Layout Share

Five layouts to share today, completed over the last three weeks. These are all layouts to go in Jasmin's album, of her in New Zealand at the beginning of last year.

This first one contains pictures from our stay in Rotorua, including the Wai-o-Tapu thermal wonderland, Lady Knox Geyser, Mitai Moari Village and Hell's Gate.

After Rotorua we drove to Wellington, stopping at the Huka Falls, Lake Taupo, and the Craters of the Moon on the way.  We also stopped several times to take pictures of Mt Ruapehu.

After we crossed the Cook Strait we stayed at Picton, and visited the Marlborough region and it's famous wineries.

The Marlborough Sounds were spectacular - we drove Queen Charlotte's Drive from Havelock to Picton and saw the Pelorus and Queen Charlotte's Sounds.



Jumped forward a bit to do the layout for the Moeraki Boulders which we saw on our last day driving up from Dunedin to Christchurch.

Now to finish all the other layouts, hopefully over the next couple of weeks.

Di :-)

Hanging out for summer

I must say I'm hanging out for summer already! It is so cold here, and will get to -5 overnight later this week. I think I'm feeling so cold, that I have been using summer scrapbooking products on my layouts and in my project life layouts!

I felt very honoured last week - when Twopeasinabucket had my layout as their featured layout.  I just had to take a screen shot LOL:

Here is the full layout.  The layout was of our long weekend at the coast with friends @ Long Beach. I had so many pictures that I wanted to use, so I did! I managed to use 18 small photographs and 12 tags - putting a nice dent in my tag collection.  We always have such a wonderful relaxing time when we go to the coast with friends.  We had a couple of BBQ dinners and our traditional fish from the Bay on Saturday night. The kids really enjoyed playing on the rocks near the beach, the boys managed to even catch two fish on the Saturday (which they threw back in), and we managed to get a decent amount of reading and wine drinking done!

Last week Eliza was most excited to bring home her very first project assignment (Mum is never quite as excited, as it means lots of work for her too!).  They had a choice of four different things they could do - all linked in with the 100 years of Canberra theme that they are working on at school.  Eliza decided that she would select the option which involved building a 3D model of an older building in Canberra.  She selected Lanyon Homestead, so we thought it may be prudent to go on a little family adventure deep south to check out the homestead and take some photographs. I think she has her work cut out for her :-) Anyway, she is allowed to get help from her parents, but she has to do all the painting, cutting and glueing herself - it should be interesting to see what she ends up with!

I had never thought to go and look at any of the heritage buildings in Canberra - it's not normally high on our list of sights to see, but I'm glad we went. It was a lovely little outing, and was an opportunity to talk to the girls about the house I spent half my childhood in - a 150 year old stone house built by the convicts. The bonus was that it also only cost $15 for the family to visit the homestead, and there was a lovely tour lady there that spoke to us about certain aspects of the house and who used to live there.

I think the back of the house looks more challenging that the front!

Needless to say we won't be building all the other outer houses!

My proof of life photograph for the day!

Getting a daddy huggle.

Eliza I think you have your work cut out for you - and it's meant to be handed in in week 10 :-(

Every year we have a combined birthday for my Dad and Mum's cousin Barbara (well we have for about the last five years anyway!). The bonus is that I guess we only have to make one trip back to Goulburn in June rather than two. There is exactly 20 years difference between the two of them. Barbara turned 87 this year, and my Dad 67. It's only the last couple of years that dad has really started to age - I guess that's what a bad back and lots of pain will do to you, but he is a real trooper and never complains.

As per usual - there were a couple of little girls around to help them blow out their candles. Unfortunately after the candles were blown out Chloe had to be whisked away to the doctors and ended up having a seizure and being taken to hospital - she had thrown an allergy to the eye drops that she was prescribed on the Friday.  I often thank my lucky stars that we have never had any serious incidents with the girls that have needed hospitalisation (except Jasmin's skittle up the nose incident of about 2005).

