Bright and Buffallo

Bill and I headed down to Bright for the Australia Day weekend with some of our cycling friends and had yet another great weekend. Did the Alpine Classic 140km which involved riding up Mt Buffalo then back through Bright and over Tawonga Gap to Mt Beauty and then back up Tawonga Gap and into Bright. Took about 7 hours. We had good weather and the ride up Mt Buffalo first thing in the morning was lovely and cool and lovely views. We chatted as we rode up the hill - 4 of us rode together. A few people complained as we rode past them that as we were talking we were obviously not working hard enough. My theory is that if you talk then your brain disconnects from what your legs are doing an before you know it you are at the top of the hill. We were noticeably quieter as we went up Tawonga Gap later in the day.

 Very pretty up at Mt Buffalo

 Some of the bike parking

 Mary, Graham, Linda and Barbara at the top of Buffalo,

 Bill was volunteering and didn't have as much to do, so had some spare time so went off for a ride and got Lachlan some single malt whisky from a local distillery. He wasn't sure how best to get it home, ended up carrying it in the bike bottle rack on his bike.

Hailstorm Hits Gordon

Early Monday evening a hailstorm hit us, it lasted about 15 minutes, at the end there were piles of hailstones everywhere- about the size of moth balls. My poor veggie garden was shredded, the pumpkin, zuchinni, lettuce and cucumbers where just shredded, I think I lost half my tomato crop, all the large tomatoes ended up with holes from the hailstorm and just unusable- very sad. Bill's and Lachlan's car ended up  with some slight damage from the hailstones but nothing too bad. I guess all in all we were pretty lucky as a lot of places got a lot of damage.

Ella's Wedding

We traveled down to Melbourne this week for my niece Ella's Wedding on Wednesday 13th January. It was a lovely wedding - really fairy tale stuff and Ella looked just lovely. It was lovely to catch up with lots of family and nice to get dressed up and get some family photos taken- doesn't happen very often these days. It was a really hot day though- it got to 42 degrees and was very hot and windy but Ella coped with it all and looked just lovely. They were sealed at the Melbourne Temple in a simple ceremony in the morning at 10am and then had photos taken and had the reception that night at 5pm at Croydon.

 Mum, Ella and I

Mum

Two of my nieces- Natalie and Mia- can't believe how grown up Mia is looking!

 Bill, Amy and I at the reception

 Bill and I

 Ella the gorgeous bride!

The Bridal Party outside the Melbourne Temple

 Most of the cousins- minus Matthew and Ben in Singpore- and the bride!

 Most of the cousins with the bride- Ella

 Frost Family all dressed up

 Lachlan looking very smart!

 Lovely photo of my two kids Amy and Lachlan

Bill and I

Ziggy the Macaw and our Sometimes Well Behaved Dogs

 When you open the fridge door Ziggy loves to fly over and land on the top of the fridge, he stays there if you slowly close the door, then he looks around to see what mischief he can get into.

The other day I go up into my room and Amy has Ziggy all tucked into my bed and is reading him a story! Tough life for a bird.

Every now and then Luna tries out the small dog basket- just a tad too small!

Very seldom of their own accord do you see all three dogs in their basket- mind you Jack is in the big basket but Luna did choose first.

Then Amy decided to put Ziggy in the basket with Jack. Ziggy was happy but Jack wasn't too keen!

 Then Lyra and Beau had to be part of the action but Jack had left- he had had enough.

Ziggy was having great fun eating the snow peas I had picked from the garden.

New Year's Eve

On New Years Eve we met Simon, Bindi and the kids down at the Cotter for a picnic. I took my camera but didn't take any photos, so these are all from Bindi's blog! We had a lovely bbq and then had Christmas Pudding with coins in it to exchange for prizes- namely chocolate!

Lachlan supervising Simon who is cooking the sausages on the bbq

 A nice photo of Charlie and Mia

 Charlie collecting his winnings from the Christmas pudding- Lachlan is the keeper of the prizes and collector of the coins and does and exceptional job! Charlie had 2 helpings of pudding even though he doesn't like fruit pudding- I remember doing exactly the same thing and eventually developed a liking for Christmas Pudding.

 Someones sixpences from the pudding!

 We had ducklings wandering around looking for something to eat.

 Lachlan and Charlie

 Mia got the button so collected a few extra goodies!

 All together for the picnic

 This Rosella was very tame was eating out of my hand.

Was a nice relaxing evening and lovely down under the shady trees at the Cotter.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day was pretty relaxed at our house as we had done everything Christmas Eve- I loved it! I woke up early as usual so took the big dogs for a walk and made my Christmas pudding.

Amy went over to Bindi and Simon's for Christmas Lunch, the rest of us stayed home and had croissants with ham and cheese for lunch. Later that afternoon Bill, Lachlan and I joined Amy at Simon and Bindi's were we had fun playing Christmas bingo!

  Here we all are concentrating very hard to keep up with Simon's calling 

Lachlan won these glasses at Bingo!

Christmas Eve Present Time

After coming home from the Hyatt we opened our presents. Now the kids are adults waiting till Christmas Morning becomes a bit of a non event, they all sleep in so we do it Christmas Eve. The new tradition is seeing what ridiculous ways Bill will wrap his presents- he is very much a Christmas Grinch and thinks it is all one big waste of time and money but he conforms is some small way. This year he put some money in is hold army socks filled with shredded paper so Amy and Lachlan had to search through that to get their money, My present was a re gifted Christmas card and probably chocolates wrapped up with old paper work notes tied up with old electrical cable- he puts great thought into the wrapping! We had lots of laughs and it was a fun family time.

 

 Jack keeping and eye on things to make sure they don't get out of hand

Benji and Luna

 Meet Zoogles- Amy's new Macaw- the only bird I will ever buy her!

Ziggy meets Zoggles!

 Maybe I can keep Zoggles on my head to keep Ziggy from landing on it!

 Beau and Lyra opening up their present

 Bill just loves opening presents! We only buy him something he needs-this year it was a short sleeve shirt and some new crocs- maybe he will wear them before next Christmas.

 Lachlan and Jack

 Zoggles the new macaw!

 Trying to find the money in a sock full of shredded paper

 My beautifully wrapped present!

He did show a bit more enthusiasm through the whole process believe it or not!