It's official - he IS year 12 - Blazer to prove it!

After a bit of complaining I finally got Benjamin and Ryan to 'pose' (complete with Coffee On Line backdrop)

Australia Day 2009

Picnic Point - two bozos mucking around

Another two....

Well..... 12 metres by 6 metres is a pretty damn big flag! Picnic Point is now home to one this size and we hear it's larger than the one at Parliament House in Brisbane but not quite as big as the one in Canberra.

Yesterday we saw the massive 150 ft pole.....that's been erected especially....become adorned with this amazing flag. It really was a spectacle. Doves were released at the same time as the flag made it to the top.


There were hundreds of people at Picnic Point - it was a bit slushy because of the light rain overnight, and definitely steamy at times. We had some 'free' damper and tea, watched the end of the citizenship ceremony, saw the local Australia Day awards handed out, then hung around for the big launch. Was worth the wait.

Here comes the flag - can't touch the ground remember!

First part is attached....

Almost off the ground...

Woo hoo!!!!....

'Peace-out Mum!'

Who are these two hot chicks :-)

After this, we decided to head off to Mill St. Tavern to see the yabby races.... but they weren't starting until 3.30pm - bit too long to hang around so enjoyed a few games of keno, watched some patrons play 'two-up', had my standard 2 glasses of red, then headed home.

Australia Day 2009 was a lot of fun...

Senior of 2009

I was a senior girl in 1986 - and it seems like just yesterday... and now Benjamin is heading into the year that history will call 'Seniors of 2009'. Wow.... even though it's sometimes said 'life isn't short..... it's the longest thing you'll ever go through' the majority of us say 'life is short' and looking at my little boy about to begin his last year at school, all those years in between my last year and now, definitely seem to make life seem short.

Funny.... this is the first year we haven't had to buy school uniforms! What????!!! Usually there's the mad panic about affording books, uniforms, shoes, but for some reason Benjamin still has (in tact) 4 pair of shorts, 4 dry cleaned white shirts, a pair of school shoes (which double as Maccas work shoes and really look like a truck has run over them) but he assures me they will be fine and for once.... I don't argue or stress about it. Usually there'd be no discussing the disgusting shoes, he would have a new pair and that would be that. Who cares now... I suppose he can scrub them and polish them??? We think he has 2 ties floating around somewhere and I think he has about 8 pair of school sox. So all good.

Now to the booklist..... what's going on here too... he looked through it and said 'Oh I only need general stationery' (hmmmmm....) So off he went to Office Works with Michael and came back with 2 books, 2 packs of pens and a box of pencils. That's it???!!! Not sure what's going on, but the cost for Year 12 is so far looking real flash :-) Just for a moment we forget the $800 per term for school fees.

1998 saw Benjamin start Gr 1 at Sacred Heart here in Toowoomba and he had his first visit to the Principal’s office in about June of that year. Didn’t take long did it. St. Mary’s College became the new educator in 2002 and there he stayed. It’s really been a great school and he’s made so many friends it’s not funny! I did tell him once (when he wanted 4 mates to stay over) that I purposely only had one child because I only WANTED one child so usually he knows that the maximum ‘kids’ I want in my house is 3!

Anyway, this time next year I will be blogging what OP he got, or how he finished the year in general, or how his formal went, or how many bikes he has bought and sold throughout the year. Let’s hope his senior year is as fun-filled as mine was and that he gets to the end of it and thinks ‘Wow…Finally got there!’

My NEW Profession

.........now when I was little I really wanted to be a hairdresser - even to the point of practising on Mum's hair most weeks putting rollers in and each time trying to fit more rollers on her head. I forget the record, but it was pretty damn good I remember that much. Gee the challenges!! I just loved the thought of becoming a hairdresser.

So to my latest blog....

