Shower #3 & Toastmasters

 With a surprise baby shower at Christmas with Cam's fam & friends followed by a skype virtual baby shower with American family under my belt, I attended my third and final shower thrown by my volunteers at the Museum. It was small, with good food and great company.

They asked to borrow my wedding ring to put on the end of a piece of string to see if it would move in a circle (having a girl) or back and forth in a line (having a boy). According to the volunteers, it will be a girl.

 Apologies for these shots not turning right side up, blogspot is being difficult. McGurkey really got some gorgeous gifts including this adorable flat teddy bear covered in Australian wool. Perfect for a newborn to cuddle or sleep on.

 

I demonstrated the position of the baby with some of the gifts to the amusement of all. 

There were some home-made items as well (by far my favorite types of presents for the little one to be). This will be used to shade the pram/stroller.

Finally, here is a shot of our toastmasters club from Thurs night. It was hat night, so I was wearing a bucket hat. Cam is hiding in the orange hat in the back.

That is it for now. My last week at work this week until maternity leave. MacGurk should be here sometime in March. Cam or I will post something when we get a moment, even if it is one picture. If he/she is late, I'm sure I'll find time to do another posting, but until then...

Strawberry Fields Forever

Cam and I headed up to pick some strawberries and spend the afternoon at Hahndorf, SA. It is the German town and there is a small house museum just on the outskirts. The Hans Heysen house museum has a walking trail in the grounds, a studio, garden and the house. The trail had several scenes captured by Heysen in his paintings. This one of a gum really has changed shape since he painted it in the 1950s.

A variety of artists had sculptures around  Heysen's grounds including this iron one of Australia with Tasmania cut into the bottom right. 

The studio itself was purpose built and still contains several unfinished paintings, the last to be undertaken by Heysen when he was in his 80s. All of his paints, oils, easels, canvas, rugs, and even some sketches were still there. The room was very inspirational.

We also went strawberry picking, one of my fav things to do in summer months. Cam was very good at only picking the absolutely best berries. He even managed to sneak a few extra tasty ones while in the fields.

I found this really large one as we were walking out. I thought would be the best backdrop for a photo. Can you imagine trying to have one of those seeds in your mouth? We shared the fruits of our labor with our neighbors when we got home. It was a really fun-filled weekend.

As you can probably see from this last photo, my belly is beginning to peak out of most shirts. All is going well with McGurky. We have about 5 more weeks to go. I have a funny story about how our little person will probably grow up hating peas, but that is much better to hear as a story rather than in this medium.

Scarred Tree & back in Sydney

I just want to wrap up our Christmas vacation and wanted to include a few photos around the harbor too. Cam saw see this scarred tree years ago near the farm, but hasn't been back since. Aboriginals would cut the bark off and in the process leave marks on the wood. The tree repairs itself as the remaining bark curls.

We drove back to Sydney and the next AM before flying out we hung around with Lachlan. We went on a walk around the harbor, which was quite beautiful. Loved the views and the fact that everyone we saw were local Sydneysiders.

Lachlan snapped this shot of us in the middle of the walk. We had a great time, chatting, exploring, and just taking our time. A very relaxed ending to an even more relaxing holiday.

Little light houses dot the harbor to help with navigation. If you check out Sydney's harbor on google, you'll notice how many bits and pieces stick out making navigation difficult.

This has caught me up in time. Upcoming posts will be closer to where we are in time right now. Till then!

Random 2012 Adelaidian Bits

 In reviewing photos from last year, I noticed I never posted anything about the Adelaide Show. We spent one evening at the show this year, and did the "yellow brick road" show bag. That translated into us carrying lots of SA produce back home on our bikes. I think my favorite part of the show were the skilled items inside. BONSAI!

The show was back in September of 2012, and this tasty ginger-bread house really reminded me of home, especially my Bro.

 We closed the show by watching the motor cross bicycle tricksters. In this shot, there are 3 bikes in the air as blurs flipping upside down. It was the finale.

 
 We also managed to go see the "big gum tree" that is infamous in Glenelg (the suburb to our west). This tree was originally bent, but is now dead. They have pinned it in place & put the cover over it to help protect it. Under this tree, South Australia was first proclaimed as a colony in 1836 by members of SA's first fleet. I'm glad it continues to be acknowledged.

Mogo Zoo

The girls, Cam, Steve, and I went to Mogo Zoo, a short drive from the farm. I've passed this zoo a bunch of times, but we never could visit. I'm so glad we did! It is the breeding ground for Australia's tigers and lions! There are over a dozen of just those animals, hanging out in these really large enclosures. It may be hard to see in this shot, but just to the right of Steve is a HUGE lion facing us. Check out the next photo, you can see him up close.

Someone paid a bunch of $ to hand feed the lion. The rest of us just watched from the other side of another fence. Check out how close we were! It was really crazy. The mane was absolutely beautiful and so full (I completely had hair envy). Overall, they must be very well fed because he didn't seem famished.

Speaking of feeding, we gave some grub to the deer. They also seemed very well fed, but all by the public. They could eat & eat & eat, but they didn't look too fat. I guess its all the hot Aussie sun that they sweat it all out.

The best part about this zoo was its size: really big spaces for groups of animals. Smaller enclosures for all the little stuff (lemurs, small monkeys, lizards, snakes, etc) too. We had a great morning!

NSW Baby Shower

As most of you know, I'm preggers (about 34 wks so 6 more left) & the Sydney fam surprised me with a baby shower over the Christmas festivities. Fun-filled activities were enjoyed by the entire family. We played baby related charades. Here's a shot of Tony, but I can't remember his word.

Then is the final addition to pin a swimmy on the fallopian tube. I got to put on the egg and whoever had put the closest swimmy to my egg won. I thought the pink cut-out really just looked like a cow head.

We played other games including carve up photos of C & my face to create what our baby would look like. These were excellent because everyone grabbed their scissors and tape or glue sticks and went to work. So low-tech that you could excuse how they really looked freaky.

Presents abounded, so many so that we couldn't bring them all back to Adelaide. There were some really cute outfits, some toys, a few digital devices and in general lots of love. THANKS FAM!

 

Because there was so much baby talk, the girls found a stroller in the office and decided that Harry the dog was pretty close in size to a baby. Since he couldn't fight too much, they put him in & pushed him around the grass. Harry was very patient!

Christmas Day 2012

The AM started off the Aussie way: fruit salad prepared by Marg. Her abilities were only matched by the freshness of the mangoes, strawberries and my favorite blueberries.

 Here is a surprise...we opened presents on Christmas! The girls opened their stockings at the crack of dawn giving the rest of us an opportunity to open our presents at a reasonable 8ish hour. Nola, Geoff & Marg really had a good laugh over this one.

 We gave Michelle a photo of her from her visit to Adelaide and the markets. Einstein pops up everywhere.

We had a few good laughs all around including some at Tony's expense. The presents were a plenty.

The early dinner had a fabulous centerpiece and everyone being able to enjoy the delicious food and family.

Finally what Christmas would be complete without the reading of Ed's A Tale of Christmas WO. He originally wrote it for MaryEd and her siblings. Now its being enjoyed by even another generation.