This weekend dad and Maura came back from Perth to attend a wedding in Newcastle. It was a nice warm day and dad donned his tartan skirt (he he) for the occasion.













We also decided to celebrate christmas while they we over here, so we had a brunch at our house on sunday. It was very lovely, Louise and Daniel came up from Sydney and Edward also made an appearance.

Whilst Marie and Terry were over from the uk, they went away with dad and maura to do a great ocean road (down south australia). We then met up with them in Sydney for a long anticipated lunch at doyle's restaurant. it was a lovely day - quite warm (well warm enough for me to get burnt).

we are slowly making the house more our own. Simon is starting to get the garden going but it is difficult when we are working all week then working on the house at the weekends. But i guess thats how the rest of the world does it. We have also discovered that our neighbour's youngest child loves to throw his toys over the fence. at the moment we are proud new owners of a tonka truck and a body board.






This is an image that simon and i woke to early one morning a few weeks ago. it was quite a cool morning but it didnt take long for all the mist/fog to disappear.








Kitty is adjusting to the house very well, we often find her spread eagle (as shown) all over the house. although now that we are here all day with her, i have never known a cat to sleep so much. she also still manages to find sleeping spots where we can't find her. and she has taken to opening the linen closet door and sleeping on the towels! i am not impressed!

well we are settling in to our new home and so is kitty (as you can see). She is happy exploring the place still and is loving having lots of room to lay about in.






We had our first dinner guest tonight, as Dad and Marie and Terry who are visiting from the uk. (the lovely people i stayed with in the uk. It was a nice night although decided by simon and myself we are not really "set-up" for more than 2 guest as it starts to get a little cramped around the dinner table. Simon is slowly making head way with the house he has done wonderful work, cleaning and tidying the house while i have been at work. He makes a good house wife ! This weekend we plan to get started on the garden and do a bit more around the house, it will take a little time but we will get it together eventually. more post will follow as change occur...

well i have had a busy few weeks. I have been working and slowly we have been moving into the house at shortland. Finally we moved all the big stuff and are now living in our own place !!! exciting! Here are a few photos of the rooms and the house. Although please remember when looking at these they are still moving in photos, so there will be a few changes as we settle in. its very tiring moving house so i am in no rush to do it again. hopefully these will keep you enticed for a little while till we manage to do some work on the house and bring it up to scratch. Kitty is loving the new house lots of rooms and cupboards to hide in but she is not enjoying the sleep in the outside balcony/room thing.

sorry for the delay again in posting... not much has really been happening over the last few weeks. I have been working hard over the last few weeks, everything is going well at work.
i guess i should explain the photo, over the last few weeks we have had westerly winds blowing in from central Australia. They bring with them these lovely moths called bogong moths. which breed in queensland then fly down the Victoria. but the westerly winds tend to blow them off track a bit. we have had literally thousands of them. simon on this particular night caught and release 58 moths from our living room!
Although i think kitty is the only one who enjoys them, but she keeps us up all night chasing them!
well sorry this entry is not very exciting but that is the life of a working girl... hopefully something exciting will happen over the next week or so, then you will have some interesting reading.

Okay, these photos are from Louise's and Maura's Birthdays where we went up the hunter valley to have lunch at Peterson's Champagne House. It was a nice lunch and nice champagne, and we then went on to the chocolate factory which was also very yummy.... all in all a very lovely day.







This Is Frank, Maura, Daniel, Louise, Edward, Simon and of course ME!!!















And this is of course Simon and myself looking all lovey and dovey !!

Sorry for the delay between postings... well these photos are from the beginning of September when one of our nieces Sylvie, celebrated her 3rd Birthday. We were unable to celebrate it on her birthday as there were a few too many people ill, so instead we did it the week after, and fun was had by all. (except Freya for a little while when she got stung by a bee).



This is myself and Simon's sisters in law, The one next to me is Kristine (Daniel's wife) and the other is Megan (Aaron's wife and mother of the two girls).














This photo is of the Birthday girl with her grandma, in her new dress. And eating one of her birthday cupcakes.

This weekend Simon and i went to have a look at a sustainable house on Saturday. It was very interesting and gave us lots of ideas for the future!!

We also went to a football game on Saturday night, its was the Australian under 23's playing DPR Korea for qualifying for the Olympics. It was a good game with Australia getting up 1 - nil. There is another game down the coast on Wednesday, maybe dad and Simon will go....

I am back at another working week - all is going well. the girls i work with are really nice and its a nice shop, although my feet still hurt at the end of the day.

I'm so proud!!! I went and caught up with Nicki and Jack at the weekend, after working my first week as a full time employee!!! It was amazing to see how much he had changed over the last few weeks, last time he slept through my whole visit, this time he was awake and having a good wriggle about. As usual he was spoiled with a few more gifts. Its hard to resist now that i have started full time work at a pharmacy at one of the hospitals in Newcastle which does a lot of baby gift ware and toys. Work has been very tiring (not use to the 8 hours days on my feet), but hopefully i will get back into to swing of things after a while.












We also had father's day here, which was a lovely day so i got frocked up and decided it was a good excuse to have a drink !! We had Louise and Edward round for a BBQ and Dad and Simon headed off to the soccer in the afternoon. (which saw the Newcastle jets draw). It was a pretty good weekend anyway, although it seems to go so quickly now that i am working.

At the weekend we headed up to Port Macquarie again, for Drew's 60th Birthday. It was held on Saturday afternoon at Bago vineyard just south of port. It was a great afternoon (a little chilly), but all in all a good time. And of course with sue in charge of food there was a feast to feed thousands but it was all delicious. Chula was practicing being a responsible mother with a friends baby, Baby in one hand beer in the other!

