ben and eve's adventures

catching up with whats going on

2011-10-16T23:17:00.005+01:00

Dear me,

Months pass and so many events not recorded upon the blog. We have been super busy since coming back from our UK visit. Ben's folks are almost in their new house. We spent the October holidays putting floorboards down. August was getting Matthew's ears fixed. And now we are approaching November we are thinking of moving the folks and Chelsea into the new place and of course Christmas. For Christmas, very exciting, as the youngest member of my siblings, I get to host Christmas for the very first time. I can't wait, my big sisters and their families are coming to stay in our beautiful new house.

Other events of course are, we went to the Bathurst race, wonderful as always. Matthew will be turning three at the end of October. And we have Timothy all enrolled for starting school next year. This past weekend we did a big surprise garden party for Ben's mum. It was a complete success and of course we have loads of food and drink left over. Any for some pics from the last few months.

An English Adventure

2011-06-19T09:05:00.007+01:00

Yes we are back in the beautiful land where the boys were born. Cambridge has felt just as homey as before. It is just lovely seeing and spending time with all our friends. We did well on the flight. The boys were in excellent form. Probable due to the fact another poor parent had a screaming child the entire length of the first trip. But Timothy was very happy chatting way, asking questions and exclaiming about exciting new discoveries. My favorites were 'Mummy look this plane has a remote control just like Auntie Jane has, isn't that funny' and during the silence between turbulance Timothy exclaims 'That was great fun, can we do it again'. Much to the amusement of the other travellers.

Here we are at Carluicucs (can't spell) and then at Cambridge markets

Playing with friends, Darcey, Sarah, and at the Natural history museum in London with Alice and Daniel

And the last pics are of our day around Cambridge. We saw fudge being made, went on a punt down the Cam river and shopped until we dropped. first pic by Matthew

2011-06-08T09:26:00.000+01:00

two sleeps until we start our journey back to the UK. very exciting

Dan and Rachel's wedding

2011-05-23T07:49:00.003+01:00

Camping

2011-04-05T23:33:00.006+01:00

We are trying our hand again at camping with foozles. Last year was very hard as Matthew would normally sleep in a cot. When faced with the tent, had a melt down and screamed for two nights. Now Matthew has been moved to a big bed when we moved to our new house. We are feeling confident as this trip is just the one night and the drive to Dubbo is a little over two hours. We have our bikes and the trailer for the foozles. We will pack lots of lovely things for picnic's, bbq dinner and of course the most essential marshmellows. So watch this space as we will return in two weeks with lots of lovely pics around the zoo. If you want to check out the zoo from a distances http://taronga.org.au/taronga-western-plains-zoo/visitor-information/plan-your-visit-taronga-western-plains-zoo-dubbo

We are still settling into our new place. I can't wait to have fun with the garden. We are also looking forward to Easter. We are hosting an egg hunt in the back yard in the afternoon. This May we are having a party for Timothy on the Sunday, it is also Mother's day but we will do mummy things in the morning. The party's theme this year is fireman and fire trucks. I truelly believe I will need some wood in the constuction this year. As I don't think I can build a fire truck just out of cardboard that would survive. The foozles are too heavy. This year we have Nonna coming for the birthday so that will be loads of fun.

Then at the end of May we are off to Sydney for Ben's brothers wedding. Should be great fun, as it is in Manly, near the beach. Auntie Jane is watching the foozles. We are also hoping to come to the UK just after the wedding. We are still waiting for Ben's work to give the ok. Should be soon though as it has been put off three times now.

We also had an awesome time recently with my big sisters coming to Bathurst for a visit and the foozles cousin Felix too. It was lots of fun, showing them around all the tasty and beautiful things we have here. We took them to annies ice cream parlour that has been here since my mother was a little girl. We went to the fancy country fruit, who even stocks stilton, yum. And had a look at the lovely gardens.

foozles frolicking

Auntie and cousin visit

And here is the lovely Rachel, soon to be Mrs Daniel Capper

Playing in our new in park

2011-03-28T10:48:00.003+01:00

Yes we have finished moving. It went swimmingly smooth with all the great help from friends and family, so thank you one and all. It took two truck loads across town and about five days to unpack the boxes. We got the keys on the Wednesday before the move on the Saturday, so I got in bright and early and painted the two bedrooms we were going to be using. We have lots of exciting plans for our garden and of course we are now getting use to having a kitten. Ben's mum and sister rescued five kittens from the lane near their house. Three went to other homes and we kept Asher and Chelsea kept Bella. So six week old cat is very funny in the morning running around like a loony bin. The boys love it. We have had a bit of a hard start to the week this week though, probable mostly to do with the move but Ben and I went out also on Saturday and Sunday so Timothy and Matthew are very clingy and a bit teary today. Ben and I celebrated 10 years of marriage on Sunday. Taking ourselves off to a lovely restaurant in Orange. We went to Lolli Redini olliredini.com.au/ which has a chef hat. Very yummy. Saturday night we went out to listen to lovely singing by a local group, of who, Ben's mum is a member.(Singing group Cantora) It was at Abercrobie House, a local historical home very beautiful.

Here are some pics I took of the foozles playing in our near by park. House pics to follow soon, well when i find my card reader :P

Do something wonderful for Lent this year

2011-03-01T06:20:00.001Z

The Capper Clan are joining forces with Relay for Life. We are raising money for cancer council research. We are to continue around our local oval for 24 hrs. We start Saturday 2 April @ 3.45pm The foozles will be going around on their dinkies for the first hour and the rest of us will do the other hours. It would mean so much if all our friends out there could show support for this great cause and donate online at

http://relay.cancercouncil.com.au/2011/bathurst_2011/Perpetual-Motion

cheers, e

Squish

2011-03-01T05:08:00.001Z

Pick and stomp at the hunter

2011-03-01T00:08:00.011Z

Yes we went back again with the foozles but it was quite good. We had lots of fun with the grape picking, Timothy and Matthew took their own trailers and so were really good helpers. Later the foozles both got to try squishing the grapes, Matthew was quite unimpressed with getting his feet all sticky but thought it was fun washing it all off.

We got to take the boys out for dinner at the restaurant they have at the winery. It was almost perfect, it was a good start at least, they ate their dinner and only had to play outside with Daddy twice :)

Foozles loved the breaky the next morning as I had brought along blue jelly as a treat. Best of all Matthew didn't throw up in the car on the way there or back so we won both ways.

First day at preschool

2011-01-31T10:00:00.003Z

Timothy loved it. I have been told I can't go inside anymore. I can pick up and drop off but otherwise I am not need. He is such a big boy now. He loved the painting and the little toilets the best. The teacher reported that he interacted will and was very chatty. Kid after my mine heart. He will be going Monday and Tuesday afternoons. I also put in his forms for school, kindy next year.

