Sunday, April 16, 2017

Sunshine Coast with the Schachers

The kids and I were all super packed and organized, and picked Shan, Alex and Gray up from the airport on the way to Caloundra for a week of fun in the sun!  We stopped at Costco to stock up on the way and boy was the van full.  Literally every inch was filled with stuff!  It was crazy.
Our place was on the fourth (top floor) with an ocean view! Unfortunately it was an older building and there was no elevator and no air con and the kids could fit through the balcony windows - dodgy!!!  But it was still a great time!  As usual, these pictures are in no particular order...

So fun playing on the beach at night!  Alex kept catching things and he even put a fish down Charlie's shirt!  Charlie didn't even seem to mind!
Bli Bli water park after our sessions!
The first day I spilt Costco chicken carcass on myself and the floor as I was taking it down to the trash!  
Lake Currimundi - the water was so gorgeous and clear!
I love how into this book Alex is!  Keeping the kids entertained
Family picture at Currimundi 

Belated birthday celebrations! Shan and Alex completely surprised us




Grayden loved this short beach chair!


This is my "Shannon stop buying stuff!" face (and right after this face I almost always said "Maybe I should buy that too!!!"

We went back to Lake Currimundi a few times during our stay on the Sunshine Coast!


Glasshouse Mountain lookout walk - we were getting eaten alive! 
BBQ by the ocean 
After our BBQ Elly decided she wanted to go down and have a little photo shoot by the water! 



and then she fell in...
Andrew was only around for the second half of the week, as it was the end of his rotation!  My lovely children woke me up a few times early enough to see the sunrise 


One cool thing about Currimundi is that yes, its called a lake, but its right on the ocean so the tide comes in and out making it deeper and shallower.  When its coming in you can float in with the tide!  Which is really fun
Paddleboarding!  So ridiculously hard going against the current!
So we spent most of our time close to shore giving the kids rides!

All that paddling tuckered Elly right out!

Another sunrise... we had a great view from our balcony!
Bli Bli waterpark!  It wasn't very near the ocean, but it was SUPER salty.  I swallowed a few mouthfuls and wanted to barf
Look!  No kids!  Peace and quiet... 
The day before the Schachers left we went to Orion Lagoon, and Elly was rocking her little tutu bathing suit! 
Little buddies 

The last supper - Aussie burgers!

It was so fun having Alex, Shannon and Grayen visit!  Especially after Andrew and I got over our sickness and could do things and have fun with them!  Come again any time guys!  It's hard being so far away from friends and family.  Next up?  The Burtenshaws come for a visit!

Birthdays!

Shan, Alex and Grayden headed off to New Zealand for a week just in time to miss our birthdays!  We still managed to have a good time though.  I turned 31 on Feb. 23 and Andrew turned 32 on Feb. 26.  When did we get so old?!?!

Bat Elly, fun times at playgroup
For my birthday we went to try and get all the free things!  Andrew worked the night shift so we got to play during the day.  We were also all fancy and bought yellow watermelon!
They have an animal exhibition on at the train museum right now of confiscated taxidermy specimens, kinda a fun change!
Charlie was thrilled to find this yellow watering can at the train museum!

Elly's first time with a ponytail! 
Free birthday ice cream!
Free birthday churros!  This was right before Charlie smacked his head on the low windowsill and got a huge cut...

Poor guy!  It was seriously such a loud smack! 
Elly the bookworm!  This is her bin of books, she's trying to find her favourites
Charlie helping make biscuits for daddy birthday dinner!  He loves helping in the kitchen 
Charlie and his favourite animal - the cheetah!

We chose a different location at the train museum for our snack, with a cool view!  I love old buildings

The little yellow train is back!  But then they took it away right after we were done using it, so good timing us!  Charlie delivering all his work equipment

Charlie and Elly love this box puzzle! We do it multiple times every trip to the museum.  There is only one combo to make all the smaller boxes fit!

Bat Charlie!

Then the Schachers came back and it was more fun times ahead...

Thursday, April 6, 2017

The Schacher Invasion

Shan, Alex and Grayden went up north to visit Lindsay first, then headed down to Ipswich.  We have a lot of neat things to do around out house, and we had about a week to show them the sites before they headed off to New Zealand.  Charlie and Elly were thrilled to have people around to play with, and Grayden was super excited too, constantly giving out hugs!
Man I hate how blogger doesn't upload pictures in order!  Here goes (in no particular order lol):

Meat pies and pastries on the way out to Wivenhoe Dam
Feeding kangaroos at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
We got to meet a kangaroo! 
Always a fun time at Southbank!

Matching hats! 
We tried out Eat Street... not as good as I was hoping!  Maybe if we weren't chasing after children (and hadn't just spent a long day at Southbank) we might have liked it better...? (Undoubtably!)
Cooking up a storm of arancini! SO GOOD
Alex and Andrew having a "Gaytime" (actually the name of the ice cream bar)
Best buddies and their boys
Lunch at Lone Pine
We were a bit crazy and decided to go to Mt. Coot-tha on Valentines Day - it was crazy busy!!!  When Elly saw the view with all the lights she said "wow!" in her most adorable baby voice

Shan and Alex took the kids up while I drove around for ages trying to find a parking spot! 
Ipswich Nature Centre 
And starting off with the picture that should have been at the beginning - Wivenhoe Dam!  It was so ridiculously hot out this day!  This was they day Andrew and I also both got sick and became the worst hosts ever!!!  But seriously it was so nice to have Shan and Alex to take care of us and our kids!
The adventure continues...


Sunday, April 2, 2017

Just Some Pictures (of the time between guests)

Hanging out at Wivenhoe Dam

We were in a really good routine of working out all together twice a week - that ended when our visitors arrives - too busy for exercising! 

Charlie favourite things to do are climb on the counter and act like a dog - and here is a picture of both!

Elly all ready for church! This was the last time we ever saw that hairlip - and it was my favourite! WAH!

This girl loves stuffed animals!  It was so hard to put them back on the shelf - she loves to cuddle!  Her favourite is a little brown bear named "teddy" and she always has him (or another) clutched in her hands

BEST THING IN THE WORLD! 

One of the kids favourite things to do lately is play with food colouring and shaving cream (well they don't get to play with the food colouring, just to mix it into the cream!)


Elly kept pointing to the colours and saying "pretty!"

And now for the Schacher invasion....!