Btw, I have a 12 year old.

How in the heck did that happen???

You know, one of the things about being a parent is having to sit through those dreadful kids movies every school holidays. You know the ones. And when they were toddlers, you'd buy them a dvd (or video) and they would watch it over and over and over again until you wanted to throw the thing against the wall. She may be older, but she's still happy to watch episodes of Full House for the trillionth time, but happily I don't have to sit and watch them with her anymore. Thank goodness.

But today we went to see Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3D at the cinema. And even though I've seen both movies more times than I care to count, I thoroughly enjoyed watching them again. And I got a little teary during Jessie's song, just like I always do. And the 3D was really good (although a little annoying after a while over my regular glasses). I think we might even go and see Toy Story 3 when it's released later this year.

But thankfully I can also take her to see things a little more grown up now. Within reason, of course.

Happy Birthday, Miss R.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

Well where did the last 2 weeks go? Yes, Miss R came home today from AJ2010 and is currently snoring in front of the TV. She had an absolute blast!

And what did we do while she was away? Why we jumped in the car and drove 3000km to visit her, of course!

We stayed at the Medina Apartments in Wollongong, which was fantastic. The service from all the staff was exceptional, from the moment I booked until the moment we got home and I realised that I could have earned Velocity points by staying with them. A quick email, and all fixed!

We'd driven through Wollongong before (I used to work for BHP so wanted to see Port Kembla), but never really stopped to look around. We quite liked it; beautiful piece of coastline, lots of cute little shops....yes, I think I'd visit again. Loved this road:

We stayed in Mildura and then Yass on the way over, then Canberra and Mildura on the way back. The hotel in Canberra was very historic, but had been left to decline a little. It was being refurbished, but still had a way to go. We went to visit the National Museum of Australia while we were there; spent several hours wandering around before it closed and still didn't feel as if we had seen everything.

But back to Visitor's Day. We, along with around 10,000 other people, rolled up to Cataract Park on Saturday 9th to see what our beloved children were up to. It was a stinking hot day (yes, I know it wasn't as hot as Adelaide, but not far behind!) and we were exhausted by the end of it, but it was just amazing to see the scale of this....and Miss R was very pleasantly surprised to see us. She showed us all around, introduced us to her Troop and Patrol, we bought state badges and contingent badges, checked out the media centre and Market Day....it was great and I'm so pleased we made the effort.

Here's Miss R at the gateway to her campsite. They won the award for the Best Troop Name - not sure if that was for the whole Jamboree or just the SA contingent though.

Miss R is one of the lucky few that will qualify to attend 2 Jamborees, as she won't have turned 15 for 2013's in Queensland. She's come home all enthusiastic to go again, so I hope that feeling lasts. I think Scouts has been good for her and I'd really like her to continue.

AJ2010

On Saturday.....in just 2 short days.....my darling Miss R will be going with over 10,000 other Scouts to AJ2010, held at Cataract Park, NSW. She'll be gone for 2 weeks. This is kind of huge for us.....12mths ago, I never would have imagined that my little Aspie girl would be able to cope with being away from home for that length of time, that she was independent enough to look after herself or that she would be able to co-operate and mix well with the rest of the troop. But we have been working all year to get her ready for this, and it seems to have paid off. After the last camp in September, I've been quietly confident that she will be able to cope ok.

So last week, she had her hair cut short to make it easy to care for. And today we have finished packing the bag. All I have to add is.....actually, I don't think there is anything we have to add - even the snacks for the bus trip have been included! I was hoping to include a disposable camera, but it's been too hot to venture out (am loving the new air con though!!!) so I might duck into Kmart on Sat morning to pick one up.

Initially she didn't want to go, then she seemed quite keen, but I think today it has finally hit her that she IS going and SOON. We've had a little chat about how it's ok to miss your family, but not ok to spend so much time thinking about how much you miss them, that you forget to have a good time. And I've assured her that we will miss her too. But what I haven't told her, is that we plan to drive over to see her on Visitor's Day. I hope it's a good idea - it could go either way.

Have a Happy New Year!


PS - a conversation with Mr G last night.....

Mr G: So what time are we going out tomorrow night?

Me: Why, where are we going???

Mr G: It's NYE....aren't we going out with the W's???

Me: OH! Is tomorrow NYE???

Good lord, how on earth do retired people keep track of what day it is?????

What I have been doing on my holidays so far.....

A spot of gardening.....



Sewing badges onto Miss R's scout shirt....



Packing her bag ready for AJ2010....



Quickly running up a peg bag for her to take.....



Having an air conditioner installed......



A spot of reading while lazing on the couch (this only lasted about 10 mins though).....



Taking pictures ready for listing on eBay....

It's been pretty relaxing so far but I think I deserve a little rest; it has been a hectic year!

Tomorrow I plan to cut some of my scraps into 4.5" squares for a scrappy quilt I plan on making eventually. I also have a cream quilt I started ages ago to finish. It's almost all quilted; I just had to put it aside while I dealt with more urgent issues, but I reckon I can knock that off before I go back to work on Monday.

Hope you are enjoying your break.

And another one done!

Finished Mum's quilt at 1.30pm. Thank goodness. Was too hot to stitch the binding yesterday but I had to persevere as I knew I would run out of time otherwise. Looks lovely, so hope she appreciates it (and doesn't just put it in a cupboard never to be seen again....until we're cleaning out the house when she's dead and buried).

Now I can move on to making potato salad, packing for Jamboree.....oh, and making Miss R some lunch....she's probably hungry by now.....

Jamboree Quilt is finally finished!

I made this one for Miss R to take to AJ2010 - the Scout Jamboree held in Sydney next month. I've used fabrics from Robert Kaufman's Girl Scout of America range, plus some Prints Charming and 8 Happy Camper panels. The backing is from Ikea, bought when we were in Melb last month. I had a few challenges quilting this one (I've decided that I enjoy creating the tops far more than quilting the layers together) but am really thrilled with how it finished up. I've sewn Scout badges on the back, and hope to sew more on when she comes back from Jamboree. Badge swapping is apparently a big part of Jamboree and Miss R has a bag of badges to swap. (Although she very nearly didn't have any......I had put them in a 'safe place' and then couldn't find them yesterday. Tore the place upside down and finally found them on the floor where they had fallen behind the wardrobe...phew!!)

Finished quilt measures approx 71" x 47".

Meet Captain Bullseye

Call him an early Xmas present.

The garden centre at Mr G's hardware store has the most fantastic garden ornaments; I really could spend a small fortune there. They have a whole range of these - bulls, cows, sheep, roosters - in different sizes. We just fell in love with this one and had to bring him home. Now all we need is a garden to put him in. :-)