I was super proud of my eldest one this week - she got into the finals for rostrum speaking at school - she was one of three students from her class. She had to do her speech in front of the high school on Monday. There is no way I could have done this at her age! She didn't get into the next round - but it doesn't matter, it was such a good experience for her, and a bit of a confidence boost as well.

I have been keeping up with Project Life - I have posted my week 23 and 24 layouts below. Used a 3 x 3 sleeve for the first time.

And finally this week, I leave you with a handful of other layouts:

Until next time xxx

Six on Sunday

1.  Minecraft

What more do I need to say?

Are everyone else's kids as addicted to this game, as mine are?  Today they are having a PJ day - they just haven't bothered to get dressed - and I'm not going to push it!  They are having a great time skyping their cousin and friends and talking whilst playing.  They (the girls and Dave), all look so cute all sitting in Dave's study gaming - Dave is playing LOL (League of Legends) and the girls are Minecrafting!

Eliza even drew this picture which I added to her photo album.  

 

I also did this layout to add to Eliza's album to go with the picture she drew.  I got out some old Luminarte paint pots to do the arrow "v"s at the top of the layout.

2.  New hair do

I have over the years had many hair-dos.  One day I am going to do a page with all the different do's on it - everything from long straight hair, to Annie Lennox do, to long spiral perm (in multiple colours) to bob.... you get the idea!

Haven't had a change for a while - so thought I would go with the umbre look - except it might take a couple of goes.  The idea is to start red at the top of the head, and eventually get down to blonde tips. As my hair had a bit of red - it will probably take another trip or two to get the look I really want. Here is the new do anyway (yes - it is very red)!

Created the background for the above layout using washi tape, and even covered the ghost alpha "H" in washi tape as well.

3.  Sleeping in their own beds

At last!  Both Jazz and Eliza are sleeping in their own beds - for the entire night. Yes, you heard me right.  No more trying to share our Queen size bed with 4 bodies :-)  Every night we would end up with either one or both of the girls in our bed by the morning - and let me tell you - these girls are tall and take up a lot of bed space!  Dave and I were hanging off the side of the bed by the morning - not a lot of decent sleep happening and a few back aches between the two of us.  So how did we get the girls to stay in their own bed? Well the problem relates to the fact they are both scared of the dark (so am I - but don't tell them that!), so the solution - leave their bedside lights on all night!  Not sure how much power this uses, but it works, so will be interesting to see the next bill (thank God for solar panels).

4.  Family Movie Night

As a result of number 3 - we decided to reward the girls by having family movie night every Friday night.  We put the mattress from the sofa bed, and another foam mattress on the floor in the cinema room, and watch a movie (complete with treats that Dave takes great delight in purchasing), and we all watch the movie and sleep in the cinema room for the night.  Bonus is that the cinema room is now getting some decent usage!

The first week we watched the Hobbit. Amazingly the girls stayed up and watched the whole thing and enjoyed it.  I must admit to being a little concerned at the beginning when the dwarves meeting at Bilbo's cottage took about 20 minutes - I was almost asleep by the end of that bit! All in all we enjoyed the movie though - it was great to see some of the places we had send in New Zealand - including Hobbiton.

This week we watched - Thor.  We have a pile of superhero Blu-rays ready for the girls to watch, as they are now old enough to watch most of them.

5.  Playing Games

I love how my girls love playing board games - probably a good thing since we have amassed a huge collection of games over the years.  This afternoon (when they needed a break from the computers), we pulled out a couple of games - we only ended up playing one, but it was a lot of fun.  We played Lego Creationary. I was really impressed with what the girls built. Jazz is a nerd at heart and built a little Enterprise for one of her cards.  She watched all of Star Trek Next Gen which she was much younger - I think it might be time to pull out Voyager and Deep Space Nine.  We also took the girls to the last Star Trek movie, which they loved (and so did we - so tempting to see it again, a definite re-watch movie for us - definitely a family movie night movie).

