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.