Christmas Holidays in Aus!!

Riley and Emily Chillaxin in Uncle Dave & Aunty Mandy's pool.....yeah there was a LOT of that happening!!

Riley and his Uncle Dave.

This is a gorgeous shot of Riley but I had to steal it off Bec's Facebook page and it came down really little so when I get it e-mailed I will replace it.

An equally gorgeous pic of Emily in the pool. They both loved it so much and were both so confident so quickly too.

Aunty Mandy teaching Em how to jump a croc - CRIKEY MATE!! LOL!!!!! Look at that cute little butt!

A good sign it is summer is scoffing some watermelon down after a long swimming session......another favourite holiday activity for the kids.

Emily got right in on the watermelon action too!!

This funny face is actually what Emily gives us these days when you ask her to smile or when she sees a camera pointed in her direction - it is just too cute not to take a pic of.

My handsome fella enjoying some watermelon.

We also had plenty of play dates with the kids cousins, Alex & Chloe and those usually involved some form of water play too whether it was a dip in the pool or just running through the sprinkler. You know it is an Aussie summer when you can run through the sprinkler.

I have almost the exact same photo of Riley at around the same age wearing the exact same hat playing under the tap at his cousins place a few Christmases ago. Freaky eh?

This is supposed to be Aunty Raechel's 'Naughty Chair' but I think Emily just thought it was too much like her size to pass up an opportunity to sit on it and look out the front windows. She got up there no problems but...........


Ummmm hang on I don't think I can really get down, seems I am higher up than I originally thought.....

MUMMY!!!!!

Hard to believe that 4 weeks could go so fast but they really did. The kids and I flew out from Toronto airport late in the afternoon of Friday November 28 to begin a very long journey home for Christmas. We arrived at our transfer point in the USA, LAX, at midnight Toronto time (it was 9pm Los Angeles time). I had two sleeping children (having both falled asleep in the very last hour of the 51/2hr flight - Emily screamed the first 4 1/2hrs) and expected that we would have a 2hour stop over where I would head down to the Qantas lounge and hang out for a bit and then re-board a new aircraft which would take us all the way through to Brisbane. But like all good stories that was not how things were to happen. I was told not long after disembarking that our next flight had been delayed and that we would be advised of our new departure time in 1hour. So I set off with the kids to find the Qantas lounge only to be met by about 20-30 airport security guards blocking the way. I was told, very officially, that I had to head back to gate 44 and exit the building. I said, No, I did not want to enter I was just looking for the Qantas lounge. I was told again to turn around, so I did and turns out the Qantas lounge was just there so in I went. I found out later that there had been a bomb scare in the terminal and that was the reason for the security staff barrier. Luckily it was only a scare seeing as how we, along with thousands of others, were not made to leave the building. We then recieved notification that our flight was on schedule and so after a brief play for the kids in the kids room at the Qantas lounge we made our way back to the gate and boarded for our last leg of our journey. After a bit of shuffling around we got our seats sorted with a bassinette for Emily and ended up having all 4 seats in the bulk head to ourselves. The kids were awesome on this leg of the trip and when we landed in Brisbane Qantas took very good care of us and had a motorised buggy waiting for us and drove us to Passport control and then had an officer get all of our luggage for us, take us through Customs and then deliver us safely to our waiting family, Dave, Mandy, Bec & Jason. By this time it was early morning on Sunday 30th of November.

We spent two weeks in Brisbane with a weekend trip to Mackay in there also to surprise my Mum for her 50th. Brad joined us on the 14th of December. We then moved ourselves to a lovely unit in Cleveland where we spent the next two weeks. It was a wonderful little break for all of us and it went all too quickly, it was very hard to say good bye and get on the plane at the end of it all.