and a few more

Devon's new favourite face to pull...

haha, I'm soooo funny!

and he is :-)

such a goof!

anyone for some corn?

Winter 2010

Sooo, what have we been up to? This and that and a bit in between. Mostly relaxing and playing outside...

...and enjoying this beautiful winter weather

the very important boots that must go on when one goes outside

I've also been to IKEA with Kathryn during the school holidays to get another toy storage system...

there's two here, side by side

also got this cute bookcase for the play room

Roseanne was up in Perth for a week during her mid-semester break. She celebrated her birthday while she was up so we had her and Mike and Kaffa round for dinner.

Hooray!


We also went to Rockingham for lunch and a play on another beautiful sunny winter's day. Ingrid and girls and Mum and Renee joined us too.

June Long weekend...

We've known for a few weeks but we (Ingrid really) decided we should have a little celebration gourmet dinner for this lovely couple...who, as you can see, are very excited to be expecting their first baby at the end of December, DV!!!! YAY, I'm going to be an Aunty again :-) And now we can give Annette some child-rearing tips for a change, seeing as she's always quick to give them to us!

the happy grandparents-to-be

our lovely hosts - Ingrid and Paul

mmm, a delicious omelet in the making

and the beautiful Renee

The photo of Marcel was not suitable for posting and no pic of Charlene seeing as she is off gallivanting in South Africa at the moment, trying to win over Willem's heart...they met and started going out when he came over here, but the romance sort of sizzled out soon after he went back...from his side...they're still friends, so we'll see what happens :-)

it's all a bit too much for the old man

Sunday's are always good for building all sorts
of wonderful things out of the Duplo
(guess who doesn't want to be on the photo)

Monday

Late Monday afternoon we decided to go for a drive down to Dwellingup, a little town in the bush, along a river, about an hours drive south of us. There are lots of 4WD tracks down that way so we did a bit of exploring both in and out of the car. We'll definitely be heading back there one day, it's such a nice spot!

guess who doesn't want to be on the photo again!

Look who's walking!

WASO concert

A few weeks ago I saw an ad in the paper for a WASO (West Australian Symphony Orchestra) Kids Cushion Concert. It said the orchestra would demonstrate its instruments through classical excerpts and familiar songs. Fifty minutes of fun including "have-a-go" on the instruments.

Sounded like fun, so I asked Ingrid if she'd be interested in coming along and of course she was, so off we went to Perth to give our kids some culture. It was well worth it and the girls thought it was great!

on the train to Perth

the orchestra

This was the 'MC' lady and she was great!
So energetic and really got the kids involved

Olivia and Courtney getting into it

the percussion man showing off all his instruments

Not really Devon's cup of tea...

Olivia the Drummer!

trying out the cello...

...and the violin


Afterwards we had lunch in the park and the kids let off some steam

Ingrid got this shot of the girls :-)
They were giving each other such a big hug they
nearly lost their balance and fell in the water!

ANZAC Day

Over here we have an ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) day public holiday when we remember all those men and women who fought, served and died in wars gone past. The actual date is 25th of April, so seeing as it fell on a Sunday this year, the holiday was on the Monday, giving us a long weekend. We made the most of it and went down to Albany to meet our new nephew Ezra (from Glenn and Leonie) and to just have a relaxing weekend away. We didn't do anything patriotic like go to the dawn service (we had our own dawn service with Devon once again...) but we did do a bit of 4WD and fishing and thus showed our appreciation for the freedom we can enjoy in this beautiful country of ours :-)

Glenn and Leonie were hoping to present Ezra for baptism on Sunday morning, but Saturday night he suddenly became very unwell with a high temperature. He ended up being admitted into hospital and after a variety of tests were done, they still couldn't find the reason for his temperature and seeing as they couldn't really get it down, they decided to fly him up to the kids hospital in Perth. Bit of a scare for everyone! Thankfully after 5 days of being on antibiotics he was fine and they could head back home.

So, here are some pics from our weekend...

~Saturday~

Thankfully we popped in at Glenn and Leonie on Saturday morning,
so we still managed to meet Ezra - isn't he gorgeous!

After lunch we headed down to Dingo's Beach with Ed and Evette,
who had also come down for the weekend.
Just look at the beautiful weather we had!

I did hook up a salmon and after trying to reel it in for what seemed
like forever, I got it in quite close so Rod tried grabbing the line to
help me, but of course the fish spat the hooks and swam off :-(
-still good for an adrenaline rush-

4 amigos together again

Rod got a decent sized herring

~Sunday~

having fun on the see-saw at Nan and Pop's - where we stayed

Fritz with his son Samuel

love this kid!
He took his first steps on this weekend too!!!

~Monday~
We went to Dingo's in the morning with Ed and Evette again,
but had no luck with the fish this time.

us...

them...
Gives you a bit of an idea of the scenery you drive by
before heading down the steep track to the beach