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.