ALADDIN..... A WEEKEND CELEBRATING WITH THE GIRLS...

Already the week has gone and I haven't had a chance to update since last weekend...
We headed to Brissie for the long weekend..
We needed to take down a washing machine for Chloe and as it was the girls birthday, we thought it would be great to share their birthday with them...

We had organised a girls night out on Saturday night to go and see Aladdin as a birthday treat  and what a wonderful night it was....

We left home straight after Steve finished work but it was a long drive to Brissie... We got held up in quite a bit of road works outside of Rocky which probably added another good 45 minutes to our trip.  

We didn't get into Brissie until about 12.30am Saturday morning and we still need to unhitch our trailer and get it all locked into Dan and Chloe's garage before we could head up into their apartment... 

WOW what a lovely apartment they have too, so handy to the city, and although only two bedrooms, it is much more spacious that the apartment they had in Melbourne with heaps of cupboard space and a gorgeous kitchen (with dishwasher, much to Dan's delight) and lovely large bathroom....

They were excited to see us and we were excited to see them, and by the time we had a cuppa and headed to bed it was close to 2am...

We did manage a sleep in though until just after 8am, when we got a phone call from Sarah to say that she would be heading over soon with the children...

Chloe had a couple of things she needed to pick up from KMart and we needed a few groceries, so we decided to head off and do that whilst Steve and Dan unloaded the washing machine and got it upstairs and connected.  We also wanted to be back before Sarah and the children arrived.....

We arrived home just as Sarah and the children arrived,  so good to see them all again...
Max was so excited to see us that he headed straight towards me at a running pace.. As I bent down to give him a big cuddle,  I received a head which connected with me on my right eye.  OUCH.... it bought tears to my eyes.... didn't seem to affect him at all as he hopped straight up and was into playing...  The first thing he looks for at Uncle Dan and Aunty Chloe's is Chloe's bongo drum which he just loves... It can keep him amused for hours...
The noise gets to the rest of us after a while...

Perfectly happy playing the drums

 Meanwhile,  my eye was really sore by now and it wasn't long before Steve and the others were asking me if I could see alright as suddenly my eye was swelling right up and I ended up with a rotten bruise and swollen eye...

Scored a swollen eye

Whilst I was at Yeppoon the weekend before I came across a box of this long balloons and a little balloon pump for a couple of dollars and thought it would be a fun thing to do with the children.  They loved it, especially Willow who was really keen on learning how to make the dog herself (which she did achieve by the way with a little support from her Aunty Chloe).
Max was more interested in busting the balloons..

Learning how to make a sausage dog...

With her second attempt..

Pretty proud of her attempt

 Max however was more interested in playing with his glow in the dark car set and making ramps and little hills for his cars to go over....

Chloe, however, was excited to just having a washing machine in her apartment again.  The whole time they lived in Melbourne they would have to head out to a Laundromat,  and they soon got sick of the sitting aorund waiting for their washing to be washed and dried...
It is going to make it so much easier to be able to put a load on at home and continue on with their work or study whilst they wait for the load to wash...

I think in the end we ended up doing about five loads of washing.... However, it did feel good to have it all done and hung out on the line drying in the sun and breeze...

Chloe's friend Daina came to visit us in the afternoon.  We haven't since Daina since Chloe and Dan's wedding, and she is now married herself, so it was great to catch up as she has been like another daughter to us...  

Whilst Daina was there, Chloe cooked an amazing lasagna for us for dinner, as the kids and the men still needed to be fed.  

Whilst we were doing that, Dan decided to wait until Max woke from his sleep and take him down for a haircut.  He wanted one himself and as Sarah commented that Max needed one also, he volunteered to take him.  Steve decided to go for the walk as well....
There was no way though that they were going to get Max into the Barber's chair..

Dan got his hair cut though.

Even with Poppy there, he was still not having a bar of the snippers coming near his head...

It was a bit of a rush them for us to get ready as we were meeting Hannah and Brenda (Sarah's friends who were joining us) at 6.30pm at Chloe's place.  We had decided to catch the train into the Lyric's Theatre near Southbank, as parking is always a bit of an issue...  Aladdin was due to start at 7.30pm so we wanted to be there no later than 7pm.

Waiting to catch the train into Southbank to see Aladdin....

 The train trip in wasn't very long and we got there in good time...
We had our tickets already, so after a short pit stop we headed into the theatre to claim out seats.
We had a good view from one of the balconies...
The theatre was packed....

All seated waiting for Aladdin to begin...

 The production of Aladdin.... what can I say..... WOW.
It was amazing...  the colours, the costumes, the dancing the singing...
Sensory overload, there was so much to enjoy, so much to take in...
Unfortunately we couldn't take photos in the theatre, so I had to go to google to save a few, just so that I can remember the colour and spendour of the night....

 The first half went for an hour and a hour, and I remember sitting in my seat after the "Cave" scene, not wanting it to end..... We had about a 20 minute recess, which only gave us enough time to have a couple of photos taken and head to the Ladies....

 The second half was equally as good, not as much colour but still breathtaking and it went for about an hour and a quarter....  I kind of wish we had taken Willow now, as I am sure she would have absolutely loved the whole thing....

