SURPRISE!!!!!!

It's been a busy 2 weeks since the last posting. We surprised many unsuspecting people in Newcastle on our recent visit. I just love surprising people. :-) Although, the 'man upstairs' forgot that we headed to Newcastle to cool down from the hot humid days we have here in Queensland. Unfortunatley the 45 deg days were WAY too hot for me and i'm sure everyone else that lived through the heat. I was thanking my lucky stars that Lisa had ducted air-con or we would all have fried.

As a result of all the weird weather, i was so cooked that i forgot to take many, if any photos so there isn't much to show for our first holiday in umpteen years. Luckily Tracey took a family photo so that almost doubled the amount of pic's for our trip.

Honeysuckle Shops for a yummy coffee

Kirrily also slept in Caitlin's room while we were away on the 'camping bed'. It was a blow up mattress only this one was fantastic. David and I had the same one in our room and we didn't wake up hours later to find we had no air in the bed and we were sleeping on the floor. The mattress stayed inflated the whole time.

Both the girls loved the camping bed and also running around being a little crazy together. This is our final goodbye photo with Kirrily and Caitlin.

So next time someone tries to organise a sneaky lunch, just watch out, it might be us coming to visit!!!!!!

First Ever Birthday Party for Hayley

The weatherman was telling me it was going to be an aweful day for the party. It was supposed to rain all day. The weatherman could not have been more wrong. It was a little bit windy but there wasn't a rainy cloud in site (it's been a bit like that since May).

I was running around like a mad woman for most of the morning putting final touches on the cakes, the food and whatever else i'd forgotten to organise the day before. At 9am, i raced over to the park to be on table minding duty. There is only 1 big table at Woodlands Park so i wasn't going to miss out. After 5 minutes i was totally bored out of my mind so started to set up.

By 10am most people had arrived, the food was being gobbled, and most of all, the swings for the kids were getting a major workout. The flying fox is always a huge hit for all the kids but it was so hot, the kids decided to build sandcastles underneath the steps instead.

Hayley and Kirrily have met some lovely new friends at the gym creche, and they all adore Lotti. She is a little 4 year old girl and Aaron is her little 3 yr old brother. Lotti's family have moved here from the UK recently and were over the moon to come to a party and let their kids run free. Lotti has lots of dolls called Hayley and Kirrily now. She's renamed all her dolls actually. This is Lotti at the party with Hayley looking rather pleased with the telephone that she gave her.

After many more sugar filled drinks, a bit more chocolate and of course more sugar (not me of course) I bought out the cakes. For kirrily's party i made a bunch of flowers with muffins and it was so much easier to hand out cakes rather than chopping a cake. For Hayley, i made party clown cupcakes. They have ice-cream cone hats with a party skewer sticking out the top. The top of the cone was also dipped in white chocolate and then rolled in sprinkles And they all had pink faces. I did have to try one of these as i'd worked pretty hard and if i can't enjoy 1 little cake on Hayley's birthday then i would have gone mad. (although this photo makes them look a little creepy).

A fun day, a lot of organising but i loved every minute and i hope Hayley did too. Although in years to come she probably wont remember a single bit of it until i show her these photos.

I did also make these goodies for her birthday. They are Tic Toc Teacups and Teddy Bear Racing Cars. I thought they were rather cute.

The Big First Birthday Celebrations

Saturday the 7th November was little Hayley's 1st birthday.

I woke up and went to Moffat Beach for a hard training session so didn't get to give the birthday girl a kiss before i left. We decided that it would be too much hard work to get her big birthday party ready for the saturday but had mum and dad, and Megan and Peter up to help us blow out the candle.

Hayley loved her presents but being a typical 1 yr old, she really loved the paper, the boxes and the sticky tape that the presents came with.

It was a great day, lots of yummy food and of course a very special cake. This cake wasn't the usual over the top numbers that i love doing. it was actually picked out by Kirrily out of the ABC Kids cake book. Kirrily had found this book at the Caloundra Library and suggested (or should i say told) me to make the Amy Teddy cake. For those not up on their ABC kids cartoons, Amy is one of the bears from Banana's in PJ's. I also wasn't going to make the whole teddy as i was on healthy eating and Hayley isn't going to demolish all that cake herself. David on the other hand might but i wasn't going to let him. :-)

12 Week Challenge - All Finished!!!!!

Today, Saturday, 14th November. It's weigh in day. i've done all i can to loose weight and tone up. I've even cut my hair, my toenails and finger nails (every gram does help).

I was booked in for 8.30am but got their early as i was pretty nervous. I had a goal in mind and I was hoping to achieve it.

