Fremantle, Kings Park & other Perth stuff…

The Perth trip is definitely living up to the hype. Despite some crappy family dramas that are going on at the moment over here (to do with two family members being diagnosed with cancers, and both undergoing surgeries, one of which ended up being life-threatening --- but more on that later) we are having a great time over here.

Here are some memories and pics from our first few days here.

Our first day here, we meandered into the city, and over to the Swan River where we caught a cruise boat/ferry thingo over to Fremantle…

 

[Ye Olde London Court]

[Mayana loved being on the boat!]

In Fremantle we walked around and looked at all the things we wanted to do when we came back later in the week. 

[Alexie & I holding onto some random statue being blown away by the Fremantle Doctor] 

[My gorgeous little family…] 

This wall lists the names of all the people who have immigrated to Australia via Fremantle. My Dad and his family did this in 1974, and our name is just to the left of Mayana’s head – between Boak & Butler. She is among the 3rd generation of Buma’s to be in Australia!

 

[The family: Papa (my Dad), Lachlan, Bethanie, Pete, Mama, Mayana, Me, Alexie & Jordan]

This is the coolest bookshop ever. Second hand. It has the most awesome stuff, and books from wall to wall. I found two Lucy Maude Montgomery (author of Anne of Green Gables) novels that I’ve been looking for; the Emily series. So cool.

We’re very immature, and this made us giggle, hence the photo.

The next day, we spent some time with cousins, visited Oma and checked out the gorgeous Kings Park.

[Mayana and Omie]  

My cousin Anne-Elise, sister Bethanie, Mayana & I doing the ‘treetop walk’ at Kings Park.

And the four of us again, standing infront of the big Boab tree.

Mayana and I taking in the gorgeous view from Kings Park.

Mayana LOVED playing on the grass at Kings Park. Isn’t this a gorgeous photo!!!

 

I have soooo many more photos and stories to come.. but right now, it’s Christmas day, and time for me to stop blogging. Hope you’re having a great Christmas!!!

Come Fly With Me….

No more countdowns. Perth is here! We flew in on Tuesday. After waking up at 3am. Yes, 3am. Even Mayana. *Sigh*.

We tried to keep her asleep between the bed and the car, but she could sense the excitement in her Mama and Papa, and sleeping was not going to happen. Our brother in law, Shane drove us to the airport. He’s so awesome!

[thanks for the lift Uncle Shane]

We arrived at the airport just before 6am, and the 7 of us checked in our luggage and collected our boarding passes. Then we went and had the world’s most expensive coffee and muffins before boarding our flight. No breakfast on Jetstar.

Mayana was SO good. I had planned to breastfeed her on takeoff, but the airlines make you attach a baby seatbelt to yours, and have her face outward, and my boobs just don’t go that far (fortunately). So she had a dummy instead.

Once we were in the sky, there were six of us for her to play with, and she was quite happy to be passed around. She had about 45minutes sleep with her Kami, but that was about it.That flight was about 2 hours. We were SOOOOO thrilled that in Adelaide, where we had a two hour stopover, one of our favourite people in the whole world, Karlos, came to hang out with us at the airport! He moved to S.A last year, and had never met Mayana, and we miss him so much. It was so good to see him – it was like no time had passed and we just picked up where we left off. Mayana loved him, held out her arms to him straight away and snuggled and snuggled. It was so sweet.

    

Stoopid Jetstar made us go and pick up our luggage and check it in again with Qantas, even though we booked the flight with Qantas in the first place and they made us go with Jetstar. Stoopid. Wasting our precious Karlos-time.

Anyway, after two hours of chatting, laughing, uno-playing and hanging out, we sadly waved goodbye to our lovely friend, and boarded our second flight of the day: 3 hours to Perth. Because stupid Jetstar wouldn’t let us do online booking for our Qantas flight (because we were flying Jetstar first) we got the pov seats. The two rows in front of the toilets. In the back of the plane. Which wasn’t too bad until we started decent and hit turbulence. My mum and I may have held hands and squealed. Just a little.  Mayana was awesome, once again. She actually fell asleep during take-off (we thought she was looking out the window) and slept for around an hour. Then she shared our lunches (rissoles and mash) and ate almost a whole frosty fruit iceblock, and listened to the movie (Up) through Mama’s earphones, and played with her aunties and uncles… she was so good.

We arrived in Perth at 1.20pm, local time. We had gained 30 minutes in Adelaide, and lost 2.5 hours when we landed in Perth. We had been up since 3am. We were stuffed. We were greeted by my sister (who’d been here for 3 weeks for schoolies), my dad (who’d been here since Sunday, because of my Oma being diagnosed with cancer, that’s a story for another post), and some cousins and an aunty. It was so good to see them all, and in our over-tired state a little overwhelming. I nearly cried!

After settling in to our accommodation and getting the caravan set up, we headed over to an Aunty and Uncle’s house (the Buma’s) for a “Happy Birthday Oom Sace/ Welcome Qld Bumas” party. It was so awesome to see family that we haven’t seen for so long.. some since our wedding over 4 years ago, and some even longer than that! Our family is so awesome, and even more fun now that all the cousins have ‘grown up’ and want to sit around and chat and joke and laugh instead of running off to play. They’re such a great bunch and I love their guts!