2011-01-04T07:26:00.000Z

Foozles in Christmas action 2010

2011-01-02T21:55:00.000Z

2011-01-01T07:05:00.001Z

Happy New Year everybody. Wishing you a good 2011

Much fun with Nonna

2010-12-29T09:39:00.000Z

Weather

2010-12-28T07:24:00.002Z

Yes it is the Bathurst weather report again. Oct 16 we saw snow, Nov we had an earth treme. Now not the heat wave you would expect but rain and lots of it. The bridge into town has been closed four times.

Foozles having fun

2010-12-28T07:20:00.001Z

super yum Ben made coffee

2010-11-05T02:46:00.002Z

The mini foozle is two

2010-10-30T10:25:00.004+01:00

Yes we made it through the day and it was great. Lots of fun and laughter and very few tears so super success. We had a wonderful party. Everybody came and lots of lovely presents. Thank you to everybody both near and far for making this special event a wonderful thing to remember. Here a few pics of the event...

Foozle ball

2010-10-29T21:56:00.000+01:00

BBQing foozle

2010-10-29T21:52:00.001+01:00

Party prep

2010-10-29T12:34:00.003+01:00

The car cake for the car nut and the cardboard box castle. not as good as the space station since it was a mummy engineered thing and not a daddy one.

Here is Timothy with is first strawberry for his gardening efforts

Earth quake

2010-10-22T08:40:00.000+01:00

Not quite but we did have a tremor in Bathurst today. Measured 2.9

Count down to Matthew's second birthday

2010-10-22T08:34:00.006+01:00

We thought we would do a bit of a flash back through his cute moments on film...8 sleeps to go. if you click the headline it goes to the youtube link of Matthew's baby film.

Foozles in the big city

2010-10-11T02:56:00.007+01:00

We started off very good but we did have to cut our tour a bit short as Matthew and I were unwell. We did get to go to the beach though and rode dinkies around the mall. Lots of cafe visits with smartie biscuits and pink milk, yum.

blooms in Bathurst

2010-09-26T02:38:00.005+01:00

Had a lovely morning. We had headed into town to go to church, printing some family pics before hand. But alas we saw that they had no Sunday school on because of the holidays. Foozles and church don't bend well without it so.............. since we had our camera with us we went for a dinky walk around the town and got some fab pics of the blooms about Bathurst.

Here is us trying to get a co ordinated family pic

Morning dinky adventure with foozles

2010-09-17T03:13:00.004+01:00

Stretching our wheels and Mummy's legs we went on 'a big adventure' as Timothy would say. We had run out of chocolate so took the dinkies to the shops, playing at all the parks on the way back. Poor Timothy has an awful hair cut, would not keep still. And we have lots of flowers out around Bathurst

Sleep deprived

2010-09-16T21:46:00.005+01:00

Alas it still goes on. We are still suffering from foozle nocturnal activities, though if we get the little one to eat his dinner he is much better. Last night it was the big one and they were both up at five. I think the sunrise is helping to energise them at this early hour. We have have a good time apart this problems though. Play groups and family are all gearing up for the last term of year and so have planned lots of fun Christmas/ hot weather fun. We are planning water play days with bubbles and parachute games. We also have the Bathurst race in a few short weeks. We are off to Sydney at the end of September for a bit of a stay at my sister's house which will be lots of fun. We also have a run of birthdays coming up so will be busy planning those. No news on the house buying alas. We have decided to wait for a bit as prices have been going down in Bathurst as our savings are going up so we should be good to go in the new year. Have already good seedlings coming up in the garden. We have planned lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, capsicum and started a herb garden. These are all in pots mind as we plan to plant them out at the new place with luck.

Timothy and Matthew are very gung ho with all the garden. Timothy demands we weed every afternoon. He is quite funny when you see him trying to instruct his friends who visit on the art of weeding. He is a very good garden so far. They both water each afternoon and are very keen on the planting process, lots of dirt : ) The boys are coming along fast. Matthew already rides around on a peddle bike. He is catching up to Timothy very quickly though Timothy is still the king of the puzzles. Timothy loves to sit down and trace his numbers and letters, and they tell me he is to young for pre school, fooie I say. I am really looking forward to Christmas this year, they understand so much more. We start our craft and pre from November. Matthew is a bit relaxed with is words. He can say half a dozen things but choices to just exclaim 'Oh no' at everything. He babbles in his own language just fine mind you. Here are a few pics from recent weeks.

Mini steams

2010-08-23T05:35:00.001+01:00

puddles

2010-08-23T03:09:00.000+01:00

run and hide

2010-08-02T03:29:00.001+01:00

Timothy at Thredbo

2010-07-12T03:17:00.001+01:00

Was an awesome weekend though Ben and I didn't get to ski together which was a bummer but we will go for longer next year.

Sydney Visit

2010-06-21T03:50:00.007+01:00

What a wonderful time we had. The children were so good and it was lovely weather and lots to do, surrounded by so many lovely people. We started out our adventure in Sydney but going to the beach. We then went and got Timothy his first peddle bike and a new dinky for Matthew. Wednesday night we went to Dan's fab art exhibition and was very excited for him as he sold two works before the show offically opened. Thursday we had a great lunch with the delightful Auntie Margaret. We went took the boys on the bus into the city centre. They had great time riding their bikes in the middle of all the busy business folks. Friday we got a ferry to the city and walked up with the boys on the bikes to the Lintel chocolate cafe. Super yum. After that we went on another ferry to Cockatoo island to see the free art show. Some amazing stuff. Friday night the boys survived until 8.30 at night at a lovely pub dinner with friends. Saturday we met up with all the old Glebe grew at a cafe in Glebe. After this we had an excellent time with Auntie Jane, Uncle Ludo and all the awesome cousins. wonderful weekend by all.

here are the pics evidence.

Trip to Hill End

2010-06-06T03:59:00.003+01:00

Went to the mining town of Hill End where we got to go into a defunked mine. Alas the particular mine didn't yield any gold in its few years of operation. quote from visitnsw.com "n 1851, gold was discovered at Hill End, then known as Bald Hill, and by 1872, at the height of the great gold rush, the town was the largest inland settlement in NSW.
It had a population of 10,000 and boasted a kilometre of colourful shopfronts, including 28 pubs, an opium den and an oyster bar.
Gold mining activity gradually dwindled, until by the 1920s there were just a few hundred miners left to pick over the former diggings.
The town was proclaimed an historic site in 1967, when the National Parks and Wildlife Service began preserving and restoring the buildings on the site."

Anyway if you get the chance its a lovely place to visit and a beautiful drive there. And of course if your coming from Sydney you can come and stay with us or at least drop in for one of Ben's fresh roast coffees.

