KOJONUP

Dave and I headed east from AUGUSTA


through Bridgetown with their oversized wheelbarrows... neverdid find out what they were for... hmmm

and on we went through a million and one locusts. Here is that 'one'.... cute huh?
We stayed a couple of days with our friends Bomber and Lisa at the farm that they are managing. They looked after us so well and it brilliant to spend some time catching up with them.

This is Black, the imaginatively named dog, poor little one, she had recently been in a little accident when the ute went round a corner and she didn't.

this is us - all packed up and ready to roll.... back up to Perth!

Laurens Birthday!

TUESDAY 16TH JANUARY!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GORGEOUS GIRL!!

.....LOVE FROM AUNTIE RAE & UNCLE DAVE

Margaret River

We enjoyed a lovely lunch at The Leewuin Estate Winery, its here they hold the annual concert that hordes of people trek south for.

Dave enjoyed the wine -

I enjoyed the coffee

and we both wished we had more time to truly enjoy the surrounds, but as it was we barely had time to devour our lunch, for we had an appointment at the Hanu Day Spa.....

mmmm.... and it was truly sublime.

Further south

After a game of golf (Dave, Mick, Neil and Sarah) and a spot of fishing we headed off a little further south to a great camping spot near Margaret River - I dont quite know how we got there exactly as I was asleep most of the time! oops.

But when I woke up we were there, and the spot was beautiful, surrounded by natural bush and native birds kamakazi-ing through. These blue wrens made quite a few appearances - especially when there were breadcrumbs for the pickings!

look carefully - he's in there!

There was a great swimming hole - a part of the Margaret River - there were freshwater mussels and marron, though we didn't try to catch any of them. The dogs came for swims with us too - they belong to our friends Neil and Sarah who we travelled with for a bit.

it was a great location and it was my favourite spot

Oh, by the way,

this is Neil...

as you can see he is a most refined manicured type of gentleman

sorry ladies - this one is taken!

Our Holiday down south

We have come back all refreshed from our holiday and now its time to update the blog with some piccies! We headed off on a Friday evening after Dave spent all day packing the trailer (its art what he does!)

We spent the night in Dandaragan with Margie and Hazza - leaving them with Oscar, who had a lovely holiday by all accounts (far and wide through the town) We were able to catch up with Dave's Granma which was wonderful, we love hearing all her stories - she is funny when she declares she wont tell us a thing more unless we tell her something about us!! Her life has been fascinating to hear about.

After we left Dandaragan we headed to Scarborough for a lovely lunch with Grant and Claire - we felt like we hadn't seen them for ages. We had a great catch up over lunch and then headed south to Mandurah.

Mel and Mick live in Mandurah and seem to have a great lifestyle - we were lucky that they put their pontoon (party) boat in the water for us.
Poor Mel had had an accident earlier in the week and wasn't feeling her best - but still an exceptional host as always!

Dave and the boys went out to try for some "crabbies" while us ladies relaxed on the boat. Regretfully the boys didn't catch enough to feed us (Great Hunter-Gatherers!)

After the fun of crabbing was over we joined the throng of other boaters to check out the canals where nearly every canal home tries to outdo the rest with their extensive collection of Christmas lights.... let me tell you - its quite a show!!

What a great night it was - this is when I first really felt like I was on Holidays!! THanks SO MUCH Mel n Mick!

My new hobby!

This is the hobby that I took up towards the end of last year - I have really enjoyed it. These are some of the frames that I made as gifts, I was pretty proud of how they turned out!




Seeing as I enjoyed doing it so much, we made a mutually convinient decision for me to move all my mosaicing junk out of the loungeroom and get me into my very own room.... So we emptied the store room out!! Now I would have included photos of that as a "before" photo for a "before and after" session, but I am sure you all know what fridges and boxes of junk look like!! So I have a couple of shots of the beginning of the makeover.

This is our young friend Annalise doing some painting for me!! (I love the colour) She is a wonderful girl and ever so helpful too! I think Dave is just pretending to help - I reckon he is checking to see how good a job she is doing!

Now when I find the camera again I will add the latest photos of the now finished room - it is fantastic, a very welcoming room to go to and relax and enjoy doing whatever project takes my fancy!

HOWZAT?????

This is our neice Lauren

(my big brother Ian's littlest one)

its the day before Christmas and we are all having a wonderful time swimming

This is Ben and he is having a last cool down before we start Cricket training for the big match on Christmas Day!

This is Ben in action

and now "out" of action

and how do you think Caleb feels????

Merry Christmas from Oscar

Oscar wishes you all a

Merry Christmas!!

As you can see - he is really really excited about it all!! The happy Christmas spirit is just oozing out of him - yup - you can just tell he is singing "Jingle Bells" in his head!

We are heading off on a camping holiday down south this year - we don't yet know where we will be at Christmas - but thats kinda exciting in a way.

Dave and I and the whole hairy family hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas!

HO HO HO!

FIVE YEARS

FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY - TWO PEOPLE MET,
SEEMED TO GET ALONG JUST FINE...

