Christmas Time

We ended up having Christmas on Christmas Eve this year. We had friends over for a BBQ on Christmas Eve and had a lovely evening, then when everyone went home we opened our presents- the kids being teenagers now sleep in.

There is rarely a surprise when we open the presents - Lachlan has a pretty good knack of guessing what his present is before he opens it - one was a book- which wasn't had to guess but he even figured out the author and title this year - I am so predictable.

Amy had a few surprises and she is always the one, saying can we open the presents now!

Bill just whinges and said he got a Christmas present last year - so we just buy him a bucket and fill it with goodies we all like to eat and open it for him when he starts the whinging - he is so predictable! Even the wrapping of the presents that he drums up for us is predictable, it usually involves some old plastic bag, a used card, my gift tag was on a gum leaf this year, even the kids are following suit - Amy got a brick from Lachlan with a book voucher attached, and Bill's present was wrapped in a used cereal box!

Christmas lunch/dinner this year was toasted sandwiches - I am not so predictable this year- I carted the family off to a local nursing home where we brought the residents down to the dining room and helped them enjoy their Christmas lunch. It was something different, it was nice to do something for someone else, and it meant we have had a quiet and simple Christmas but a very enjoyable one.

Gentle rain has fallen all day which has been just wonderful for the garden!

The Christmas Pudding

It is a tradition in the Mamouney Family to have Christmas Pudding with charms in it, so as usual I made Christmas Pudding. We used Aunt Hilda's recipe - (not sure who Aunt Hilda is so I better find out!). It was delicious if I say so myself. This year we had it Christmas Eve when we had friends around for a BBQ. This year for prizes we had Lindt Chocolate balls which went down very well, except for the people who didn't find any charms in their pudding!

I remember not liking Christmas pudding but always having 2 or 3 slices to find the charms- I now like Christmas pudding and fruit cake but never did when I was younger! Amy is obviously following in her mothers footsteps - she will have pudding but doesn't really like it. I am sure though that I never complained when I never found a charm!

Christmas Preparation

Amy was very impressed with my table decoration this year - one because I normally never decorate the table, two - because we got this Christmas Runner in the Budapest Market in Hungary so it brought back some memories and three- I put some green christmas baubles in a vase and put it on top. She decided it was something her aunties might do but not her mum so I thought I better take a photo and record it for posterity!

My Bike Riding Buddies

Every Monday morning and Wednesday morning I ride with a bunch of cyclists, we have several routes and usually it it about 60 to 70km, the best part is at the end of the ride heading to the coffee shop where I have a hot chocolate and we sit and recover! It is such an important part of my day that I schedule my work around it. Instead of working 3 full days, I work 2 full days and 2 half days so I can ride in the morning and then go to work in the afternoon! It keeps me sane and means I can eat - my motto in life is " I ride so I can eat!" Sometimes I wonder about my productivity at work on a Monday or Wednesday afternoon, and sometimes I even take the lift up to work rather than face the stairs if I have done a hilly ride!

Lachlan's Graduation

Lachlan graduated from Lake Tuggeranong College - Year 12 this week. He got an ATAR score of 91.45 which is an excellent result and will mean he well and truly has the marks to get into Software Engineering at ANU next year.

Towards the end of the ceremony, before I knew his mark, they read out a list of 25 students out of about 400 who had got a score in the top 10%, I heard a number of familiar names, but then got a bit of a shock when I heard Lachlan Frost read out. To be honest the first thought that came into my head was " what a ratbag" I had nagged him on and off throughout the two years to try and do just a little bit of extra work, but he just went along doing his own thing, not getting stressed, just doing what he had to, obviously to a high standard, but not any more than he needed to, and he got there and got there easily, maybe he was secret studying in the library after all!

