Lathams News: VISITING BARB AND LUNCH AT COTTON TREE......

Sarah spent the week up helping us with the painting... Once they got to rolling the first coat of primer on the walls, it was time for me to take the children off site.. We didn't want them running around and knocking cans of paint over and making a big mess....

My good friend Barb lives on the Sunshine Coast so we were heading to Cotton Tree for a visit with her...

She had organised for us to make some cup cakes with the children..

We made cup cakes for morning tea..

We sat out on her patio to have our morning tea and the views there are stunning as you look down onto the mouth of the Maroochydore River... It must be a hard life to sit out and eat your breakfast each morning enjoying a view like this one....

View from Barb''s patio

After morning tea we did some rock painting... Willow really enjoyed doing this when they were up in Rockhampton with us... and once again she painted three more rocks... This time, Max even had a go and painted a rock... He then got me to paint him a couple of penguin rocks... He is a funny little thing... he loves the rocks but finds it hard to part with his little stash... Both Barb and I painted a couple or rocks also....

Our plan after lunch was to hide a few of the children's rocks over in the Cotton Tree parklands..

A bit of rock painting...

Barb bought out some of her grandchildren's joys for the children to play with whilst we caught up and had a chat... They had an absolute ball and played so nicely together... In fact Barb's husband John could not even believe that I had bought the children with me, they were that quite.... He found it quite remarkable that they were so well behaved... all that was to be shattered the following day when we came back for our second visit....

We decided to head across to a little beach shack restaurant at Cotton Tree to pick up some fish and chips for lunch...

After lunch, we hid some of our stones along the path but the children did keep three to hide in the playground.

The rest of Willow's painted rocks were hidden in the playground... In fact she actually saw a little girl find one of her rocks and it made her day. The little girl who found it was so excited, but her little sister was a little sad that she didn't find one, so bless Willow's heart, she went and told the little girl she knew where one was and took her over to show her where she had hidden one of her other rocks.... It was great to see how this one small act of kindness made Willow feel....

Barb and I

The children had a great time on the playground equipment...
It was going to be hard to get them off as I needed to get them home by around 3pm so that they could have a catch up with their cousin Maddison...

It was just after 3pm when we left Barb's.
We headed home to find that the children's Aunty Amanda and their cousin Madison were =visiting. Willow loves her little cousin and was quite happy to keep her entertained....