School holiday highlights

School holidays have been all about new experiences for my little one.

We had a day trip to Lake Mountain - the closest snow resort to Melbourne, where we could happily ride our toboggans, have snowball fights and build a snowman.  Her first visit to the snow.

The area was burnt out by bushfires only two years ago, the damage still evident in the tree scape. The trees in the resort area are a type of eucalypt that re-grows from their bases, so the burnt trunks stay bare of any leaves.

We had a lovely picnic in the snow with wares from the most fantastic french cheese shop in Healesville. Sooo much better than the greasy junk food available at the resort cafe.

The weekend was finished with some Pho Bo from Footscray and some kiddie yarn craft. The yarn weaving is now swinging in the breeze, providing a bit of colour in my vegie garden. I got the idea of this project from Linda at Natural Suburbia. I've made these things  many times as a child, but it has been over 20 years since I last did one! It was nice being reminded how. God's Eye is one name for them, do you know of any others?

Cheerio...am currently watching Pride and Prejudice with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson and will now get back to it, it's quite a fun version.

Right now

Right now I'm...

:: loving being on leave from work for school holidays

:: planning activities and adventures with my daughter (think rollerskating, circus workshop and craft)

:: missing chocolate and sweet tea (as I'm challenging myself to eat no sugar in July)

:: watching Whip It for the first time, an awesome chick flick

:: flagging patterns in my many knitting and crochet books for A 2nd Year of Projects

:: packing snow clothes for our day trip to the snow (and little one's first EVER snow experience), think snowmen making, snowball fights and tobogganing.

:: mapping out my planned jaunt to Bendigo, to include op-shopping and a visit to Bendigo Woollen Mills factory...and some serious yarn buying

:: joining up my 43 african flowers into a pillow like this

What are you doing right now?

I'm linking in with gingerbread girl.

The Endless Summer

With only a couple more days left of January 2012, I'm pretty happy with how much stuff I've squeezed into it. My daughter starts her first day of school in a week (both her and I are very very excited!), as a result I've been very keen to really treasure my time with her.

We've been going to Ocean Grove beach, so she can try out the new boogie board Santa brought her. I must confess I felt a guilty sort of pleasure when she got 'dumped' by this tiny little wave. It's a bit of a right of passage to be tossed and turned by waves - I was proud that she got up and wanted to keep on riding more waves.

Also visited a Space in Film exhibition at ACMI and Scienceworks and have been playing lots of board games.

On the crafting front, I really want to finish a knitting project - a kiddies jumper - from this book.  I've banned myself from starting any new knitting projects until this is finished. Is this something you do too?

As a new knitting book arrived two days ago in the post (and it is absolutely scrumptious) there is now a new urgency to finishing this jumper. I'm planning on showing you some of my new book - more on that later....

Last night I blocked out the jumper. I was a bit unsure of how to do this - but after some research from the yarn label/books/blogland - decided on pinning it out, placing a damp tea towel on top, and gently steam ironing it.  This seems to have worked well.

Next step is stitching it all together, and knitting the neckline. Almost, almost finished.

Wildflowers and wildlife

We are now home from our family holiday in Perth and Margaret River.  While we had a fantastic time, it is great to be home.  Living out of a suitcase certainly palls after a week.

Our trip mainly involved catching up with my extended family in Perth - barbecues, bush walks, eating and more eating, and lots of coffees (with tea for me, the odd one out!).  I especially enjoyed catching up with my Nonno and Nonna - who are 86 and 84 respectively.  My Nonna gave me a tea set which I will have to show you at some point.  While it is not quite my taste, it's very interesting, and I do appreciate having something of my Nonna's in my house.

Our trip to Margaret River involved sun, beach, bushwalks and caves.  And let's not forget wine tastings and yummy food.

We swam at the most beautiful beach - Gnarabup Beach, just near Prevally Beach. Well sheltered from waves (and sharks).  There had been three people taken by sharks in the last few months, so we were pretty determined to only swim in completely shark inaccessible areas.

And here's my daughter (in the white t-shirt) and I - middle centre in the turquoise bathers.

And a highlight for this trip was the amount of wildlife we saw. My daughter and I ticked off in a little native bird book each of the types of birds we saw.  The highlight was seeing two emus crossing the road in front of our car. Sorry, couldn't pull the camera out in time so no pics. The bird below is the splendid fairy wren that visited the bird feeder at our cottage.

Our cottage was in the middle of protected bush land so we took a walk every evening along the bush paths.  This guy was one creature we found.

And this mother and joey were one of many kangaroos in pasture land near our cottage.

I hope you enjoyed my pics.  Some more will come - I still really want to show you my Nonno's vegetable garden - it is awesome.  But that will have to be for another time.

Cheerio...