A Hard Week

It seems forever since I have updated. Life has been tough this past week - not only have we had a house load of visitors (which was the highlight of the week) Steve has also been away in Brissie for the past four days for work and also for some much enjoyed Father/Son time. He stayed at Sarah's whilst she flew home to spend some time here.
I have been sick again - bad cold and completely lost my voice. It has been gone for a week now, and is still not the best. This has been really a stressful time for me as I should have phoned 60 odd students this week before my Orientation evening which is due to be held this Wednesday. It is very difficult to make phone calls when you don't have a voice. To add a little more stress, on Thursday night, I opened an email which was suspected of containing a virsus, so I spent most of Friday trying to get information off my computer before I had to pack it up and return it to Toowoomba to be rebooted. All the information I needed for my Orientation is on this computer and I can tell you the thought of being without it almost made me feel ill.

Anyway after stressing about it for a couple of hours, I realized that I needed someone to pray for me cause stressing about it wasn't getting me anyway, so after sharing how totally lousy I was feeling with the girls from SoF, and asking them to remember to pray for me, I just had to leave it in God's hands.

Well about half an hour later I got a phone call from work to see if I had sent my computer off yet (I was in the process of packing it into its box for its homeward journey when the phone call came). They had found out more information on the virus and were able to check my computer remotely, so after checking it and making sure it was all OK, and re loading some more protection on it, it was declared safe, and ready to use again. I was so thankful - it truely was an answer to prayer. Mind you when I visited the doctor that afternoon she could tell my day had been stressful as my blood pressure was a little high - so now I have to work on a bit more of a healthier lifestyle ( eg. going back to the gym more regularly like daily rather than the hit and miss it has been the last couple of months) Mind you when I go more regularly I feel so much better.
I had a lovely visit from my daughter Sarah this weekend - (Well as much as she enjoyed spending time with her Mum and sister, she really wanted to catch these guys.) Her husband's band "Falling Short" were in town to lauch their new EP "Aperture". They have spent the week, playing schools in Rocky and Gladstone, and then did a concert Friday night in Gladstone, and Saturday night in Rocky. They have certainly improved out of sight since they left Rocky three years ago, and although I must say I am showing my age, as the loudness kind of gets to me a bit now, (might also have something to do with the cold I have at the moment also) I did enjoy hearing them play.
Scrapbooking news, I have done three paper layouts this week, although I am unable to show you at the moment cause until yesterday the weather has been lousy here and I haven't been able to photograph them yet, so next update I will share them with you.

Rowena from Willro & Co Designs has just put out another new kit and it is fabulous so I have had a little play with it also this week. Her kits just keep getting better and better. Looking forward to playing around with it a lot more after this Wednesday.






































For this Layout I used the New Willro & Co Design Kit "All Crinkled "
The Heart is from the Willro & Co " All Natural" Kit
Frame: Miss Mint Twinkletoes Doodle Frame.

The other good news is that I started my photography course this week, and already I have
learnt so much - the secret is getting out and playing with my camera more, but I do understand so much more about Aperture and Shutter Priority now. Also learnt a few other tricks that I am looking forward to playing around with. Had fun with the portraits,

We got to photograph one of the guys taking the photography course and this photo was taking advantage of full sunlight without shadows on the face - cause taught a couple of tricks to help us take shots with our subject squinting from the brightness of the sunlight in their face. I was quite happy with this shot.

These next couple of photos were out of direct sunshine but working with our backdrops.




My landscrap photos though need heaps more practice, but the exciting thing is, these shots were not taken on Auto. Saturday we went on a field trip, - just a stroll along the river bank, down an alley way and have fun putting into practice the things we had learnt in class earlier in the week. Have a couple of photos to share with you - looking forward though to going out with Steve and Chloe and practicing some more, also looking forward to the class this week and learning more.

With this boat, we were playing around with our Aperture priority and trying different F stops. Lots of good fun and I can't believe the differet shots we got.
With the house boat, the first photo, I focused on the boat, and the surroundings were quite dark, so then I focused on the trees in the background and then moved my camera down so that the photo was the centre of the photo and I couldn't beleive how much this changed the photo. The first photo of this boat, Aperture F6.3, Shutter 1/1250
The second photo stilll had an Aperture of F6.3, but the shutter speed was 1/400.













































Just a few more different shots of playing around with the Aperture. This last photo was taken just on sunset, using the Shutter Priority, and using our tripods. Realized that I need a new tripod - ours is nearly 30 years old, and not as stable as it should be, so might have to put an order in for a new light weight one. We were talking photos of cars taking off from the traffic lights - love the trail of lights in this photos.













