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Thought I’d better blog this before Link beat me to it. He is winning the blog war at the moment….

Last night we went to Suzy and Lincoln’s and had dinner with our dear friends Mandy and Dave who recently moved to Melbourne. Mandy and Dave are in our inner camping friends circle and since the weather is getting cooler we haven’t seen as much of them as we would like. Anyway, we went to Waratah Bay with Mandy and Dave about 6 weeks a go, and while we were there they taught us a game called Puerto Rico , which is ranked as number one game on www.GameBoardGeek.com. After the initial confusion of trying to learn quite a complicated game, we finally ‘got it’. And ended up having 3 games in one day, which is quite a feat since the game we had last night lasted over 3 hours…. Any way, Brian emerged victorious and a good night was had by all, it’s not an easy game to describe, but it is vaguely like Monopoly in trying to acquire wealth and property, but instead it is setting up a new colony…. OK that doesn’t really describe it well at all, but if you like games, this could be worth a try. Mandy and Dave have left the game so we can have a play since, despite it’s ranking, it is not easy to get locally. To prove our level of addiction Suzy and Link our coming over shortly for a follow up game…. stay tuned….

I have recently purchased Foto Fusion and have created a few basic layouts with it, the first one below is of a night late last year at Suzy and Lincoln’s for a BBQ, so here are all the people that were there Puerto Rico-ing it up last night… Click on Pictures for a larger view.
Below is a layout of our weekend at Waratah Bay with Mandy and Dave. Dave was teaching the girls how to surf. I really enjoyed doing this layou as the photo’s made me smile and remember a great weekend, also the kids will remember this forever, they had a ball learning to surf with two of their best friends, Mallory and Odette. They really didn’t want to get out of the water, but all good things must come to an end. I think this is something they will try again next summer.

Below is another quick one on our Easter trip to Bright, we stayed both at the caravan park and also at Lincoln’s Mum and Dad’s house at Harrietville. Brian (Link’s Dad) was a wonderful host and we loved being there. The kids had a ball and made some new friends, Claudia and Mitchell who we have arranged to camp with next year.

Just like the divine Miss A, I too did the Smudge course at DAA along with a few other MAC girls, this Smudge I did of Quinn, before I really knew what to do. Scott Deardorf was an excellent tutor, with excellent video and written tutorials and the class was very chatty and full of inspiring people.

Here is the Eagle which was what we all did in the class.

Since Link has told you what he is reading I thought I should. I have had a bit of a reading hiatus lately, due to late nights and also the fact that I have been enjoying audible books on my iPod, but I recently caught up on all the First Tuesday Book Club vodcasts that I had missed on the ABC and it inspired me to get back into one of my loves, books. I went and bought “The Broken Shore” by Peter Temple, which had had a good review on the show and while I was at the book store I picked a book off the shelf called “The Book Thief” by Marcus Zusak, I bought this primarily because it was written by an Australia about the 1st world war set in Germany. Well, what a fabulous read… I like to read books slowly and savour them, but this I read in 3 days, reading the last 1/3rd of the book in one sitting, finishing at 4.30am. I can highly recommend this book, it was written with an unusual style, and was extremely engaging, I can’t recommend it enough. Unfortunatley I trued to start The Broken Shore straight after it but the writing style was so different I had to stop, will start it in the next few days.

Lastly, we ended up having a big sleep over here on Friday night, trying to take advantage of having Mallory and Odette visiting from Melbourne. So with six little girls staying in our rumpus room there was lots of, Wii-ing, SingStar-ing and DVD-ing happening, they were of course Angels and looked after themselves pretty much. Also in these pictures is Jesamine (Quinn and Bronte’s cousin) and Chantal, who is also belongs to one of our camping families. They had such a great time and here are some pics to prove it….

OK off to Puerto Rico it up now! Have a great day :-)

Updated to add: 5 games… (they ended up staying for pizza…bad I know….Lincoln NONE (although he thinks he has a better average because he kept coming 2nd…)

Score
Lee won 2
Suzy won 2
Brian won 1

Well that title is a bit ambiguous…. I’ll leave it at that I think, suffice to say, it’s a little dig, because despite my obvious disadvantage, I got to blog first, what did I get to blog first, well, that I went to see Juno today. Yep Suzy and I have started up our weekly Friday movie again (although we had a non-human gatecrasher today). And what a way to start the movie year… if you haven’t seen it, do. Right now…seriously now, the rest of this won’t be that exciting, trust me…. Anyway, I intend to rush out and purchase the soundtrack tomorrow, assuming of course, there is one, haven’t checked that yet, really loved the quirky bits of music, with some great classics in there too. Anyway, I highly recommend, it really was great and I am sure few films I see this year will rival it, we all enjoyed it immensely, even the non-human amongst us.

