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!