Christmas Lunch

We had a very enjoyable Christmas Lunch. We ate about 3pm and had the missionary elders from our church over for to eat with us. We had roast lamb, turkey and ham, potato salad, tomato mozzarella salad, beans, and char grilled veggies for lunch. Followed by the traditional Christmas Pudding with the coins for desert. We didn't even get out the rocky road and apricot fruit balls but tucked into those later. The two missionaries we have in our ward at the moment are a great pair. One is from Tassie and a real Aussie- he taught Lachlan and I to crack the whip after lunch. The other elder is from Boston in the US, his family has Monkey Bread at Christmas time so I found a recipe and attempted to make that for him. They normally have it for breakfast, we ended up having it with desert and giving him the rest to take home. It was very yummy and something we will make again- sugar, bread, cinnamon and butter!

Christmas Morning

Had a leisurely Christmas morning- Lachlan gave us permission to wake him at 10:30am so it was around 11am before we opened our presents, as you can see we had the dogs to help us!

A Very Doggy Christmas

Amy picked up a job dog sitting two dogs over Christmas for week- Jubi and Wrinks. I am not sure who has enjoyed the dogs more- Bill or Amy. As you can see by the above photo they have had no trouble settling in! I must admit I was not particularly looking forward to having 4 dogs running around the house but they have really been no trouble at all and have been a real part of our family over the last few days. Bill and Amy have been coming up with numerous plans of getting out of giving the dogs back to their owners-like "Sorry there was a storm last night and they all ran away" or "Kennel fees have gone up to $2000 if you want your dogs back"

Christmas Eve

Twas the day before Christmas so what did I do? Last minute Christmas shopping- no, last minute Christmas cooking- of course not- ride my bike- of course! The Sue Frost Philosphy of " live to eat, ride to eat" came in to play!

Now, a few people out there already think I am mad and this will probably just confirm it, but on Christmas Eve I drove out with a couple of my female cycling buddies to the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve. We parked our cars, got out our bikes and then road up to Corin Forest where as you can see from the photos it was a bit cool and foggy- 10 degrees actually. Then we rode down to the dam which was 100 percent full. Last year it was 38% full and the year before 8%. We then had to ride back up again. In total 25km of climbing! We then headed back towards the Nature Reserve but had to ride in and out to the tracking station (another 12km and more hills) before heading back to our cars having ridden 68km. What did I do the rest of Christmas Eve- slept and read my book- I was a bit tired!

Hydro Dog Visits

Benji is the most excited when the Hydro Dog lady pays us a visit. Clancy is not all that thrilled. He is the one that gets to have a clip, a bath, and his ears cleaned out. He always smells lovely after his bath and always looks very skinny after he has been clipped but it keeps him cool for the summer and it soon grows back. Benji just charges around and loves the excitment of something different happening and he knows he usually gets a treat from the Hydro Dog lady just for being there!

Amy's New Drink Bottle

Amy has acquired a new water bottle- it is filled with water - or so she tells me. One can only hope!

Amy's Birthday

Amy is about to turn 17 around 10:30pm tonight! She celebrated her birthday by having a party at Zone 3 with some of her friends. They used to go there when they were younger, have not been there for about 3 or 4 years now. They put on these laser packs and run around and shoot each other. The first time Amy ever played she did okay, the second time she beat her brother Lachlan and her uncle Simon and has never been beaten since. I was wondering if after not playing for 4 years she might lose her unbeaten record- but she didn't - beat him yet again!

They had a great time, I managed to lose the candles so we had matches on her mango cheesecake instead!

I could have killed Amy when she woke me up at 12:15am to tell me she was 17 and I could wish her a happy birthday- that was not what I was wishing her at 12:15am!