Botanical gardens Mt Tomah

2010-06-05T22:41:00.006+01:00

Had a lovely Saturday last week. We met up with my brother and his lovely Alex for lunch. Its an hour and half drive from Bathurst so we headed out early. We arrived with an hour to spare and had the dinky's with us. So with ropes tied to the front we let them loose in the garden, towing then back up the hill. It was a lovely day. Good lunch, though Matthew did try swimming after the fishy but we had been expecting rain so we had spare clothes.

Second stage of 3rd birthday celebrations

2010-05-17T03:31:00.006+01:00

Here we are a week after the big party fest. We had the play group party on his actually birthday, followed by the deliver of so many wonderful fantastic presents all through the week. Thank you so much for all of them, Timothy is working on his thank you notes so they will be in the post soon. We had lots of fun during the week preparing for the party on Sunday. We had sixteen children and about the same in adults. It went from 2 to 5pm and there were a number of activities for them too do. We had the foozle space station, space dough. Star biscuits to decorate and UFO to make. Not to mention lots of goodies to play with in the party bags. We finished off with the rocket -space plane cake. Anyway here are some pics and the movie from the event. All had a good time.

Birthday Week

2010-05-11T10:06:00.003+01:00

The little man is getting older, I can hardly believe he is 3. The day he arrived is so fresh in my memoral and yet here is this smart, clever and funny boy who is more beautiful to me every day. Happy Birthday my darling son. I do hope the party on Sunday works out well. We kicked on the fun on his actually birthday which was yesterday. He requested green jelly for breakfast and cake for lunch. He did manage to squish in a sandwich and a bit of fruit along with all that. We had the dinning table decked out with balloons and presents so when he awoke he had lots of lovely things to unwrap. Matthew was very excited and loved playing with the football Timothy got and so amused himself up and down the hall. We took a thomas cake to play group where he shared his celebration with his little friend Meg who turned three on Friday. They had stick the tail on the donkey and pass the parcel. It was loads of fun. I will update this blog after Sunday after the 'hopeful' amazing space party.

Camping in Tumut with the boys

2010-04-28T21:27:00.000+01:00

Camping for the young

2010-04-28T10:29:00.006+01:00

To put it blunt, 1.5yrs old is a bit young. Alas our littlest man missed his cot too much and cried through the night. The days were awesome though. The first day it rained heaps so they played in the puddles. The second day they got to climb all over digger and tractors. In the afternoon they went for an exciting truck ride to the top of the ridges surrounding the valley we were camping in. At the top we meet lovely little black cows, very cute. Our camping spot was on a friend's property outside Tumut, in NSW. They only have their cattle on it, no power or running water, toilets etc. So as hard as it was, it was much fun but the nights were too much. We might try again when the weather warms up again. It was around -1 when we got up on Monday and only about 4 degrees when we started back to Bathurst. The drive when really well. We got suckered in to getting video screens for the car, which help a lot but we also stop every 1.5 -2 hours and let them run around which park we can find.

will post the film for this adventure soon.

2010-04-07T11:46:00.000+01:00

Easter Break

2010-04-05T21:59:00.007+01:00

Wow what a lot of chocolate. We have three large cake tins full of the stuff. I think we will have to ration it as it is likely to do us in otherwise.

A super wonderful time was had by all. We had the most excellent Nonna, of who we are missed very much as she had to go back home yesterday. We had a great movie night on Friday, though it got rubished on the tomato site I still say it was hilarious, All about Steve. We had Ben's folks here as well.

Saturday we went to a lovely service at the cathedral just for kids. They had a little play and lots of singing and of course chocolate eggs. It was all done in thirty minutes. Now that is somebody thinking right. The boys where ready to go home and have dinner so it worked well.

On easter morning the bunny had left two new easter sand castle making buckets with a moderate about of eggies. This was followed by a super egg hunt out in the garden with all their toys and their friends. We had the next door friendlies around, they have a 2, 12 and 15 yrs for hot cross bunnies.

Yesterday we dropped Nonna off at Katoomba to get a train down to Sydney airport but we did drop in on the three sisters. Fab views as always and Nonna treated us all to ice cream, yum. So that was Easter. We are heading to Tumut to camp on John and Rhonda's (T's godparents along with Dan) property. It is be a laugh, boy loves dogs etc so should get some good pics.

we also went to the local honey supplier and got some tasty stuff. Good pic of the bees too.

Congratulations

2010-03-26T03:33:00.002Z

Welcome to the world little Logan, very cute. Well done to mum Emma and congratulations to the rest of the family. Exciting time for all.

News

2010-03-19T21:26:00.006Z

Yes I know, it has been an age since I have done anything on the blog. So here goes, a short recap. I will go backwards in time.

This week tried to buy a block of land, didn't work. We found the perfect block, made an offer. Got told it was 15 thousand more, made another offer only to find out that the land was not for sale in the first place. Alas developers have brought most of it, driving the prices from the reasonable, 90 to 120 thousand to around 180 so we are going to wait for a bit, save up some more and also look at stuff already build.

Mad birthday month, mine, sister's, sister in laws and and father in laws, not to mention loads of friends birthdays too. So lots of cake, below is a pic of mine, made by my awesome husband. It also means lots of babysiting by my lovely next door girl Laura. We are going to a medievil bawdy balads this evening for Ben's dad's 60th's. Next Friday we are bowling with Ben's sister, and next Saturday Ben and I are going out to a nice restaurant for our 9 year shackled together, or 11 if you don't go by the actually wedding event.

Other news, having lovely time exploring and making friends in our new place here in Bathurst. Lovely to have the family so close though miss all my amigo's in the uk, that's the other thing, learning spanish. We have picked spanish and french to teach the children as we have family and friends that speak both. Timothy is kicking ass with it as we listen to it in the car every day.

this will be chapter one of catch up, expecting breakfast guests any minute as Ben's brother Dan is here and the rest of the fam are coming over for waffles.

Timothy Guitar and Matthew drumming

2010-02-17T08:41:00.001Z

Pick&Stomp

2010-02-15T20:08:00.001Z

Storm in Bathurst

2010-01-16T10:53:00.001Z

Clips from Timothy and Matthew's playing

2010-01-16T08:02:00.000Z

Christmas adventures

2010-01-02T08:37:00.006Z

We had a wonderful time over the Christmas Break. First heading to Sydney, where we caught up with friends and family there. We managed to squeeze in a swim at a harbour-side pool in Cremorne. Fantastic views. Had a great dinner with my Sister and her family and then got on a plane to the Gold Coast to spent a week at my mum's place. We had a fab time there too, going to the beach at least once a day. We got to go shopping by ourselves, and a night out with dinner and a movie while the wonderful big sister looked after the foozles along with the super Nonna. We had a magical night on Christmas Eve, with champane, prawns and wonderful thai salads, turkey and all the trimmings of the season. For dessert my auntie made a gorgeous lemon meringue pie. Timothy and Matthew played with their second cousin James, who is about a year younger than Timothy. And then it was back to Bathurst boxing day for a gourmet lunch done by Dan, Ben's brother. Yummo, now we just have to stop eating. Phew.

here's a few pics from the events...

