Bitterly Cold Night here tonight.

I would swear that we were in Toowoomba tonight - it feels so much like Toowoomba weather. I cannot remember a night this cold in Rocky for years. I have so much to do - and I can't tear myself away from the fire in the lounge. Life has been pretty busy here but with the mundane things. Not much time to do any scrapbooking i'm afraid. I did manage to complete a couple of the CJ's that have been sitting in my lounge for the past month. Wanted to get these out of the way before we go on holidays. Also had a wedding to attend last weekend and more visitors.

This first layout is for a CJ entittled "Inspire Me". These photos inspire me more than anything and I remember reading a story about an old man who felt sorry for a butterfly who appeared to be having difficulty breaking out from his cocoon. He decided to help it by cutting open the cocoon only to find that the butterfly ended up with shrivelled wings and was never able to fly. By robbing him of the chance of breaking free he had not allowed the butterflies wings to develop which then stopped him from reaching the potential that he was created to have. This is a great reminder of how sometimes struggles are good in our lives (especially for our kids) because it is these very struggles that give us character and help us to grow and reach our full potential. The photos open out to reveal the story of "The Old Man and the Butterfly"

This second layout is for a CJ entitled "My Collections". I cheated a little on this one and scraplifted it from one of my layouts from another CJ round which was of the same title. I have changed it slightly but was loosing MOJO fast and I just needed to get this completed before we went away this weekend so that I can pass them on. This round of CJ's has really dragged out and I will be pleased to have them all completed and sent home. I think most of us are feeling like this.
Last Saturday we went to a wedding -it was just beautiful. Dan & Lee are real characters. Lee looked gorgeous - you rarely see her in a dress (she even swore she was going to wear a pair of "Wranglers" under her wedding dress - the boys wore their "Dunlop Volleys" with their tops and tails. They still looked pretty cool though.

It was a beautiful wedding and the bride and groom were certainly enjoying themselves as they mingled all afternoon. They choose to have a large wedding but had it at lunch time and the reception was just a lovely afternoon tea. Very informal as other than the cake cutting and speeches they spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around mingling with everyone.

We have another wedding to go to this weekend in Brisbane. Ben is the son of our very dear Friends Ian and Kathy. Must be strange for them to see their baby getting married - It doesn't seem that long ago that we were bringing them home from hospital as new borns and now they are starting their own family units. We are then having two weeks holidays with Ian and Kath - going on a little road trip south, and then having a week on the Gold Coast. We are so looking forward to this time away. Meanwhile whilst we are away - our place will be well looked after as Craig and Sharon will spend their last week in Rocky (before heading back to PNG) at our place after they pack up their house and get it ready to be rented again. The second week. Ian and Kath's girls are coming to house sit and have a weeks holiday in Rocky. I am looking forward to also catching up and also meeting with some of the girls I have meet online at Scrap of Faith and Scrapneeds.





Thought I would leave you with some photos of Chloe and her friend Caity who celebrated her 17th birthday last Sunday. Caity had a BBQ lunch and then we spent an hour or so in the afternoon shooting off a couple of hundred photos. These are some of the ones that Chloe likes.

As much as it is nice to have a winter - I am sure hoping that this cold weather passes through very quickly. I don't seem to handle the cold too well - might have something to do with the fact that we have very little warm clothes here in Rocky as our days are usually beautiful and warm and we just have cool evenings. I'm a bit worried that the further south we go - the colder it will be. Thinking I might be doing a bit of winter shopping whilst I am away as there is not a lot of warm clothes to be bought here in Rocky.
Just thought I would congratulate my very good friend and work collegue Jannett Humble who was awared a Certificate today by the Local Member of Parliament Jim Pearce for her outstanding contribution to the community. She has served as a JP for the past 25 years. She really does take her role as a JP seriously and I know that most of us have called on her to to witness documents and Stat Decs for us on numerous occassions. She always drops what she is doing and is happy to come anytime night or day that we call. To Jan receiving this reward was no big deal. She just planned on driving out to pick it up. No way was that going to happen, we are very proud of her, so a group of us from work grabbed our camera's and we were going with her. This ceremony was photo worthy - definately something that needed to be scrapped and besides any excuse to celebrate and go out for coffee together afterwards sounded good.

Anyway I just want to acknowledge you are a great wonderful caring and loyal friend Jan and I feel honored and blessed to have you as a dear friend.
I am afraid this has been a long post, but it is good for me to be able to keep track of some of these events and memories and I want to thank you if you did manage to get this far. I also want to thank all you lovely folk that visit my blog and leave such lovely and encouraging comments. I do so appreciate the time you take to leave them and I enjoy reading them.

Catch up again in a couple of weeks after the holidays when I am sure I will have more photos to share - although they won't be layouts.

From one extreme to another.

After all the rain last week, Winter is finally here with the cold weather setting in . Our fire has been lit everynight for the past 6 nights, and I can tell you no one wants to move out of the lounge. I have been away for the long weekend, cooking with a friend for Chloe's Youth Camp. Had a great time. They really are a lovely bunch of kids, so caring of each other, and just generally have a great time together. Have a few photos to share. Managed to take some photos of the layouts that I have done in the last couple of weeks so thought I would share them first.

The first layout is one I did in Julie Heard's class at Embellished a week and a half ago. It was a great class, got to play with paint and for me the bonus was using lots of photos on the page. Decided that I would do a layout about our previous weekend away at our Scrapbooking Retreat. I won't even begin to let you know about the dramas of getting the photos printed for this layout. Needless to say, I have discovered that I can get these smaller photos printed at HN - but you have to have them on a CD - no good taking them in on a memory stick, as I was to find out. Love the colours of this layout. We used chipboard as the background and painted it.