ISN'T IT GREAT HOW THINGS WORK OUT??

DAVIE N RAE,
SITTIN IN A TREE...
K.I.S.S.I.N.G....

ITS BEEN 6 MONTHS!!

Can you believe how time has flown so quickly!!

Six months we've been married and it has been wonderful...



Happy six months Davie!

MUM!! Happy Birthday to you!

happy birthday mum!!

we hope that you have a wonderful day today - hope you enjoyed our lovely singing voices as we sang "happy birthday" to you.

we were out on some street in the neighbourhood walking oscar-dog when we rang.

chances are we may have looked and sounded a little strange to people passing by,

probably sounded a bit strange to you too...

but it was worth it eh?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DAVE!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVE! I hope you have a wonderful day today!

35 years old

and no "zimmer" frame in sight

H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y C A T H E

Happy Birthday Cathe!!

Its your Birthday - hope you had a blast down south!

Lots of love from

Rae n Dave

Fathers Day!!

Happy Fathers Day to our handsome Dads,

wherever in the world they may be!!

Animal House

Thought I might load some pic's of our little family,

These couple of photos were taken last year when we were living out at Mum and Dad's place, where you can see behind me that I left a legacy of Marigolds..

Oscar is awfully fond of going to the beach - it is about the only time that he will "smile" for a photo. The rest of the time he looks very serious, or dare I say, "GROUCHy"?

Austin is our other big black and white dog, he even comes when you whistle, he is rather pathetic and gets beaten up all the time, if not by the neighbours cat "Saturday" then its a hiding from Elizabeth. He and Oscar both share the laundry at night so everyone else can get some sleep. But he is a big beautiful boy who is scared of everything - most especially CHANGE!

Megsy the oldest and definitly the grumpiest in nature of our little family... this is her at her best - she smells food and is asking for a share so she isn't snarling into the camera. All kids have been advised not to go near her - no matter how sweet she looks.... looks can be decieving (just like her really)

Elizabeth is a sweetie... she acts like a little teeny weeny scaredy cat, when really she is the bravest of the lot and is very very sneaky and stirs trouble with Megsy all the time - I believe some work is at play to "dethrone the queen" - so watch out Megs! Lily-beth is also a scammer, she likes to make out that she "cant possibly jump that high" I don't know what thats about as quite clearly as this photo shows.... she can jump just fine!!!

I cant finish off without including a picture the very bestest animal in the house, and it is my Monkey boy husband - Dave!

I know,.. scary isn't it?

Sawadee Ka!

g r e e t i n g s

Well I finally made some time and have loaded some more photos from our Bangkok honeymoon adventures... I absolutely love the gold background to the top photo - We are standing at the base of a Golden temple, its absolutley stunning. All the temples are built by hand, down to the tiles and ceramics. They say it takes ages to build these temples, but thats fine by the Thai people,... they are in no rush, when it gets done, it gets done - unlike us Westerners who want everything done "yesterday" This guy here was one of my favourites - he was one of a dozen "monkeys" carrying a mountain.... there is a story behind why he is carrying the mountain - but I did not retain that information!! typical of me really.. But I do know that the colours on the monkeys (and most temples) represent the jewells found in Thailand,

Red = rubies Blue = Saphires Green = Emeralds

Hence the colourful post as a tribute!

This is the reclining buddha - and as mentioned in the earlier post - this was something that I really wanted to see while in Bangkok! It was sooo amazing! The Thai culture is fascinating and the people are great. I learnt in Bangkok the value of doing the little hands together "like you are a child prying" and and nodding with the words of "sawadee ka" to say hello or "kopoomka" to say thank you - I found that it made things a lot easier!

Thanks for checking in... "kopoomka"

We are home

We have returned to the "real world" back to work and getting up early....

SORRY DID I SAY WE!!!! ....I mean ME!!

Mr Dave does not go to work, school or anywhere - Not even the mailbox lately by the look of it! I've collected the mail after work nearly everyday since we got home!!

Yes I know - I am having a right little whinge - but thats because I now work full-time!! And I can't begin to explain how incredibly unhappy I am with the situation.... That's because folks, I START AT 7.30.... IN THE MORNING!!!

I sure hope the pay is worth it!

Although I complain - I am aware that I am really quite fortunate, I enjoy the work, Dave has looked after me with yummy meals and generally doing most of the washing... I just need some time to adjust my body clock and then I shall be a lot more positive...

So as i say we are back from our wonderful honeymoon - I have a few more photos that I will post, so you can see some of the great things we saw in Bangkok.

This is the reclining buddha - amazing

The next project, aside from expanding our little family, is getting the garden looking smicko, as I didn't spend all my holiday money I had a little spend up at the nursery in Perth and brought home a carload of plants.... mwhah ha ha ha!! Now we need just a little bit more rain and things will start looking great!

Anyways I gotta get back to work - Hi to everyone who has a look at our blogspot from time to time... Hope you all like it.. if there is anything you want us to put in and update - let us know!

Ciao! Rae