Summer Rain............

Just wanted to get one more blog in before Christmas.................

It has been another lovely weekend, and we finally got some well needed rain for our poor gardens. Just the perfect kind of weather to stay indoors and be crafty!!!

I finally finished my last couple of projects that I was doing for gifts for my nephews. I made my two older nephews canvases with some great pictures I took of them earlier in the year.

I then made my youngest nephew a shadow box. The photo's are what made these projects - I just love how they turned out. And, of course, I bought all the supplies from Kaiser Craft. I have to say that I was pleasantly suprised by the prices at Kaiser.

Below are some pictures of the projects I made.

I've had an absolutley wonderful week at work. I got to hang out with some of the older kids that are in Vacation Care. We went to a couple of indoor play centres and tomorrow we are heading to the cinema to watch Planet 51. I have also been spending most of my days with the Toddlers too. Just love it in that room. The kids are so cute. I am nearly all ready for my class next year. I forgot how much planning and prepping is involved in organising a room for the new year. Nearly all done though.

My DH has been cooking up a storm these last few weekends and this weekend was no exception. He cooked a chicken rotisserie today with potatoes and vegies. It was so good that I had to take a picture of it to make you all drool.

There's only going to be more of where that came from this weekend. Christmas lunch in our family is serious business!!! My DH is deep frying a turkey, my sister is cooking chickens, my other sister is cooking lamb and bringing prawns, my mum has bought a ham and then lets not forget the potatoes, pasta and salad. Yes, you read correctly, we actually do bring all this food and it lasts for days later. We all know to dress appropriately to make plenty of room for the food.

In other news, by DH's pet owls have returned. If you remember, last year when we first moved back to Australia, we had these two owls that would visit our backyard nearly every night for a couple of months. My DH would feed them chicken necks and then all of a sudden they would disapper. Well, they are back - I gues it is that time of the year when they return for the Summer. My DH took a great photo of one of them tonight. Check it out............

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and enjoy and treasure the family time you get at this time of year. Eat lots, drink lots and be safe.

Till next year...........................

A Christmas Miracle!!

You know how people say 'If you pray you will receive' - well I think that somebody has been listening to me and reading my blog.

If you read my blog you will probably have picked up that I am a scrapbooker and a cardmaker. You probably also picked up that since leaving Canada and moving to Australia I have done nothing but complain about the lack of scrapbooking stores we have here. Finally, I now have just found the best scrapbooking store that I think even my North American friends will be jealous of too.

Literally, 5 minutes away from where I live Kaiser Craft have opened up a store selling EVERYTHING Kaiser!!!! Yes you have read this correctly. They have EVERY patterned paper you can imagine, all their paints, rub on's, chipboard, ribbon, etc. I walked into the store yesterday for the first time, saw the lady running the store and told her 'I love you'!! She probably thought I was mad, but it has been a long time coming to find a truly great scrapbooking store here!!

Their grand opening is in the New Year and they will be having classes too. I am just so excited! Later today I will be heading there, of course, to pick up some things to make my last three Christmas gifts for my nephews. I'm sure my DH is just as excited about this too, NOT!

While I was in the store yesterday I was handed one of their idea books - this thing was like an Ikea catalogue!! It is full of their products, page layout ideas, project ideas and some embellishments too. I think this is going to be my second home!!

In other news................ the UFC is finally coming to Australia and my DH and I are so excited. I have been into the UFC for the past 8 years - I actually enjoy watching it. Why wouldn't you like watching cute, strong guys fighting each other!!! Seriously though, we do both enjoy watching it and back in 2007 we went to see UFC 76 in Anaheim live. It was amazing to be there and see the action live. Well............ we are doing it again and got tickets to UFC 110 in Sydney, in February. We have booked a great place right in the heart of Sydney and spending the weekend there. Can't wait.

Now, on more festive news............ the tree is up, I have nearly finished buying all my Christmas gifts, cards will be posted today - only a few days to go till that fat guy in a red suit comes down the chimney. Although, I have often wondered, how does he get into Australian homes - we don't have chimney's here!!

On Friday, I had to host a morning tea at work and will leave you with a picture of the yummy holly cupcakes I made.

Merry Christmas.

Till next time.....................

Countdown to Christmas...........

Is it just me or has the year truly flown by this time round!!! I do feel more organised than last year though. My Christmas cards are all made and I have started Christmas shopping - I'm doing alot better than I did this time last year.

This time of year is busy for different reasons too. There are alot of events taking place in November and December (and January for that matter too).

In November we celebrated my mum's birthday by going to High Tea with all the girls. My sister's, sister-in-law and neices all got together to help celebrate mum's birthday. We had never experienced a High Tea before so it was special to be doing it all together for the first time. We had a fantastic day of shopping after the High Tea - it was great to go out with the girls. Below is a picture of all of us.