Ginger bread house

2009-12-11T03:33:00.002Z

Christmas film of foozles

2009-12-10T22:11:00.003Z

Here are a few films of what we get up to while we are getting into the Christmas spirit...

Merry Christmas All

Loonies

2009-12-01T09:12:00.007Z

There's a wee park with swings and what not up at the top of Mount Panorama, so we thought we'd take the kids up for a bit on Saturday morning.

When we got to the top though, we found that the second half of the race track was closed. I went down and had a look as to why this may be.

Oh dear. They're not are they?

Holy &*@#. They are.

Those that have been around this circuit will understand what complete loonies these folks are. The descent is *very* steep, the Esses are treacherous and I can't for the life of me think how they could get through the Dipper at speed (and they most certainly be at speed - I don't see any brakes on those things, besides their feet).

I hung around for a bit thinking I could get a better shot or too. Alas, I ran out of time before the next run. I guess it must have taken a while to hose the blood off the track.

Here are a few more shots from around the mountain. We've had some rain since, but things had become quite a bit browner after a week or two of high temperatures. Pretty though.

Merry Christmas To All

2009-12-01T08:26:00.007Z

The Cappers would like to wish everybody a joy filled season. Hope you all get to enjoy this festive time with health, love and laughter and may your new year be Fantastical.

some people just don't like silly hats :P

Our day

2009-11-16T08:16:00.008Z

Another lovely hot day, we had around 34 degrees. The type of nice dry heat that soaks into your bones. The kids are enjoying it, we play in the yard in the morning when its cool, around 15 to 20 degrees. We fill our paddling pool and leave it in the sun to warm. We dig in the sand and water the plants and drive around the trucks. This morning we then went shopping, Matthew had his midday snooze and Timothy and I did some Christmas crafty stuff. After the snooze we had a late lunch and went to the library. So cool in there, and got some great books which we sorted through on our return. The car actually said it was 36 at one point on the drive home but I am not sure how acurate that would be. In the late afternoon we paddle in the pool and turn on the sprinklers, Matthew loves running or toddling in and out of the spray. Timothy likes spending his time emptying the pool on the veranda floor and splash up and down in the puddles, he misses the puddles from his old home. We eat ice blocks outside and watermelon. And that is pretty much our day. Here are some pics from the weekend....

Hall Dinkies

2009-11-15T09:34:00.000Z

Bush

2009-11-15T03:57:00.001Z

Walking, jumping and dinky rides

2009-11-10T08:15:00.001Z

Mmmmm choci cake

2009-11-07T08:15:00.004Z

now stuffed mmmm....

Local stuff

2009-11-07T08:06:00.003Z

Few pics from our last saturday ride. We went and saw the new horsies and then went into town to the bell dedication. Opening of new bell tower. Very groovy, had the Governor out to do the deed.

First Birthday

2009-10-28T10:07:00.000Z

The Great Race

2009-10-26T21:13:00.007Z

So Awesome. Everybody should try this at least once. It is just like everything else. It is something huge and exciting when its live. Nothing like sitting at home watching from the screen. So any visitors who want to come we will see you next year as you won't regret it.

Anyway on race day we headed down to the track around 7am. I am please to say that the boys managed around six hours before we had to call it a day. Ben and his Brother and lovely other half stayed to the awesome end. Of course as it should be Holden won. Though it has been a few years coming. Some tricky changeable weather made the driving really interest.

In the park

2009-09-24T10:44:00.004+01:00

Here are some pics from one of the parks in Bathurst. There is also one of the kids and I seating at my amazing new table. And the others are just a few shots around Bathurst itself.

Dusting it up in Bathurst

2009-09-24T10:34:00.004+01:00

You might have caught the red haze that we and Sydney got yesterday. Our once grey drive way is now an interesting orange. The dust was blown in from the west nsw outback on the winds of a super storm we had. We lost power for half the night, so having a bath in candle light was just the ticket. The noise of the rain on the metal roof was unreal, Timothy did look a bit concerned but since it didn't stop him from getting his bottle of milk at bedtime he dismissed them. The water coming down was enough to wash our otto bin down the road and know our post box wonky.

Red Light District Police

2009-09-09T10:17:00.002+01:00

Just a wee footnote to the Amsterdam trip.

We kept one of the little visitor guide things that the Hotel gave us when we arrived. In amongst all the usual tourist stuff is a section written by the police of the red light district. The whole thing is well written and casual, but here are some of the more amusing bits:

"If you visit one of the women, we would like to remind you, they are not always women."

"If you have any problems with a girl or a pimp, do not hesitate to ask a police officer. We know why you are there and can hardly surprise us."

"If you feel sick after smoking or eating space cake, drink lots of water with sugar."

Truly, theirs is a different world.

Back online

2009-09-03T07:20:00.013+01:00

Greetings All, sorry about the delayed absents from the blogging scene but you know how it goes. Move country and loss all sense of time :P But since we last check in, we have packed up our Cambridge house, went to Amsterdam on a trip and then made a forty hour trip back to oz. Following day we drove three hours to our new home in Bathurst.

The trip back was amazing, the boys were so good. We got up around 4am and got a taxi at 4.30 to the train station where we caught a train to Brussels. We then got another train from Brussels straight after that to London. After working out how to get down to the platform for for the tube with a double pram and seven bags and two children with no lift in sight, the rest was easy. We got the airport with loads of time. We were a bit paranoid about this as on the way into Amsterdam we had track work so we did not want to get stuck again.

So with a few hours to kill before check in we walked about Heathrow and tried a cafe or two as well as numerous trips to the baby changing stations. The boys took it all in their stride, sleeping some on the trains. Finding new things to play with as we came upon them. And then it was check in. This was around dinner time so it was a bit rushed but again the Singapore Airlines folk were fantastic and the security people at Heathrow were pretty good too. I mean we had a lot of stuff, one carry on was full of toys which included a complete and huge wooden train track set :P We had laptop bags, nappy bags, we took the double pram to the gate (very worth while service) we had a camera bag and a bunch of other stuff and me being a doofus forgot our marmalade in the carry on so the poor people had to search them all.

The flights were great. I can't recommend the A380 Airbus highly enough. It is new, groovy and has lots of space, and if you can get one with Singapore airlines they are just the nicest people.

So here is a few pics of us seeing the sites in Amsterdam. We did the two main muesums Gogh and the Rijks and we did drop by the Anne Frank house but Ben is still yet to stick all the pics together to make the panarama of the line to get in. We did do the canal tour, so nice and walked into the red light district which looked the same as the rest of the place. Very relaxed and groovy place though.

