Sunday morning we had a delish breakfast on the deck of the unit, and a cuppa then checked out and headed off.  We made a stop through an open air mall to grab a coffee and browse before leaving the coast and heading home.  Ironically, the weather was fabulous from that point on lol.   I guess maybe it was the universe making sure we actually spent the time TOGETHER instead of on the go constantly :)

Ok.. not that *exact* tree... but I saw a Jacaranda in full bloom. It was spectacular, if a little early! I am fairly sure that Jacaranda season is normally in November... which means the local Jacaranda festival may not actually HAVE blooming trees to match it's name this year. Unless of course the organizers are paying attention like I was ;)

Here's to a wonderful October, friends! I've added a button to Mrs. B's 31 days of Halloween again this year.. so if you're inclined, pop over for some October fun!

This is gonna be a photo heavy post,  (but I'll keep them small) be warned ;)  We met up with the kids Uncles (who are visiting from New Zealand) and MaMa (great grandmother) at the local Botanical Gardens today for a wander around.  Uncle Nigel arrived before us and had maps in hand for the childrens 'Hide & seek trail' and the boys were stoked.   Basically it's a marked trail through part of the gardens with numbered things for children to discover as they walk.  I think there were 17 items in all, sculptures and various neat peices of art, and the boys found them all.  Without further adieu.. pictures!  

Blogger isn't wanting to cooperate with formatting here, so we'll see what comes up where LOL.    Pics are in no real order, as that's where blogger & I did not see eye to eye and I can't strongarm it much!  But they show a (mostly) lovely day. 

The boys got to see a real sundial.. and as the winter solstice was yesterday, it was right on time, showing a perfect 11am to match my phone.   The boys enjoyed hanging out with the uncles, and MaMa (they just dote on her.. up above is a shot of Merry and her, hand in hand, marching up a path :)    The funky fruit bats hanging on the tree,  panda  sculpture and the koala were items the kids had to 'find' on the trail.  I loved it.. the pandas were in the bamboo garden, the koala near the eucalypts etc.  

The first two pics are the kids in the Japanese garden.. they all loved the stepping stones across the water and went on about how 'treacherous' it was hehehe.  

The BEST item in the whole garden (aside from the natural items of course;)  was the Xylophone.  It was near the fern house, and was a fern shaped bench.  It had an assortment of mallets and the boys (and uncles) had a great time making music with it.  It had a lovely, deep sound.. not the obnoxious tinny clang of some.  

The kids have not stopped talking about it and have ticked off all the great things they 'found' during our trek.    It would have been a little bit nicer had Merry not had several meltdowns over not being allowed to run wild *insert eye roll here*  but ah well, such is life I guess??  

This week is Merry's birthday, so we had cake & fun with Nana, Grandpa (in the pic helping the dude cut hsi cake), uncles Mike & Nigel along with boring old mum, dad and brothers ;)   Buzz Lightyear featured prominently as you can see.

Last weekend over MY birthday, the grand parents took the kids to the weekend markets by the bay.  The kids played on the giant bouncy castle, and Sam braved the ENORMOUS inflatable slide and had a ball.  There was fossicking around on the beach & rocks and a very up close look at a poor turtle who got hit by a boat propeller :(  Thankfully nobody was incredibly emotional about that for more than a few minutes.

At some point Merry got his pants legs wet and just ditched them altogether.  Here he is doing what boys do best .. getting dirty!

There were also swim lessons... don't the boys look very flash in their pro swim gear? hehehe  They are both doing pretty well... but Sam is definitely our 'sportsman' .. he's going to have an awesome swim stroke!  

There was also the usual at home stuff ... messing around with our veggies, taking care of our ratties, driving mum crazy...you know how it is.  But now and again, a moment of perfect sweetness like this one...  Watering the garden is Merry's new found love.   Looks like Sam is going to have to share!

It's rather funny.. our tomatos and such are going crazy (I mean CRAZY, this week they are 6 inches taller than the last pics I posted here, easily!) yet the trees that I mark our seasons by as I drink coffee on the veranda?  They have just let go of the last straggler leaves that were hanging on for dear life, despite being yellow and being blown hither & yon by the winds of recent days.   Such is life in Queensland I guess!