My nephew, Liam, peformed with his band for an End of Year concert last week. He plays the trombone and he does it so well. He looked so cute in his uniform - he looks so grown up too. He is 9 but so mature for his age and such a sweetheart. I was a proud Aunty and had tears in my eyes.

My oldest nephew, Christopher, will be graduating from Primary School this week. I cannot believe he is going into High School already. Time surely flies. He seems to be excited to be heading off into High School - he wants his independence so badly these days. I am sure there will be tears, of joy, at his graduation this week.

I have a few Christmas parties coming up in the next couple of weeks. This week is my new jobs Christmas party which I am excited about. My DH will be coming along with me and it will be at my bosses house. Next week my DH has a Christmas Party at the Dojo who goes to. That should be interesting as I haven't really met anybody from his Dojo yet. And finally, my old work is having a Christmas party the week after. It will be good to catch up with the old gang. I do miss them but am much happier at my new job.

As for my new job.............. it is going really well. I just found out I will be teaching Preschool next year and although I was hoping for a younger age group I am really excited about this new adventure. I have so many ideas and plans in my head right now. I just want to get Christmas out of the way so I can prep my room for next year.

Finally............. I have been a very busy little Elf and have pretty much finished making all my Christmas cards. I have kept with my little tradition and made 3 designs - it's easier to replicate the same card 20 times than to think of 60 different cards. Below are two of the cards I made.

Talking about cards - now I have to write them, so I will be off.

But, before I forget, tis' isn't Christmas until you have watched 'National Lampoons Christmas Vacation' at least 10 times. I started watching it for the first time yesterday. Only 9 more times to go. I love that movie.

Till next time...........

Time for a change...............

I have recently made a career decision that I should have figured out quite a while ago. I have realised that I tolerate children alot better than I do adults!!! With this realisation comes news that I am going back to childcare and I cannot wait.

Don't get me wrong - I have actually enjoyed working in the customer service industry. It has made me a stronger person and has also made me respect other people in the customer service service industry, but it is just not me.

In the past 9 years I have worked in the U.S on a cruiseship, I then worked in Canada managing a retail store and most recently I worked in Australia in the banking industry. One thing I learned about all three jobs is that there are rude and ignorant people all over the world and they are never going to go away so you can either take it and crumble or become a stronger person from these negative experiences and learn not to behave this way to other people. I of course have chosen to take the latter experience and become a better person from it but not all people do.

Just this past week at my banking job I had one of the worst customer's I've had ever. She asked me to do something that was against company policy and then decided to go on a tirade about how she used to work for the same company, that I don't know my job, that she knows people in the same company who will do it for her - basically she wanted to belittle me in front of the other customer's. This was somebody who has been in my shoes and knows how our hands can be tied but still she decided to humilate me instead of being understanding. All I could think of was how I would never, and have never, done this to anybody in their workplace. It is not in me to be so rude to people - I know I will have alot of people who would vouch for me there. I just don't understand how some people think they can be like this and think that is okay. People ???? I just don't get them sometimes.

On brighter news - I am back to working with little people at the same kindy I left 9 years when I started my overseas venture. I am so excited to be getting back into childcare and possibly getting back to stuyding again.

Yesterday, my neice celebrated her 4th birthday with a Princess Party so below is a picture of me dressed with my fairy wings and with my face painted.

See, I should be working with children............... sometimes I still feel like one.

Till next time......................

Weekend Away

Don't you just love weekend getaways! My DH and I headed down south to Kingscliff after work on Thursday to stay in a beautiful Hotel for the weekend. We took Friday off from work and stayed there for three nights - it was amazing.

We chose this past weekend as it was my hubby's birthday and our anniversary the following weekend. We stayed in a resort and spa called Pepper's and it was just gorgeous. Our suite was huge. It had a mini kitchen, dining area and lounge area, a huge king sized bed and a spa tub. We also had a room with a private plunge pool - it was too cold to go in the water but we layed out in the sun anyways.

Here is a photo of the view from our balcony to our private pool. Behind the bushes is the larger pool and the spa!

On the Friday we drove down to Byron Bay - it is always fun driving down there. We like to take a stroll through the town and check out what the hippies are up to!! We actually met a really nice lady in a 2nd hand book shop that we got chatting to. Of all things we were talking about the youth of today - needless to say we were there for a while. After a stroll we stopped to have some fish and chips and met another lively character of Byron Bay. The owner of the fish and chip shop was telling us about when he went to the Calgary Stampede back in the 60's!!

Here is a photo of our fish and chips - it was sooooooooooooo yummy!