I have really enjoyed getting more glimpses into Lachlan's school life and friends over the last month. He is a quiet, self sufficient young man, doesn't have all the much to say, but as I have dropped him off or gone along with him to the end of year school events the last few weeks, I have had the chance to meet some of his friends, their parents, see him interacting with them and it has given me the chance to see him operate in his world. He has chosen good friends, with similar goals and aims, they seem like good mates that look out for each other. Many of them will be going of to ANU to study next year, so he will have that opportunity to continue that interaction with them. So well done to Lachlan!

Amy's 16th Birthday Party

Amy turns 16 on Monday but she had her party on Saturday night. She had about 8 friends over and had a wonderful time. They played the usual party games, like the chocolate game, eating the donut on a string game, musical statues and a couple of noisy messy games - including getting a chocolate coin from the bottom of a plate of custard using your teeth! Then it was who can fill the icecream cone fastest, with one partner lying on the ground with an icecream cone in their mouth, while the other person drops spoonfuls of icecream from shoulder height - a couple of games I had not seen before! I must admit the dogs liked cleaning up after the games!

Lachlan's Year 12 Formal

Lachlan had his Year 12 Formal this week at the National Museum. It was great to see him all dressed up! Silly me however thought it would be better if Amy took the photos as usually I managed to get them all blurry. All she managed to take was a couple of him out the front of the house and then some close ups of his face, his cuff links - need I say more - I didn't end up with as many photos as I had hoped! I should have learnt by now - if I want something done - do it myself.

Anyhow he had a great time, had a pre formal event where they arrived at someones house to set off in the cars they had hired - I actually got to see and meet some of his friends and their parents. I did manage to get a few more photos there. Then headed off to the National Museum to see the arrival which is quite an event, then raced off to Amy's Year 10 Graduation at Deakin.

Lachlan went to an after formal party, arrived home at 3:30am ( announced by Benji, it is a bit hard to sneak in at this house). Lachlan then proceeded to chat to me for about 15 minutes and tell me all about it and what a good time he had ( I am lucky to get him to talk to me for 15 minutes during the day, so obviously 3am is a good time to chat!) Needless to say I did not get up at 5am that morning for my usual Friday ride!

Amy Finishes Year 10

Amy has officially finished Year 10. She had her Formal this week, her last day at school on Friday and has her Presentation Night and Year 10 Graduation this week. She is enjoying the sleep ins and break from school. She can have a few days of lounging around before I start thinking up some things for her to do - like going to the gym every day and I am sure I can find her a few jobs to do. She had a lovely night at her formal and really enjoyed the occasion. Her dress certainly looked a lot better with nice shoes rather than the silver doc marten's she originally tried them on with. I think she actually enjoyed the dressing up and even though she would not admit it, it was much nicer going to the formal in a pretty dress rather than a suit and tie which was her original plan! Here are few more photo's, next week it will be Lachlan's turn as he has his Year 12 Formal.

Amy's Year 10 Formal

Amy had her Year 10 Formal last night at Old Parliament House. I didn't recognise her all dressed up - what a transformation. She looked fantastic and had a wonderful time. She hadn't organised how to get there, so at the last minute I came up with the idea of sitting in the back of the hilux, complete with table and chairs, sip sparkling apple juice from their goblets- it was a hit and went over well. The arrival is a grand affair with crowds of people and lots of fancy cars so it is not for the fainthearted! We checked with the policeman parked nearby if it was okay and we got the nod so off we went!

Especially For Charlie

These are some pictures for my little nephew Charlie, who introduced us to these very special chocolate bars - for boys only - not for girls! We were visiting Grandma and we always have to go and look in the chocolate shop in Berwick. I always get a couple of umbrella lollies - they are one of my favourites and we discovered that they sell Yorkie Chocolate Bars - we tried one in England and if you are a girl and you have some they make you do funny things - like talk with a deep voice or punch each other, or want to play Cowboys and Indians and shoot the baddies! Well you can imagine the trouble I had when Amy brought one and decided to eat it and give some to Grandma Pam as well. I had to send them both to their rooms for being naughty!

