Winter Solstice

Tomorrow is the shortest day, or the longest night or the year.  The beginning of winter, or the start of the days getting longer and the nights getting shorter.  It all depends which way you look at things.

Tomorrow there is a lantern festival down on the seawall, I hope we can go.  

Life Gets in the way of blog posts.....

Been a bit rubbish at keeping up with this blog, especially since Miss Lu arrived.  Reading back though it is a wonderful way to chronicle our life and have a record of what happens.  So here we goes, lets try again.  Lets just gloss over the fact I missed 6 months. Some pics!

Happy Birthday....

....Queen Elizabeth!  We had a little Jubilee tea party - lots of fun and the bunting is still up!

Blowing up the balloons

The cake

Got to have cucumber sandwiches

The Gruffalo

We had read the Gruffalo before but one of the funnest things Grandma did was bring the "noisy" Gruffalo book (one where you press the buttons for each part of the story).  She also brought the Gruffalo, the Mouse and the Owl and we had lots of adventures finding them in while we were out.  Isla LOVED it.

Whilst at Pender we did a hike that was recommended, and the Gruffalo came too.  Isla went up and down the 189 steps each way by herself too!  We stopped at Katherine Lake on the way home for a paddle as the sun was shining.  Water was COLD!

Spot the Gruffalo!

Gruffalo, meet slug

The reward for all those steps 

Arghhh!

Katherine Lake

First lake paddle of the season

Flowers

Rickety Bridge

Nice View

A visit

Tim and Mum came to visit - hurray!  Unfortunately the weather did not co-operate the whole time, but it was sooooo nice to spend time with them.  

Isla had an amazing time, and is very excited about going to visit them on a plane soon (we hope).

On the deck with Grandma

Hanging with Uncle TIm

And a few more

Since Charlie bought me my KitchenAid I have been trying to bake all our bread - which has its ups and downs.  Mostly been making the Artisan bread in 5 minutes sourdough-y type stuff but these dinner rolls were AMAZING!  I skipped the step where she spreads a pound of butter on the dough and they were still great - huge and fluffy.  Recipe - here.

Most successful yeast bread yet - seriously bad for the waistline but delicious!

Nice to come home to afer a long day in the office, even if I was so tired I did not notice it til the next day.

Easter Time

Off to work - guest star reporter!

Cherry Blossoms!

testing out the bath in the new pad

Spring has Sprung

I suck....

At keeping this blog up to date now I am working full time. I must get better. Here are some pics from the last three months when I have failed to post.

 Valentines Breakfast for Daddy

 Baking Bread

 Climbing Trees

 Gyu-Kaku Japanese lunch

 Swinging in the Spring Sunshine

 Kasabian Live

 Kasabian Live

 Swinging

 Sewing - lots!

 Making Dens