6.  Some layouts

 Although I have been incredibly busy with business work of late - Dave has been doing a bit of gaming and we have also had the weekend at home this weekend (happens rarely), so I have managed to squeeze in a fair bit of scrapping (lucky I can scrap really quickly).  I find I get a picture of what I want in my head - and then when I have time I just sit down and do it. Probably the most time consuming part of scrapbooking for me is printing the pictures and typing up the journalling.  Here are the results of my efforts:


School camp for Jazz:

 A trip to the Dinosaur Museum last weekend with my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and mother-in-law:

Another birthday page of Mum's 71st birthday - love documenting those group shots (no journalling on this layout as it is on another layout):

Last weekend was also my nephew - Daniel's birthday.  My girls were definitely very envious of the birthday cake their Aunt made for Daniel - it was a Creeper cake (from Minecraft of course):

Here is another Fiji layout for Jasmin's album - of the Bollywood night we had at the Civic Video conference. It was such a lot of fun dressing up in Sari's:

A couple of mother's day layouts - of me and my mum, and Dave and his mum from last weekend:

A layout with our latest investment house in Goulburn:

Had a lot of fun creating this layout of Liam's birthday in Sydney from last year. It was a great fun birthday - all the kids had Nerf guns and ran around shooting one another.

 This layout was of Jasmin's experience with "Tournament of Minds" last year. She was picked to compete in the Mathematical Engineering category with some kids from school.

This layout is of the girls swimming lessons - pictures taken at the end of last year:

Finally did a layout of the trip down the coast with friends - Mel and Kate, last year.  Love the instagram photographs:

Last of all - this layout which I created as part of Cathy Zielske's Clean and Simple Hybrid course. I managed to scan in an old photograph of Dave and I in 1986.

Five on Friday

I thought I'd dedicate this five on Friday to my favourite five places in New Zealand (it was hard to narrow it down to just five!):

1.  Queenstown - There was just so much to do in Queenstown. We could have spent a few more days here if we had the time.
Our most favourite thing in Queenstown was the Shotover Jet:  We all loved this - it was such an adrenaline rush, speeding in a jet boat down a canyon where it was only about 6 metres wide in parts. The girls loved it - I was terrified the whole time (I'm sure the 2 minute video recording that they did probably has me saying "shit shit shit" in it for the whole two minutes, but I did enjoy it too. I should imagine any jet boat ride after this one will pale in comparison. Dave and Jazz loved it so much they went back for a second go!

Queenstown also has a Gondola which takes you to the top of the mountain there - for absolutely stunning views.  

While we were there we also enjoyed some Luge rides (you had to take a chair lift to the top of the ride), some drinks in the bar overlooking the gondola, a buffet dinner as well as a show - some Maori entertainment including the Haka. The girls got up and did the Poi Balls (something they also learnt in Hawaii).

The Queenstown habour area was lovely with lots of outdoor eating - and we all had the best burgers we have ever had at a place called Fergburger. Other things we would have done if we had the time - a cruise on the TSS Earnslaw - a working steam boat, as well as rafting through caves. Maybe next time?

2.  The Glaciers - Franz Josef, Fox, Tasman and Mueller Glaciers.

My understanding is that glaciers form when the accumulation of snow exceeds its ability to melt, forming a glacier. Then as the terminal face of the glacier melts or breaks off it retreats, and this happens over a long period of time - as it recedes it carves a path. On our drive around New Zealand, we got to see at least four glaciers (I'm sure we also drove past a few as well!).

The first was the Franz Josef Glacier.  We walked across the moraine (the floor of the valley across which the glacier was receding), to the terminal face, which was still quite a way from the look out point. The walk was 1 1/2 hours round-trip, but didn't seem too long as there was so much to see - such as waterfalls down the side of the mountains on the way to the glacier.

  

Once we got back from this walk we walked to Sentinel Rock for views across the moraine that we had walked across to get to the glacier:

Pretty impressed with our first glacier visit, we drove down the road 1/2 hour to the Fox Glacier - which you could get even closer to. It was also a 1 1/2 hour round-trip walk (and quite a bit uphill!).

The next day we headed off to our next destination to see even more glaciers and beautiful mountains (everywhere you drive here - there are mountains, it's hard not to pull over every 15 minutes to take pictures). The other glaciers were at Mount Cook - 27km from Franz Josef over the mountain as the crow flies- however we spent almost the entire next day driving as it was 480km by road!