Melbourne Trip

Last weekend Amy and I went down to Melbourne to visit my mum, check up on her after her knee operation and fill her in on our trip to Melbourne. I took my camera with me, but forgot to take photos. I could have had some great pictures for my blog - Amy with her cousins at the Afghan restaurant for lunch on Friday, going out to dinner with some of my brothers and their families for dinner on Saturday night to a lovely Thai restaurant. It would have been lovely to have photo's of all that, but I never remember till it is too late!

I could have even taken a photo of a rain gauge nearly full- thought about that photo a week later- I took mum down a rain gauge for her birthday, set it up as they were predicting rain Saturday night and I had to empty it twice, once with 32mm of rain in it!

I did remember to take a photo when we went to the market though so at least there is a picture or two. My mum goes to the Ferntree Gully Market every week where she sells her jewellery, we always have to go visit when we go down- one of the main reasons is Amy always likes to get Japanese food from the Japanese takeaway van that is always there and check out all the other food places! So here is a shot of mum and the markets!

Garage Sale

After we packed up half the house earlier this year and filled up our garage, we decided when we unpacked that we would only unpack those things we really wanted and needed, keep the rest in the garage and have a garage sale. That was back in April and May, our garage has been choc a bloc since then, but we finally got around to having the garage sale this weekend. The kids helped enthusiastically - once we promised to split the profits with them!

We had a good day, from about 8am to 1pm and managed to part with some of our treasures - including an electric scooter and unicycle - brought by Bill many years ago and barely used. He found it very hard to part with and ancient label maker that he had rescued from a skip and had lived in our garage for about 12 months and he had never used. He told the guy who brought it "I didn't really want to sell it but my wife said I couldn't keep it" - I am just so mean.

The East family from our church were one of our best customers - the kids came with their pocket money and had a ball! I gave Seth a two for one deal on our giant water pistols as long as he had a fight with his dad and sent me a photo! Even offered them a free dog basket for the puppy Adam will not let them get- he doesn't know what they are missing out on!

We had three young lads in their late teens early 20's come around midday - Bill and I both wondered what on earth they were doing at a garage sale and wondered if they were checking out the place - but you shouldn't jump to conclusions - they brought the big ticket item of the day our blow up boat that Lachlan slept in the night we brought it, and then only ever used it once or twice and it sat up in our roof for 10 years!

The Big 50

I turned 50 this week, had a lovely day on my birthday, got to go riding on a beautiful day with friends and then go for a hot chocolate and a cake they had all organised. I didn't need to go to work afterwards, so that made the day better. Met Bill and the kids at the Hyperdome in the afternoon and got a gold chain and earrings and then we all went out to dinner that night and had a lovely meal at Fuel in Manuka.

Perhaps the best present my kids have given me was to offer to cook a meal for some of my friends and myself, so that is what they did. On Friday night, they cooked a lovely meal and my friends and I had a lovely time.

It was a meal inspired by our trip to Europe. We had an antipasto plate of goodies for starters, then had a garlic, chilli and olive oil pasta for main course with a garden salad, and a tomato, basil and buffalo mozzerella salad which was very yummy. Desert was a malteser, raspberry, dark mint chocolate icecream cake- all very yummy and all I needed to do was invite my friends and go shopping at the Fyshwick Markets the day before.

What happens when teenagers consume copious amounts of food colouring

They harass a poor defenceless dog and dress him up in funny hats!

Amy's Rainbow Cake

As you do when you are in the Computer Lab in World Issues researching Somali Pirates you come across a recipe for Rainbow Cakes - well my daughter does! With a birthday party happening last Tuesday at our house Amy had to make the cake - so here are some picture! Lots of food colouring so who knows what it will do to teenage brains. It did look really good and didn't taste to bad either!

Boiled Egg for Breakfast Anyone!

This morning Amy had a boiled egg for breakfast - it was a very special boiled egg as it had to be put in a very special egg cup that we brought in Vienna. It even had a special little hammer to break the egg shell. Hard to believe she is a teenager!