Now for the first day back in Oz, we went to this mad play park near the beach in Sydney. Very groovy

And here of course the best for last is our huge, big and enormous house in Bathurst. All guests welcome, we could fit around eight couples in the place without feeling the need to bump into any of them ;)

(Note from Ben - a slight exageration. You will note that the kids are very good at distributing Toys throughout the house. Can't wait 'till the furniture turns up.)

Farewell to a special lady 1910-2009

2009-07-20T08:32:00.003+01:00

Good bye to my lovely Gran. She was so wonderful, strong, craftive and loving. I will miss her so much. Her mock chicken sandwiches, piles of wool, patch work and other sewing craftiness. She spent much of her 99 years working for charity and was a large part of the Purple patch in Eastwood. She was what you would want from every granmother. She had special toys when we came to visit. Would made special food for you and always had a cuddle. I spent many a happy winters night, sitting by her side knitting. I love you Gran and pray you are in heaven happy and peaceful. Goodbye Gran

will post pic when more together :(

Kingston Beer Festival

2009-06-23T12:16:00.004+01:00

What an amazing event. It was incredible, just like having your own pub for the day. Ben was in his element as the publican, dishing out the beer and talking about the tastiness. We had quite a few folks, from the village as well as surrounding areas. Around 50 or so. We had folks next door lend out lovely white outdoor settles for people to gather around and even a proper bar. I have a few pics which Ben took and we do have a film. I will post the film still but will replace in when we have more disc space as it jumps a bit and skips bits because it didn't copy of the camera so well.

Mini Steam Trains

2009-06-17T06:50:00.000+01:00

Update on the move and movements alike

2009-06-10T11:09:00.004+01:00

Well after much investigations, first Norway, then Greece. We have finally got a side trip to Amsterdam. It was quite tricky as the visa's are going to be cancelled and then there were release date deadlines etc etc, you know how this stuff goes. Anyway we are out of here from the 18 August and with any luck we will know by the end of today, it should be on board the magnificent A380. I know you could argue, a plane is a plane but I like this one, I really do. We should be back in Oz on around the 20th though alas not much catching up or socialising can be done as Ben has to get back to work on the 24th so we will be heading to Bathurst soon after. We have much settling up to do. But we will definitely be heading back into town the following month to see folk and for birthday time events.

Wish us luck :P

Bathurst 1000, bring it on!

2009-06-10T07:54:00.004+01:00

check the gears, mmm

And we are racing...

Oooo did I win, did I, did I, hu, hu hu

A Taste of Narrabri

2009-06-09T08:33:00.020+01:00

Many of you have heard the odd tale or two of life and adventures in Narrabri. I was sorting through all our things in prep for the move and came to the photo albums and thought I might put a few up as it is always nice to have illustrations to go with the story.

This is the cantankerous goat in my stories of trying to get out of the pool, the same goat that jumped on cars too :P This is a pic of my sister Jane and I have fun in the mud in what was effectively our drive way. It was referred to as the bog hole.

My dad at the Easter parade, he won a prize for his float a tone of bull , with mr turnbull as the inspector. my dad is a plumber and had a toilet on the back. very funny, had to be there.

This is me under our house with my dog tracey
The next one is my good self helping dad measure for my cubbyhouse, it even had french doors.
Here are two of my brothers washing in the rain after the breaking of a seven year drought
Another of my dad's contructions. This one is to win the river race, it ended up its career sinking in our oversized concret pool.
The boys winning with our three seater bike. This thing may have been hard to work but it was cool. The three seats were in a straight line as the front of a car with two wheels at the back and one at the front. the two on the outside got to peddle and the joker in the middle gets to steer. It is heaps of fun but don't try it going down hill
Dad, looking suave for the seventies

(A little late though hearty felt) Happy Birthday Kim

2009-06-09T08:19:00.005+01:00

big sister, beautiful inside and out. hope you had a great day, love e, b, t and m

Awww cute

2009-06-08T21:35:00.002+01:00

We are shipping out

2009-06-03T16:23:00.009+01:00

Indeed with are, we are heading home at the end of August. We hope to fit in a few more locations before we go but our main goal with be to get back and settle in Bathurst. It has been the most amazing adventure and we will certain miss everybody we have come to love here. We will still keep the blog going for those not in Bathurst, obviously but we will be remarkable more boring from now on. Though I am sure some will be thinking that, that happened when we had kids and stop jetting everywhere. From our three years here we have gained many countries in our passport, France, Belgium, Germany, Ireland and Scotland though we had been there before. Italy, have not seen nearly enough of that famous place. Singapore though Ben doesn't count that as it would have been easy from Australia.

We have loved growing our own food, singing carols in the freezing dark around our gorgeous village. Getting to know the neighbours has been an amazing and wonderful thing. We have celebrated with the folks here, done easter egg hunts, we have had harvest festivals, the fetes have been excellent. We have loved having the horses near by, walking to the duck pond to feed them. Collecting berries and other fruits for making jam or just yumming up on our way around the place. We will miss the great friends we have made here but we hope to keep in the coming years as with any luck we will be able to visit once a year. Kingston has truely been our home as we have gardened and weathered through three years. We won't miss all the colds or the dark winters, though I loved the cold and the dramatic changes in the seasons. Watching the dead world come alive again after months of dark. It is like an explosion of leaves and blossoms as the plants reclaim the landscape about us. The animals return and mud shrinks back into beds of bulbs in a riot of colour and smell. Summer sees all the light starved folk out frying in the sun, red English on each patch of lawn, be dammed those cancer spots. The land comes alive with festivals, fetes and drama as shakespeare clad folk walk amongst the market hailing us to their performace. The sun is eternal in these full and powerful months of summer. Yet autumn and winter is not without its romance and charm as the leaves go from blinding greens to the blaze of firely tones and then of course all fall in a heap upon the ground. It is a time to gather all the goodies that the summer has given, the fruits are brought in and saved. New wellies are walked in for the mud will return. Singing comes back as the students return to the ancient halls of learning. The cow is fattened for the feasts ahead and thanks is give in firelight for all the good bounty gotten. Christmas comes with cold frost and the excitment is heighted as the red robins drop by and stocks and lights appear at windows. The fairy tale ends with a lovely hot feast of turkey and pudding, carols and presents and warm spiced wine. mmmm

I think I would just give up January and February and keep all the rest. It has been groovy. Of course Ben will do his own less sappy sign off. Here are a few pics of us here and around the village.

A Brighton Weekend

2009-06-02T15:46:00.010+01:00

We had a magnified weekend with friends, Gillian and Tim, and their two adorable children Alice and Daniel. To fix some info though, it was actually Eastbourne but still just as lovely. We checked out their excellent new home, bbqed and went to the sea side, can't really say beach as it is just not like one an Australian would know. We did get excellent pics though and some film of the little critters playing together. We also check out the zoo there, it was quite nicely done. No large animals and all the enclosers were well suited to the animal, though I did disagree with the big birds. The owls etc are use to flying and long distances so it was too awful to see them there but there you go. The rest of the zoo was great. It had a paddling pool and a thomas train you could ride on and heaps of play park area with neat equipment to try out. So an excellent adventure all round. Alice is ten days older than Timothy and Daniel was born this March, so very wee chap.