OK below, a layout…. tried to personify the amazing Anna Aspnes with the word art here, sadly, it didn’t work, but it’s the effort that counts…. right? CC welcome…. click for a larger view…

And this one was made for my dear friend Shez, it was made as a belated birthday card…again so sorry I was late Shez…. or maybe we could just say I am amazingly early for your 41st!

And for those who don’t know, we finally got a new BBQ and outdoor setting, see below, so we can now finally use our deck for some real entertainment, it’s been bare for 18 month now so it’s nice to be able to use it, even if we don’t have a step! There are no pics of the outdoor setting as it wasn’t set up when I took the BBQ ones.

Clinton and Jen, if you’re reading this again, we will have you over in the next two weeks or so. There I am locked in now! We look forward to seeing you….. Wow, is this a first? An invite via blogger? I wonder…..

OK, think that’s it for now… happy weekend everyone! BFN

Fairy-Quinn2, originally uploaded by leequebee.

I did this of Quinn back in November I think, maybe earlier. I took the picture back in April for her birthday party invitations, she was just sitting on the floor and I think she was about to flick her head back, anyway, I loved the unusual shot and wanted to use it, it only took me 6 months to get around to it! I am not sure what you’d call it, not really a layout…. any ideas?

As you can see I am once again waking from my blog hibernation, but for how long, I do not know, I did half heartedly make “blog more’ a New Years resolution (along with the usual stuff), but we’ll see…doesn’t everyone break their resolutions by February?

I have had a fabulous Christmas break and have got to spend lots of time with the girls. We had a lovely 8 day trip to the magnificent Bright, but it was SO HOT there… we didn’t have one day under 34, most were around 38-39 and two were 41 degrees… thankfully we camped on a creek, which meant hours of fun for the kids and also that we were able to move our chairs in and dangle our feet while we ate, read, chatted away… Some people had tables in the creek and I also saw a guy with a table and chair working away on his laptop…I’m assuming he was working and if he was, it is definatley great working conditions! Pictures of Bright will follow soon….

Ummm….what else…. I listened to lots of Audible Books while I was away, they are great to walk to and when it was really hot, laying down and dozing too, my favourites were 3 books by Chris Grabenstein, just simple detective stories, kind of modern day Agatha Christie, not great works of literature, but very enjoyable, they are called Tilt-A-Whirl, Mad Mouse and Whack-A-Mole, head over to audible.com if you like audible books….

OK surely you must be bored by now so I’ll sign off…. oh before I do, I big hello to Clinton, Jen, Linus and Joey, Clinton, I heard a rumour that you check my blog occassionally… so hello! ;-)

While I was away I thought of a million things I could put on my blog, but my brain has deserted me, so bye for now :-)

I find this video very amusing…..so much so it’s brought me out of my blog hibernation….maybe ;-)

Man, it has been ages, life is busy, but I hate to neglect my blog, it always makes that first post back harder, since I have been too busy to post and yet, really have nothing to tell…. ;-) And to my blog buddeis, I have also been neglecting my blog reading, sorry and I’ll get back to it soon! mwa :)

Work is busy and working 4 days is taking up more of my ‘me’ time than I had hoped. But in saying that I still love it. It’s my 12 month anniversay tomorrow, how freaky is that? It feels like such a short time and I still feel like I am learning everyday.

We went to Bright for Easter, it is truly a little peice of heaven and we can’t wait to get back there, but it will be a while, although we’d love to get there over winter to stay on the cabins that they have there. We camped right on the river, which is sadly lacking in water due to the drought, but it was so pretty and the kids had a ball with all the exciting exploring they had to do. We also had to camp without power for the first time in years, but it was no biggie, didn’t really effect us at all. Good food, good champagne and good company, all in all a great holiday….pics to come soon….

Ummm, what else? Oh it’s Quinn’s birthday this friday. I am having my own little crisis about that. I can’t believe she is turning 10 and it really seems obvious in the last month or so that she is not a little girl anymore. I am not one to worry about my age, it’s just a number, but this is really bothering me. A well meaning friend commented recently that she acts more like she is 12 or 13! That freaked me out too. Anyway, here is a sneak at her party invitations, personal stuff blurred out of course :). I took the pics here at home, and they turned out OK. (CLICK FOR A LARGER VIEW)

Oh and talking about Quinn has reminded me to wish Nic a very happy birthday for the 22nd! Quinn didn’t forget, and wanted to wish you all the best :)

Not much news on the layout front, being time challenged at the moment means it has taken a backseat, but here are two more recent ones, that I have done. Click for a larger view

My Digi Scrapping class starts tomorrow night, so I have been madly updating my notes for that. I did just mean to skim over them, but I ended up adding to the first weekes notes, beginning at 5 pages and ending at 15. Now I am only on the second weeks notes, but I’ll get there. Looking forward to beginning classs in a new venue, with new computer and a smaller class. Should be good. Looking forward to it.