As tomorrow is officially the start of Winter for us Aussies, I thought I'd get a head start on decorating for the season :D Autumn is actually my favourite seas, but a Queensland winter is like most normal places version of a mild Autumn lol... so what we have now, and maybe for the next couple of months, is pretty much Autumnlike weather. And I'm loving it! I actually saw a maple tree (not common) with it's gorgeous gold & orange leaves in various stages of falling from the tree. Todays high temp? a whopping 21C (which is about 69-70F) but for an acclimated Queenslander, if you're not in the sun you want a sweater on!

And if tomorrow is the first day of Winter.. then TODAY.. is my birthday! Yep, I celebrated another trip around the sun today. For surviving this year.. I was awarded a brand spanking new, shiny esspresso machine! (thanks Mum, Dad & Strider!) I was also given 24hours sans children by my MIL, from mid day Saturday to mid day Sunday. Bliss. I should make up some exciting adventurous tale for what I chose to do with my kid free time.. but alas, I'm boring. We came home through the CBD (city centre for non aussies) and grabbed sushi at one of my fave places, picked up some coffee beans to test out my birthday present and headed home. We played some WOW (as addicts will do ;) and watched 'Angels & Demons'.. love me some Dan Brown novels! Loved the movie too, Tom Hanks is one of my favourite actors.

We stayed up very late, and slept in very late too! Imagine DH's surprise when he looked at the clock and it was 950am LOL... since he usually wakes up at 4am, this was QUITE a sleep in! The parents returned our kiddies after lunch, and the house we tidied up that morning, was promptly untidied. Life returns to normal ;)

***I'm so utterly behind with things I never posted a weekly wrap for last week... so I think I'm gonna say stuff it for the week! Be assured, we did school work and baked & had fun, and all of the other things we usually do!***

I'll let you in on a secret,  I love Autumn!   Ok, so it's not really much of a secret lol.   It's rather odd that I am such a fan of the dark/cool times of the year, and yet I end up here in Queensland... land of endless summer.  Oh I love the things that summer brings.. swims in the pool, iced tea, beautiful blue skies that can darken to thunderstorms almost as fast as you can blink.  But about one month of all that is enough for me.  Here in Queensland, that means I make it to about November... not even INTO the 'official' summer season, which begins on December 1 in Australia.   By the time Summer Solstice comes around, if it weren't for the silly season and all the wonderful family gatherings, I'd be well and truly DONE with old Sol for the year!

Autumn officially began on March 1.  I've been yearning for it since the New Year rolled in though.  I'm ready to take down the pool for the year, and wear jumpers and jeans.  I'm ready to drink coffee on the veranda in the evenings with my hunny (if we try to do that now we are confronted with the late afternoon sun glaring in our faces).  I'm ready to rug up on the couch with the kids and read stories, or for them to pile into my bed in the morning for giggles without being so hot we can't stand the idea.  

I'm ready for the REAL veggie gardening to begin (such as mine is, in pots ;) I'm ready for all those lovely things that autumn and winter bring here in Queensland.   I'm ready for soup in the crock pot weather, and baking without having to turn the air conditioner on!  I'm oh so very ready to be able to go to the park with the kids... and stay all day without wilting in the heat (ok, we'll still have to slip, slop slap though!) 

This is what Autumn is like here in Oz.  The grass is greener, the trees may get a tinge of colour... depending on where you live.  Most stay green, as many are Eucalypts and thus evergreen.  But even here in the subtropics... there's something about the air that changes.  That crispness somehow makes it's way even here, where the rest of the year the air feels heavy and soggy.   Autumn has always spoken to my soul in a way that the rest of the seasons don't touch.   And for the last 10 years that I've lived here, I've missed it so much.  But  I suppose I just hadn't looked hard enough.

***btw, This is what happens while a sleep deprived mama waits for the sick little dude that fell asleep in late arvo decide to go to bed.  I noticed a chill in the air and just followed it....

In the few days since I posted last, there have been lots of goings on.  We has amazing thunderstorms for several days.   I really wish I had one of those fancy many thousand dollar cameras, then I'd have photos of lightning flashing almost 180degrees on the horizon before it engulfed us.  Mother Nature put on a helluva show, several times :)    Our yard became Lake Hobbit.. luckily before the real storms hit I was able to rescue all my potted veggies onto the veranda.  Good thing too, because I've FINALLY got something that's growing worth a damn ;)   Tomatoes are lush and green, silverbeet is getting tall, squash has babies on it!  

