A Little bit of Craftiness.

For those who like looking at these as much as I do. Apparently there are some people out there who do.
A few from my collection.

These first two are tiny baby bits. You have to love photos of little cutie bits of babies. This is darling Esta. The photos were taken by the very talented Rachel Richter. And I tell it was nice to scrap a really great photo for a change. Not too happy with my own photography. Anyway, I love these two pages. The second one is Mark's. He gets a page each year for Father's Day.

The cheeky India of course. She grew a very, shall I say, charming mullet as a toddler. The back of her hair was the only bit that would grow. Eventually it had to go. It was looking way too Joe Dirt for my liking. The Cheeky photo was taken my friend Megan, who is a whiz with the camera especially with kids portraits, at the park one day. It really took a lovely genuine photo of India at a time when 'photo face' was very prevalent.

More of the cheeky eldest. She demanded this Flamenco page for her collection after seeing a small one I had done for Auntie Lizzie. And no explanation needed on the second. India is a chocoholic.

He Rocks!

Success!
3 hrs 19 min 43 secs.
42km
hills, rain

Countdown!

Ok. It is eleven days left until MM runs his first full marathon.
Only 11 days.
I need you all to please hold your breath, cross your fingers, cross your toes and pray to any God that has you in his/her favours, that he doesn't get injured within that time.
Please.

Elephantastic!

And the little baby....cheeky one he was too.

Home again, Home again, Jiggity Jig.

Hi I am home.

I returned from the Kingdom of Thailand to the House of Gastro.
Noice.
However, I think the dreaded lurgy has finally fled and home is home again.

I had a wonderful holiday. Just what I needed. Some time away with some lovely people who I could have a decent conversation with, you know where a sentence is actually finished without interruptions. Some time away where I didn't have to plan ahead or think for anyone other than myself. Some time away in a new place, new flavours, new smells, new things to learn. Excellent stuff.

Highlights:

*Jade buddha. He's a beauty.

*Finding Bangers (i can call it that now that I've been there) isn't such the dirty smelly chaotic place as I've been led to believe. And the traffic was relatively sane. But then, I've been to Manilla.

* Sukhothai Heritage. Staying at this place and having it to ourselves on full staff. Bliss. http://www.sukhothaiheritage.com/ Did I say we were the ONLY ones there....five of us. Beautiful sanctuary apparently in the middle of nowhere.

*Finding Teappucino's in Chiang Mai.

*Elephant ride. Of course. It was a lot more fun than I had anticipated. We also met the a couple of baby elephants.

*Learning to cook thai food. Yummo. We made six courses for ourselves, and had to eat each one. And prior to the class we went to the market to learn about all the fresh thai herbs and veges.

* The Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum just out of Kanchanaburi. Very interesting and moving. A worthy place to visit.

* The overnight train trip to Chaing Mai. We had lots of mischief with Natalie and our Spy Classics.

Lowlights:

*Learning to cook thai food. We made six courses for ourselves and had to eat each one.....six courses is a lot of food!

*Not having enough time spent at the Hellfire museum for the sake of a very uninteresting train ride on the death railway.

Characters of the trip:

* Natalie...our lady-man waitress on the overnight train to Chaing Mai. Very entertaining.

*Mr Bang...my very authentic thai reflexologist. He gave me a healing foot massage and correctly diagnosed some of my health issues. He was so very much the authentic thai healer I wanted to bundle him and up bring him home.

*Many brown dog. What can I say...it is asia. No mangy dogs this trip though.

For the shoppers:

I have two words for you....Jim Thompson.

It's a great feeling to achieve something.

Today the whole family tackled the enormous task of cleaning India's room.
A task that would rival sorting through a war zone.
A mammoth task.
But we all got stuck in. Even Esta helped out much to her pleasure as she is not normally allowed into India's room due to it being such a safety hazard.
Tidied, rubbished, dusted, scrubbed, vacuumed, fiddled, wiped. It took hours.
The end result is a nice tidy dust free room.
We are all so proud of ourselves.
Since we were on a role we have put up little memo boards for India.
She loves it. Her little desk area where she does her 'work'...writing, colouring, studying...has a new found attraction and she hasn't left it since we finished cleaning.
It's a great feeling to feel organised.
It's even greater a feeling to have completed a job that we started, something rarely done around here and the one thing that really does my head in.
Now for the rest of the house.
Hopefully Mark and India are motivated enough to do that while I'm away :)
What are my chances?

Yahooooooooooooo!.....I think.

It is three days until I go on holiday. Yes a holiday. Me. By myself.
No little munchkins clinging clinging clinging. *sigh* I really really need this holiday.

I am off to the Kingdom of Thailand with 2 friends. We are going for about 10 days on an Intrepid tour....how nice that for once someone will be organising things for me. It should be lots of fun.
I think.
I mean it will be lots of fun but I already have that aching lost feeling that you get on that blue moon when you might go shopping without the children. That tremulous feeling that something just isn't quite right, like you've lost one of your limbs and haven't quite noticed. I have it already and they are still in the room with me.
I will miss them terribly. Especially my little Esta as she is just way to young to understand why I've suddenly disappeared.
But no, I'm not going to dwell. I'm just going to shove that swirling dark hole of loss into the corner of my heart somewhere and just not look at it. Avoid it, deny it.
And all will be well.
Won't it?