[Tan Tan & Emily]                 [Dutch happy birthday]

[Mayana playing with her cousins]    [Oma & Mama]

[Jordan & Cameron]                   [Alexie & Rachael]

I’m glad I got these photos, because after my 3am morning, and the –2hour time difference, it was about 1.30am according to my body clock by the time we got to bed, and it’s all a bit of a haze!

Carols by glow-stick light

We had such a lovely afternoon yesterday. We met up with some friends in the park, for a picnic. Well we spent almost half of it huddled under a tree with picnic blankets wrapped around us while it piddled down with rain. But it was still lovely and still fun! The rain didn’t hang around for too long… it never does in this town… and we went back to picnicking quickly enough.

Mayana sat in her little chair and ate … a lot. She longed to run off and play with the other toddlers. But she’s in a tricky in-between stage at the moment – her heart is with the toddlers playing, but her poor little legs can’t keep up!

On dusk we trekked over to the other side of the park for our town’s Mayoral Christmas Carols. We parked on the biggest patch of free grass we could find – which didn’t make for fabulous stage-viewing, but we could see just enough. We sang along a little, but mostly watched the kids from our group run around stealing each other’s food and waving glowsticks around.

Mayana was such a good girl! She clapped and sang for a while, and when it got dark and her eyes started drooping she came for a cuddle with Mama and went straight to sleep. She slept through the fireworks (with the help of her baby ear-muffs), and while Peter and I walked through the ‘Wonderland of Lights’ in yet another section of the park after the show.

It was a very enjoyable afternoon and evening, and a lovely memory which will be tucked away for later viewing.

- ready to hit the park! -

- the carols are starting! - 

- singing along -

- All carolled out -

wanna see a cute baby??

I just thought I’d remind you about my other blog… full to bursting of photos of my gorgeous girl. I’ve uploaded some gems recently and want to make sure no one misses them!

So pop on over to Mayana's Photo Blog and start clucking!

Yum.. you should try this

Chicken & Broccoli Bake… (serves 4)

* 200g pasta spirals, cooked and drained
* 1 chicken breast, seared and chopped
* 1 head of broccoli, chopped into small pieces
* 1 can cream of mushroom soup
* 1 cup light sour cream
* 1tsp curry powder

Combine the soup, sour cream and curry powder, then add pasta, chicken and broccoli and stir well. Spoon into 4 lightly greased 2-cup ramekins and sprinkle with grated cheese. Bake in a pre-heated 180degree oven for 20-25 minutes, until cheese is golden.

Allow to cool for a few minutes… then enjoy!!!

Yummy, easy dinner!

lonely is so lonely alone

We’ve lived her for four years come January, and I still somehow feel like an outsider.

I’m not homesick like I used to be in the first year, when we’d come back from our numerous trips ‘home’ and I’d curl up on our bed and cry because I didn’t want to be here. I’m relaxed here now. I’m happy in my space, my house. And not unhappy in this town, just not totally happy. Lonely.

Sundays are hardest. Because growing up, Sundays, after church, we would almost always either have people over or go to someone’s house or do something. Here not so much. Maybe 3 times this year. If that.

And it just makes me a wee bit sad. I miss having PEOPLE! This is not a small town, but it totally has that small town vibe. It’s hard to get ‘in’. People have either lived here forever or are married to someone who has, and they have family and lives here.

Don’t get me wrong, we do have friends, there are people here that I will miss when we leave, I’m just not so sure that this town will miss me, or notice when we leave.

My gorgeous hubby is the best, and things would be crap without him. Most days he’s (and Mayana of course) all I have. We only see each other, speak to each other. And it’s great, I love him beyond anything, but sometimes I just wish I had a girlfriend.. someone who I could ring anytime- no wait, someone who would actually think to ring ME and want to spend time with me.

One more year. One more year.

Adding a new skill to my repertoire: Hairdressing

My Petey was getting a wee bit shaggy looking, and I decided he needed a hair chop before our family portrait sitting. Trouble is, he’s been slugging away at his last uni assignment and we ran out of time to go to an actual hairdresser. So yesterday, I bought some “hairdressing scissors” from Coles for $10.00 (inverted commas because I’m sure my hairdresser Mel would quit before using them on a client’s hair) and a hairdressing cape for $6.00, also from Coles. The scissors could definitely been sharper, but they did their job okay.

After dinner, I watched some youtube videos about cutting men’s hair. Hehe. I have cut Pete’s hair once before. It didn’t go particularly well. The scissors I was using were bluntish, and we ended up going and buying some el cheapo clippers to fix things. I hacked off the rest of Pete’s long bits with the kitchen scissors (*blush*) and then went to work with a ‘number 4’ blade. Trouble was, the stoopid el-cheapo clippers number four was more like a normal clippers number 1. Or less. It was bad. Please God let not my husband become bald, because it is not a good look for him. Anyway. We wanted to avoid a reoccurrence of this type of debacle. Hence my youtube hairdressing apprenticeship.

