That time of year again.
This year I was honoured to be asked to do Grace Kennedy's formal photos. I had so much fun doing these! What a beautiful family to work with and I'm so grateful to have gotten to know them over the past couple of years as part of our little northern breeders group. Such a beautiful family.
Wasn't she stunning! These are a few of my favourites.
Kerri and Matt
I loved this one!
Her brother was so lovely! Walking around and holding her dress and getting shoes and beers and all else that was required and at the end, HE thanked me for doing the photos!! OMG! What a lovely young man!
This one is a bit cute and special too.
The onto my next little family that comes with a little story!
About 13years ago, I broke in a few horses for some wonderful people. They had their babies and my mum was their nurse through the process and we all became friends over the years. Last year, Stacey and Stew brought their 3 children to distance ed and their youngest Brennan is in Jessica's class.... (whom I think she has a little crush on and would lose her banana if she knew I told you that).
ANYHOW..... as they aren't married, they have never had photos done and I don't know if they ever had any done as a family (or maybe Brennan had missed out I can't recall). So I offered to do some photos. Long story short, Stace gave me the most gorgeous little creamy mare that I had fallen in love with all those years ago when I broke her in, as she had been left unused in the paddock with Stace preoccupied with all her human babies. So I came to take photos and pick up my new mare.
Kinley
Sydney
Brennan
Stew sadly couldn't make it, but I did love this one of Stace and her three kids.
I have a plan to do a round trip at the end of term and visit as many families as I can to do some photos, so hopefully I will get back to them and get Stew on board this time.
Each afternoon on sunset, 100's of brolgas cross the highway. So I stopped to try and get a photo that would show the scale of them, but I failed.
There was just flock after flock after flock.
Father's day weekend, Emerald held their gymkhana and unofficial jumping. The kids had so much fun and I think you can tell by the looks on their faces.
Dad had booked a hotel for the night which was a bit special. Meant that we could go out for dinner and have a nice Father's Day breakfast in the morning.
These pair make my heart sing.
Ted's Drone
I think it was the end of July that Vicki and Ted came to visit us on their round trip to visit some rellies. These were from his drone when we went for a drive around the place.
I thought this one was cool.
Was so good to see them. I was very sad when they had to go home again! Some rellies just feel like home no matter where they are.
From my Phone
Emerald gymkhana... and she would like me to point out that they had run out of ribbons and she was supposed to have one more blue one!
Garrett won his age group overall and Kaka got second in hers.
Shaylee got first and third.
Father's Day breakfast.
The next week I was very spoilt for my birthday! With Justin having been so flat out, we agreed that I would get myself the rather expensive worm farm I had been wanting, as a gift from him, so I'm rather excitedly waiting for that in the mail.
Kids cooked me the most delicious omlett.
My dear friend Sheree has gifted me some crabs... so that was dinner.
My beautiful neighbours also called into bring me gifts, but sadly I was out doing jobs, so we decided they would come again the following afternoon, by which the cake had already disappeared!!
And the following was a beautiful post from my dearest friend and while I know she had some help from a certain friend of ours (cause lets face it, who has time and who could possibly think of 39 things)... it was still very lovely and brought tears to my eyes.
That weekend was the weekend I went to take photos for Stace and pick up my new mare at Clermont. The following morning, I left early to go to Gayndah carrying my mare and also Justin's mare to take to a stallion belonging to another dear friend of mine. Picking up 90 bales of hay along the way. I did know I was alive after loading and unloading this however knowing that at the end of the month I was going to be useless for three months, I decided the physical labour would be good for me!
Isn't she lovely!! She hadn't been handled since I broke her in all those years ago and after a small amount of encouragement, she let me put a halter on and led perfectly out of the yard and remembered to lunge and flex and tie up, so I was a bit proud of her. I also remembered the name I used to call her "SaraLee" as I didn't think "Yellow Rose" was fitting enough.
How gorgeous is this tree... this is at Elystan, where our mares are hopefully feeling frisky.
The following week, being the last week of school went quite quick, with the trip to Rocky for Grace's photos and then back home to do some baking as I was going to be gone for a couple of weeks and Justin was going to be home trying to get some fencing and cattle work done, alongside Greer with his 3 kids. So with 5 kids and two men, I thought the best I could do to help was some baking.
Lasagne, Pie, Pizzas, Fruit Cake and Chocolate Cake
And Sweet Beef Curry, which doesn't look great here but it was tastey.
This is the most nostalgic cake! Takes me right back to my childhood!
The before I knew it, mum and I were in Brisbane and this was to be my last meal... (that's a soft shelled crab!!!)
