we had a great time with Mathew, Pauline and Brendon.

The top picture is poor tired bear........ he is bigger than brendon and provided hours of entertainment for the adults..........

The bottom picture is at a local nature park, first time i have been and will be going back.

forgotten

but some pic's

Ballooning @ 5.30am

Surprise! Happy 40th Birthday Husband. I am sure that's not what he wanted to hear at 4.30am. But i did keep it a secret for so long. when it came to the day before the forecast was not good. only 40% chance that the wind was going to be light and the rain was going to hold off and there was a thunderstorm forecast......

IS IT BALLOONING :-)

yes. i am so glad he was pleased.....

the day unfolded......

Meet at a local heritage hotel -Hyatt -for a debrief. travel about 30min north and check the forecast again. Let of a helium balloon and make a final decision (my fingers are crossed soooo hard - if we had not have lifted off the 4.30 start would have been a sore spot all weekend)


30 min later and we are holding the balloon filling it with cold air - watching the sunrise

add some hot air and its ready for lift off. OK a glass of champagne

up up and away. so peaceful, so smooth and ok some strawberries and more champagne

float over Canberra for about 45 minutes and ready for landing

the bestest bestest landing ever, not even a slight bump just a gentle as a bird.

pack the balloon in a down pour of rain :-(

picnic of coffee/hot choc/strawberries and the best homemade chocolate sauce - sorry recipe was a secret but so good.

back to the Hyatt for more champagne - traditional prayer and blessing of the balloon.

buffet breakfast - we will be returning for a buffet breakfast again this was good!

stage two of surprise unfolds

now to our spa hotel for the rest of the weekend. we had a mountain of sleep to catchup on and basically didn't leave the room. room service dinner in our PJ's

and well back to reality today.

but we have come home to all 10 fish in the pond living :-) and marks birthday day on Tuesday. more surprises? well at least his real birthday present.....

The ballooning company if you want to check out how much fun we had

www.beballooning.com.au

mums gone home ;-(

we had a great time having mum here. i had some time off work and it was a long weekend last weekend so we did have some time together. mark was away in melbourne for a night so we even got mum and me time :-)did heaps really - floriade - annual flower show- mainly tulips but very pretty - mum has all the photo's except the gnomes


we did heaps of walking and bike riding. i am a true believer that we see more of the state emblem ie black swan out of WA than what we see in WA. we saw these swans on mums first day her.

thanks mum for spending the week with us we had a great time

mum's here

mum arrived safe and sound yesterday afternoon to a st kilda loss and marks goodbye to $100 to his dad.


went for a quick walk around a local water way and saw some swans/ducks with 5 signates.





today was a boat cruise along/around lake burley griffen with lunch. very nice and relaxing tour with some good comantry from the skipper. daggy weather but worth the tour.

went for a drive up to telsra tower at the top of black mountain.

Mum and i have been for a great ride to find some room for cheese and crackers. mum got swooped by magpies but not before she tried to ride marks bike with the handle bars back to front. oh how i wish i had got a photo.......................

Its hard to believe that we e-loped 12 months ago. Well so much has changed in 12 months... We managed to escape to the coast for the weekend and found a great guest house with awesome outdoor spa at 29oC defrost those Canberra'ns defrost. And yesterday we went to Rick Steins restaurant. yummo yummo

spring is nearly here

Yes we might get to 14 degrees today..... the boys have gone off to work again and wearing shorts???? but its warm.....