Joy in June

Lots of birthdays in June and always some new arrivals...must be the 9 months after the start of Spring!

Nina Edmiston turned 1. Happy Birthday to Nina! Here is a picture of her (above) at her party eating the cake icing mmm yum!

Eugenie Cottage - Bright
For the long weekend we went away to Bright in Victoria. We met up with our friends from Mildura - The Whytes.
We were hoping for some snow on the mountains and we were in luck for some snow play.

Snow crystals & a snowman.

Cameron & Elise enjoying it all - big smiles!

Elise and Rohan having some fun. Rohan was a great shot!

Elise throwing snowballs. Look out Merryl and Graeme!

Gisele wasn't too keen about the snow but thawed out for a smile in this picture.

We went to Wandiligong maze (biggest in southern hemispehere) and had a great time and a yummy cake/dessert afterwards.

Having a breather in the middle of the maze!
We all really enjoyed our weekend together. Great to catch up with old friends and see our kids make new friends with each other. Elise and Rohan get on famously! Bright is a pretty village and we were right in the centre of town so we could walk to parks and coffee!!

I got to start my birthday celebrations early with a cake and candles at the cafe before we left.

We went to visit Michelle last week (day before the babies arrived) and we walked to the local park so the girls could play. Michelle and Tim are staying in Penrith for the birth of the twins. Doesn't she look amazing - pregnancy agrees with her!! Baby Aiden and Baby Eloise were born Thurs 17 June at the Nepean Hospital. Welcome to the world little ones.

I had a lovely birthday- thanks to everyone for the well wishes.

Got my certificate for my Colour Course - all completed.
Sean has gone to San Fransisco for work this week - lucky devil. David & Elaine are off on a holiday to Vietnam for their 40th wedding anniversary- Bon Voyage!

Only 2 and a bit weeks 'til Belle Belle turns 2! She is rapidly developing with her now 4 word sentences and her increasing determination and independance! Look out world!

May

Hi Everyone,
Winter is upon us so the constant bugs and colds have arrived. Yucko - hang in there until spring everyone!
May 14 was mum's 2nd anniversary. All her kids and grandkids went to the Central Coast for the weekend to visit her and grampy's spot at Palmdale. Here are the traditional photos at the grave.

We stayed in a big house together at Pearl Beach - only 200m to the beach and cafe (nobody believed me that it was a short distance - because some people think I exaggerate short distances for some strange reason....)

We were lucky to have some gorgeous weather. The kids made the most of it running in and out the water!

Nate & Gisele look similiar in this photo - same expression. I still think Gisele has many of my dad's expressions - something about the eyes....

Little Archie was not a fan of the water or the sand- especially after a sand face plant! Bit tricky toddling on sand...

Mick and Nigel got to go to the footy one night. Ang, Mick and Nige had some coastal retail therapy. It was good to spend the rest of the time just hanging out. The kids adore each other.

Here is our lovely holiday house at Pearl Beach which had 2 seperate wings with plenty of room for us all.

OTHER NEWS.
Elise is loving preschool and says she wants to go 7 days a week. She went to her 1st preschool birthday party recently and had a fantastic time- fell asleep on the way home!

Gisele is amazing us with her 3 or more word sentences these days and her standard response to any question is "Nothing". She moved into her own big bed last week - no magic sleep through the nights as yet but we live in hope. Not long now until our baby is 2 years old....

I am keen to paint, paint and repaint parts of the house inspired by my colour course. We are staring with the middle bedroom. The previous owners did a quick paint job before selling so now it is taking us ages to strip back 4 layers of bad paint jobs!

We have decided on a builder to redo the back patio so we can fix our guttering. Should all be ready in time for spring. YAH!
Happy Birthday to Nigel on his 30th last week and how jealous are we that they have gone off to Fiji for a holiday - Well deserved after all their hard work.

Little Nina Edmiston turns 1 this week. Time flies with little ones. The girls are looking forward to her birthday party.

We are off to the Alpine country in Victoria for the long weekend to see our friends the Whytes - can't wait. The girls might see snow for the 1st time.

We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Michelle and Tim's twin babies. Michelle is 35 weeks now- amazing pregnancy and all doing well. How exciting!

We made chocolate cake. Snuggled up together to keep warm.

The girls love to look after babies. Here are the girls with Samuel & Chavelle Fehir.

Elise dressed up in her raincoat to go to preschool.

G chilling out in the doll pram.

Yes I am a cheeky little monkey and not long now until I turn 2...

Archie's Baptism

In early April we headed off to Dubbo for Archie Bannon's baptism. Aunty Kate is godmother along with Aunty Tanya and Uncle Craig.

Archie is running around now and has a gorgeous mop of curly hair. Poor little fella wasn't feeling well that day so he was very cuddly.

After the ceremony Nate lead the kids on a "chase me" expedition under the pews.

Here are the kidlets at the baptism party. We stayed with Megsy, Nige and Nate in their new Grangewood abode. Nate and the girls enjoyed hanging out together. I took Toby and Elise to see Nanny McPhee's "The Big Bang" at the movies which they enjoyed.

We saw Mich & Tim. They showed us their big block of land where they are building their dream home complete with lap pool. Busy year for them with the twins on the way.

Here is a play dough creation of Elise's which amazed us and a cute picture of the girls playing dress ups together.

A picture of us on a recent trip to Wiggly Playland (Gisele gets freaked out by costumes!!)

Life has been busy with my colour course. Every spare minute is spent painting or cutting up magasines. I have been learning a lot.

We are off to the Central Coast next weekend for mum's 2nd anniversary.
More pictures soon.

Our holiday in the West

We had our 1st trip to WA as a family for Mark and Dani's wedding in March. After our long flight, we headed straight to Kings Park in the city to let the girls run free. WA is 3 hours behind NSW so we had a lot of time to kill before dark. Our accommodation for the night was walking distance away.

