Life Lately January and February 2025

 

Have copied these photos from Bindi's blog. Have been forgetting to take photos, plus these have pictures of our family which I need to save! We had dinner at Bindi's recently to celebrate Kelly's birthday. Francine, Nate, Kelly, Abby and Lachlan joined us, we had a fun night. Francine brought cakes galore, including Amy's favourite - Peach Melba from Space Kitchen.

In late January we got together with the McAllister's, Scott's, Bindi and Mia around at the McAllister's in late January for Christmas pudding. It was a fun night, it has become a bit of a tradition for us.

                                    

Our happy little puppies

Tank Art Work

 Amy has been complaining for ages about the plain green water tank that is outside her bedroom window. So after the last year we commissioned Jewel, the daughter of friends of ours to paint a mural on the plastic water tank. Jewel is a young artist and a uni student so she got to work. Amy wanted mushrooms and frogs, so Jewel came up with some ideas for Amy, and then over the course of 2024, in between uni, work, extreme cold and heat, completed the job. She has done a great job and now we have a beautiful water tank and no more complaints from Amy! 

Christmas 2024

 Christmas 2024 

Fairly quiet Christmas this year, Amy was no feeling very well.  We did get the dogs some Christmas outfits. Lucy wasn't very happy about being dressed up, Hugo just took it in his stride. Here is Hugo as a Christmas Elf- super cute! That ended up being Lucy's outfit and Hugo was Father Christmas.

This year in Canberra, our church was sponsoring the Giving Machines, it was the first time they had been in Canberra. I did a shift at the Canberra Centre on the first day it was opened on November 28th. It was pretty quiet, people getting used to the idea. It was a chance to donate to some local charities.

 

On Amy's birthday, we headed over to Bindi's and decorated Gingerbread Houses with the Sarah McCallister and her girls and Tara and Anna Scott. Poor Amy was not well, but just glad to be out and being distracted. Didn't get many photos unfortunately. 

We headed over to Bindi's on Christmas Day for lunch and had a lovely day. We were supposed to have Abby and Lachlan over on Boxing Day but they had COVID, so that happened a couple of weeks later.

 On the 27th December, I went up to Sydney temple with Bindi, I was doing my first shift as a temple worker. My brother Kim and his wife Fil, were up from Melbourne, we caught up with them at the temple and then for dinner at Castle Hill. Saturday 28th November was the day for my first shift at the temple but also 60 years since our family was sealed in the New Zealand temple. Was lovely to be at the temple to mark that occasion. 

We got to see the Christmas lights at the temple, they were lovely.

The Shell House

 With the passing of my mum, the Shell House that was passed from Grandma Nelson to mum, came to me and will be passed on to Amy. The shell house is well over 100 years old, and was made by relatives in our family- the Shipley's. Gary brought it up from Melbourne for me on the Melbourne Cup Day weekend when he and his family came to Canberra for a visit.

Have set it up in the lounge room, and decorated up the cabinet for Christmas.

One of the other things I acquired from my mum was this portrait that was painted of her, when she was 3 years old, by a traveling artist. I have it up on the wall in the lounge room as well. There is also a framed picture of me at a similar age, that shows the similarity between us.