Day to Day

Ideas for instagram photos

A few weeks ago I came across Stickygram, an easy way to turn your instagram photos into fridge magnets.  I ordered a pack for our fridge straight away and yesterday they arrived.  Super cute & such a nice way to turn instagram photos into a fab keepsake.

I'm thinking they would make a lovely gift too.  Actually I was going to keep these magnets and pop them away for Mr Goodsell's Christmas stocking, but I was too excited not to show him.  I know, no restraint.  They're pics from our Great Ocean Road/Adelaide trip and look super sweet on our fridge.

No, I can't show them to you on the fridge - our fridge is too messy for that! Teehee.

P.S. Although my photos above look a little on the dark side, they're much brighter in real life.  The quality of the Stickygram magnets is fantastic! I'd happily recommend them and hope to grab a few more sets for myself in the future.

Holiday feelings

Rich and I have been feeling the blues for the last couple of days.  Not blues from an unhappy holiday, oh no, it's more that feeling in our bones that we'll soon be back to mundane duties, the school run, work and all those every day kind of things that aren't near as fun or enticing as an 18 day road trip.

That feeling of wanting to keep on driving all the way around Australia and not return home for six months or more.  But, of course the normal life is calling us and we must head home on the boat today.

Our family holidays are always so fun, let's just hope that we can do it again soon!   

What about you?  Do you suffer from the holiday blues when your holiday is coming to an end?

Sovereign Hill for the day

About 5 years ago was our first Sovereign Hill experience.  We spent a day there with the kids, pottering around the area and panning for gold in the creek.  

James thought it was pretty cool and Bella (just 5 years old) sat and cried her heart out in the school room when the teacher ordered everybody to write out some words in their neatest writing or face the cane.  "But, mummy I don't even know how to write yet" she sobbed.  As a 5 year old, she didn't understand that we were in a pretend environment.  We still remind her of the day that she didn't know how to write and there has been a lot of gentle teasing leading up to our second visit. 

Today the school house was closed, so Miss Bella couldn't relive the moment, but there were still plenty of other wonderful things to do at the gold fields.

 

We spent pretty much the entire day just pottering around, doing the gold mine tour (very interesting), playing old fashioned games, sipping hot chocolate, learning how to make candles & dipping them (Bella & Rich) and panning for gold in the creek.

It was a fantastic family day out, even with a little sprinkle of rain.

{Sovereign Hill - hot chocolates all round}

{Fun things to do}

 {There were no giant nuggets found}

 {Hanging out}

{Indoor bowling}

Tomorrow evening we head back to Tasmania.  We don't want to leave, it's truly been the best family holiday!

Holiday mode relaxation

We woke to a slight drizzly and cold day yesterday, so decided to hang around our apartment in Ballarat for the day instead.  I spent many hours sewing Bella's crochet blanket squares together (still going!) and we popped out to buy a couple of new DVD's to watch in the afternoon.

The Iron Giant was a favourite family DVD when James was little and it's another one of our all time favourite movies.  Johnny English was hilarious in true Rowan Atkinson style!

It was nice to just sit and rest our bones for most of the day.  Today we have sunshine again, so we're off to Sovereign Hill, hooray!

Vlog: Family road trip

Our road trip vlog from today, recorded somewhere between Murray Bridge and Ballarat.  It's worth a watch, especially to see the Scottish lad at the end.  Enjoy!

Blogging in the road

I’m blogging from inside the Territory right now, as we drive to Ballarat.  It’s a little bit bumpy to type on my lap top and possibly a great way to make myself car sick, but I thought I’d pop in and say hello.  We’ve made another family vlog on the road, but I’ll have to load that up after we’re unpacked tonight.

{James is being SILLY}

We’ve just driven across the border into Victoria and the sun is shining!  The country side is really pretty and we’re hoping to be at Ballarat by 3.30.  Hooray for fun road trips!

 

Adelaide - Murray Bridge

This morning we hit the Harbour Town shopping outlet and we high tailed it out of there with a family purchase of Lego.  I say family purchase because it was insanely expensive (don't ask, Mum..lol) so we pooled our funds, with James and Bella throwing in a big chunk of their spending money and I used some of my recent Nuffnang bloggy funds - a great reason for the Aussie bloggers to sign up to Nuffnang!  Long term readers would know that we're a BIG Lego family and have long dreamed of owning and building one of the 16+ sets, so today was the day.  

After our morning shop, we drove out to Melba's Chocolate factory and sampled/bought....chocolate!

Hahndorf was our next little stop and what a beautiful and interesting town.  We had a gorgeous time wandering in and out of the shops there.

