Fairy Girl

Cheers

We had a family treat on Saturday morning. We went to the kids favourite cafe and had a drink.
I got a milk chocolate hot chocolate.
Connor ordered a Snickers Smoothie...yep peanut butter, caramel and chocolate. He hated it.
So, him and Brenton exchanged Snickers smoothie for a mixed berry smoothie. Very Happy Brenton.Much happier Connor.
Kenzi had spotted a girl across the cafe with a drink that she admired...she asked the waiter if she could have one of those...so Kenzi ended up with a drink called Frog in a Blender....unlike the name it was a delicious frappe of kiwi fruit and strawberries. And yep apart from a few stolen sips she drank the whole lot!

Hanging Around Take 2

Swans with Cygnets Swimming in the Sun on a Saturday

The scarecrow hair with the swish, swanky shirt /dress.

The sightseeing and saying "See the sweet swans swimming" and smiling.

The sweet swans and their cygnets swimming smoothly in the sun.

This was our Saturday morning adventure, bought to you today by the letter S.

No, no, no, ummm, alright, yes.

Hmm, I think I'm not alone in being the person to ask if you need something done.  You know how it goes, ask the person who already has their hands full and you're guaranteed to get a yes. 

Don't even bother asking the person who has time on their hands.  They've got time on their hands because they've perfected the art of saying no.  No.  No.  No.  I really have to practice saying that out loud more often.

I've been paper macheing (is that a word?), baking, melting chocolate, painting posters, writing notes, searching for big circular things, making menus, grocery shopping and possibly a whole lot of other stuff that I've pushed out of my head cause there just isn't any more room in there for it right now.  My feet ache, my head aches, and my belly aches from licking too many chocolatey spoons.  I'll show you what I've been up to when I get some photos.  For now, I'll rewind a few days and show you something we discovered.

Andrew and I had a 'creative' date night the other night (Kati, stop sniggering).  We grabbed the cameras and a picnic and headed on the ferry to the NDSM wharf.  It's an old wharf that used to be shipping yards.  It's now a derelict place that artsy types have taken over.  There's old trams being lived in, a B&B boat (carbon neutral apparently), a funky cafe, the odd sculpture here and there (and I mean 'odd', there's a vegetable oil petrol pump), and a general air of desertion about it.  I went to a huge flea market with Rebecca there a few weekends ago and had thought it would be a cool place to hang out for awhile.  With cameras.  So that's what we did.

The coolest thing we found was the Kunstad (Art City).  It's a huge old factory that's been converted into a place for artists.  And skateboarders.  Inside the shell of the factory a whole city of 2-storey artist studios have been built.  We wandered up and down the 'lanes', loving the randomness and the creativity of it.  A washing line of copper clothes strung between two buildings.  A piano sitting out in the lane.  Dusty windows looking into woodworking shops.  A music studio with one wall covered in drum pedals.  Posters covering outside walls.  Trucks made into boats.  Even the dust was used for artistic expression.

And the other end of the factory?  High in the rafters a skate park had been built.  The sound of the skaters flying through the air could be heard down on the factory floor.

This is what I love about Amsterdam.  There's so much space (not real space, there's not much of that, I guess it's people's attitudes more) for stuff like this.  Valuing art and beauty and making use of space is something the Dutch do well.  Really well.  I wish there was more stuff like this in Newcastle.  Old industrial sites being taken over and turned into spaces for people to express themselves creatively, physically, randomly.  I think Newcastle is heading that way.  Things like Live Sites, the rusty metal sculpture of the old BHP metalworks, Honeysuckle.  I just hope that it continues, and keeps it's character, just like Amsterdam.

Camping Benny style...

Our camp site- what you can't see is the ute packed perfectly with everything imagianable. That's what happens when a 9yr old conutry boy takes a week to pack from a over night camping trip- generator and all?!

Sling shot adventuring!
Reparing yabbie nets.

And more reparing!

Sling me happy- yer! No animals were injured, not any where near (but Ben will tell you different!)

Ben won- it was a yabby dreaming of being a lobster!

Boil boil boil- Yum yum yum!

Camp fire magic

Marshmellow magic!

Ben & our guard dog and morning glory kt!

Taught Benny to start fires from hot coals with breath & grass!

Ben's 1st time to do stick damper- He loves it!

Damper king.

What the floods did last year-loads of erosion &huge tree debrie

Benny throwing out for another pot of yabbies!

Pepsi the super dog!!! made her jump 4 times before she realised she could walk across!
(She's really really lazy & boring acutally!)

Me and my essentials while yabby pot checking-Two-way & pouch, camera & Bow n Arrow!!

Some of the yabbies we caught- Yum Yum.

Woops- Governess Kati 'Sticks" the tyre & there ain't no tools to change it!

This is part of the SUPER long (2.5hr) walk home!!

A beautiful leaveless tree that we passed on our 28 Oc trip home.

Benny starting to tire-he fought on as there was so other choice!