HO HO HO

I've said before that it's a rare thing for us to get a family photo and since we have not really had any professional ones taken since master G was born, a santa photo seemed most appropriate. G was an absolute star and even the 'elves' thought he was adorable! 

Are you sure mum

This one is my favorite. Can't believe he is already 10 months!! Where has that time gone?

Phone photos. 

Maybe next time we take the photo at the start of the day rather than 6pm when we are all ready for bed! 

My little parcle.  

Gma and G-man

Sometimes we just can't get a smile! 

Poser!

My first Sao! Yummy!

Mango had her 30th birthday last weekend and you know that it's a good party when the next morning there aren't very many photos except for a couple that were in the dirt!

Mel and I

With the blokes showing their skills at the 'Goanna Pull', I opted that the girls needed to show off their mean skills. Mel demonstrated how to do a 'leg pull' and then proceeded to kick my arse at it! Also beating me at arm wrestling.... looks like I need to get back to doing some exercise!!

Master J had a bit of a sore neck the following day and I had a few miscellaneous bruises which is always good sign of a great night!

Mel showing me how far superior she was at "leg pulling".

The next morning was a miserable drizzling day, so we packed up our sore heads and wounded prides and headed for home! What a great weekend to catch up with friends, but a bit hard to get back into work mode at this time of year! Bring on Xmas!

Happy Birthday Mango and many more to come!

Have you been good this year? Will Santa come? Any wild xmas parties?

Kaboom!

The last couple of weeks seem to have passed in such a blur I can't even seem to recall what I got up to! Lucky for phone photos that I regularly take to remind me! 

Some cooking I have been doing which you can read about here.

To maintain my nursing registration I have to do a certain amount of shifts each year. I'm fortunate enough to be a casual nurse at the Yeppoon hospital where they really have been looking after me in this regard and they managed to squeeze me in for several shifts and dad took to babysitting for a few days. 

The photo below is from after I had finished my shifts and dad had bought G-man to town so he could look at some of our cattle there. I was knackered from late nights and early mornings and after a bottle, bub and I passed out together. 

The biggest bombshell (pun intended), came from a letter we received in the mail last week from the Department of Defence, some of the details you can read about here. Without going into too much detail, it implies that our property in the in potential expansion zone for the Shoalwater Bay Training Area. Their map for expansion is below. 

I've added an image from my property maps book to show some of the properties that will be affected in this proposed expansion. 

This is a photograph taken from the Atlas of Queensland and Northern Territory Pastoral Stations etc 10 edn. by Terrance and Rosemary Allick 

As you may imagine this has opened up a real can of worms for the locals here! Some of our neighbours have had their families on the same property for 140 years, my son will be the fourth generation here on Banksia. It has left the district with a lot of questions and a lot of uncertainty! We understand that the defence force has already purchased two properties in this area which were for sale. It has certainly given us all something to talk about and kept the phone lines operational, not to mention many sleepless nights for some.

If only we had a crystal ball!

In other news, G-man has now reached level stage GREMLIN! or WET FURBY! He can stand fairly well now and is starting to want to let go! But it has made bathing time very..... saturating to say the least and play time now requires more close attention.

Mischief!! 

Aren't I sooooo clever!! 

We got to do a lap with dad on the lawn mower!! Thought he was pretty cool!

My first chocolate finger biscuit!! YUMMO

Messy mango!! 

Have you been to any parties lately? How is your plans for xmas going? Do you have a better crystal ball than mine?

Dish ran away with the Spoon!

As I'm sure you all know, the moon has just recently been as close to the earth as it has been for 70 years, so there probably isn't a landscape photographer that didn't have their camera pointed skywards. Although it's nowhere near as impressive as you feel it should be! 

The same afternoon the moon was at its fullest, there was a brilliant sunset that cast the most gorgeous colours and I'm sad to say my photo didn't do it justice. 

These six photos (above and 5 below) are all from my phone! Technology is amazing isn't it!!

This is similar to the morning glories you find in the Gulf of Carpentaria, our peninsula here has similar wind currents although not quite so big! 

Venus is very bright at the moment. 

I have been trying to get a timelapse of the sun setting with the milky way coming through, but after hours of editing and arranging, I wasn't happy with the result! So here was one photo of the 170 I took! Oh well I will have to try again.

Super Moon Rising! 

Along with the super moon and venus rising we had a massive plague of these butterflies but the heat was intense and I didn't get out to take many photos while they were around! 

As I said in my last post, I had some leave to go to the Melbourne cup! Was nice to get out and be a lady for a day, although sometimes the day starts as a lady and ends less so. But I had a lovely day out all the same and didn't lose too much money on the ponies so that's always good. 

My gorgeous uni mate Ange with her handsome partner Jason.

Sarah, Me and Ange

But there is always more work to be done! So after a day of recovery on Wednesday it was back to work! 

Took Garrett's pony for a much needed ride to return some wayward heifers back to their rightful paddock.

Spotted this mob while I was out and about, I counted just under 50 Pelicans!! Unbelievable! I felt bad about disturbing them because it was half an hour later and they were still circling.

Our new strainer post!! No, not really, we ran out of time to finish the job we started so we improvised overnight! We discovered that the sandstone in this area is not far down, so we had to rethink our strategy! The next day with an added sprinkling of cement powder we managed to get our strainer post pretty solid! 

 

Replacing old wonky strainer with a new gate. 

Replaced another gate as the original had been pushed upward, so hopefully this one will stay put! 

With a steady weekend and taking advantage of hubby being home and not working, I took some time out for a long soak! Something I've not done since I was pregnant. Although I had to giggle that I opted for a cup of tea rather than wine and along with a good book, it was soooo divine! I'm reading 1421 by Gavin Menzie at the moment, it is an incredible book and if you like history at all it is well worth the read!

Dad and G-man chillin watching TV!

First hat!

Second Hat!

Third hat! 

I'm not sure what is so appealing about the bark in my pot on the verandah! Starting to think he may be lacking some nutrients (same as a cow eating a bone). Great mother I am, taking photos! The things I am able to keep in arms reach on my verandah are decreasing.

Having a bit of a play with some of my drone photos. I like this one, what do you think? What are you reading? Did you see the moon?