At Mount Cook we did a Tasman Glacier tour, where we got to go on boats to the terminal face of the glacier - as the glacier has created a lake.  The great thing about this glacier was that we got to see icebergs floating in the lake (the chunks of ice that have broken off the glacier) - we even got to touch them and eat them!

That's Mount Cook above Les's head - the one with the double peak.  Apparently you don't get to see the tip too often - as it is cold and shrouded in clouds. We had brilliant weather on the South Island - so very lucky!

After our exciting morning at the Tasman Glacier - the girls did the 1 1/2 hour round-trip walk to the Mueller Glacier (yes, the boys were too tired and opted to sit in the bar while we went on our little adventure). The Mueller Glacier has chunks of ice breaking off all the time creating avalanches. It sounded very much like gun-shots - my eyes were never fast enough to see where the avalanches were happening!

3.  The Marlborough Region / Queen Charlotte's Sound

I guess it's no surprise that this would make it into the list of fav places.  I was fortunate (through some very good planning on my behalf) to be in the region for my birthday.  That afternoon I drank wine and tapas at Cloudy Bay and drove to my favourite winery - Brancott (aka Montana) - for fantastic views of the Marlborough - vines as far as the eye can see - my idea of heaven!  The coastal region near Piction - going towards Havelock and Nelson is also known for it's green-lipped mussels - which is what I had for dinner. Amazingly they had fire-works that night in Piction as well - they must of known it was my birthday :-)

We stayed at Picton - which was a mere 1/2 hour away from Blenheim and the Marlborough wineries, so the day after my birthday we came back for some more wine tastings, sending a case of wine back from Brancott - with 2 x 6 bottles of wines that aren't exported to Australia. Julie and I will savour these wines over the next year everytime we do the ordering for the video shop :-)

After our wine tasting in the morning we drove from Bleinheim to Havelock and then drove back along the Queen Charlotte's Drive to see the Queen Charlotte's Sound and the Pelorus Sounds. We stopped many times for photographs of these stunning sounds.

4.  The Fiordland National Park

We stayed at Te Anau - the closest place you can stay really to the Milford Sound and the Fiordland National Park. We actually did a day tour - and were picked up in the morning by the BBQ Bus and driven through the Fiordland National Park, to the Milford Sound (which is incorrectly named - apparently it is a Fiord), for a Cruise.  The drive was just stunning - so very scenic - snow-topped, mountains, waterfalls, lakes, glaciers, rainforest. I don't think the photos actually do the area justice. It's the type of place you drive through and just say WOW!

One of the first scenic stops was at Mirror Lake - water so calm and clear that it creates a perfect mirrored reflection of the mountains behind it.

Just a stop by the side of the road - 

We stopped for a BBQ lunch on the way to Milford Sound - we had time to do the 1/2 hour Gunn Lake Walk through the rainforest while our bus driver cooked our lunch.

 After lunch we drove onwards - stopping to see a couple of sights on the way.

Our tour included a couple of hours on the Milford Sound - it was just stunning!

5.  Hobbiton Tour

No trip to New Zealand would be complete without doing some sort of Lord of the Rings Tour.  We did the Hobbiton Tour at Matamata on the way to Rotorua. As you can imagine - it is a very lucrative tour for the owners of the huge sheep farm the Hobbiton set is on. Sometimes they get up to 2,000 visitors a day @$75 per adult. They get 50% of the proceeds.

Believe it or not - the famous Oak Tree (the one at the top of the hill ) was actually found elsewhere, so Peter Jackson got it cut up into 100's of pieces and labelled, brought to the set and reassembled. Peter Jackson then got sick and they delayed filming for 6 months, during which time the leaves died, so they got 200,000 artificial leaves - which Peter Jackson then got lots of school kids to hand paint and stick on the tree.

We even got an ale or cider in the Hobbiton Pub!

So they are my five favourite things to see in New Zealand - I could have quite easily done a list of 10! So worth a trip to see New Zealand if you ever get the chance.