Junior cooking class

2009-05-26T16:21:00.003+01:00

I quite often have a few little critters over, and I love to do the creative thing. This is a picture of my darling cooking class as the made their first jam drop biscusit. They didn't taste half bad either. Of course Timothy is an old hand at the cooking but he likes to make stuff even more when his pals are about.

At the moment I am getting my crafty and organisational drives out on the play group that I do on Fridays. Each Friday morning, I hire the village hall. The boys and I take down as many toys as we can carry, aparticularly the train set. Timothy on his trusty dinky and mini foozle in the double pram with the rest of the stuff. We spend an hour getting it all set up and then wait and see who comes. We have been running since the beginning of May and so far our biggest group has been 8 children but we get more each week and new faces each time as the poster get round with the word of mouth too. I have even been invited to join the hall committee to improve the hall usuage so I am excited about that. Last week I did a painting class with the kids and that was very successful. We are hoping to run a music, water and clay session during the summer weeks. Most playgroups shut down during this time so we should get lots of bored parents coming, excellent. We are planning lots of other uses for the hall too, June will see our first Kingston beer festival and we already have the hall booked for Halloween which is helpfully on a Saturday, so should be fun. Will post more pics as the activities happen. Monday I should have new pics as we are off to Brighton for the weekend

Pics from the 2nd Party

2009-05-25T07:57:00.005+01:00

Timothy and Jonas 2nd Birthday Party

2009-05-25T07:42:00.004+01:00

It was an amazing day. We hired the Bourn village hall with friends Mary and Ben so that Jonas and Timothy could celebrate their second birthday together. We would like to thank them and Maria and Tabatha for all the effort.

A Standing Foozle

2009-05-24T10:18:00.000+01:00

Cookie Monster Attack

2009-05-16T09:21:00.002+01:00

He likes his biscuits, mummies cooking of course :P

Two on the Tenth

2009-05-11T09:52:00.005+01:00

Yes Timothy is two already. Hard to believe but lovely to see. Though most of his friends have hit two and somehow got a copy of the book that explains to them how awful they really should be. I think Timothy got an advanced copy as he is well aware of how to go from angel to someone we want to throttle. But not on this special Sunday. Not only was it the 2nd birthday, it was Australia's mothers day (UK stick to Mothering Sunday). We both had a lovely day, it was wonderful to see that I was the mummy of such a bright, loving and funny boy. NEW WORDs for this day was 'Lunch, don't touch (that was for Matthew's benefit) and Catch.

Even though we are having a party on 23rd with one of his mates in the next village (the Lovely Jonas), Pirate theme. We did get into the spirit. Ben took Timothy shopping in the morning for birthday cake ingredients. We made of course a chocolate cake, woman's weekly rocks, works every time. We played with his new sand-water table and then bundled the two kids in the bike trailer and rode to Cambridge to do this .... (pics speak better)

Traveling the Public way

2009-04-29T08:05:00.004+01:00

Since our car has been out of commission, we have had to rethink our way around the place. Last weekend was decked out with sunshine and we had super dad home so we all got on the bikes and rode places, to the park and to the baby markets. Ben had Timothy in a seat on his bike and Matthew was towed in the trailer (this weekend both boys will go in the trailer for the trip into Cambridge, about 8 miles). Come the weekdays, mummy is not so fit or strong so we turn to the buses. And guess what, it was fun and not to much bother. The first trip we went to the library, two villages over and while there went to see daddy at his work place and have all the ladies there coo over Matthew and got me some reading glasses (getting worn out i'm afraid). It was just the walk back to the bus stop Timothy objected too. So our next trip we took his dinky and it was great. As I have a rope that goes around the bars and I put him up the hills or just keep him on the right side of the road. When Timothy is playing at our friend's place, Maria, he hitched a ride with daddy.

This weekend was supper riding time. We did make it into Cambridge. It was 17 miles round trip. It was very good value as it took five hours as we hung around for three or so in town. It was a dream run, until the car. The children loved the trail and it was a beautiful day. We went to cafe's and walked around the markets. Sunday was a bit more work as I was tired but we rode to caldacote, only 2 miles or so though one of the few hills in Cambridge. We came home at lunch after the birthday party we were attending and rested for an hour or so and then went to a friends bbq. here are some pics. (Think we will just garden today instead of riding :P)

Village Life

2009-04-23T12:55:00.004+01:00

Thought I should do a general news up date as there are many I have not had a chance to chat too in a while. I hope everybody is well. We are doing very fine and dandy here, really getting into the spirit of village life. We have our allotment now and have already planted the potatoes. Plans for corn, pumpkin, carrots and beetroot are in the works. Ben and I are also trying to help out the community here as well. They need to raise funds for the upkeep of the church. It has some amazing paintings "During a general restoration of the church in 1929 – 30, inappropriate wax treatment damaged wall paintings, leading to recent major restoration of these works. In the chancel, paintings of foot soldiers with lances are probably thirteenth century, with fragments of foliage arabesque perhaps even earlier. Saints, the Virgin, and panels with black text, date from the fifteenth, sixteenth and early seventeeth centuries. A horned demon, symbolizing the seven deadly sins, and a wheel, symbolizing the seven acts of mercy on the west wall of the north aisle, are late fifteenth century." for more go to

So you can see its worth doing something to keep such art and history alive. Well now as you would expect, we raise money in our own style so we are putting on a beer festival. We have started with getting a social group or club together and all the blokes have picked a weekend to 'investigate' what beer should be at the event. Sounds like fun, well it will be. We are holding it in our village hall, along with toys and games for kids and adults alike. This will be held in June. For more use of the hall, I have hired it for each Friday morning, from 10 to 12 for a playgroup. Everybody has been very helpful and generous towards getting this up and going. We already have lots of toys and activities for the little critters, morning tea and kids snacks are provided and we will put on special events now and then as we already know art teachers, music leaders etc. So its going very well, I even had a trial run last week with just friends and it was so much fun. I am still waiting to hear about the insurance though. I may not have to get any if the current hall insurance is enough but I won't hold my breath.