I asked Pete if he was sure he trusted me about a kazillion times. He cruelly made jokes about “there’s always the clippers in the bathroom cupboard”. Meanie. We spread out the plastic mat that goes under her highchair; set Pete up with a terry towel and the hairdressing cape; I armed myself with a fine-tooth comb, a water spray bottle and my Coles scissors; took a deep breath and started to cut. Pete sat patiently and calmly watching Beauty and the Geek and the Amazing Race while he experienced The Longest Haircut in History.

And I’m pleased to say, hit patience paid off. I did a pretty decent job, if I don’t say so myself: (please excuse the hairy man-ness, he can’t help it)

  

Spunky huh?

Things that bug me…

* My neighbour’s smoking that continuously wafts through my house all day. She goes out for a smoke almost every half hour. Our front doors are adjacent and less than 3 metres apart. I can even smell her cigarettes down the hallway in Mayana’s room when the wind is right. It SUCKS! I refuse to sit with all my windows shut all summer.

* The way my neighbour shrieks at her children all day. I would go and ask her if she could smoke around the corner in her garden or something, but I’m too scared of her yelling at me that way. I haven’t heard her speak to her children in anything but a harsh tone once. And I hear a lot of what she says because she’s always yelling it.

* People in those stands at the shops – the ones that want to try some handcream on you or sell you austar or something, and they nag at you to come and try stuff out/buy stuff. Don’t accost me when I’m trying to just do my shopping in peace. If I wanted to try your stupid product I would go over to you and ASK!

* The bill that I just got for the pathology for my recent pap smear. It’s for almost twice the amount my doctor told me it would be. Hopefully I’ll get some back from medicare.

* That my reindeer wall decal Christmas decoration isn’t sticking properly.

* The creatures that have taken residence in the roof in our bedroom. They keep me awake and drive me batty. I hope they inhale fibreglass fibres from our new insulation and die a painful death. Or at least eat the ratbait Pete put up there. And die a painful death.

* The fact that all the good shows are ending and crappy summer ratings TV is beginning.

And I think that’s about it for today.

Homemade Hommus

My Mayana-Berry loves hommus. So I decided to have a go at making our own. It’s really easy, and turned out great!

All you have to do pop the following into a food processor:

1 can chickpeas, 1-2 tablespoons tahini, juice of 1 lemon, garlic, 1-2 tablespoons olive oil, ground cumin seeds, paprika and salt.

Process until it’s dip consistency. That’s it!!! Start with 1 tablespoon of tahini and olive oil, and just add more if you need to make it more moist.

 

Yum!!!

my hands don’t stop

What’s that saying??? Something about idle hands being the devil’s playthings??? Never going to happen to me. Here’s what I’ve been playing with for the last few days:

A new case for my camera…

 

A new ‘sock’ for my phone…

And another handtowel. Which is headed for my Madeit shop. I’m also thinking of listing a few of my beaded bits and pieces over there.

We’re home again in Toowoomba. Missing the family but at the same time it’s nice to be in our own space doing our own thing again. Pete’s got an assignment to do that’s attached to the prac he just finished. It’s due next Friday but I’m really hoping he’s finished with it before then.

Next week sometime, it looks like we may be making a flying visit to the Gold Coast. Pete may have a very fortuitous day of work, which will do wonders to our Perth spending money stockpile.

Speaking of which (Perth, not the money) it’s only 19 more sleeps till we fly away! In that time I have soooo much to do. We’ve got family photos at Portrait Place on Friday; I’ve got to get in touch with the daycare centre I want to get Mayana into next year and see if I can get a spot/go on a waiting list to get a spot; get in touch with uni and enrol out of Arts and back into Education; begin planning Mayana’s first birthday party, as we only get home 2 weeks before it; finish off some beading christmas orders; catch up with uni friends before they all choof off to their new teaching lives… and there’s so much more around the house, sewing that’s calling me… cleaning that needs to be done… Plus we have to go out to Mundubbera for my cousin’s baby shower!!!  Phew!!!

Like I said… you won’t ever find these hands idle.

My beautiful sister…

Well my gorgeous lil sister Alexie had her school formal on Saturday. School is done and dusted for her… she is moving into a new era and is really growing up!

She looked so incredible on Saturday.. I couldn’t believe it was my little sister! She really did look so grown up and gorgeous… here’s the proof!

The gorgeous graduate. Featuring especially designed jewellery by yours truly, of course. I have to show you some photos of what I made for her… I’m pretty proud of it.     The whole family got to go out to pre-dinner drinks, so we all dressed to the nines and got some lovely family shots while we were at it.

My sisters, my daughter and I… the only good full-length shot I’ve got of Alexie on my camera.

The family. Mama, Bethanie, Papa, Alexie, Me + Mayana, Jordan, Pete, Lockey (B’s boyfriend).

Me with my gorgeous husband and daughter 

two gorgeous princesses…