Loving this new toy I have. Steve got a photo of me playing with it in front of the fire one night last week. So much warmer to be able to curl up on the lounge, laptop on my knee with the rest of the family in front of the fireplace.

Hope to update again soon with photos of the paper layouts I have done recently. Looking forward to my photography class again tomorrow night - think there will be another field trip again next weekend, so might have some more photos to share next week.

Have a great week.

End of the Holidays & a Proud Mum

I am such a proud mumma at the moment. My big boy has finally completed his degree. After too many years, he finally has a Bachelor of Information Technology, majoring in Software Engineering, and is looking for a full time job in the field (if anyone out there knows of any jobs going) I am so proud of him. He got his finally results last Friday, and gained two High Distinctions, and two Credits - what a way to finish. Good on you Pete, I am so proud of the way you stuck with it, even though at times, with working long hours it all seemed too hard. I hope you are proud of your achievements also.

I'll apologise now for the very long post this week, not a lot of news, just loads of photos, but memories that I want to record. The past week has all been about Family and enjoying our time together. Family picnics, learning to knit, pressies, catching up with friends, parents and grandparents.

My baby is learning to drive - this seems so strange to me as it really only seems like yesterday that we bought her home from hospital. Chloe is learning to drive the Troupe. All our kids learnt to drive this mean machine. The Driving school says that if she can manage this beast she can manage anything.

Steve says she is doing fine - I am yet to take her out. Usually Steve starts them off and when they are feeling pretty confident, then I have taken the kids out at night to do the night driving.

Sarah has been learning to knit recently, so thought it was time to teach Chloe also. We spent most nights knitting. I have managed to knit two scarves now (probably a little too long) and Chloe is also working on knitting a scrarf for herself.

On Wednesday, we got to catch up with my friend Barb and had lunch with her. After lunch

Chloe and Sarah went and had their hairs done. Chloe got foils, and a cut, where Sarah just had her hair cut. They did the hairdressing thing together whilst my friend Barb and I went and also had a pamper and got a pedicure. We both ended up with lovely pink toes.

It was such a fun girlie afternoon, and I feel blessed constantly by her friendship. I just love to catch up with her.

Steve has spoilt us rotten. Chloe has been madly saving all year for her own laptop computer. As we are in the market for a new desktop, Steve thought he would check prices out whilst we were in Brissie. Well we managed to get Chloe's computer, such a really good deal, that Steve ended up going back and getting me my very own laptop ( Seriously thinking that Digital Scrapbooking was taking up too much memory on his laptop). Anyway it was a lovely surprise and I just love my new toy. Chloe didn't really know for sure that she was going to get her computer either until she woke up Thursday morning and found it at the bottom of her bed. Christmas in July. A few snaphots of her opening her pressie and setting it all up.

Wednesday night we also got to catch up with our good friends Ian and Kathy and had dinner at their place. We had a wonderful evening with them, although for the first time, it was just the four of us. Normally we have all our kids around. We are just entering a different era of our life and friendship now. We have been so blessed by their friendship and love and we always love catching up with them.

On Thursday Pete took us to Wellington Point for a picnic lunch. This is where he came to celebrate his birthday alone, so we decided to go back and make a few special memories. It is a beautiful area and I so loved seeing Pete and Chloe clowing around as if they were young kids again.

Had to take a photo of the SAD tree too - this is the tree that Pete sat in to have his birthday lunch. Made me feel sad that we couldn't have been down there with him on the day. I also got to take a few photos of Sarah and Colin and these are a couple of my favourites.

We left Brissie Friday morning to head up to the Sunshine Coast to catch up with my Mum and Dad overnight. We dropped in to catch up with the Cliffords on our way north. Unfortunately we missed Mark. but we had a great time visiting with Sal and the kids. The girls had a ball with Chloe, getting her to give them a makeover like she had done to their Mum, and they had a ball doing her hair. Mitchell was content to sit on Steve's knee and build Lego. Managed to do a bit of a photoshoot before we left, so have some photos of our visit to share with you also.

We got to my Mum and Dad's about Lunch time, and went out for lunch and coffee with them. It was so good to see them and spend some time with them. Not nearly enough.

On Saturday we headed through to Bundy to catch up with Steve's folks. Chloe kept herself amused watching "One Tree Hill" on

the drive up. Just couldn't resist taking a couple of photos during the drive. Just had to take a photo of the one tree hill just outside of Childers. This spot on the highway has always been known to us as "One tree Hill" every since I was a young child, because that is precisely what it is - one tree stuck on a hill on a straight stretch of road near Childers.

