Grandpa passed away yesterday. He hasn’t been doing great for a while now. Nanny and Grandpa had been together for over 60 years, so it’s understandable that he couldn’t live without her. We’ll be saying our goodbyes next Thursday. He was 93.
I’ve been wanting revamp my blog for some time now, but there are just too many options out there to choose from – so many formats, fonts, colours etc.
I’ve also been wanting to finish unpacking our place in Mt Beauty – I’m still looking for my jewellery.
I’ve also been wanting to send very belated birthday cards from as far back as July.
Oh! And I’ve been wanting to “organise” our house so I can actually find things when I want them, not 2 weeks later after I’ve bought a replacement.
You see, I’m having trouble keeping up with life at the moment. How do people do it? Especially with more than 1 child? I “joke” about having 5, but in all seriousness, I would love to have 5 children. I just don’t know how I would keep up with them all.
I feel like this is all I’ve been talking about on my blog lately – blah blah blah I can’t keep up – but that’s what my life consists of at the moment. This is what I’m living in, and I don’t know when I’ll find a way out. Every time I walk into our house, I feel like it’s a holiday home – like it’s not our home.
And being in Brisbane has just confused me even more. I seriously have to think to myself sometimes “where am I??” Thankfully, since we have had some sort of normalcy the last 2 weeks, Chance is actually sleeping through and even though I’m still pretty tired all the time from the 5am wake ups, I’m so glad he’s sleeping better. I don’t know how I feel about next year, knowing we’ll be moving twice, but I just have to go with it. Embrace the chaos and know that no matter what, we’ll get through it.
2012, here we come.
I love singing. I may not be very good at it, but I love belting out my favourite tunes. Here’s a couple of photos of me at my hen’s night partaking it a wee bit of karaoke. (Do my bridesmaids know me, or do they know me?)
I really got in to this one:
I love cruising around in our car singing along to CDs or the radio. I love putting my iPod on and going for a walk and singing in my head (or sometimes out loud). I used to sing along to whatever song was playing in shops and it embarrassed my friends. A lot. Which made me do it more. (I was kind of an annoying teenager.)
And most recently, I’ve been singing Chanbe to sleep and loving that special time we have together. I start off with Melanie Safka‘s Alexander Beetle, I then move on to Ruby Tuesday by The Rolling Stones, (Melanie also did a cover of this song) and depending on what sort of night Chanbe is having, that might be enough. Otherwise I move on to The Rose by Bette Midler (don’t judge) and Time after Time by Cyndi Lauper. I might then hum a few tunes and just sing the choruses of other songs, and I’ve even been singing/humming the odd Christmas carol.
It’s such a lovely time we have together and I hope he remembers these songs as he gets older.
In our first week in Brisbane (Woody Pt) we had our nieces stay with us and they were super keen to play with Chanbe and help me look after him. It was so so lovely having them here and it made the transition a lot more smooth for me than it might have otherwise been. We did lots of fun things like go to the beach:
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Or, as our friend (you know who you are!) would say “Compliments of the season” (and then we pay him out.)
We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas surrounded by loved ones and tinsel, and that the new year brings lots of exciting new adventures. We have another big year coming up with a move in July (back to Wang) and another one in December (only God knows where we’ll be going), and as much as I’m looking forward to all the fun times, I’m also looking forward to the end of it, as that will bring some stability to our lives (hopefully!!)
Merry Christmas!
Love,
Wifey
‘Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Not even… Chanbe…
It’s Christmas eve and I feel weird. Normally we’d be sitting down at Nanny and Grandpa’s dining room table, and would probably even be onto our 2nd course by now. We would have had a few glasses of wine and whatever brew my brother had brought along to share. We would have eaten fresh prawns, turkey, chicken, sausage, pierogi, potato salad, veges, salad etc etc etc. And we’d have Christmas pudding and Nanny’s brandy custard to look forward to.
And then it would be time for presents. Nanny and Grandpa had taken to giving us money in an envelope the last few years, but would also give us something else that we could unwrap. Hubs would get a business shirt of some sort, and I would get some soap and/or a towel and/or a nightie and/or something for the kitchen. Nanny would say to me “be careful with the envelope”.
And then we would give our presents to them – usually a photo or series of photos, and they would have their place in the loungeroom, or “hall of fame”, by the New Year.
And then we would sit and chat and laugh and Nanny and Grandpa would look around and enjoy the banter. We have so many wonderful memories of Christmas eves, and although it’s sad there will be no more at Nanny and Grandpa’s, we look forward to starting our own, new traditions. Like this year, we are sitting here at the house at Woody Pt, with our friend Ben, having a few drinks and enjoying the cool breeze and the intermittent rain.
I wonder what next year will look like…
When Hubs wanted to do Movember in 2010, I said to him that if he did it this year, he had to do it every year and get a photo with Chanbe on his birthday each year. So far, he’s 2 from 2 🙂
Hubs’ mo this year became quite unruly and I couldn’t wait to shave that sucker off. The great shave was scheduled for the Sunday before he started his placement at Redcliffe hospital – the day after our arrival in Brisbane.