The boys are growing in leaps and bounces, Matthew loves bouncing. Matthew is also very keen to follow Timothy everywhere and so is already trying to crawl. He can sit up and get onto all fours but so far progresses in reverse more than forward. Timothy is now really accelerating with his words, which is good as Ben was a bit worried. Alas Timothy mostly has girl friends (definitely a ladies man this one) instead of little blokes to hang out with so comparing them is not equal as most boys are a month or so behind their female counterparts. But he is having fun each day trying out new sounds and words. Yesterdays new ones were Lock, Pink and Leek (as in the veggie) Each morning we are greeted with 'Bic, Bic, want Bic' I think he considers it a right to have biscuits since he can say it, bless them, their so cute. Timothy has also moved into a big bed. Ben made it a while ago and it is working out well. Matthew has moved into Timothy's old cot and both of them have now moved out of our bedroom and into their own, (party, yippy) though Matthew usually ends up in our bed before the night is out as I run out of energy to get up and feed him. It is much nicer lying in the water bed to feed him and dozing off afterwards instead of sitting up.

May is getting busier as we go through all the birthdays. We are having a joint party with friends for Timothys second birthday. We are holding it in the next village's hall. Quite a bit bigger than our Kingston's one. We are having a pirate theme and have just bought a jumping castle for little ones. Its so cool, we tried it out this weekend, naturally Timothy and his pals loved it. We are also going to have sand, water and other craft activities at the party while all the adults get to hang around a bbq. We had a super weekend this weekend just past as we have also bought, second hand a trailer for the bike. Both boys fit in it and it is a super design. We got it from our friends up the road who had it brought over from the dutch. They do a good trailer, this thing turns into a pram like device once you reach town. It also means ben can now do the shopping in two small loads with the trailer during his lunch twice a week instead of taking the car after the kids are asleep at night. We have found that if Timothy notices Ben is gone shopping, he tends to freak out so it will be good to avoid that. We also get fit on the weekends instead of the stress of parking in cambridge with the kids. Well Ben is already fit but I will catch up soon, I hope. It is also good this has come along as I car blew up. The cam belt went on Friday and we have yet to hear how much damage it did. They are saying it will be at least thousand pounds, bummer.

Anyway I think that is about all our news for the minute but I am sure more will come. TTFN

Clips from Oz

2009-04-20T21:03:00.002+01:00

The collection below includes a day at the beach on the Gold Coast. Watering in Bundaberg, Uncle Dan meeting Timothy at the Hotel, Breakie at Dee Why with Uncle Jodie and Auntie Alex and Trying to sleep while big brother runs dinky through the kitchen....

Nonna's Big Night

2009-04-20T13:24:00.007+01:00

Sorry about the film quality, it was quite dark and I am not very good at it. Here are some pics from the glamours night too...

Thank you to Kim for the amazing food on the night and to all those that organsied it and of course a big thank you to the birthday girl for sharing a special event. We loved being apart of it.

Hot Lap 'round Mount Panorama

2009-04-13T05:30:00.003+01:00

This is me (Ben) beating Jamie Whincup's lap record at Mount Panorama, Bathurst. With other cars on the track no less (some going the wrong way!).

Our little Astra is a wee bit slow down the straights but I reckon I'm so much faster over the top of the mountain and through the dipper. Suck on that Jamie! Alas, as this was not under race conditions the record doesn't count.

The audio might sound a little strange, but we'd had tons of coffee to get the tip top alertness and reflexes required for this attempt. So that explains that completely.

For our british friends that may not have heard about Mount Panorama, Bathurst and the Great Race (and it is a great race) see here.

A Christened baby

2009-04-06T12:38:00.004+01:00

It was such a lovely service, most moving and a big thank you to the wonderful and generous people of Bathurst. They were very welcoming and had some beautiful things to say when welcoming Matthew Scott, Chelsea Grace and Timothy James into the family of Christ. We would also like to thank all the great friends and family who came all the way for the service.

Sydney

2009-04-06T11:28:00.011+01:00

After a super time with Nanny and Poppy in Bundaberg, we made our way via two flights to Sydney. We sent the first night in the intercontinental, five star hotel. This was followed with dinner at Rock Pool. The reason behind this decadent choices is, my lovely Ben and I have been together for ten years. Married for eight and known each other for twelve. It was the most magical night. Even better than the night we got married. We went with the tasting menu which was excellent and quite funny as it has nine course and of course nine glasses of wine. This meant of course that Ben was extremely merry by the end of the event. The hotel, five star, was wonder and so where the lovely grandparents that looked after the boys. The following two nights we got to stay with my lovely brother and his beautiful Alex. (we love her already) This was great as we got to have breakfast at the beach. Saturday morning we met up with our great friends from Glebe library. It was amazing to catch up with everybody and we also go to walk with all to the Glebe markets too. I got some really cute t-shirts for the kids. Saturday we had lunch with Dave and his lovely family in the excellent coffee district of Leichhart. We had great gelato and fun in the park. Saturday was a relax with Jodie and Alex. Sunday we saw the happy birthday girls, Chelsea and Jane.

Monday we caught up with Toshiba buddies and Mosman chums. That was excellent too, swaping gossip and news about who is where and how every ones family is going. We wish a super Congrad's to Tim and Jane and the big sister now, Welcome to Sam. He is so beautiful. We do apologies to Jane B and Jaqui, who I really did want to see and met to call Monday night but alas my irrational dislike for cockies (bugs) we ended up driving to Bathurst that same night and did not return to Sydney until Thursday. Thursday we made up for all the stuff we had to cancel, that were very nice though. Visiting friends with their great dogs and a super groovy dinner with work mates. Friday we got to go to the zoo with Jodie and Alex, it was so pretty.

The beach in these pics is Dee Why

This is the lovely Palm beach

Newport....

And the zoo...

Bundaberg

2009-03-25T18:00:00.009Z

Here we are in more sun shine and with Nanny and Poppy

So lovely up here to. We had a bit of a rush to get to the airport (not leaving early enough) and caught a prop driven plane, so cool up to Bundaberg. It was like a home away from home, so lovely with the family, sun and dad's cool new boat. We took Timothy out on it and he loved it, of course. We also went to the bundaberg rum distillery. The smell is very yummy and the massive store house of molasses.

Timothy and Matthew had a lovely time getting to know their Nanny and Poppy. They loved spending time together and Ben and I got to go out twice while Nanny babysat. There was lots fun pics of the time and we had some great walks too.

Quite warm today, nothing like a splash in a pot...

'Roo Hugger

2009-03-21T02:52:00.003Z

First few Days

2009-03-18T03:30:00.005Z

Tryin' to make the most of it :-)

AUSTRALIA, yipppppppppppppeeeeeeeeeee

2009-03-18T02:46:00.005Z

I can't help myself. I am a proud Citizen. It is light, bright, hot and beauuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful. We have been here for three days now and as soon as we stepped off the plane we knew we were back home. The smell of it is fantastic, the light is so bright and of course the wonderful bush.

