Around here - Christmas Day

We had a lovely Christmas Day and we stick with the usual traditions.  We all gather at Mum's place to open presents and we now do the $50 gift as one present from the whole family instead of buying a gift for everyone.  Mum bought us all a box of Belgium Chocolates which she said her own Mother used to do so she started a new tradition this year.

We [my 2 Brisbane sisters and I] bring Christmas Slices and we enjoy that while doing the gift opening and we hang around until 11.30 am or so when everyone goes home and gathers their lunch items and then we come back to our place for lunch.  My Mum and sister bring the ham and prawns, I do the Asian Noodle Salad, the Pasta Salad, bread rolls and have the table set and provide the venue.  My other sister makes individual chocolate plum puddings and custard and my Mum and sister make the family Christmas Cake which cooks for 6 hours in the oven.  As we are so full on Christmas Day we can never bring ourselves to cut the Christmas Cake so we save that for the New Year.  My Aunty always makes a biscuit Christmas Tree which we love too.

It was a lovely cool Christmas for a change with early drizzle of rain around 11.00 am.  Normally by the afternoon we are in the backyard with the ping pong table and bocce however the grass was still damp and wet so we gave that a miss this year and instead the kids and cousins played card games inside and had a great time laughing and having fun.  It was another great Christmas Day.

Around here - GOMA

Yesterday the kids and I went to GOMA to see the new "Water" exhibit.  We have been to GOMA many times to see great exhibits for free however I didn't realize this was a paid exhibition until we got there.  Since we drove all the way in to see it, we went ahead and bought tickets anyway.  Adults were $18 and students $16.  We got there when it opened so there weren't too many people and I think everyone was Christmas shopping so it was actually a good time to go to the Gallery.  No queues and plenty of space to see things.

The first thing the kids did was the suspended gymnastic rings where you have to get from one side to the other on the rings. The kids loved this and it was harder than it looked.

We then went and saw the Riverbed featuring more than 110 tonnes of rock.  I stayed at the entrance as my shoes weren't suitable for me to be walking on rocks.

This was bubbles coming out of pipes.

Then we went to see the 99 animals at the watering hole.

Then there was the snowman in an industrial freezer which I understand is originally from Switzerland.  This snowman is over 30 years old has been at The Museum of Modern Art in New York and San Franciso MOMA.  Here is an article about the snowman.

After we finished we went upstairs to the Modern Art & Pop area.

Don't you love the Venetian blinds all hung together to form artwork.

These items were all made from old things, camera's, beaters, phones, tap, electric cords etc.

This picture was made out of thousands of tiny mosaics which were no bigger than 1cm.

This is a close up of one of the flowers under the first person on the left.

Around here - Christmas Lights

Only a few more sleeps until Christmas Day and I'm thinking about my food shopping list.  We always have a cold lunch of prawns, ham, bread rolls and salads followed by home made plum pudding, slices and Christmas cake if we can fit it in.  The kids have finished school for another year and it seems like only yesterday that they both started High School.

In the last couple of weeks my sister and I have painted my master bedroom, 2 walk in robes and my ensuite.  It's a big job painting however the biggest job is emptying the wardrobes and bedroom of furniture and clothing.  Such a daunting job and the rest of the house looks like a mess because everything is everywhere.  The new carpet has gone in to replace the 20 year old carpet and it looks amazing and even better feels amazing to walk on.  It's the same carpet that I did in the kids wing [3 bedrooms and hallway] back in September.

There's only one other big room that needs the carpet replaced which will be done in the 2nd half of next year which is the "toy room" [yes, we still call it the toy room even though we don't have toys in it - it's basically a second living room 6 mt x 6 mt with a corner cut out of it - on the other side of that is the dining/living room].  It has 2 couches, my desk, another student desk, book case, sideboard etc so a big room with lots of things to be relocated while it's painted and carpeted.  My goal is for it to happen maybe July/August or September and not before.

Here's some pics of some Christmas Lights we went to see last night which were fun.  It's funny how Christmas in Australia is still snowmen even though here in Australia we are sweltering.  On Monday it was 40.2 in Brisbane [104.36F] and it was the hottest day recorded in December since 1981 [38 years].  Sadly the bushfires that started in August are still going and it's hard to know when it's all going to stop.  Lots of families have lost their homes and it's non-stop around the clock of volunteer fireman as well doing their community work.

Here's some Christmas cheer for you all.

Around here

It's been a very hot week here and today it's going to be 36 degrees.  My sister lives in Perth and it's going to be 42 degrees there today.   The terrible fires are still continuing in Australia what seems to be weeks and weeks.  With dry vegetation, hot weather and winds I'm not sure when it's going to end.

This week I went to our local organic farmers market, baked Sourdough Farmers Bread and picked a couple of little home grown veggies from the garden.  The veggie garden doesn't have much in it at the moment and the heat isn't helping much either.  I'm going to put a bit of shade cloth over them so I can get some lettuce and herbs in the ground as I love eating home grown veggies.  Hope you have a good weekend.

Around here - Christmas Lights

December is here already which means checking out the Christmas Lights which we love.  We have a street near us that has a few houses that get into the festive spirit every year so this is always our first night out.  I've been taking the kids to these Christmas Lights for over 10 years now...oh how time flies.  To get the lovely "bokeh" I turn my lens so the image is out of focus.  See below for the explanation of the Japanese word.

In photography, bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens. Bokeh has been defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light".