday, which we then give to his parents, and on three birthdays he has also chosen to raise money for Childhood Cancer. I think it is extremely generous of a child to not only share his birthday, but also to ask for CC donations knowing it might mean he gets smaller presents. EJ is behind Liam, with the 8 cake, which I cut into quarters so everyone could take some home.

Happy birthday to my special and caring Liam! :o)

~*~

Today we went to the Brickworks markets. We usually go there because the boys like the mini golf, but being 38C/100.4F today, we rode the bumper boats instead. I didn't have my camera with me so there aren't any pics, which is just as well, because it might not have survived the splashing! EJ had to ride with me but wouldn't do any steering (he told me later he was scared he'd tip the boat over!). Liam got his own boat and I was secretly a bit concerned about the difficulty of steering, but he actually found it easier than I did! We were the only two boats there so we could chase each other and bump and stop under the bridge to scare the other person when they came around the corner.

After a few mouths full of exhaust fumes and quite enough sun, we went into the markets. The Brickworks markets are not posh by any standards, but we were extra disappointed today. The Brickworks website has a scrolling announcement on the front page saying "Open every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and public holidays" (click here to see it). Can you see where this is heading?

Some of the markets are in the old kiln. It's like a tunnel which runs in a complete circle. The boys like to get Yu-Gi-Oh trading cards here because they can get a pack of 10 which includes a rare card for a few dollars. Entire kiln locked.

Some of the markets are in a building, like a big shed. About a third of the markets in here were closed today.

The rest are outside, made up of temporary stalls which are brought in at closing time, and small stores. There were two in particular that I wanted to go to here. About two thirds of these were closed - all the stalls and some of the stores, including both that I wanted to go to.

We still managed to buy Buster a toy I've been looking for (well a cheap version of it, which I guess is really what I was looking for!) and some ice cream for ourselves, and with the bumper boats, it wasn't a complete waste of time...