You can see from their faces they were delighted to get off the plane!

The next morning, after being up super early for the sunrise in Kings Park (4am starts are not fun!) we got in the car and drove south to Denmark (4.5 hours). We wanted to make the most of the opporunity to see the south west and get out of the city for a while. By going south, we missed the biggest storm in Perth for 15 years- pretty glad about that. Apparently there were landslides in Kings Park close to where we had been staying.
The girls travel well in the car-after all, they have been in training from a young age.

Here they are running on the riverbank at Denmark.
Our accommodation for the next 2 nights was a farmstay at a place called Avoca Farm Chalet.
There were a lot of animals to visit, chooks, ducks, goats, highland cow, ponies, doggy and guinea pigs.

(L) Mother Duck & Little Duck (R) Hello Wilbur & Lucky

Inside the chalet

L&R) driving the tractor - I remember that being fun as a kid!

The next morning we drove into Albany to have a look around. The weather was a bit bleak but we managed to see some sights before the rain arrived.

Here is the ship the Brig Amity which transported the 1st white settlers to WA. Sean's idea to visit the boat of course. We were able to go below deck (above) and steer (below).

We had our 1st lunch at Middleton Beach, Albany (we found we needed 1st & 2nd lunch in WA because of the time difference!). There was an interesting protest of socks attached to a fence. A hotel was demolished 3 years ago and nothing has happened with the development of a new hotel. The locals think it is an eye sore so they are "socking it" to the developers. Elise was fascinated with all the socks.

Gisele's favourite activity is to run up and down ramps. Here she is at Middleton Beach..

That afternoon/evening we went to visit Sean's Aunty Judy, Uncle Greg and his cousin Alison and the kids- Damon and Sharni. They live on neighbouring properties near Denmark. Greg and Judy have an alpaca farm and Alison and Steve have a horse agistment property.

Elise and Sharni (below) became best buddies once they warmed up! We all had a great time seeing all the animals and having dinner with them all.

Next day we were off to discover more of the great southern area on our way up to Busselton

Near Denmark is Greens Pool. The water is crystal clear and it has really interesting rock formations.

We all enjoyed splashing our feet in the water. It was a gorgeous sunny morning.

The next stop on our drive was the Tree Top walk near Walpole. It was a very windy time with a storm coming but very exhilarating to be up 40m high. The trees were swaying widly and we had bark flying in our faces but we did not feel deterred. The Valley of the Giants is a red tingle tree forest.

(L) On our way up (L) Stopping to look around (Gisele not so impressed)

Look how high on a bouncy bouncy walkway

Here we are in the forest on the ground

Here is Gisele having a good nap on our way to Pemberton. At Pemberton we stopped for 2nd lunch that day. We were thrilled to drive through some incredible forests in the south, although Gisele slept through most of it.

We arrived at Busselton late afternoon. We were staying near the beach and so were able to enjoy a spectacular sunset over the water. We were in Busselton for 2 nights and this amazing sunset was on the 1st night, the next night was a fizzer so that made us appreciate that 1st sunset even more.

We stayed in Busselton so we could do the jetty walk and enjoy the underwater observatory. After arriving in Busselton we discovered the jetty is under renovation. There were big chunks of it's 1841 metres missing. After 140 years I guess it needs doing up....we will have to walk the jetty next time!!!

The following day we drove through some of the Margaret River. We went to Ngilgis Cave which Elise said was "amazing. Gisele was fascinated too, especially when the guide told the girls that there were fairies in the cave. Elise was pointing them out to us along the way.

We had a yummy lunch at a winery. We found a cafe at Hayshed Hill where we could eat outside under the peppercorn tree while Gisele slept next to us in the car. Sean had a pear, pecan and gorgonzola pizza which was delicious.

For dessert we headed to the Margaret River chocolate factory for a decadent hot chocolate.

In the Margaret River there was a Cow Parade exhibition (reminded me of my cow collecting days). There were artistic cows in lots of locations - the girls loved to spot the cows and have a picture.

Above (L) Alien cow. (R) Country & Western cow.

Elise with ocean cow.

(L) Holy cow (R) Ute cow.

On our way back up to Perth we stopped for the morning at Donnybrook. Here was the largest FREE kids playground in the southern hemisphere. Some anonymous person died and left $2 million in their estate to create and build this playground. The girls were just a bit excited about this place.

(L) Elise with apple and pear. (R) Gisele on slide.

(L) Check out the playground (R) Check out Gisele's face looking at playground.

Next stop that day was Gnomesville. One lady started a phenomenon by placing some garden gnomes along a road out near Dardanup. Since then thousands of gnomes have come from all over the world to join them. The gnomes seemed to be scattered as far as the eye could see. A lot of them seemed to be established as a memorial to a friend or relative. It really captured the imagination of many. Below were some that caught our attention.

(L) the bikini gnome remimded me of something mum would have made in her pottery classes. (R) Elise and rocketship gnome.

Bagpipe gnome.

(L) Indigineous Gnomes (R) Hiding amongst the leaves gnomes....

We said goodbye to the gnomes and headed back to Perth for the wedding celebrations.

The lovely owner of the cottage we stayed in decorated the bedroom especially for the ages of our girls. They were very excited about their room and went to bed without any fuss because they were excited to sleep in this room!!

While in Perth we went to Louisa's baby shower. Here is a picture of us at Como Bowling Club with Elaine, David, Grandma & Grandad Edmiston.

The day after the wedding we had a lovely morning at Burswood Park on the Swan River. Our whole time in WA we did not sight one single swan - they must have all migrated or something???

We had a great time. WA is such a beautiful state. We hope it won't be long before we can go back again!!