Saturday 28th December 2013

Whew! we made it through the silly season 2013!  Total chaos and mayhem but it was a good day - Joel and Emily had a wonderful day and that is really what it is all about.

Tuesday 24th December 2013 was last minute preparations for Christmas Day including food preparation and house cleaning and decorating. The presents were all wrapped including the enormous doll's house for Emily.

Wednesday 25th December 2013 - Christmas Day I did not get up as early as I had intended and as a result my preparations were behind time and everyone arrived on time. No one noticed I did not put out everything that I had prepared so it did not really matter. I did get the pavlova cooked and the lunch food ready before Joel and Emily arrived with great excitement.  With them came Rod and Anne and Rae and Ron who were having lunch with us.  We went straight into present opening mode and we all enjoyed watching the kids open their presents.  They were thoroughly spoilt on the day and between all the family did very well.  Graham, Anne, Nicholas, Carla, Eloise, Pippa, Hamish, Matt, Jan, Heather, Matt and Aggie the dog arrived in the midst of the chaos and stayed for some drinks and nibbles before they headed off to have lunch at Copacabana.  The kids all played well together so it was a good day. After lunch Shane arrived and Danielle a little later so we had some more excitement with present opening.  Joel loved his transformer and Emily her ballerina doll from Shane.  I enjoyed the day but would have liked to have been better organised.  Next year I will be up much earlier to make sure I am ready. The day was nice and cool with some light rain which did not bother us.  We sat out on the front covered verandah which was very pleasant.

Thursday 26th December 2013 was a recovery day.  I had not got to bed until late by the time all the clean up was done.  I was up early to clean up outside and get the house back into normal mode and then had a relaxing day watching the cricket test and napping. Rod & Joel came over to pick up the Doll's House and other presents that were left here and also to pick up the trailer to go camping.  He and Anne and the kids will be away for a week.

Friday 27th December 2013 I was up early to get some gardening done.  I had two roses to plant, two hanging baskets to put up and some petunias to plant as well as dead heading the roses.  I picked some roses to take to Palmdale for what would have been Mum's 100th birthday and some for Pete's Mum and Dad as well.  By co-incidence we had a funeral to attend at Palmdale that day of Carolyn Erickson who was a long time family friend.  We stayed for drinks after the funeral at the Palmdale Tea House and then came home to get ready to go to the Golf Club for Raffle night.  Peter was on duty so we had to be there early.We did not win any meat trays which did not matter as we have got loads of food left over from Christmas.

Saturday 28th December 2013 (today) I was over at the Golf Club early to water the gardens and to do some trimming and weeding.  Peter was playing golf so I worked over there until 2.30pm.  It was been a hot day so Rod & Anne should be getting good camping weather.  Shane is working on his house at Gwandalan.

Tomorrow we hope to be getting back to golf so I am looking forward to that.  Graham and Anne are going to have a game with us as they are at Copacabana for the holidays.

Monday 23rd December 2013

This week went with the speed of light.  Our weather has been hot with little or no rain.

Tuesday 17th December 2013 was a very hot day so I did not play golf - opting to stay home and do some catching up around the house in the airconditioning

Wednesday 18th December 2013 I went over to the Golf Club early to do some gardening and worked until 2.30pm.  Then it was home for a nanny nap.

Thursday 19th December 2013 we went out to Erina to do the last of our Christmas gift buying.  While at Erina we had coffee with Lynn Puiatti who told us that her first grandchild's birth was imminent.  On our way home we stocked up on our liquor supplies for Christmas.

Friday 20th December 2013 we went household food shopping and then to Bunnings for a few things and came home with two new roses and some petunias.  That evening we met Anne, Joel and Emily at the Golf Club for the Children's Christmas Party which they enjoyed.  We had dinner at the club and won a meat tray in the raffles.  Joel loved Santa - but Emily was not too sure.

Saturday 21st December 2013 Anne picked me up about 7.15am to drive to Sydney for the Wiggles Concert with Joel & Emily.  We had a good run through to Acer Stadium where the concert was being held and arrived an hour early which gave us a chance to have some morning tea before the show.  Joel liked the show but was not as taken as Emily was.  She knows all the names of the wiggles and all the songs, sang and danced along with her favourite ones.  We had a slow trip home with the Sydney traffic but it was not too bad when we got onto the highway. I can now cross "The Wiggles Concert" off my Bucket List!   We were home about 2.30 which was not too bad.  That evening I made some rocky road to have on Christmas Day.

Sunday 22nd December 2013 I was up early to water the gardens and to dead head the roses which have been suffering a bit in the hot weather. at 10.30am we left for golf to play in a team event with Arthur Collien and Kay Frewin.  Our original playing partners pulled out because of the heat and Kay and Arthur's partners pulled as well so we were able to play as a team in a 1 X 2 X 3 event.  Kay played really well and won the ladies singles event and I broke my handicap so it was a good day.  We also won a ball in the team event.  After golf we, Kay and Arthur and some of our golf friends went to dinner at the Grange Hotel.

Monday 23rd December 2013 was F-Troop Day and I was minding Joel and Emily for the day while Anne went to work.  Peter went to F-Troop early and I came over later with Joel and Emily.  I took them around in our golf cart which they loved and they "helped me" until morning tea time.  It was a very hot day so I brought them home before it got too hot.  Emily had a sleep and Joel cooled down in the wading pool. At 2.15 I went down to Gosford to have my nails and a pedicure done for Christmas and left Peter to mind the two littlies until Anne picked them up after work at 3.30.  He did a good job and both Joel and Emily were happy to stay with him.

Tomorrow is going to be a hectic day doing everything I can possibly do to prepare ahead of time for Christmas Day in the hope that we can have a nice relaxing day on Wednesday with not too much work to do.  We are having an Open House as the kids and family are going to be arriving at different times so we will just graze all day.