On the road again ...

Well, after a rather busy weekend, I feel like I should have been singing Willy Nelson's song "On the road again..." cos it feels like that's where I spent most of my weekend! You know how you have really quiet periods where you don't see many people and don't have any social events on - and then all of a sudden you have a week where you have at least two or three things on every day? Well, that was our weekend!

We began the weekend with pretty good intentions - Saturday morning was to be spent doing a few chores around the house before throwing a few things in a port (bag or suitcase for all non-Queenslanders!!) to leave home by 3.30pm to travel half an hour to Crows Nest where there was to be a surprise party for Scott's youngest sister, Kylie. We were also staying there the night before heading further north the next morning - but more about that in a moment! So ... here we were with all our good intentions, until we decided (read "Kris decided!") that Scott needed a haircut before a weekend of family festivities, so off we toddled to the closest shopping centre. Scott dutifully headed for the hairdresser while I went in search of shoes. Well ... I found a gorgeous pair of shoes.


Scott's haircut? Not quite so successful! Oh, it was CUT alright!!! Way shorter than I like ... but I digress! And so did we! Instead of heading home to finish the chores and pack, we kept bumping into people (and apologising! Tee! Hee! Hee!) who we hadn't seen for ages, so went from chat to chat. And then it was lunch time ... so we decided to eat at the food court. Oh dear! Time's ticking away!

We finally made it home and I finished my list of chores and packing (my bag AND Scott's!) and my beloved was still working his way through the much shorter list he had! Of course, one of the tasks was bathing Wombat (the brainless-but-loveable Border Collie, not the native marsupial!) and that is always a long process because although Wombat loves chasing the water from the hose or swimming, he doesn't like getting a bath!! I can only put it down to male logic! So the bath process has to be interrupted by frequent water games to keep him happy. (Note to all wondering about us wasting water to bath the dog - we have a rain water tank - so Wombat's coat is lovely and soft and shiny now! Tee! Hee! Hee!)

Finally, however, we hit the road and drove the half hour to Crows Nest, where we booked into our caravan park cabin - discovering as we drove to our spot that Scott's sister and husband were just two cabins down from us! That may sound like a good thing until you remember this was to be a surprise party - it could seriously blow the surprise if Kylie decided to go for a walk and recognised our car!! However, her hubby kept her away from our end of the cabins and she was completely surprised when an hour later she was confronted by a couple of dozen family members and friends singing happy birthday to her. She cried - and I chose to believe they were happy tears and not a commentary on our singing!! Tee! Hee! Hee! A lovely night was had by all and I would include a photo of Kylie with her birthday cake - or doing anything birthday-related, except I gave Scott the camera and he takes a little more abstract view of photography than me ... so there are no close-up, not-fuzzy photos of Kylie!! He did however, take a great photo of his nephew, Kylie's oldest son, Rohan, with a party sparkler.


The next morning saw us rise and shine (well, one out of two ain't bad!!) and hit the road again to head for Bargara, near Bundaberg (the town, not the rum!) to my Grandmother's place - no Little Red Riding Hood jokes please!! You see, one of my cousins from Western Australia was in QLD to show off her almost-two year old son, Blake, who is the first (and to date, only!) great-grandchild in our family. Mum and Dad travelled from Mundubbera and we headed north so we all converged for a couple of days of catching up. Although she was very pleased to see us all, at 85 Grandma is quite used to her quiet life and was frequently heard counting down the hours until we all left so she could take a little nap to recover from all the excitement!

We all had a wonderful time, chatting, eating, laughing at Blake's antics, chatting, eating ... I think you can see the pattern of the weekend's activities! Blake is a real cutie, but he's like the Energiser Bunny - he just goes flat out until the batteries go flat, has a power nap, then gets up and goes again! He reminded me of a cartoon, where the character's little feet and legs are going 100 miles an hour and they're staying on the spot - even if he wasn't actually moving forward, Blake was on the move. To demonstrate, check out this photo.


This was the clearest photo we could get of Blake and Grandma together - the camera wasn't quick enough to catch him! Tee! Hee! Hee! Although, we did manage to get him to stay a little bit still for this group photo.


That's me, Grandma (who was looking at the other camera!) Tara and Blake when we hit the local tavern for a yummy lunch. Then, it was time for goodbyes and we hit the road - again!! We had a wonderful weekend, but boy were we pleased to get home and crawl into our very own bed last night!

I'd like to say we're now going to settle in for some of the quiet weeks that should be the buffer between the busy bits - but looking at my calendar, I don't think that's going to be the case!! Oh dear, better go have a cup of tea to re-charge my batteries! It's as good an excuse as any! Tee! Hee! Hee!

Whether your weekend involved as many kilometers travelled as ours did or was a nice, quiet, stay-at-home one, I hope it was enjoyable! Til next time,

CHEERS!
KRIS