I jumped on the scales and YIPPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

I've lost 10.1kg in 12 weeks which i was so excited about. I jumped off the scales and did a stupid girlie dance. Leo Sayer was also singing about 'feeling like dancing' so it felt appropriate but probably looked pretty silly.

So anyway, i'm happy with the results and here's to loosing a few more between now and Christmas.

The final count down

Tomorrow is my b'day but celebrating and eating lots of yummy things, going out for dinner and maybe the odd bite of cake or two is probably going to have to wait.

The final countdown has started and this Saturday is 'FINAL WEIGH IN' day. Therefore, i'm hoping for a tofu cake or even a head of lettuce with a candle will be fine. We are all off to lunch at Alfie's Moo Char & Bar for lunch on Saturday so 2 days late is OK with me.

Jayne has been working me super hard again this week but i've hurt my right knee really bad so have had a little trouble doing some exercises.

Today we did a card game. Hearts was push-up's, Clubs was burpee's, diamonds was mountain climbers and spades were squat presses and the Jokers card was just plain ridiculous. It was a 500m row (which made my knee hurt big time) so we swapped to a 1klm bike ride as fast as i could go. I didn't give up but i felt like i didn't have much left to give at the end. With 12 cards remaining in the deck, i nearly lost focus but finished with 16 burpee's straight up. i was more than happy to see the bottom of the deck of cards.

I"ll report back once the weigh in has taken place. I hope.

Busy October

Last month was extremely busy with gym, mountains to climb, and everything else that kirirly and hayley got up to.

We also went to the opening of a new set of swings and park in Pelican Waters. Saturday afternoon after my mountain climb earlier in the morning. 4pm was the official ceremony. Hot 91FM were there plus all the other Henzell's officials. The park was being named in honor of JR Ford hence the name JR Ford Park. There was free sausage sizzles, chips, drinks, frozen sweet ice things and my favourite, the free coffee van lady. mmmm what a delicious cup of coffee it was too. Kirrily had 2 frozen ice things (i think they were called snowy cones) with loads of sweet syrup, a small bag of chips and a popper. What more could a little 3 year old want. There was something else - swings, and loads of new ones.

We spent a few hours there before heading back with a very very tired little girl.

We've also been building a new garden (and drain) across the back fence of the yard. I dug the lillipilli's out, that were here when we bought the house, and it's been left go since then. We've finally started digging it out, building the drain and putting up a barrier to stop the neighbours water pouring into our yard. It's almost complete. We have bought several fruit trees to put in including a mango and nectarine. yum!!!!!! You have got to love living in Qld when you can plant those. Kirrily wasn't going to miss any of the action so got in with the spade to help Pop dig.

And of course, we've been swimming. After a huge flogging at the gym, i'm usually glowing bright red and can't cool down quick enough. What better way than a swim in mum and dad's pool. Kirrily didn't want to go to the gym creche, she just wanted to go swimming and practice what Miss Davina had taught her at swimming lessons. Sure enough the pool did cool me down. It felt freezing as i was sooooooo hot. It was 23 deg but i was just being a woos. What a great way to fix those tired, aching, over used.....(i could go on) muscles.

November isn't going to be any less busy. With loads of birthday's and then not long after that, the preparation for Christmas, it will be New Year before we know it.

Mt Ngungun

Today was 'climb Mt Ngungung' day. I didn't sleep much last night as i was excited but when i did sleep i had those terrible dreams where you are waking up hours after you should have been somewhere. it was 8am in my dream and we needed to meet at the gym at 6am. eeek. (bit like those dreams where you go to school nude or wear your pj's) Anyway, i woke up at 5am (sun's up at 4.45am so it was bright daylight) and set off to get ready and head up the mountain. We met at the gym at 6am so arrived at the Mountain by about 6.30am. The climb is fairly easy at the start with steep hills and steps then you turn the corner after about 5mins to see a really steep section with rocks, rubble and clay.



Half way up this section was the most awesome cave (photo's to come soon) and overhang so we had to do the group photo there which then wasted another 10mins. The rest of the climb is steep and more rocks and rubble and tree roots so we were dusty, dirty and sweaty when we reached the top. Once you get to the top there isn't much flat ground, just more rocks and rubble to stand on.



By the time we mucked about taking more photo's and just watch the world pass by, we decided that it was time to tackle going down the hill. (for more photos).

If your wondering why i'm in pink and the rest are in black well that's 'team holly'. I climbed with her team today as Jayne couldn't make it.




The mountain is graded Difficult - Level 4 (which is a higher grade than Mt Coolum) but you don't realise when you've got a view like that.


If you are ever coming up here, it's well worth the climb.