This weekend i went to Canberra with a girlfriend of mine who had to go down for a uni course. So i decided to go down with her and see my aunt and uncle who live in Canberra. Janice my aunt has recently suffered a stroke so it was a good chance to catch up and see how she was doing. So i spent a lot of time visiting her which was good. This Photo is of "red" one of the many chickens Barry and Janice have. She has been in a few times to see Janice, and only made a few breaks for freedom whilst at the hospital.






On Sunday i went with my Barry up to one of the mountains that he paraglides from because the weather thingy was not giving the right readings. Once we reach the top of the mountain it was quickly determined that it had been blown off. We then spent about an hour looking for the three cups down the other side of the mountain. but despite our best efforts and me only rolling my ankle twice, we were only able to come up with two. (which we later found out would be useless anyway). but there were some great views up there. unfortunately it was too windy for Barry to paraglide but in the photo you may see the hang gliders, who managed to get a bit of a fly in.
All in all it was a great weekend and had a fantastic time. And as typical females Donna and I managed to talk the whole 5 trip both there and back.

It was another exciting day - I was off to see Nicki, Luke and Baby Jack as well as Rocky and Pig. I Stayed for about an hour or so and he was very sleepy, although he was getting a bit restless at the end because he was due for his feed. He is a gorgeous little boy, and is a good little boy. the feeds are starting to spread out now so its making s little easier for Nicki.





Rocky was very happy to see me and got a little jealous when i played with pig.











The photos are of me and Jack then Jack and his Mother (Nicki). The Other one is of Rocky and Pig although they wouldn't keep still so the picture is a little poor. hopefully i will get another opportunity to get a better photo.

Hi everyone - a bit of a change as you come to the blog this time - i have been changing it around to try and find a better way of displaying my photos and comments. I hope this doesn't throw too many people. if anyone has any major problems let me know. not much to report that is worth making it onto the blog. but hopefully i will see baby jack later this week so there may be some more photos of him.

Well tonight was an exciting night, we went to visit our friend Nicki and her partner Luke who had just had baby Jack yesterday. Nicki is also known as the lady who i found out was pregnant when i was in Scotland. She is also Rocky dog's mum. Not only has there been a new edition to the family in baby jack, but a few weeks ago they got a little buddy for rocky named 'pig'. there will be some photos of him in a few weeks when i go over and visit him when nic and bub are back home.

On Saturday night we headed for Simon's brothers place up the valley a bit. For his other brothers 30th birthday. We had a bonfire and pizzas for dinner, and it was a little chilly. but it was great to see the girls - and freya stayed close all night !! Most people stayed the night up there but i wasnt staying in the cold - especially as i was only just getting over a cold. I put my uk winter warmers to good use and yes the hat came out again !!! i think it was missing me! Dad enjoyed have some sweets with sylvie. It was a great night and we were kept warm but the glowing fire.

simon and i went for a drive up the valley at the weekend to see a friend of his and on the way back we drove into this wonderful storm !! there were a few lightening strikes and a bit of rain, but nothing compared to last months storms. Simon has been working while on uni holidays. I am back to the job hunting and hopefully something will come up soon... hope all is well with everyone.

Today i went out to visit nan who has been without power for about two days, although luckily it came back on while i was out there are we had a hot cup of tea to celebrate. This photo was taken at the bay just around from nan's house, now you have to look very closely the centre of the image and you'll see the green boat on the jetty's. Power is slowly coming back on around the city, although the clean-up of trees may take a good few weeks.

Some more photos....

Well we have had a few wild and winding days in Newcastle, this is a ship that landed on one of Newcastle beaches on Friday morning. Its been wild with trees down all over Newcastle and loads of places with no power - luckily we still have power but who knows for how long... there have been major flooding all over the city and the major rivers are now flooding up the hunter valley. but we are all safe and sound.

First of all sorry for taking so long in between blog updates, but i have been forgetting to take my camera places, so i have no pics. Haven't really got too much to report, still job hunting but i have a weeks work of pharmacy work next week, which will be nice to bring in some money. But i have started some volunteer work at Blackbutt reserve, which is fun !! i get to prepare the food for the animals and feed some of them. The picture is from nan's the other day these two parrots were having a nice feed.

On Sunday Simon and i went to paddlefest which was run by mum's rotary club. Mum had a team in the dragon boats which simon was in, they had to heats and then won the final!!! it was a fun day but Simon is still a bit sore from it.

We went to Port Macquarie for a few days last week. We had beautiful weather and we went up to the farm, which is full of fruit. charlie has done amazing things to it. this is us out to breakfast one morning with Drew, Chula and Charlie.

At the weekend we went to one of Simon's friends parents place up the valley. The dad is a artist and makes sculptures. this was their post box on the road - it is awesome!! i am going to get him to make one when simon and i get a place... haha

On Friday i graduated !! yeah for me. luckily there wasn't too many graduates for the ceremony that we were at only about 120. Then we went out to lunch with Simon's parents which was lovely. now i have the degree all i need is the job.

We have had a busy easter this year, with a lunch at mum's on Saturday, then on Sunday we had a BBQ at Simon's brothers place. with a big easter egg hunt !! And on monday we had some friends over for a lunch at dads. These photos are of Ed and Louise relaxing on the lounge after a big lunch (with Lucy) and the other is Simon's nieces Freya and Sylvie eating their easter eggs after the hunt.

this is Simon's cat "kitty" she loves having me back - i take her to the vets where she gets needles and i steal Simon away from his place so she has no one to play with !! nah she really does love me cause i feed her, most of the time. she looks so cute and innocent in this photo but really she is not!