 

 See, aren't they gorgeous?  Those were taken just on Halloween, give or take  a day, so about 10days ago.  That tomato plant is 6inches taller, and just lush.. and the tiny silverbeet to the right side are about 8inches tall now.. in just TEN DAYS!  The boys delight in coming in to tell me what's new in the garden after they inspect the plants :)   And Sam is still our daily water-er. Obviously he's doing a better job than *I* did, as the tomatoes leaves are not curling up from too much water!  That boy is going to be my vegetarian, sport playing gardener it seems lol.

The boys had their weekly swim lesson on Sunday, which Nana met us at and told us to get lost! lol  She was already watching the boys so we could go do a bit of Yuletide shopping, so we took advantage of the extra time to go have some lunch.  We found the most amazing little sushi place (it's in the middle of a major mall, so it's not like it's hidden lol) that was making the rolls fresh as we waited.  Then we wandered down to our favourite coffee shop and had a posh Iced Coffee before descending upon the  Early Learning Centre.   This is our favorite kids shop ever.  

They specialize in fun toys, lots of which have educational value ;), that are also ecologically friendly in their production.  (ie, the woods are rain forest friendly, usually farmed rubberwood)  Some ARE made in China, but I've done the dance with them and have been assured that their plant in China is above board in regards to child safety with the materials they use.   I don't LIKE that they are made in China, but our budget doesn't allow for buying fancy wooden toys from Europe that cost a fortune.  So I feel like I have done the best I can to satisfy both my need for my boys to have high quality toys, my need for those toys to be SAFE for them, and my conscience regarding their production.   Sometimes all we can do, is the best we can right? :)

Ok... *steps off soapbox* lol.. all in all we scored some great deals for the holidays, not that they are cheap.  I was sorta planning to keep it small, but a few things that were just irresistible were on too good a bargain NOT to get *hides face*  Ah well, they're only young once right?   

One could swear it was summer today.  It's not that hot (only about 85F ish), but that'll come in time.  One sure tell tale sign that spring is not long for this world, is when you take a drive and the landscape (fairly urban) is just dotted everywhere with the most amazingly vivid purple you can imagine.  Yep,  Jacaranda season has come to South East Australia.  Brisbane is particularly famous for our Jacarandas apparently (so sayeth the Wiki :) and when I went out yesterday to do a few errands I could see why!   THIS is what I saw everywhere I looked!   

 Isn't that colour just surreal?   They are huge trees.. and they flower naked so there is no green to compete with that stunning electric purple-blue.   Some people moan and whine because they make an equally stunning mess as they drop their flowers en mass (still beautiful if you ask me!) But I say they don't know how to appreciate life.  Jacarandas will be done flowering within a month, and a month or so with purple all over your grass, and the foot paths (step carefully! they get slippery) and then in one fell swoop you can sweep them up and be rid of them.  But for now... why not revel in the signpost that mother Nature has sent letting us know loud & clear that summer is on it's way!?  

The wheel of the year is turning far too rapidly towards summer for my taste,  so I think I'll stop & smell the jacarandas ;)

We here in Queensland don't really get four terribly distinct seasons.  We have SUMMER and either Almost Summer, or Just Past Summer ;)   Our winter is a pale imitation of the real thing, with days still hanging out in the 60F ish range, although it does at least pretend to be chilly at night!   But September the 1st was our first 'technical' day of spring so I thought I would share a brief (and blurry, it appears) glimpse of what a semi tropical springtime is like.

These are random Springy pics from my sad excuse for a garden.  The first is a Grevillia,  which I love as it will eventually attract the local Rainbow Lorikeet population.   

Then there is this tiny shrub in my garden, which is covered with lovely tiny white flowers.  I have no idea what it is, but it's gorgeous.

This is our back fence, and the trees just past it.  When I left here on July 28, they were naked twigs and Queensland was firmly in the grasp of  Winter, or our excuse for winter anyway ;)  A week after I arrived home, this is what they looked like.  They exploded into a riot of beautiful bright green, all but overnight!    I think if I never left my house I could track time just by watching these trees... soon the bright green will turn to the darker, more mellow green of summer.  There will probably be flowers as well.   They are like my own little Wheel of the Year :)

I hope you enjoyed your glimpse of a Queensland spring,  by the time you have read this it will most likely have passed into summer.. no matter what the calendar says.