Our 'Music and Mahem' at Picnic Point last week was soooooooo good that yesterday off we went again, food, drinks (of course), even left over Christmas cake. A band called Song Dogz (mix of Rockabilly and Rock 'n Roll) were our entertainers. They weren't bad..... easy to listen to and by about 2.30pm there was quite a large crowd. Darren's daughter, Melissa and her boyfriend, Trevor were also there so was nice to sit and have a chat with them for a while.

Lil with her friend 'Morgan' (we always seem to have dogs in our photos at the park!)

Anyway.... back to my 'hairdresser' story.... Lili ended up being my guinea pig and with the help of a few little purple flowers (don't have a clue what they were called) and a few 'sticks' (as Lil called them) her hair ended up looking beeeeeeeeautiful! More to the point - I did it. It was a lot of fun and yes there are photos to prove my expertise :-)

what ARE these cute little flowers...

Finished product

Music and Mahem in the Park

Tammy and Carmen 'hamming it up'

Sunday arvo found a few of us drinking champas, eating lots of yummy things, laughing, singing... you get the drift... Toowoomba City Council has put on free 'music in the park' at a few places around the city for January and February. So we decided it was a good excuse to just 'chillax' and hang out for the afternoon. Was a magic day weatherwise too.

not sure what the go was here??...


Daz and Caramello

Was nice to catch up with Jo-anne's Mum and Dad also - haven't seen them for years and years when we studied music at USQ. Was lovely reminiscing and talking about lots of different performances 'way back then'....

Jo-anne and her Dad (John)


...and with Mum (Dianne)


......and Darren back at home after the outing

1992 - A Child is Born

1992 - a few notable events happened...

January 2nd... test debut of Shane Warne....(yes that was cool!)

February 25th ... Benjamin was born at 7.32am in the Royal Women's Hospital, Brisbane. I arrived at the hospital about 4am that morning (prior to this we had to fill up with petrol! - took a detour because of roadworks! and drove through pouring rain!). Three and a half hours later though here HE was, just in time for brekky :-)

March 4th I turned 23....

September...the Broncos won their first premiership! (now that win was COOL too.. Michael and I left a sleeping baby with my Dad to go into see the team arrive back in Brisbane later that night after the game. Thankfully on returning home, Dad and Benjamin were still snoozing peacefully. All was fine but not sure who looked after who really!)

As with most 'first borns' ....(only born in this case) photo after photo is taken.... and in the end I have ended up with about 8 albums full of 'Benjamin' photos, and here are just a few random pics. Thought I would pop them on my blog.

Benjamin and Anthony Joel - beach boys!

That's the thing with photos in the modern age... it is so quick and easy to upload them onto the computer. That's how most of us seem to store them nowadays. It just means somehow all those dozens of albums we have in our cupboards are somewhat invisible to the world. I'm wondering if it's worth pulling these hundreds of special photos out of their 'current home' to put on the net....hmmm.... no....don't think I have the patience for that.

Little boy on a boat
Gold Coast 1994 on holidays with Granny, Elvira and 'baby Anthony'

Splish!..


Splish!...


Splash!!!....

3 Musketeers

Just after 5am here - am off to the gym soon and yep, all is quiet in this house. The boys are still snoozin. Benjamin kept waking me up last night - not sure why the voice was so loud at 11pm, but anyway.... so no doubt he and the 2 muskateers will be in slumberland for quiet a while yet.

I saw them twice yesterday, when they dropped in to the cafe for hydration, and they arrived home about 5.30pm in time for roast dinner. This never happens in our place, but seeing we had special guests I thought I would go all out! It really was yummy.... Anthony was on wash-up duty with Benjamin as he had some how 'disappeared' the night before when Liam was slaving away :-)

They seem to be having a good time - and it's nice to have them with us. Bikes have to be cleaned constantly it seems AND with my white towel!!! Hmmmmm.... I asked Benjamin what all the black 'stuff' was on the towel last night and he said 'Oh! Cleaned the bike with it'.... say no more. (I think this was done before the Bates gang arrived, so they aren't in trouble).

The gym awaits - then off to the cafe to open at 9am. Darren has been coming in with me, so the time flies - nice to have someone else there when the 'painful' customers pop in!