So.. I needed a bypass. My stent, which I have written extensively about in this blog "The rain is here" and how it came to be. My stent is completely blocked. Much to the distress of the sonographer who was doing my scan and who lacked a poker face (which I found rather amusing). See, the thing is, I knew, more or less, what had happened. Originally when my stent was squashed when I was pregnant, my toes were stinging and eventually went purple. So my theory was, that while this wasn't happening, I was safe enough taking fish oil, as opposed to aspirin which made me bruise ALL THE TIME (which I was supposed to be taking).
As it turned out, the fish oil wasn't enough to prevent a blockage, but it was enough to give my body some time to partially compensate with collateral arteries. So with the main artery to my right leg blocked, this meant that it was gradually getting more and more difficult to do things without my leg fatiguing. A 100 meter brisk walk or walking up a hill or even trotting my horse for a few hundred meters, were all enough to make my leg ache. So I had a bypass. "Titanium and Tears" is where I've written all about my past escapades and trauma. And if you could be bothered to read that, you'll know that I've had my fair share of shit going wrong!
This was a bit different. This time I had two little kids; this was my 6th time being cut open; this was my 13th anaesthetic; and, the anaesthetist rang me a few days before to let me know that this was to be the biggest surgery I've ever had! Thanks mate!!
Fortunately, he was wrong and it probably ranked 4th on the list. But it did give me plenty of time to overthink everything and fret that I was a cat on my last life. Needless to say that saying goodbye to the kids as I left was tough!! And saying goodbye to mum on my way into theatre was just as tough. It felt harder to rally this time! I didn't feel as strong and I felt defeated before it had even begun. But I had to.
Fortunately I married well and I knew that I had nothing to worry about at home. Justin had the kids sorted and was soldiering on as always to get the cattle work and fencing done. With the wagyus calves weaned and some tailing getting done. Greer helped for a week before going home and Justin was left to tail weaners and tidy up loose ends.
I loved face timing Kaka while I was still in hospital, when she was in the buggy helping dad. Made me miss them but also happy to be a part of it all.
After 6 nights in hospital (2 days with no food and 4 days with rather woeful food, reminiscent of boarding school) I was finally discharged. Mum and I had one more night in Brisbane where we had dinner with my beautiful cousin Jess, and I insisted on steak. The following morning we had some time for a tasty breakfast (eager to catch up on some decent food) and a little shopping.
This book!! It was written by a lady that I follow on instagram and that I can really relate to. I ended up with two copies, so I gave one to mum thinking it would be cool for us to read together. Was a good read and I had it finished in no time at all.
Dunno if you can see the bruising, but my poor Buddha had a headache from the arterial line.
Getting back to Rockhampton on the Thursday afternoon, and Justin made it there late that night, we ventured the next day to Yeppoon for some much needed R n R.
God I missed these little mites so much!
I was a bit pasty after not seeing any sunshine for a week.
Kids always love the beach don't they!
Justin likes to pick on me about my new hat!
Rossco's Pizza was an essential.
Miss had a birthday and the cousin's came to visit from Rocky which meant presents and some time at the lagoon.
Birthday's mean ice cream cake, as this was the first time that mum didn't get to make one. AND..... we got to go to the CIRCUS! I had never been (that I could remember). Justin bought Kaka tickets for her birthday and it was sooooo cool!! I loved all of it!!
Kaka loved this.
Love this look of adoration on mum's face. We were taking photos of the umbrella in her hair.
Look as this!!!! This is was the shoreline at the beach looked like! It was washing up in the foam, I have no idea what it was. The colours looked just like this.
On our last day before we came home, Justin took the kids fishing. Which they loved. We need to do some more of it because they seem to miss it. Only caught a few little ones, but they didn't care. I was a bit tired on this day and managed to have a big afternoon sleep.
After our fishing, we went to have this beautiful platter. It was good to have with the kids cause they got the fish and chips and J and I got all the fresh stuff with the oysters.
And just like that, it was all over. Our 5 nights at the beach gone in the flash and we now think our throats are cut by not being able to have ice cream for smoko twice a day.
On our way home, J bought us some prawns and they were the BEST! A nice little treat as a bit of a pick-me-up after the slight deflation of coming home from a beautiful holiday. Although it is nice to be home and in my own bed again.
And that's that. I'm healing. I'm trying to be patient. It's been a little over two weeks now. Most of my pain is gone and I'm trying to listen to my body for when I need rest and when I'm doing too much. Dr says I must have 3 mths off, which literally puts me at Xmas day. Kids have been a great help and even Garrett changed my sheets for me today which is a bit of an effort to put a king sized doona on, but he was such a big help.
We are back to school tomorrow! I'm grateful that we took the extra week off. I think we all needed it. Least I can still do that I guess.
So yeh.. didn't die! Still here to carry on.
OH... almost forgot. I just finished reading "The Women". It's a great book about the women for served in Vietnam as nurses and their stories after they got home. I really loved it and even the kids enjoyed it. I definitely recommend.
Over and Out
With Love