Thanks very much to my lovely blog readers for recommending we visit this town, it was fabulous.

We're at Murray Bridge tonight, in a nice caravan park overlooking the Murray River.  Steak sandwiches were on the menu for dinner with a few of our Melba chocolates for dessert.  Oh, yes!

What does tomorrow hold?  Well, there should be a new road trip vlog tomorrow evening!  We are driving to Ballarat in one day - hello seven hour drive in the car.  The vlog also might involve this ridiculous hat (below) that Rich bought for himself today at the costly sum of $10.  Yes, that is fake hair/fur on the side.  Stylish people, stylish.

See you all tomorrow evening!

Paint ball + Bloggy meet up

{All photos taken with my iPhone on instagram}

What a day! We set off early this morning to have a wander through the Adelaide CBD and then drove to Port Adelaide so that the boys could play paint ball.  Yes, paint ball - hello boys that are sporting some super big bruises tonight, but had the best time playing the game.  For those who aren't up to speed - paint ball is where you play in teams, wear protective clothing and shoot paint balls at each other.  The also really hurt and bruise!

{Boys all dressed up & watching introductory paint ball video - the backward caps are to protect your neck area once the mask goes on}

Then, we drove to Glenelg so that Bella and I could meet up with some lovely fellow bloggers - Kate, Alyce, Sarah, Lauren and some of their little people.  Alyce had the sweetest baby for me to squish!

• Top row: Kate & myself, Bella and two of Kate's girls
• Bottom row: Bella & Sarah's girls, Lauren & myself

Unfortunately I forgot to snap photos of Sarah, Alyce and baby Isabelle.

Kate, Miss Georgia & Miss Charlotte brought along their Blythe dolls to share and show.  Bella was completely obsessed with one of Kate's Blythe dolls that has been customised with mohair.  She talked solidly for two hours (yes!) after the meet up about the mohair and how she has plans for her own Blythe doll hair customisation.

As the sun was going down (after the meet) we strolled down to water and Bella had a 6pm ice cream.  It was dinner time really, but it's not every day that you're on holidays and can enjoy an ice cream pre dinner.

A great way to end another fantastic day!

The games we play on the road

During our road trip we've been playing a little game in the car.  We call it 'punch Territory' and what that means is that every time you spot another Ford Territory on the road, you call it out and lightly punch the person closest to you.  Don't worry - our punches are more of a light tap on the arm, so nobody is harmed during the process!

In Geelong (just out of Melbourne) the game got a little out of hand because it seemed like every second car was a Ford Territory, so we had to call a momentary truce for punches and instead just do the call out.  It's fun to do, gets everybody on the look out for similar cars and often causes great hysterics of laughter.  There's a rule that you can't punch twice for the one car, so you really need to be on the look out!

Apart from car spotting, we have also seen some other pretty fabulous sights on our trip.  Here are a few of them:

• Kangaroos
• Emu
• Ducks & geese, rosella parrots, cockatoos & good old sea gulls
• Rabbits
• Shetland ponies, cows, sheep & goats

• Acres upon acres of pine plantations

• Lots of long, straight roads!

• A crane on the road

• Hay bales

• A giant crayfish

• An old drott

• Lakes, oceans, rivers & dams

• Beautiful old buildings, many scattered in country paddocks

• Antique shops, op-shops, department stores, petrol stations & a whole lot of country bakeries filled with delicious food and hot chocolates!

Of course there have been so many more wonderful things to see along the way - these are just a few that we've spotted.

It's an amazing country that we live in!  Here's to a lot more road trips & plenty more 'Punch Territory' spotting. 

Road trip purchases (part 1)

Yesterday when we drove through the sleepy little town of Yankalilla, I called into a sweet vintage store that had the best second hand books for sale.  See that pile of goodness above?  $10 was my grand total for all eight books, so good.

First up we found some Enid Blyton Secret Seven books - Bella was beside herself with happiness.

Next up was this vintage sewing book - again for Bella.

Another one for Bella, Fairy Tales & Fables.

The Big Book of Soft Toys! I'm not sure that I'll ever make anything out of this one, but for the grand total of 50 cents, I couldn't leave it on the shelf.

Making felt toys and glove puppets was another one that I couldn't pass up at $1.

The last one is full of different patchwork techniques and I'm really looking forward to having a good flick through this once we arrive home.

I called this post 'part 1' because we have a stack more goodies from today to share.  The boys bought some toys today too!

We're in Adelaide now and tomorrow I'm looking forward to meeting up with some lovely South Australian friends & bloggers, hooray for nice things!