Toowoomba to Noosa and back....

Here we are, Monday morning, back home and on reflection... our little time away was awesome. We had from Thursday to Saturday, so was nice to be at the beach on New Years Day.

Day 1 began dropping Benjamin to work and at 8.10am Darren, Carmen, Lili and myself hit the road. In the end it took us 4 hours to get there, allowing for 2 stops along the way. Now this was the interesting, if not, crappy, part of the day.... It was called HEAT! Never have I experienced day time temperature like it. First stop at the Kilcoy servo and guess what.... NO airconditioning OR fans. To top it....all windows shut. Was disgusting. People were leaving instead of ordering food. Half an hour from our destination we HAD to stop at the Ettamogah Pub for a beer. This is where the heat was unbearable. Almost 40 deg for sure. Had about half an hour just chillin out and the beer was really cold....awesome!

I drove from Ettamogah to Noosa - not too long a drive, although we took a few wrong turns at the end but finally at 12.15pm we were there. (I was in trouble for secretly turning the CD volume down all the time. Those controls on the steering wheel are cool. :) Just when I thought I was getting away with it Carmen let me know that, yes! I had been sprung!)

Noosa Islander Resort was great (much like Aanuka Resort at Coffs Harbour where we stayed about 6 years ago) - we had to move rooms for the second night, but that was fine. It meant after we got back from Hastings St on the Friday we moved into a clean 'new' unit. We thought that was pretty damn good. We all enjoyed the Lagoon pool - Lili especially! Even the intermittent rain didn't stop anyone enjoying the great atmosphere the waterfall and surrounds created.




Lili loved playing in the sand, collecting shells, throwing an apple at the pelican and seagulls (for some reason she thought they would eat the apple...nuh). The Noosa river was right across the road so that was handy. Also across the road was the Noosa Boat House (floating restaurant...although it really didn't feel like it was floating). We had the best dinner there on Friday night with Mel and Trevor. The whole evening was fantastic...food divine and Teagan, our waitress really made the night (Lili had a photo with her and when we left gave her a big hug). Took some photos overlooking the river, gave the DJ heaps (he wasn't good at all with requests unfortunately - not cool) He also started bagging piano players. Lili wouldn't have that, so said in her strong voice! 'Ah! Sneaker G (me) plays the piano!' Lili definitely won. He left the pianists alone after that :-)

We decided the Boat House may be a great spot to celebrate our 'big' birthdays this year. Really was a great venue and a wonderful way to end our holiday. The only downside, if you can call that, is Benjamin stayed home to work. He was fine with that, but I miss him a little when I'm away at the beach and he's not there. We had so many great beach holidays together when he was little.

On the way home, Saturday morning, we stopped at the Eumundi markets. This little town turns itself into one big market every Wednesday and Saturday.... it's incredible to see. Cars, people, stalls everywhere...was definitely a worthwhile stop.

Last stop at 3pm - 34 McClymont Drive....home again

Hello 2009!

'Dot' points about our New Years Day heading to Noosa.... detail to come :-)

* dropped Benjamin to Maccas 7.15am

* picked Carmen and Lili up - left for Noosa at 8.12am

* looooooooooooooong drive and a few wrong turns at the end

* Stop 1 - Kilcoy (no airconditioning in the servo!) say no more

* Stop 2 - Ettamogah Pub for a beer AND a break

* 3 swims today (lovely lagoon pool)

* Beautiful Noosa river just over the road - collecting shells, sitting in the sand at dusk

* Champas with heaps! of ice/Crownies/Red vino

* Lots of laughter

* 'Nanna' nap about 3pm - awesome

* Carmen's delectable dinner! (Chicken and Mango salad)

* Ridiculous heat! 37 deg up here

* Carmen brought the cappuccino machine and also the Ice 'bullet' for making crushed ice for our champas. She's a legend!

* Watching TV - Lili and Carmen in the pool

* Sleep will be good