Happy birthday to me!

Thirty today! Eek! The years go by so fast, it's hard to know where they go! Here is my birthday muffin from the lovely Jenna. This birthday will spread out a bit so expect more to come! :)

A bit sad

 

 Final goodbye tonight and yes, I cried. The ugly cry as you can plainly see. ;) Home here feels like home, just without the memories attached. This shot was taken in the room where we spent most of our time, where we shared our first kiss and where Toby proposed. Lots of memories. Time to fill this place with them now! :) On a lighter note, today I spotted Santa out walking. He looks like he's shed a few kilos but that beard is a dead giveaway!

 Have a great night!

It hits me

I have 3 more sleeps as a twenty-something. Eeek! ;)

Fill the blank: Holiday Spirit

Playing again with Lauren after a bit of a break!

1.   Holiday spirit reminds me of my childhood and of simple, happy times.

2.  The holidays are incomplete without family, friends, the tree, carols and decorations.

3.  My favorite things to do around the holidays is spend time with family and friends and start to wind down after a busy year... and celebrate my birthday! :)

4.  A holiday tradition my family and I have is   always spending time together on Christmas day or Boxing day. We also have food traditions- we always have pfeffernusse, a German biscuit in memory of my nanny and old nanny, mum's shortbread and ginger nuts, my spiced sugar biscuits and rocky road and my old nanny's pineapple pudding- a custard, meringuey thing that sounds disgusting but is actually delicious! My cousin took over making it when nanny died and we always have to spot the thing that is different about it. In the past we've had it made with soy milk or diet jelly!

5.  Holiday music is cheery and sets the scene for the holidays. Even the cheesy ones!  I'm usually the one singing  them for the community at carols by candlelights, but I'm having a break from that this year.

6.  This year, I'll be spending the holidays  with my dad's side for lunch and Toby's family in the evening. 

7.  Holiday wish list to have a clean and tidy house! :) And a bracelet from my coworker at school. And some papertryink stamps.

What about you?

Moving in!

Here we are (most of us anyway) last Friday evening when we were preparing to move into the new house. We had just taken settlement and spend the (rainy) evening unpacking glasses boxes and enjoying pizza with mum and dad and our new neighbours (and great friends) Wal and Steph and their girls. Rachel, Cooper and Ty visited earlier with a lovely bunch of flowers from their garden and some choccies and Tim stopped off later on the way back from work. We couldn't believe that we'd actually got to our settlement date and that we were going to actually move in the next day! 

One of my favourite memories of this night was having everyone together. And earlier, before anyone else came, Tobes and I took some quiet time to sit on the floor of the room that is now our bedroom to pray over the house and to thank God for what he had done in allowing us to have it, and to sell our other place. We dedicated this new place to Him and asked Him to use it as He will, for His glory. 

        

 The following day was very full on! We awoke bright and early and spent the day carting boxes and furniture across town in our upgraded truck (thank you for a brother with a truck licence!) with the help of some wonderful family and friends- mum and dad, Tim (super driver), Rachel (organising queen!), Cooper (pocket rocket!), Graeme and Rach, Mat, Steve and Jack. Wal and Steph lent a hand when they could and were an amazing help. Mary and Phil popped in later in the night for a cuppa- phew. It was so lovely to have everyone there to celebrate and help us. And in the last week I've had coffees with many girlfriends here after work. So lovely. A BIG sleep was had that night and we continue to unpack.

Photos of the afters to come! :)

The sound of Summer

It has arrived. Summer has hit with warm, humid weather and all of the associated sounds.
Last night I heard cicadas chirping as I left for the staff Christmas party.
The mosquitoes were buzzing as we played lawn bowls into the night.
Tonight I hear the gentle hum of air conditioners in the surrounding homes.

This new house is great. I do loads of washing and hang them out on the veranda and they're dry in no time.
Today was a busy one. Tobes and I headed to the shopping centre at 9am (thinking that we'd beat the crowds- we didn't), but we were successful in grabbing the last tree (that we had chosen) from Big W. BARGAIN I tell you. It was $28 at full price (the others were upward from $78) and there is NOTHING wrong with it! The tree is taller than me, nice and bushy and covered in decorations that remind me of Christmas' past. It's covered with vintage and homemade goodies and clear fairy lights. I love it!
Again... more promises of photos to come.

We had our second last clean up of the old place this afternoon and will return for the final time tomorrow.  We spent a good hour chatting with our old neighbour too which was lovely. He was so helpful and supportive of me, especially back in my single days. Thank you God for Steve. :)

We're settling in well to our new home. Just need to get the computer up and running properly and I'll be back to normal blogging. But for now it's bed time and an attempt to sleep in this heat.  
 

I'm back!

Why hello everyone! Here I am on the other side of the move. It's been a pretty busy and exhausting week, but we've made it and this new house is beginning to feel like a home. It's a beautiful place and we really love it. It still amazes me how large it feels! It's a medium sized family home with one large living area at the back, but it's SO much bigger than what we're used to in our little unit! We are loving the differences like having a back area large enough to fit armchairs and couches and clothes airers and an ironing board... with lots of room to still move! :)  Brilliant! Photos of the moving process will come soon, but I wanted to share what I discovered upon returning home tonight.

Before today, the entire wall was covered with ivy! We've had the most amazing stormy downpours this week and tropical, humid weather. The strength of the rain and the weight of it brought down our ivy. Toby's already gotten rid of it. Now to decide what to replace it with! :)

Be back soon with the house update!