The next couple of layouts are about Chloe's 16th Birthday. The first one I love, was very happy with it. Used the old Kindy Glitz, and mounted a lot of the flowers to give that 3D effect. Unfortunately the second one was a huge disappointment. Much too busy and your eyes are not drawn to the photos at all. Now I doubly know that it was bad, cause my dear husband also make the comment that "it is not one of your best dear". He is usally my biggest fan and loves what I do. Still I guess you can't win them all and every now and again, you are sure to produce a dude and this is it.

This is a really busy time for Steve at the moment with exams and the hours of marking and report card writing. I thought I would capture some of this as a reminder that a teacher's life is not all about 9 - 3, with lots of holidays. They actually work very long hours. It is now over three weeks since Steve has got to bed before 2am. He has spent the last three weekends at school - often going in before 8am and getting home after 10pm at night. He will finally gain a life again after Wednesday, when everything has to be in, including the reports. Thankfully the marking is all done now, and he is in the thick of writing the reports. The photo on this layout was taken at 2.17am and as you can see, he still has a pile to go.
The final layout is about recording a special gift that Chloe received for her birthday. She is truely blessed with a great group of friends at school. For her birthday they all chipped in and bought her a 2g i-Pod. She was totally blown away, in fact totally overwhelmed that they would do something like this for her. She was quite teary when she got home and was showing me. Makes me feel a slack mum as although Chloe really wanted one, I just couldn't really justify the expense of it. As you can imagine, it is a very special gift - not because it is an i-Pod but because her friends thought her special enough to chip in and buy it for her.

Finally just have a few photos to share from the weekend. Chloe's friend Caitlin celebrated her birthday whilst we were away. Her birthday is actually next weekend but she will be in the thick of exams, and was complaining to her mum this week, that she hates how her birthday is always during exam block and thus ruins her celebrations, so we decided to surprise her and celebrate it this weekend whilst she she was away with most of her friends.

Last couple of photos are photos of my partner in crime for the weekend, chief Cook Karen, assisted by Karen. I was the assistent. Karen Cribb did an excellent job in planning out the menu and shopping for the kids. She has it down to a fine art, with very little left over, and everyone really enjoying the meals. Photo of Karen and I in the Kitchen, and the other was taken on the beach this morning when we went down to check on the kids.

The very last photo is of some of the girls having fun and trying to co - ordinate their steps in these home made, skis. They had a ball doing this and some of the photos I got were really quite hilarious as they fell and lost their balance. Will have to share some more later. My neice had her surgery on Friday. She thought she would be able to travel back to Emerald just after she was released from hospital. I'm afraid it didn't happen. She as so groggy that they ended up staying an extra night. They had bought the girls in with them, and my new great neice is just gorgeous. She is such a good baby. Chloe and I got to spoil her something severe. Will share some photos of her next post.

So much to be thankful for today.

1. the wonderful friends my children have.

2. opportunity to spend the weekend with such a great bunch of youth.

3. hard working husband who enjoys his job.

4. the wonderful rain we have had in the past week.

5. the start of winter and the fact that we can come home and sit in front of our fireplace and enjoy the warmth.

Rain Glorious Rain

Quick post this morning before I head off for work. We are now into our third day of Rain, Glorious Rain. It has pretty much consistently rained here for three days and I am still not sick of it. We have so badly needed it, Mind you it has also got quite cold here - cold enough that we got to light the fire last night. (Photo of Chloe sitting in front of it - always keeps the house nice and warm)Who would mind the rain anyway when you have the day off. Yesterday was our Show (Carnival) Pulbic Holiday, which meant we all got to sleep in and we did. It was nearly 8.45am before I climbed out of bed, and it was still quite dark. Chloe and I spent the whole day indoors - she studied for a Japanese exam in the morning - I scrapbooked. In the afternoon a friend of her's came over, and I still scrapbooked.

Steve spent the day at school marking assignments. He was up till 2.30am the night before (well should I say yesterday morning) but hopefully has a good grip on them, has another exam this morning and then the last one tomorrow - all need to be marked and reports done by next Tuesday or Wednesday so we won't see anything of his this weekend either. (This photo was taken well after midnight) It was one of the photos I scrapbooked yesterday.

I have managed to scrapbook 6 pages in the last week but can't share them at the moment because it is so wet and overcast that I can't photograph them. As soon as the sun comes out though I will and will upload. Chloe's friend and his mate came back over last night and Steve joined them for an x-box game. He needed the break - mind you once they left he was back marking again. Think he came to bed at 1.30am this morning.

Chloe has her Youth Group Camp this weekend. (She is looking forward to it as she has had her nose down and tail up with all her assignments and exams in the last few weeks. She is pretty much on holidays then. I have been asked to go help a friend cook for them. Well probably better than being home on my own for the weekend.

Mind you I am feeling pretty lousy at the moment - got a winter cold, so my head is all stuffed up, throat burning, and eyes running and ears blocked. Don't you just hate it. Hoping and praying that I feel heaps better tomorrow. Also have my neice, her husband and the girls coming in to stay tonight. Nat has to go in for day surgery in the morning to have some wisdom teeth removed. Her baby girl is only about 6 or 7 weeks old and I haven't seen her yet. Looking forward to the visit.

Will be back when I have a chance to photograph some of my layouts to share. Have a great day and for those of you getting the rain - Enjoy it.