 What a wonderful night..... What a great birthday treat...
Even though the tickets were over $100 it was so worth it... I would be keen to go to another one now... Just the most magical night.  

We got home around 11pm, but it was closer to midnight before we got to bed.  Willow and Max were having a sleep over with us...  Unfortunately for us, Max must of been dreaming a fair bit as he woke us up several times, just calling out.  Then to cap it all off, Willow in her excitement at having a sleepover was awake at 5.30am and hopped into bed with us as well...

That pretty well ended my night's sleep.  I felt like a train wreck.  Chloe was up not long after me.  Appartently Willow had climbed into bed with her at around 5am so we were both feeling pretty washed out...

Once Max woke, Chloe decided to take them both for a walk down to McDonalds (just dwn the road) to give them a hash brown and a play in the playground so that the guys could continue to sleep.

I think I dozed off on the couch whilst she was gone also...
Sarah arrived back over for Pancakes for breakfast...

Making pancakes for breakfast

Yummo

 Whilst the others were cooking breakfast Uncle Dan was being a wonderful Uncle and playing with the kids on the floor.  He was being the engineer and building different bridges for the cars to go up over and around on the track..

 Max was having so much fun with this (our birthday present to him) that Sarah, Chloe and Steve decided to head down to the local KMart Store to pick up some more traking and an extra car.  They came back with two boxes, which meant that they could build a lot bigger track. 

 The kids were right into it.... budding engineers.  Even Max soon picked up what to do to make hills in his track and the new cars were much faster (maybe it had something to do with the new batteries in them) but they pushed his little blue car all the way round the track which got him even more excited because now it looked like a train...

Meanwhile, Aunty Chloe sent some time with Willow showing her how to make balloon flowers.  She has really taken to this balloon art...

 Of course today my eye looked much worse than yesterday with the bruising well and truely coming out,  It really does look like I have been punched in the eye...

Oh dear what a doosey

 

 Dania had wanted us to meet her new husband Cam, so we were invited to go visit them at their home (which is only 10 minutes away from Chloe's) and we ended us staying for a cuppa and a game of Trivial Pursuit... Dan was the clear cut winner.... I am afraid the rest of us aren't the best at this game.  They had the new version which is a much quicker game than the old version we have at home (that never gets used) 

It was nice to meet Cam and we ended up meeting his Mum as well who comes from Toowoomba and works with my niece... a very small world...

By the time we got back to Chloe's it was time to pack up all our gear and some food for a BBQ as we were meeting our good friends Ian and Kathy for a BBQ at Underwood Park...
This would allow the kids to burn off a bit of energy and us to catch up with Ian and Kathy as Steve had not seen them since our trip around OZ.

It was nice to see them again and catch up on all their family news...

Time to poke faces for the camera

 It was a lovely evening out.  This time of year the weather is really delightful.  Cool breeze but not cold.  We sat enjoying each other's company until it was well and truly dark and then we ended up back at Sarah's house so that we could get the kids ready for bed...

Ian and Kathy joined us back there for a cuppa as well.  So thankful for the young weekend.... We are getting to old to drive this far for just a day.

We did manage a good night sleep on Sunday night, both of the kids slept in which was great.  Sarah had a couple of little jobs she wanted he father to do before we took off to head back home...

Meanwhile, our packing was done ultra quick as we didn't bring much inside just for the night.  I did enjoy spending the bit of extra time with the children though...

They both scored iPad time.  Up until now, Willow has never really had to share the iPad, but Max is well and truely at an age now where he wants his turn at it also. 

 There may have been a bit of bribery though to get a photo of two with him before it was handed over....
A happy Moppy she got some of her photos and now it was iPad time...

 Whilst he was enjoying his iPad time,  Miss Willow had to take me out the back and show me how she could shoot hoops...
She is getting very good at it... Maybe she will be a basketball player like her Mum....

 Also most time to leave,  but I couldn't help but take the last couple of photos of Maxie, still on the iPad but with half his breakfast scattered across his face....

It was probably around 9.15am before we finally got away.  We had planned on leaving around 8am as we had a couple of stops to make on our way home today...
Still forever the handy man, the kids and my dad usually have jobs lined up for Steve when he visits...

We wanted to drop into the Sunshine Coast on our way home to catch up with my Dad.  We have not seen him since Christmas time and even then it was only a short visit on our way home from our Lap...

We have also had a new fence errected at his place and wanted to check it out also as I am sure the bill for it will be arriving very soon.  The cost did blow out a little, but the fence looks good and I am sure it will be way more secure for Dad as we have had an electric gate put on which means he won't have to go out alone in the evening to close it....  More about the building of it in the next post...

The new gate and fence....

It was lunch time by the time we left Dad's.  We stopped and had a cuppa and he had a few little jobs for Steve to do as well.  We really do need to get down and see our parents more often...

It was close to 4pm by the time we arrived in Bundy to drop into Steve's parents.  The traffic was pretty busy today.  Maybe because it was the last long weekend for quite some time..
We spent just over an hour with STeve's folks and then headed for home...

We didn't get home until almost 8.45pm.  It has been a long day but a great weekend with our kids.  Good thing I have Fridays off and managed to get all our ironing done before we left so at least I knew we were ready for work the following morning....