Showing off in style

There were dozens of amazing floats in the Grand Parade on the final Saturday of the Toowoomba Flower Festival however I will not even attempt to share them all with you! However I will give you a little glimpse.

Do you remember the Smurfs? I had two little plastic smurfs as mascots when I was a teenager (before the Ark sank) so it was with great amusement that I shot this picture and the following one.

They look the same - but so much larger and cuddlier! But who is the girl with them? Is she part of the team or is she there to rescue them if they fall?

The characters from Star Trek were also marching in the parade - Storm troopers! Good fun! I don't remember a little black one though. I shall have to watch the movie again!

Here is a vehicle that proves that learning to drive can be fun! I like the "L" plates on the wheels!
The parade was great - there were so many marchers and different floats that the parade took over an hour to pass. The audience were almost passing out from being in the sun all that time so the marchers dressed in all enveloping costumes must have been cooking! I am glad I had lighter clothing on!
AJ

Happy New Year

May this year bring you much happiness and lots of great memories!

AJ

Click on the face of the movie to see it in Youtube - part of the movie has been trimmed to fit in this blog!

Christmas is coming

With our topsy turvy weather no one can make any plans for outdoor activities. So many different Christmas pageants have been cancelled in the past two weeks here on the Gold Coast that it is not funny - and I suspect that this trend is not isolated to here. Rain is covering Australia and even the Hairy Nosed Wombat in the desert area of western Queensland has become a water rat with a flooded burrow. (For those of you who do not know this rather rotund huge guinea pig, it is a very endangered member of our native animals!)
Lucky for us, I planned our Christmas break-up for our Visions Group yesterday as an indoor celebration. As Santa was invited too, I asked a few children along to brighten our day. It worked!
Our Santa was a champion and the children - who ranged in age from 10 months to eight years - really had fun with this playful character.

Our youngest party-goer checks if the beard is real.

Santa's real life wife had come along to our celebration too and she remarked that she was amazed at how the children reacted to him. Perhaps it was because we were all in a party mood and the children felt safe and excited. Being in a home with Santa is a lot more relaxed than being in a shopping centre surrounded by strangers.

Being asked to give a "hi-5"

Once the children and Santa had left, the exhausted members of Visions also made their departure. Oh yes, we all had a turn at having our photos taken with the gent in red! Our cheeks were aching from all the smiling! We had a lot of fun.
But now it is pouring with rain and the back yard is not lawn but water frontage! The creek has flooded and is over the banks again. If the weather had been like this yesterday we would have had fewer people at our party because many roads are flooded and those that are not are quite dangerous because of the driving rain.
Christmas carols that are normally held as fund raisers for charities are being cancelled left right and centre. Our local carols were supposed to be held this morning - but it has rained all day so I bet they didn't happen. A big event with one of the "You've got talent" winners, plus two others in different parts of the Gold Coast will be casualties of our rain since they are supposed to start at six this evening - and it has just turned six as I write this story. It must be dreadfully disappointing for the organisers - as well as the performers who were expecting to make their appearances. Even our Santa from yesterday will miss out on his appearances too.

On a lighter note. I will share my email address with you. If you need to contact me it might be useful!

AJ    joanren@gmail.com

Holiday pics

Taday I took not one photograph and yet the day has been filled with the joy of photography. After our last holiday in the Blue Mountains and our visit to Canberra to see the amazing floral display at the "Floriade" I put my photos together into a photo-book. Today I collected that book from BigW - I had created the book on-line and chose the cheaper option of collecting the book in person rather than have it posted to me. This is the first time I had created a 12" x 12" book and as well as a personalised hard cover it has 48 pages of memories! There is a standard price for 20 pages and after that you can add more and more pages to suit the number of pictures you have. I created each page myself, arranging the photos and inserting text so I loaded one photo per page. Additional pages are added two at a time (face and reverse side) so deciding on the correct number of pages was easy for me.
Both Colin and I have been through that book several times already and have even taken it around to a friend's home to show it off! I can see my bookshelves being filled with our own creations (yes, Colin's photos are mixed in with mine) and the old books put into the recycle bin to make room for them! Anyone want 30+ year old Encyclopaedia Britanica collection? The gold embossed set looks smart and has had lots of use but it doesn't generate any interest these days - but is a great dust collector!
Easter Sunday is tomorrow and with one son now in Alice Springs - and taking a group of 45 cyclists and their cycles in a double decker bus to some place south of Darwin - our family will not be all together this year. Easter Sunday is a day for children and we grand-parents will be joining our littlies and giving them chocolate eggs. We have been invited to a midday barbecue.
I wish everyone who visits my blog a Happy Easter - and maybe you have had to buy yourself some chocolate, as I have - I think everyone else is watching my figure! Have a great day.
AJ