We arrived at Steve's parents place around lunch time also. it was also good to spend some time with them too as we really haven't seen family much at all this year.

Whilst in Bundy we decided to pay a visit to Steve's Nana. She is about to turn 94 in the next couple of weeks. She is one of the most amazing woman I have ever met. She is such a strong and talented lady and I really admire her. Although she has been quite sick this year, she still manages to get out and play 18 holes of golf on a very regular basis, although she admitted to us that she doesn't walk the 18 holes anymore, they have given her a golf buggy to drive around the course. Nana lost her husband to an accident when he was quite young, and has raised four boys pretty much single handedly. Her son Mel is intellectually impaired and she has been his total caregiver for the 70 years of

his life. She has sewned the finest wedding dresses and baby dresses, but then on the other hand, managed to build extenstions to her house when she was in her 70's. She still retains a wonderful sense of humor too. It was lovely to catch up with her and get a few photos.

We left Bundy early Sunday morning as we needed to be home by lunch time, as Steve had to be at the airport again by 4pm to fly back to Brissie for a CAD seminar he is attending for the next few days. It was a bit of a drama as he had accidently deleted the email containing his flight reservations. The airways were no help as they couldn't reveal the information over the phone. Anyway we managed to get to the airport and get him on the plane just in the nick of time.

My sister Jude also arrived yesterday afternoon - she is here until Steve arrives home. my nephew Zac needs to see the Orthodonist so it has been great having her in to visit again.

Couldn't resist taking these photos. This is the view that greeted me from my kitchen window when I got home. Just beautiful and definately worth taking a photo of.

I don't think I am going to get much scrapbooking done this week either as my work with USQ is going to be full on over the next couple of weeks with the start of semester, which means lots of phone calls, and then the Orientation evening.

Sorry for such a long post - but I really want to document these photos for my own records. It is weeks like this past one that make you realize just how blessed I really am and I have so many things that I am both thankful and grateful for this week.

I am so thankful for

1. The love of my family

2. Amazing kids, and wonderful parents.

3. A loving and generous husband

4. Beauty all around me.

5 Wonderful Friends.

Catching up with the kids.

Quick Post today. We are having a great time with the kids. It is almost six months since we have seen them, so it is so nice to have this time together. I did manage to get one of the circle journals completed before I left to come away on holidays. This is yours Gayle - hope you like it. They are always much nicer in real life. You are going to love this CJ Gayle - the girls have all done such a gorgeous job on their pages.

We got away early Saturday morning and dropped into Gladstone on our way down to visit the dressmaker who is making Chloe's formal dress for her senior formal this year. We had a pretty slow trip down - there were Caravans everwhere more than 100 between Rockhampton and Gin Gin, lots of long wide loads and police on the road. By the time we got to Maryborough it started raining. When we got to Gympie there was the most beautiful rainbow in the sky - we just had to stop and take a photo of it in the rain. You could actually see it touching the ground, and the light around it was just gorgeous. Pity the photo hasn't caught the real beauty of it. Just had to share it with you.

We finally got here about 6pm. Sarah had booked for us all to go Ten Pin Bowling together as a family for Pete's birthday. At Logan Central, you pay $17 each and then can bowl for three hours from 9pm to midnight- (we fitted in 6 games and my arm and neck and shoulders were aching by midnight) We had lots of fun. We had two lanes, the girls played with Steve and I got to bowl with the boys. I think they thought I would be a push over but I shocked both them and myself by getting a strike on the very first ball I bowled. Next bowl I got a spare, so I was off to a good start, I actually beat them both that first game, but that is where my winning streak ended. We did have lots of fun and lots of laughs though, and Steve, Pete and Sarah all won chocolates for getting strikes with the coloured pin in front.

Not sure what it is about us and Brisbane, but we spent a couple of weeks down here at Christmas time and it rained every day, well the same has happened again these holidays, it has rained everyday we have been here. Still we have managed to get in some shopping, and we have managed to catch up with friends so it is all good.

Must go as we have to go pick up Chloe's boots, and go and see about getting her hair coloured,

Just wanted to share some of my favourite photos from Saturday night.

HAPPY 25TH BIRTHDAY PETE

Today is a special day and I am feeling rather sad that I can't be with my big boy to help him celebrate his 25th Birthday. Pete I hope you have a great night - I want you to know just how much we love you and how very proud we are of you. We couldn't have asked for a more wonderful son. I only wish we got to see you more often and that we got to spend more time together.

We are so looking forward to catching up with you this weekend and celebrating with you.

LOVE YOU PETE