So now to the history of the trip. The boys were as good as gold. So wonderful, Matthew only cried once just before the first take off and then again when some nasty mother smacked her baby (in the middle of the night, waking up the whole row of kids) and scared poor Matthew. Timothy was the model child of goodness. The first flight we had people coming up to us saying what a lovely and well behaved children we have. The Airbus A380 was super cool and we got to sit up the top deck. We were the only ones with children on that level. The food was super tasty and the staff very friendly. We arrived here Monday morning, our Sunday night in the UK. We were quite dazed but very happy. The children had a lovely day and had a normal midday snooze and then went to the beach in the afternoon. Alas Timothy did fall back to sleep in the shops but once we were at the beach he was fully action foozle again. We all went to bed quite early around 7pm and the children woke up at 4.30am so not too bad, only an hour and a half out from the normal time. The second morning was back to normal, up at 6.30. So apart from normal tiredness we have missed the jetlag.

So far we are trying to get to the beach twice a day and a cafe at least once a day. We have a super birthday dinner for tonight, curtsey of the lovely Kim. Tomorrow we are going out for dinner, just Ben and I, thanks both to the lovely Kim and Nonna. And of course Saturday is the super party which will update you on soon. For now here is a short film of the first beach visit.

Sunshine and flowers

2009-03-09T10:26:00.004Z

We have life back, the flowers are blooming and we are out and about.

though there is always more clouds waiting

Struth, its a red kangaroo

The Party Season has started

2009-03-04T13:10:00.006Z

Today Timothy and Matthew went to the first of many birthdays that are around this time of the year. Tabatha's birthday is first as she was born five weeks early. Here are some pics from the event. We got her a dress up box so everybody tried them out. The other pics are just cute ones from general living.

Child's Play

2009-03-02T13:54:00.000Z

The Dark is Defeated

2009-02-21T12:04:00.005Z

Yes we are seeing life again. After that long, black, cold and depressing period know as January-February, we are finally getting the light and leaves return. It is sooooooo good, I can't being to describe it really. While your there it seems ok, one can cope but then the light and colours start coming back and you realise just how desperate one has been without such things. We have lovely bulbs popping up, fab crocus already flowering.

We are also excited by the season change, for this year we have an allotment. We will still do our back yard garden with the salad type stuff but potato's and corn will get free range of the big space. We had a super day today, we had lots of sun and a top of 11 degrees, we were all walking around in t-shirts, wonderful. Timothy even gladly donned his helmet for a bike ride with Daddy (not big on hats is our eldest) considering it was a screaming match last time (he loves the bikes and the ride of course). But that was also back in the cold windy month of October. We finished off the day with a bbq in the back yard with friends. We got sausages from a local farm (lamb and mint, beef and pepper and pork and apple) and some cheeses from the cambridge market, all super yum. Other more kiddy news, Timothy has now successfully used the toilet five times. I think we are actually making progress as three of the times he asked to go so yay us.

apart from all that we are just so excited to be coming back for a visit in less than three weeks YIPPEE (20 days to go). See you all real soon.

Foot note: We would like to send our love and prays to our very special Chelsea. We know we haven't been able to chat for such a long time but just know we love you so much and send hugs and kisses to you in our thoughts.

still snowing

2009-02-09T08:47:00.004Z

Yes it is and still a novelty though it is obvious that the brits don't do much driving in the snow. The second that the roads were ok the shops were swamped. We went to our local library and just dropped into the supermarket to pick up a few things to make a cake and this is what we found. Utter maddness...

The ques for the till were way up the aisle but everybody was quite will behaved and the shop people walked around handing out choccies. But really you would think that the people were stocking up for some battle or another not a few days of snow. We got some groovy shots around the house and village too. I must say I loved driving in the snow and ice, its something of a challenge. All the cold just make us more excited for our visit back home though. We have got a very groovy new double pram for containment of the little critters. And I have good all their swimming gear on hand. Counting down the days. 32 days to go...

its snowing

2009-02-04T15:14:00.005Z

Now one does not mind such a winter when its like the story books. We have been lucky to see snow each year, but this year has been really very good as we got snow while the folks were here and now a whole week. Even the driving is groovy though everybody here is very edgy about it. We have been told its due to cold winds from Russia, so thank you Russia.

Only 37 days until we head off. I have been busy finding stuff for Timothy to do on the plane. So if any of you have some clues please tell us. I have three activity books, one with stickers, one that you paint but just use water and the paper changes colour and a pop out activity thing that makes book marks, money boxes etc. We are also going to get an ipod touch for the games and the six hour play time for Peppa Pig (great show). We have found a very cool toy though a kids laptop. they do quite a few of them but we will go with the basic one and work up. Timothy is naturally obsessed with our laptops. We are also buying up summer clothes. We don't get much use for them here as you can comfortable wear long pants and sleeves all year round.

This is Timothy and I taking Matthew for a walk in the snow on the green in Kingston. To give their daddy some quiet time at home so he can work. Ben didn't go in as it has only just started to snow and a lot but they have not gritted yet so very slippery.

Below is a very bad film of Mini Foozle but it is cute. The hair is so funny and he smiles while he is sleeping. I couldn't turn the light on just in case it woke him up.

Bit of colour

2009-01-26T08:28:00.007Z

We have had some rainy days so we needed a bit of colour in our lives. We let Timothy loss with the paints. After he thought he would continue with his dinner. He Really likes his tomato soup.

We did have a lovely weekend though. Some real conversation as we had friends over for dinner on Saturday. They have a little boy about the same age as Timothy but he tends to hit a bit. Timothy wasn't too bothered though, he's bigger and tends to just push past the little chat. Though don't try stealing his cars, then its on for big and little. :P We also had an excellect breakfast with Terry, who is just back from oz, we drooled over his pics of home. Only 6 weeks and 4 day till we are off ourselves (party)

here are a few new pics of the boys...

here's one with Timothy's girlfriend....

He's got something to say

2009-01-20T15:38:00.001Z

Scotland at a glance

2009-01-20T15:36:00.001Z

We past through Stirling, a number of loch's and the white scenery is actually heavy frost, not snow. Amazing huh.

No pics, English Christmas

2008-12-25T22:14:00.004Z

Greetings All,

As you all know from our many posts, we love being here and exploring the country and neighbouring ones as well. But, truly that is it. We are going somewhere else for this year's Christmas. Two year in a row, sick as dogs. And now stress over our little ones too. Poor darling Timothy temp over 40, stuck in a french hotel, we had to get a doctor in. Then coming back from Scotland, in York, all night in hospital with our sweet wee darling Matthew. IT as got to stop I say.

But enough said, we did have a lovely Christmas with the folks anyway and the trips were filled with wonderful accommodation and stunning scenery. Best accommodation in Stirling, outstanding on every level, 'The old tram house'. Thumbs up and five stars, definitely stay there if your in the area. Great people. So no pics from Lille, the folks got out but I spent most of the time in the hotel nursing Timothy. But do have some great pics from Scotland. I won't put many up as Ben will put up the big versions and give you some detail as to where they are in Scotland, I will just give you a taste of the super beauty found there....