Nanoo's birthday

While the French celebrate their Bastille Day, here in Oz we celebrate Nanoo's birthday.  And nothing screams French more than a good old fashioned Aussie BBQ birthday brunch.

 

Road trip

Me and the kids took a little spontaneous road trip to Kangaroo Valley to visit friends for a couple of days.  It was the school holidays, we had a few spare days of nothing much planned, so why not.  It's a 4 1/2 hour drive from our house to Emma and Dave's place in Kangaroo Valley.  Michael didn't have time off work, so I took on the driving duties myself.  I borrowed a car DVD set from a friend and we set off.

First stop, dropping Michael off at his workplace in Sydney.  Kids got to see Dad's desk and pretend to work.
 

Stop.  Revive.  Survive.
 

Once we got off the freeways and were officially driving through the Southern Highlands it was just beautiful.  Lots of bare trees line the streets, winter flowers in bloom, and fresh cool air up the nostrils.  Then finally we arrived.

Our days were spent catching up with friends, the kids playing with each other, walking around the property and enjoying the blue skies and warming sun, despite it being the middle of winter.

Emma and Moz.
 

Glorious sun for a winter lunch outside.

Special mention must be made to "sausages".  Buster was obsessed with this toy.  It's a dog's toy he found outside that none of the dogs playing with.  Buster took it everywhere with him and it became a security blanket for him while we were away.  Emma kindly let him keep "sausages" and now we are home, of course he has no interest in playing with them.  But he has squirreled them away with his other precious momentos that he hordes.

One of the highlights of the trip was a show put on by the kids.  You see there is a TV commercial called Dumb Ways to Die which is funny and has a very catchy jingle.  The kids occupied themselves for a whole afternoon planning a play we have called "Dumb Ways to Die - The Musical".  They producted tickets for the show, made and organised props, prepared a running order/script, numbered seats for the audience, and all the kids were given a role.  Buster was an usher and handed out crackers once the audience was seated.  Joe was the announcer, and Henry, Milly and Allegra were the performers.

And then it was time to say goodbye to Kangaroo Valley and head home.

McHappy.

Pyromaniacs?

A heart warming drink for the adults.

At winter solstice time you can usually find us at Kangaroo Valley around a bonfire, but the past few years (due to soccer commitments) have seen us staying at home sitting around our chiminea.  Our house is surrounded by trees and we amass a lot of branch and twig debris.  Add some marshmallows to the mix and we've got ourselves a fire-starting night of family fun.

Why don't children feel the cold?

"But it does all fit in Mumma"

The fun didn't end there, we still had a heap of sticks to get rid of and a handful of marshmallows.  What were we to do?  Well, the very next day we fired up the chiminea again and spent the day burning as much wood as we could.

Milly looks completely over it.