Hi all
Here we are again with the July blog. It's all about our holiday in Denmark WA to celebrate John's birthday. Directly after the beach shots, both Emil and Mike went down with a very bad cold and I followed once we got home again, so that's why there's not much been going on since, chuckle!
Anyway, here's the photos and a couple of vidoes to keep you all amused.
The day after we arrived. Maya was to be in an assembly play at school depicting things on Egypt and she was to play Cleopatra.......
 |
| Maya having her make-up put on, eyes closed....... |
 |
| ....ditto, eyes open..... |
 |
| Wow! Now she looks the part! |
|
|
|
It all went off very successfully and Benjamin also showed off some craft work with some other pupils in his class.
 |
| View from the top of the hill near John and Silvia's |
One day we went to try out Mike's Spitfire 2 with John and Emil to see if it would fly. It actually did get off the ground as you can see in the video, but it sill needs a bigger engine to get it flying properly (sorry about the video quality - if you can't see it take off, you'll have to take our word for it, chuckle!)
 |
| John in control of Spitfire 2 |
Here's a photo of a couple of old duffers John found in his dining room...........
.......and some strange looking toadstools they found in the nearby woods.
Now here's John's birthday photos. After opening presents and a super breakfast in the morning, we all headed off for a couple of days stay in a chalet in Peaceful Bay, about 50kms out of Denmark.
 |
| The cake |
John asked Silvia to make him a special carrot cake for his birthday, which we managed to resist eating until we got to Peaceful Bay!
 |
| Table all set for the birthday breakfast |
|
 |
| Opening the presents |
Amongst many other lovely things, John's 2 main presents were a work table made by Emil, on which to put a drill press which Silvia bought him.
 |
| The work table. |
 |
| Emil cooked breakfast for us all |
 |
| Jo also managed to be there for John's birthday, which was a nice surprise! |
The next photos are from our sojourn at Peaceful Bay.
 |
| Blowing out the candles..... |
 |
| The cake was delicious - as always! |
Here's the birthday boy, just before going in for a swim.
It was a nice sunny day, but the wind was freezing!
We think he was very brave!
You see how cold it was by the amount of clothes we were all wearing! (Well, the adults anyway, chuckle!) and the wind was very strong as you can see by the waves!
 |
| John and the children tried fishing first..... |
 |
| ...then they decided building in the sand was easier... |
 |
| John made a sand ball...... |
 |
| ....which was later jumped on by an unruly puppy! |
 |
| Silvia and Mike |
 |
| Benjamin and Silvia |
 |
| Maisie |
 |
| Mike took this of all the rest of us. |
 |
| Benjamin (underwater!) and Maya |
Maya and Benjamin decided to take the plunge too - Benjamin is the one under the water and splashes in the photo!
To finish this part of the blog, here's a short video of the activities on the beach.
Jo and Simon continue to be busy with their various pursuits, and Jo has won a couple more prizes since the last blog I think. Alex is always out and about doing whatever it is that young people do these days, and seems to be enjoying Uni too. Liz has been doing a Uni project with some of her colleagues (I think it is a video game they have been programming) and they were invited to Demo it recently, even though it still has to have some finishing touches done to it. Apparently the demo was very successful. She and her soccer team also had a win last Sunday.
Mike and I are now over our colds so Mike has been busy fixing a nice book case we bought into the corner of the lounge room, and I managed to get in a game of bowls on Friday - the last one was 4 weeks ago, so I've been suffering withdrawal symptoms, chuckle!
Well, that's all the news for now - catch you again next time.
Enjoy!
