It was an uneventful ride back home from our holiday camp site at Ballina. We have stayed in cabins before and to my way of thinking it makes a lot of sense to book a cabin for a couple of nights than to go to the expense of owning, outfitting and towing a caravan and then have to find some place to stow the van in the months that it is not used. We have stayed in a few different caravan park cabins and were only unhappy about one - and that was because of all the cockroaches that came out when the lights went out - we ended up keeping the lights on all night! Ugh!
We had a great "welcome home" and almost immediately my son arrived and he and Colin started to put up the camper trailer in the back yard - teenage granddaughter and friends were going to have a birthday camp-out.

This event had been planned for her birthday in May but it happened to rain and spoil the fun. So today is not really Taylah's birthday but she and eight other girls are going to have a sleepless night tonight safe in our back yard!

Pizza and lollies and a cheesecake have been devoured and I am sure they are all hyped up with coca-cola too! They have had a camp fire - which has now burned down to a little glow and they are all cosy inside the big tent - we put a sealed electric/oil radiator in with them because the nights are so cold (and because this sort of heater cannot cause a fire).

Here Colin and Taylah's little sister are helping to get the trailer ready for the night.
It will be interesting in the morning to see how tired the girls are! I wonder how many ghost stories will be told!
AJ

A birthday in the family

Today is my younger son's birthday. How many years is unimportant but it is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate! We are fortunate this year to have Paul's elder brother, Steven home with us so the entire family was able to go out and have a lunch together while the children were at school and kindergarten.
We enjoyed a long lunch at Jupiters Casino at Broadbeach. Colin and I signed up to become members with Donna's encouragement, it appears that members can have super special prices for meals and it cost nothing to become a member! Gambling is something for others to do! None of us were interested in losing our cash - Donna grumbled that she lost a dollar in the pokies! She was only going to risk that much and it all disappeared in a flash!
After lunch Paul and Donna went back home and after picking up both children they returned with salads and an icecream cake and home made rissoles for tea. I encouraged the children to put on aprons - they did look sweet! and standing on a couple of low stools they helped me get the salads ready in the bowls and then set the table with knives and forks. I dug out a box of birthday candles and they chose the things they wanted to put on Daddy's cake. Kayla chose pink sparkly candles and Chantelle found some little pink babies (!) and some flowers. The flowers are those plastic things that candles without bases sit into and come in all different colours.
Chantelle horrified her parents by eating and enjoying half a raw sausage! Donna told her she would get worms! Perhaps she had been told that would happen when she was small! At the table Chantelle refused to have a cooked sausage! Well I guess it would taste different!
After the main course the stools were out again and the girls clambered up to help decorate the cake. I didn't interfere at all with the arrangement apart from persuading Kayla to keep the candles on one side so Chantelle could put her little babies on the other.
Time for lighting the candles and I suddenly realised that a photo was needed - all those earlier photo opportunities were missed! So I only had time to grab the baby Samsung point and shoot and catch the candle-blowing!
There was enough time after tea for a story - the old favourite "The Gingerbread Man" It was the same book I had read for my boys when they were the age of the girls! Open and close the pages and the characters move. Then time for home.
It has been a good day - and it is good to have a quiet home again!
AJ