On the way home from Byron we stopped at the Byron Bay Cookie Co. These are the best cookies in town! They are so good and I had to stock up on our way out of Byron.

On the Saturday we were expecting my sister and her husband to join us at Pepper's. They too were celebrating their wedding anniversary and we invited them to spend the Saturday with us. We had a great day of feasting on cheese and crackers. We spent the afternoon laying by the pool and then we jumped into the spa! I think we were in the spa for nearly 2 hours - we were so relaxed - it was great.

Our weekend ended with the whole family getting together on Sunday for birthday cake for my DH's birthday and my father's birthday. A great end to a great weekend.

We are already planning another weekend away.

Till next time..................

Everybody's Working For The Weekend!!!

The weeks these day's seem to fly by so fast - which is a good thing as I LOVE my weekends!! As soon as we hit Hump Day (Wednesday for those not in the know), it is all down hill from there.

Had another great weekend with some really hot Summer weather. Took this opportunity to get into the swimming pool for this first time this Summer. The water was still quite chilly but my neice, Olivia, reallly really wanted to go for a swim and I find it really hard to say 'no' to her.

My DH and I actually had Olivia with us all day on Saturday as her parents were painting her new surprise cubby house for her and needed her out of the house. We had a great day with Olivia - first we had to do some shopping and then we stopped for a 'snack'. A Max Brenner style snack. Max Brenner's is chocolate heaven, so you can only imagine that a 3.5 year old could go nuts here!!! We had a chocolate fondue and a chocolate brownie with ice cream and my neice had a babycino with chocolate syrup on top. There was chocolate EVERYWHERE. My neice really got into the 'dipping' aspect of the fondue - at first she was hesitant but she really got into it in no time at all. It was awesome!!!

So,what happens once you give a kid chocolate - they get a really good sugar high and Olivia was no exception. The transformation was amazing - she went from quiet and shy little girl to crazy and loud mouthed sugar baby!! It was hilarious - my DH and I couldn't stop laughing at what we had created with just a little bit of chocolate!! When we got home she kept her energy up by going for a swim and then dancing to Black Eyed Peas.

That night we went out for dinner with my brother and sister's and their families. We went to Aqua restaurant at a place called Labrador. The food was okay but the service was horrible!! My brother turned up first and he said that he had absolutly nobody come to see if he and his family needed a beveridge. Nobody brought out menu's. It was quite ridiculous. Then our main server was acting like he didn't want to be there. I asked for a West Coast Cooler and his response was ' we don't have that'. He didn't even try to offer an alternative so I said I just want water and he couldn't even manage to bring that out.

That's one thing I cannot stand - bad service. Our table spent $500 - there was alot of us - and I don't feel we got the standard of service that came with a bill that size. Not to matter - we had a great night, a few laughs - it's always good to get together, we always have fun.

Finally, today was the NRL Grand Final - Melbourne Storm Vs Parramatta Eels. I don't follow either team so I did't really care who won, I just wanted to see a really good game. I was kinda siding with the Eels as my twin sister goes for them but unfortunatley they lost!! That's another footy season over - can't wait for next year.





Till next time............

What is a scrapbooker to do??

Australia has it all............ sun, surf, sand, great weather BUT we do not have any good scrapbooking or stamping stores. What is up with that??

When I first moved back home I made sure I knew where the local scrapbook stores were so that if I needed anything I knew where to go. I then recently found out that there is a stamp store nearby too. You can just imagine how excited I was about that.

This past weekend I got back into making some birthday cards - just for fun. I needed some more supplies so my DH gave me the go-ahead to stock up on what I needed. (I always feel guilty buying scrapbooking supplies so this was a bonus that my husband said to 'go for it').

We decided to go and find the stamp store first as I was using old stamps and just wanted a new batch of stamps - liven my cards up a bit. Couldn't find the store - it had been closed down!! Strike One!!

Headed to one of the scrapbooking stores that I found when I first got here. Sign is up but guess what............ store has been closed down!! Strike Two!!

Continued driving to the last scrapbooking store that I know of in the area. I had covered my eyes as I was scared it may have been closed down too. To my surprise it wasn't - yeh!! Got to buy some supplies to make my nephew a mini album. Only one problem with this store..... there was a For Lease sign up in the front of the store. I asked the lady at the store if they were closing down...... she said VERY hesitantly 'no the owner hasn't said that'. Bull - why would there be a For Lease sign up if you were going to continue running the store and re-signing the lease.

I now have no scrapbooking stores to go to. Can you believe that. I can buy some supplies from some of the department stores but for all my stamps and high quality supplies I am going to have to become familiar with online shopping!!!

Before my crisis took place I did make a few cards with some really cute new paper I bought. I got the card idea from my friend Eleonor who is queen of cardmaking. Hope you like!!

Till next time................