My Sisters Are Back

http://www.flickr.com/photos/al_sulaty/2445947657/
(Sung to the tune of My Boyfriend's Back)
My sisters are back and they're gonna do some blogging,
Oh yeh, Oh yeh, my sister's are back!

OK, enough with the song. I'm back also. We have been on camp. It was mad!
The kids loved it and it was an awesome environment for Connor to start spreading his wings - he even left Brenton, Kenzi and I to go and play table tennis with some 20 year old!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/henrylohtravel/195920052/
The camp site was located just in front of the Anna Bay sand dunes - so we spent Saturday afternoon dragging sand boards and Kenzi up the amazing sand dunes. Connor and Kenzi even learnt to stand up and sand surf down. They are both very good and put their mummy and Da to shame. Connor even made a jump to go over. We so have to do that over Christmas!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/captainfreckle/1342823780/
I cooked for the 90 people that were there, but I had many great helpers and it was a breeze (although very small kitchen!) I didn't get to many of the sessions, so the spiritual side of it was a little lost on me, however I got to know some really cool people from our 5pm service.
Needless to say everyone is so tired and ready for a good night sleep tonight, without achy legs from climbing the sand dunes!

Very glad my sisters are back. Looking forward to the photo's. Once again no photo's from my camera - but some to make it pretty anyway!

Kati Mac is back also!

I will post soon.

I am not as speed as calli mac but I'll be back on line with my bad spelling but lots of

VERY good photos! Photo you soon!!!!

Back

We're back in the business kiddies.  But there's a whole house of people, things to do, and things to cook so it will  be a little while before I steal off to some quiet place (who am I kidding, although the laundry sounds enticing) to post the blogs that have been accumulating over the days.  But we're back, oh yeah, we're back.

It's a Book Thing

Find this image here.
I am loving books at the moment. I think it is the ever so cold weather that see's all of us curled u around the fire reading. Last night we read Dr. Seuss. He is a legend in this house. The specific book that we read was 'Oh, the places You'll Go.' I totally love it. The last page is especially inspiring.....

'So.......
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
you're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So.......get on your way!'

I like to insert my own name in there. Every day I climb my mountain, I get on my way. Like I said Dr. Seuss is one of my heroes!

Boo!

Hello, hello, hello! I trekked over to the library with the laptop hoping I'd be able to post a few of the blogposts that I've written offline but they're having issues with their wireless as well, I just don't think it's meant to be. Their normal computers are working though so I've have my shot of the Four Sisters, nice job on keeping the ball rolling Trin and Lin. Hopefully we'll be back on line soon.

Mum and Kati arrive back in Amsterdam tonight. I'm going to keep them busy over the next week/s with cheese markets, flower auctions and windmills. All to be blogged about once they're done and we've got internet again.

In the meantime, keep it up big sisters!

End of Holidays

Connor goes back to school tomorrow, so we celebrated with a walk from Nobbies to the Ferry, took the ferry across to Stockton and back again.
It was fun - Kenzi insisted on dressing as a fairy to go on the ferry.
We did take some photo's however the camera still needs to be learnt about! Bummer because the fairy on the ferry was awesome!Find these photo's here
Perhaps that would be a great story....Once upon a time there was a fairy on a ferry.....
Mmmmmmmmmm I would love to write a story...one day.
Happy going back to school day, buddy.

Missing In Action

Hello dear lovely sisters,

This is Andrew (Calli's) here, posting my first Sisters blog. You may have noticed that Calli has been a little silent since her return from Sweden. This is not because she has run away and joined the circus (although that is entirely possible) but because our lovely internet provider has decided to cut our internet for no apparent reason.

I spoke on the phone today to the customer service people and they have said it will take between 5 and 11 days to fix the problem. So Calli is sitting at home all alone twiddling her thumbs and staring listlessly into space, now that her internet wings have been cut. Text her, call her, send her a letter, do anything as long as it's not got cyberspace involved in it. I have threatened to call the internet people everyday until it's fixed because even if it doesn't help, at least we'll feel better.

So there you go. Missing in action for a bit, but she'll be back with a vengeance soon enough.

Love you all,
Andrew (on behalf of Calli)

Gripping Bedtime Reading

http://www.flickr.com/photos/larkingabout/

I love our bed time reading time.
At the moment we sit by the fire and read a chapter of our book.
At the moment we are reading through a collection of Enid Blyton's, The Famous Five. I love the old style values that these stories tell of and the freedom and security in which these kids could wander and explore without fear of yukky stuff. The kids are enjoying it and wanting a dog very badly!
I love kids books. My 2 favourite picture books at the moment are:
'The Red Tree' by Shaun Tanhttp://www.amazon.com
and 'The Staircase Cat' by Colin Thompson and Anna Dignataro.http://www.colinthompson.com

I also read 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' by John Boyne. http://www.theage.com.au/news/book-reviews/the-boy-in-the-striped-pyjamas
It is a total must read - a beautiful and terrible story. Impacting and heart stopping and wonderfully enlightening (even though fictitious)
So grab some time, head to the library, scrounge around the kids section, then find a warm corner, snuggle down and loose yourself.......if only for a moment......it's my favourite thing to do!

The Things we do for Love

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebuen/2346369997/


I went and saw the new Batman Movie with my amazing but midlifecrisising husband........I am still in shock.......I am not made for movies like that......heart pounding.......head racing....must put on The Sound of Music........The Things I Do For Love!

Update

Mum and Kati flew out to Italy this morning (via Switzerland and who knows where else).  Just keeping you in the know!

Road Trippin' With My Three Favourite Allies: Day Three

Friday was the last day of our journey to Vastervik.  We were fairly close by now so we were able to take the day a little easier.  It started with a swim in the Baltic Sea, brrrr.  But then we warmed up in a little cafe with great hot chocolates and a beautiful view of the water.  And, because we were in Sweden, we just had to go to IKEA. 

 So we played around there for awhile, ate the required hot dogs and hit the road again.  

We arrived in Vastervik and met up with Frida and David for a pre-wedding information sessiony thing.  Kati snapped some beautiful pics of the church (all photo credits for the road trip go to Kati by the way) and then Frida and all of us girls were kidnapped by Frida's sister Anna and taken to the aunt's house for a girly meal with all Frida's friends.  Andrew went off with the boys and we all had a great night (well, I did anyway).

Road Trippin' With My Three Favourite Allies: Day Two

Our second day took us through Denmark and into Sweden.  I've realised that Europe is the continent of wind turbines.  I've never seen so many in my life and they are curiously beautiful.  We crossed the Oresund Bridge, the bridge that connects Denmark and Sweden.  It's 7.845 kilometres long making it the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe and the longest border crossing bridge in the world.  Cool huh?  It's a beautiful structure, and many of the other bridges we crossed were as well.  We stopped in a random little village for a break and stumbled upon this incredible church.  It was soft and grand and immense but not overpowering.  Kristianopel was our last stop that night.  We set up our tents and had a wander around the campsite.
It was the scene of a bitter battle between the Swedes and the Danish, our little camping spot was where the church had stood before being burnt by the Swedes as they thought that the Danes had desecrated the church by using it for ammunition storage.  There was live music that night, a band made up of a dad, sister, brother and another.  They were fantastic entertainers, they even made the Swedish songs fun to listen to.  And that was the end of day two.