RIP Dennis Gabbedy

Today I found out that Dennis, my aunty Maggie's husband passed away after battling lung cancer.  They live near Newcastle so my thoughts have been surrounded  by happy memories of times shared together.

RIP Dennis... thanks for the laughs mate xxxx

Camping - Briagalong State Forest

Easter is nearly upon us so we have decided that we would go camping with The Burns'.  We have been looking forward to it for a couple of weeks now but hadn't seen the campsite - we were trusting Pete and Tanya for that one!!

The spot for this adventure is Briagalong State Forest, north of Maffra is the State's east.  It's a 3 and a bit hour drive from Frankston so not that far.

We decided to go up the weekend before Easter and set up camp and sleep the Saturday night, leave everything there, come home for a couple of days due to work and then head back up there on Thursday morning for the long weekend.

We got there mid afternoon on Saturday and set up camp.

We had a wonderful night on Saturday sitting around the camp fire, having a few sips and dinner.

Sunday was nice and relaxing.... The kids were offered to stay there while we came home which of course they accepted no issues.  Noel and I headed home mid afternoon!  Cannot wait to get back up there Thursday morning now.....

Oliver's Birthday Dinner

We all went to the Frankston RSL to celebrate Oliver's 14th birthday as a family, Kirraly came with us also.

It was a nice relaxed evening... I am sure that we all enjoyed ourselves.

Happy 14th Birthday Oliver

Today our gorjus son Ollie turns 14.... wow it's hard to imagine really that 14 years has gone by so quickly. From his dramatic entry to now our world has been truly blessed.

Oliver we hope you have a wonder 14th birthday - we love you so much and are so proud of you ~

Love alwasy mam and dad xxxx

Oliver's School Camp

Ollie went off to camp on Tuesday and returned tonight.  He said he had a ball.  Camping at Wilsons' Promontory with about 20 other kids studying outdoor education.

They hiked, had outdoor cinemas, surfed and even had to cook all their meals for themselves.  Ollie was in charge of cooking dinner for the first night for his group (there was 4 of them) so we armed him with mince, pasta, and pasta sauce all the ingredients for a quick spaghetti bolognaise.  Apparantly it went down a treat.  A lot nicer, he said, than the Easy Mac someone else brought for dinner on night 2.

I could tell last night that although he had a good time that he was exhausted, in need of a good shower and looking forward to sleeping in his bed.....

Ah ..... the joys of school camp!!

Alex's 11 th birthday

Today our little princess turned 11.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX xxxx

She had a huge night last night with her birthday party and having 3 of her friends sleeping over.  We waited until her friends left to give her our presents as as you can tell she was impressed with her new TV with built in DVD player from us.

To celebrate her birthday the Murray family went to our favourite Indian Restaurant, Kasturi, in Frankston.  The meal as usual was brilliant and Alex enjoyed being surround and spoiled by the family.

It was a big weekend for all of us, especially Alex - she was exhausted.

Alex's birthday party.......

What a huge day yesterday was......

2pm Alex's friends arrived for a surprise event in the afternoon and then a sleepover.  As you can imagine it was an afternoon full of giggling girls.

The party table is set and cake is made .....

Once the girls arrived we had some lunch and then it was off on our big surprise..... the girls didn't know but we had organised tickets to see Stardust Circus.

No photo's from the circus due to "no photography allowed" but everyone enjoyed the show including Ollie, Noel and myself.  The acts were really good including the lions, the poinies and the clowns.  Afterwards it was back home for the requested dinner of fish and chips.

They were full after dinner so the cake would have to be done in the morning.  That didnt' stop them from having the usual and required sleepover pillow fight though......

Lots of giggles..... and giggles.... and giggles...... they fell asleep at 3.30am and that was only when I went into the loungeroom to tell them to go to sleep!!

Breakfast of lemonade pancakes with all the trimmings...

Then we sang Happy Birthday to the birthday girl!!!!

A Midsummers Night Swim....

Or should I say paddle?  Whichever the water was enough to cool everyone down from the mad Melbourne heat that we are experiencing at the moment.

Airconditioners are running full bore, fans are swinging from side to side in hope of moving around some much needed cool air and everyone is getting grumpy due to the heat!!

A Heatwave..... Forecast 40°C!!

Summer has well and truly hit us here in Melbourne.  Thankfully the wading pool was a good investment.  Alex loves it in there - getting in at every chance.....

It was so hot today that we went to the cinema trying to hide from the heat.

We saw The Adventures of Tin Tin and it was brilliant.  All of us enjoyed it including Grandma.

Dinner was cooked on the BBQ as we really didn't need any extra heat in the house.  We had Barbecued Lamb and Vegetables which was delish.....

A trip to Hastings....

It was hot and New Years Day - we didn't have anything planned.  Oliver had gone out with his friend Jai.  We decided to go for a drive down the penninsula but by the time we got to Dromana the traffic was practically stopped so we did a slight detour making our way to Hastings.

A nice impromptu lunch of fish and chips under a shady tree... a walk down the pier and then it was home time.

 

New Years Eve 2011

LNew Years Eve was destined to be a quiet one - nothing planned, no parties, etc but a chance conversation saw Mel, Steve and Jai over for the evening and it turned out brilliant.

We served up some nibblies, cooked marinated half chooks on the bbq served with some salad, did some shots, chatted away until we all saw the New Year of 2012 in.

Followed of course by a swim as it was still hot......

 They do look somewhat large for the wading pool but it got them cool so their mission was complete!!

The demolishing of the Gingerbread House.

Yep it was time... time to demolish the gingerbread house that has taken prime position on our dining room table since Christmas.

I had promised the Ricardo boys that we would all do it together... so after a bbq dinner of home made hamburgers (Noel's specialty) .....

And then it was on...... each and everyone taking a turn.....

The house ended up like this:



Oh well it was enjoy and I guess we will just have to build another one this year.