Five on Friday

This is my first Five on Friday post, and I am happy to be joining in with Amy from Love Made my Home.

Five January happies 🙂

The freshest eggs ever!
Our neighbours went away for a few days last week and we offered to look after their chooks. We enjoyed fresh free range eggs for brekkie every day which was such a treat. I’m looking forward to getting our own chooks once we’ve sorted out a home for them. The kids were so excited to discover these warm freshly laid eggs in the nesting box.

Spending time at the beach.
Hot January weather has meant lots of beach time jumping the waves, exploring the rock pools and enjoying the fresh salty air. We found a beautiful perfect shell on the rocks undamaged by the waves.

Taking five minutes in the afternoon.
We have a lovely view over our neighbour’s dam from our back deck. I love to steal a few minutes in the afternoon to sit here and watch the kingfishers zip down from the trees to snap up the bugs from the lily pads. They are wonderful pretty blue birds, but I haven’t been quick enough to take a decent picture of one yet.

Starting a new crochet project.
I love the excitement of a new project. I can’t wait to get into this one, a little babushka doll! So cute. I hope I can manage to get through it though, the pattern looks to be one of the trickiest I’ve tackled yet. I will post updates as I go along.

Kids spending time outdoors
There are so many other distractions these days. Sometimes its hard to get kids out and about enjoying simple stuff like climbing trees, making mud pies and general rough and tumble. We are not the perfect family, there are iPads, TVs and game consoles in our house and they do tend to go on more than I would like. We have been very slack on the 6 o clock rule during the holidays (i.e. no screen time until 6pm). I have felt guilty as I have torn the kids away from their friends back in Sydney to move 12 hours up the coast, so iPads and the like have been free rein. This will change when they start school, but for now I’m not stressing about it. And when they do go out and about its hell for leather and I love watching them all play together. Happy days.

Thanks to Amy from Love Made My Home  for organising the Five on Friday blog groups.
I am joining in Five on Friday, taking five minutes from our day to enjoy five things.  Please go and visit the other people who are also blogging about Five on Friday this week.

Amy from Love Made My Home

Kristie from North of 49

Patricia from A Place For Everything

Katharine from Art-e-facts

Selma from Eclectic Home & Life

Marion from My Two Girls

Have a lovely weekend!

Storm and an amazing tree

Hello again. I wanted to start by saying thanks to all of you who have commented on my blog. I love the blogging community and how supportive everyone is, its so wonderful. I wish I could figure out how to write a nice tagline as the bottom saying how much I appreciate comments, but can’t seem to fathom it. Anyway, I’m saying it now, I really do enjoy reading all your comments and look forward to every one of them.

Now to the storm. We had a huge downpour with thunder and lightning right above us the night before last. Unfortunately I left the gazebo out and look what happened!

Very annoyed I left it out. We only put it up that morning to provide shade for the poor guinea pigs as they were struggling with the heat, as we all were. Good job we’re not planning a camping trip anytime soon. The plus side is we had cooler temps yesterday which was a welcome relief. We went out and about down to Cotton Tree in Marochydore and found this amazing tree (cotton tree??) which provided the most fantastic natural adventure playground. You can’t see from the picture, but the branches hung right over the water. It was right next to a lovely restaurant. I sat watching the fortunate few dining there enjoying lovely cold glasses of wine. Jealous? me?

We went back home and had a nice surprise as my husband finished work early. He tried out his new toy, a brush cutter and did some essential ‘farm jobs’.

clearing out the lantana

Then he took the kids out fishing while I stayed home and cooked roast dinner. A nice change from the endless bbq meat and salads we’ve been having lately. He didn’t catch anything but the kids had a great time catching crabs and throwing them back. We are certainly appreciating being closer to the water here, while still having the country life.

We went to school today to collect various things and sort some admin out ready for next week when they start back. I’m not sure who is more nervous about starting the new school, me or the kids.

I hope your week is going well. T x

 

Our new life in the country

Well we made it!. Our tree change to Queensland went without a hitch. We got through christmas, had back to back visitors and now hubby is back at work and I am entertaining the kids during the school holidays. I managed to get most of the unpacking done before christmas, but then ran out of steam and motivation so there are still a couple of boxes in the hallway waiting for my attention. We still have pictures to put up, but we’re getting there.

Our front yard

I have to acknowledge the beautiful cards Alison from Life at Sylvan House sent me before christmas as part of Amy’s christmas card swap. A gorgeous cross stitch snowman card and an equally lovely new home card. I love the beachy picture on the card, just my sort of thing. Thankyou Alison for these and your kind words. (Sorry about the blurry image, it looked fine until I uploaded it).

lovely cards from Alison as part of the christmas card swap

We have been out and about quite a bit exploring our new area. The countryside is just stunning. I love breathing in the sweet fresh air and listening to the birds.

view from Mary Cairncross scenic reserve

The beaches are fantastic and we have been spending a fair bit of time there as the weather has been so hot. The humidity is a killer, sapping all your energy.

view from point cartwright

 

Coolum beach view from boardwalk 

Bribie Island

view from point cartwright towards mooloolaba

I’m enjoying being home with the kids these holidays. Despite the holidays being a bit too long, and sometimes hard work, its so great to have the whole day to do what we like without clock watching and rushing off to various activities. I love being able to take off down to the beach at 4pm if we feel like it.

Its steamy hot today so a quick trip to the beach is in order before dinner.
Perfect sunday 🙂

Hope you are enjoying your weekend T x