The wonderful MAC Karen is heading out to Oz soon, so the MAC girls hope to have another gathering then, very excited to meet this lovely sweet person and maybe pick her brains, knowing what a fabulous photographer Karen is, I couldn’t let that chance slip by, and I think there will be a few more MAC girls wanting to take advantage of that talent!

I kinda feel like I have more to say but not sure what it is….oh I know, I read a great book recently, if you are a working Mum, it is a fabulous and hilarious read, if you’re not, you should enjoy it just as much (although, the non working Mum’s I know that have read it, thought it was a bit of a dig at them). I have to disagree, I thought it was a big dig at working Mum’s and all the antics that some go through to try and keep their lives, families and careers on track. Anyway, enough babbling, the book is called I don’t know how she does it and it’s by Alison Perason.

Click on the title to read an excerpt.

My weekly movies have been put on hold due to my partner in crime getting a job! Although she will only be working Fridays for a couple of months so we can resume after that. It has actually worked out well really, I am not sure I would be able to fit them in at the moment anyway.

Oh and a small one. Shez, Tenille (a friend) and myself all joined a camera club recently. It looks like we are going to learn heaps. They recently had a Car Rally, which we had a list of things (I took the whole family) we had to take photgraphs of, whilst driving and looking for clues etc. It was great fun and I took some pictures I would not normally have taken. Here are a few of my faves, sorry the colours are a little over saturated, gotta get my screen calibrated…. Click for a larger view

~ ROAD TRIP ~

Let’s start with the good stuff first. We had an absolutely wonderful weekend, well Sunday anyway. We went for a drive to Tarra Bulga National Park. First arriving at Bulga and doing one of the beautiful walks across the huge swing bridge, then back in the car and a short drive to Tarra Falls, which is just a scenic stop on the side of the road. All the falls we saw were in a sorry state, but the surrounds were lovely. Then down to Tarra and a lovely stroll into the falls there we we had a yummy picnic on the rocks right in front of the falls. Then we walked out again and started the next leg of our road trip to Agnes Falls which is at Toora. It is a divine place completely hidden in the rolling hills of dairy farms, but when you drive in there is a huge rock gorge with a huge waterfall (just a trickle of water though). It is the highest single span waterfall in Victoria (see top left, not my pic). We can’t wait to go back in winter and see it with lots of water cascading down. We also saw the wind farms there too, quite spectacular up close and more than a little mesmerising. We decided not to have our afternoon tea there as the flies were just awful (another good reason to go back in winter). On we drove to Walkerville Beach where we spread out a picnic blanket on the beach and ate Turkish Bread and Dip. Yummy. And then on to home we went. The girls loved it, because they got to do some hiking and they also got to try out their Christmas present too, the portable 2 screen in car DVD player. So between places it was quite peaceful! The next 3 pics were taken on the day. I really love the B & W one of Quinn, the colour one had a terrible green cast to it because it was taken in the rain forest but in black and white it’s just divine (at least I think so). :) The next two were also taken on the day, the web is slightly blurry because it was quite breezy, but I am pretty happy with it anyway. CLICK ON THE PICS FOR A LARGER VIEW)

Saturday, we went and had a peek at my Day Care ladies, daughters’ wedding, (does that make sense). She just looked beautiful. I only got 3 shots of her and I was not in a great spot, but I just love this one. I can’t wait to give it to her Mum on Monday! I hope they like it!

Just realised it must look like I am playing favourites, will have to make some more of Bronte before I get into trouble! The first one (Little Ray Of Sunshine), is made with a Rhonna Farrer frame brush and various free brushes. Background is by me. The next one is Seriously Sweet, Seriously Special, again background made by me using a huge variety of free brushes. The last one, Book Worm, uses a frame from Scrap Artist and the rest is by me.

OK, now for the disaster. I think my camera is very very sick. Last night a tried to clean the sensor, as I have done before, with a can of compressed air, only

this time, some sort of residue spurted out before the air came and landed on the sensor, I am beside myself! I took straight down to the camera store today and they have sent it into Nikon, but it will be away for at least 4-6 weeks :( I use it almost everyday, so I am not sure how I will cope without it!