Hello again
Well this month has been really hectic but lovely as my sister Marion and her daughter Trudi have been over from the UK for a visit. As you can imagine, we've taken loads of photos so this could turn out to be a huge blog, chuckle! It'll be mostly photos with captions to save a bit of time (if possible!). It may be a good idea to 'bookmark' this page so you can go back to it at your leisure and carry on from where you left off looking at it, chuckle!
There were many events, beginning with Mike's 80th birthday, which included 5 different celebrations for it, including a big paella down in Denmark!
Lizzie's birthday was another event and mine the last at the end of the month, the day before Marion returned to the UK. (Trudi had to go back on 14th Oct as she had to go back to work). We all had a great time and were sorry to see each of them leave.
However I do have one photo from September which John sent us of Benjamin at the Steiner Schools Greek Olympics which were held at Bibra Lake (Perth) recently. Benjamin's Steiner school won overall, so they were all very happy!
Now here's all the October photos.
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| Marion and Trudi's arrival |
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Jo giving us a wine tasting
on the eve of Mike's birthday |
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| All the different wines! |
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| Dinner after the wine tasting! |
Mike had loads of cards and presents - here he is opening a couple of them on his 'real' birthday.
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| Some of the cards were really funny! |
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| Trudi |
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| Marion |
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| Lizzie giving Mike his present |
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| Trudi, Jo and Liz |
Although Mike's main family celebration would be down in Denmark, at lunch time we had a few friends round to celebrate his 'real' birthday.
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| Some of Mike's presents |
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Maisie, Eileen, Dave, Trudi, Mike, Liz, Marion
and Marj |
Jo had to leave before the lunch to get back to Denmark, but it was lovely to have her there for the present opening at breakfast time.
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| Mike, Marj, John and Maisie |
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Champagne time!
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| Please raise your glasses, chuckle! |
Two days later when we arrived in Denmark, John and Silvia put on another birthday dinner for Mike, so he had another cake!
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| Trudi, Maya, Emil, Jo, John, Silvia |
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| Blowing out the candles. |
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| Jo made this lit up sign! |
Next morning we all met up at the Ravens cafe then had a nice walk along the river.
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| Silvia, Maya, Benjamin, John and Jo |
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| John, Silvia and Trudi |
In the evening we had another celebration in the Pepper and Salt restaurant, which was a treat for all of us from Marion and Trudi.
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Selection of desserts which came complete
with a birthday candle for Mike to blow out! |
On Saturday we had another lovely celebration at Jo's house.
Afterwards we played 'Pit' which was very load and very funny - but I didn't get any photos, chuckle!
Sunday was the day of the big Paella Party to celebrate Mike's 80th! To start with, here's a couple of photos of John's sand printing on the road in front of their house.
Now here's the party photos starting with some of the table decorations
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| Emil cooking one of the paellas |
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| The Paella! |
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| The vegetarian paella |
Here we are all sitting down to eat. Most of the guests, apart from family, were friends of John and Silvia's who we also knew quite well.
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| We managed to fit them all in! |
Afterwards came the entertainment, then the cakes, then some story telling.
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| John's group - TUESDAYLAND |
John's group played some good songs, several written by members of the band and all were good to dance to!
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| Here you can see Jo, Silvia and Trudi..... |
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| .....and Mike and Maisie |
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| Maya and friends also put on a good show! |
Then came the cakes! Silvia had excelled herself by making 2 black forest gateaux - complete with walking men and trees on, apart from a big 'Mike' on one and '80' on the other, and a Pavlova, all of which were delicious.
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| Mike with his cakes! |
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| The birthday boy! |
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| A birthday bouquet of Australian flowers |
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| Waiting round the fire for the story telling to start |
It was a wonderful party and a really fun day enjoyed by everybody!
The following day John had organised a trip on a boat round the inlet in Walpole. The weather stayed good and we had a good time, as you can see from the photos below.
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| Disinfecting shoes re 'die back' |
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| This is where we moored to visit an island... |
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| On the way we passed this heritage pagoda |
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| A view from the top of the hill |
From here John, Mike, Benjamin, Jo and Trudi walked (with some of the other passengers) from the top of the hill down onto the beach, while me and Marion went back down to the jetty for refreshments.
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| Rocks at the far end of the beach. |
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| Here they are coming back. |
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Mike, John and Marion in a big old
tree |
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| Trudi in a big old tree |
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| Strange nodules! |
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Trudi - not very happy on the open grating!
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View across the walk - I think that's Marion
on the other side. |
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| Looking down from the walk way |
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| A beautiful view |
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Trudi, Maisie and Marion on the turn, chuckle!
Here is a photo of a mother kangaroo with her little 'Joey' in her pouch which Marion took when she and Trudi were so thrilled to see them in John and Silvia's garden!
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The day before Mike, me, Marion and Trudi drove back to our place, we spent sometime showing Marion and Trudi a bit of the local coastline and also had some time at Greens Pool, which is used as the best place around for teaching the local school children to swim.
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| Overlooking the inlet to Ocean Beach... |
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| John, Maya and Benjamin |
Greens Pool photos below
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| John setting up the picnic |
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| Benjamin going in |
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| Jo in her tent.... |
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| ......in the water..... |
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| .....and out again!..... |
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| Marion, Maisie and Mike |
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| Jo and Trudi |
On the last night in Denmark, we had dinner at John and Silvia's, then Emil and Maya played for us.
We'd had a really lovely time with them all down there and crammed such a lot in, so it was especially nice for Marion and Trudi to see where the family lived. I think they were very impressed!
I am going to put the rest of the photos of what we did when we got back home on another blog as this one seems to be bigger than I expected! I will see if I can send this one off first, then work on the other one and send that later!
Enjoy!