And in true current form, I don’t seem to have a photo of a fully shaved Hubs on the day, so you’ll just have to take my word for it, that he looked so so much better.
Thanks for everyone who sponsored Hubs’ Movember efforts. We’ll see you again next year!
Though, with the number of birthday parties we had for him, you could be forgiven for thinking Chanbe was already onto his second birthday! The day after we arrived in Brisbane, we had the whole family over to celebrate. I had found some gorgeous rocket ship invitations, so in keeping with the theme, I decided to make a rocket ship cake. Mum prepared the slabs of cake for me the night before so I just had to cut out and decorate.
We found Nanny’s old Kenwood to help with mixing the icing – how retro!
The icing job was a bit more involved than I expected it to be, but thanks to some strategically placed snakes and smarties, you wouldn’t have known. I couldn’t wait to light the sparklers!!
Hubs and I love a good road trip. So when we decided to drive up to Brizzie for Christmas etc, I immediately got excited and started planning the route we would take. I have rellies in Griffith, NSW, that we have been wanting to visit since we moved south, so that was immediately going to be our first point of call. Then I asked my cousin who lives in Sydney if we could stay a night and she was most happy to have us. I just had to find somewhere between Sydney and Brisbane to spend the third night. Normally we would stay with my aunty Heather in Armidale but she has since moved back to Brisbane 🙁
I just happened to be at the baby shower of a girl Frith works with, talking to one of the locum’s wives and she asked what we were doing for Christmas. I told her about the road trip and she immediately said “Kempsey is about halfway between Sydney and Brisbane, you should come and stay with us.” I replied “Wow that’s really nice, thanks for the offer” to which she responded “It’s not really nice, it’s a genuine offer. It’s settled. You can stay with us.”
How could I refuse?
So on Wednesday the 7th of December, we began our journey. We had a lovely visit in Griffith with the fam and Chance had a lovely time being spoiled. We left the next morning for Sydney and were told to stop in at a place in Harden that sells good Devonshire Tea. We had over half a tank of gas (our car takes LPG) and even though we thought we should fuel up in Griffith before we left, it didn’t happen and we thought we’d just find somewhere on the way. Towns passed by and no one seemed to sell LPG. We thought Harden would have it as it seemed like a fairly big town, so with 80km left on the predicted range, we stopped for our Dev Tea.
And I promptly locked the keys in the car. We rang RACV (NRMA in NSW) and decided there was nothing else to do but enjoy our tea and scones. And Hubs enjoyed some soup.
NRMA came and helped us out and advised us that the next LPG wasn’t til Yass – about 70km away. Or we could backtrack and get off the main highway about 30km back. We decided to live recklessly (and we knew we could get towed if we did run out of fuel!) and set off for Yass, praying like crazy.
With some excellent, fuel-efficient driving, and no air con, this is what the dashboard looked like when we got to the petrol station at Yass:
We fueled up on gas and cherries and set our sights for Sydney. And of course, in true Sydney fashion, the traffic started banking back about 60km out of the city. Thankfully we exited not long after and it was very easy finding our way to Nikki’s. My friend sent me a text to suggest Sydney peak hour traffic + crazy hour for kids = not much fun for Chanbe in the car. I took this photo:
… and assured her he seemed okay! We had a lovely night in and although I was worried Chanbe wouldn’t sleep very well, being on a major, busy, noisy main road, he slept amazingly well, only waking up once. I joked that we should get a CD full of traffic sounds to help him sleep at home!
We left Nikki’s place at around 8:30am the next morning and took the one road all the way around the outskirts of Sydney and onto the Pacific Highway. Even though it took an hour, it was very easy, and when it comes to Sydney traffic, that is saying A LOT!
We stopped at Bulahdelah for delicious burgers and picked up a couple of $1 Hawaiin shirts (one was actually made in Hawaii!!) for Hubs, and then made our way to Kempsey arriving shortly after 3pm. We had a lovely afternoon playing on the lawn of our new friends’ house and also getting up close and personal with the local farmyard animals.
We all shared delicious home-made pizza for dinner and followed that with fresh fruit salad and a couple of games of Yahtzee – I won the first game and Hubs won the second. We had a bit of a rough night with Chanbe but I knew the end was in sight so I just kept my eye on the prize!
We left Kempsey around 9am and had to battle through roadworks, stopping and starting for a couple hundred kms. It was pretty frustrating but we managed. We stopped just outside of Grafton for lunch, then headed to Coolangatta to visit Hubs’ Dad and Nanna. After a cuppa and home made date loaf, we convinced a protesting Chanbe to get back in the carseat for the final leg.
We happily drove across the Houghton Highway in more rain and arrived at our new home not long after 6pm.
It was so good to get there. Mum and Dad made us a yummy dinner and that glass of wine I had hit the spot. We all slept soundly, awaiting the excitement of the birthday party to come!
…cos Wifey has the best immunity on the island.
I’m surrounded by sickness at the moment, yet I don’t recall having been sick since before Chanbe was born. Hubs is currently rugged up in bed, recovering from a virus that has been going around the family. Lucky bugger. Not about the virus obviously – a nasty fever and lethargy – about being rugged up in bed!
Let’s hope this lucky spell continues!