Christmas Day

What a fantastic day, what a long day. It started early with William opening a few of his presents from Santa's stocking in our room. His 'Ho Ho Ho's changed to 'Wow Wow Wow's and just didn't stop. His smile and excitement was just so wonderful and genuine.
William would only open a single present at a time (though a good thing) and then go off and play with it, it has left plenty of gifts still wrapped under the tree for another day. We'll get back to those soon.
We had a couple of hours to cook puddings & desserts ready for our trip over the road to the neighbours for Christmas lunch. I can't remember how many dishes Lisa prepared but I cooked a lemon meringue using mum's old recipe. I couldn't wait for food now, and it didn't disappoint, we just ate and ate and ate even more.

Cranberry chutney on Brie on toast, or Oysters as a starter followed by the aussie traditional prawns and Moreton Bay bugs. The roast was followed by home made Irish Cream, more alcohol and then our puddings, and they were good even if I do say so myself.

We may have been exhausted and feeling like a lay down by late afternoon but William was still going for it like a little energiser bunny. The children were on overdrive and loving every minute.

I'm sure Lisa will have plenty more to write once she's sober.

The Christmas Street Party

Only two more sleeps till Christmas and we still have presents to wrap! It's been a busy party season, ending this week with our Christmas Street party. There was far too much food as normal, everything from rum balls to trifle and of course the traditional sausages on the barbie. William managed to keep up with the older kids, trying out their scooters and skateboards with alarming success and almost making it up the precariously placed jump ramp (eek!). The annual awards were presented - Andrew won the "Mad Dogs & Englishmen" prize for going out cycling in a storm when everyone else was running for cover. I won the Peter Brock Memorial prize for the fastest driving up the street (well we have got a big hill to get up!). It was a great night though, which saw William collapsing into bed at 9.30pm (closely followed by mummy and daddy!).
We're now undoubtedly full of festive spirit and wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year - we'll be seeing you on the webcam!

Weather

Its begining to feel at lot warmer now. Even though the temperature has dropped a little to the high 20's, the humidity is making it feel like living in a sauna. I think its going to be tough this Summer and the air conditioning's going to take a hammering as the Brisbane weather cycles back to normality; hot sticky days and storms in the afternoon that clear the air.

And this was just a little storm, 9000 lightening strikes in 2 hours and 25mm of rain in 30 minutes.