Flood

As you have undoubtedly heard Brisbane has been flooded. We were not affected but many around us were. The following photos show what the flooding was like in West End.

Melbourne street, West End.

 Montague road, bottom of Go Between bridge.

 Dudley street, one street away from Brisbane river.

  Musgrave park. 

 Cordelia street (near Musgrave park) 

 Paradise street park (where the kids have has birthday parties)



The kids were amazed and excited.  Of course they don't understand the impact that the flood water has had on people and their lives.  I think that it will hit home when they return to school and hear of the stories of families that weren't as lucky as us.  A mum of one of kid's friends checked their house this morning.  The water peaked just below their floorboards and they live in an old Queenslander.  Lucky for them the flood didn't reach the height predicted.

Amazing scenes and amazing stories.

Made It

Over the holidays I got my act together and created an on-line store on madit.com.  For those of you that are interested the address is www.madeit.com.au/GroundedInVegas.

Below are some photos of the new pieces that I have made.

I won't be giving up my day job in a hurry.   I haven't made any online sales yet but it has given me the motivation to make some more jewellery.

I hope that everyone else had a good break and are looking forward to 2011 as much as I am.

Sparkle Star

Well it is finally that time of year.  I have been up since 5am with two very excited boys and one grumpy baby.  The eldest child has had enough sense to keep sleeping as Christmas celebrations don't start until tonight.

The house is decorated.......

Christmas tree adorned (Although these stars that I made were sent as a present.  Hope you guys liked them.).......

Star donuts long gone (yum).......

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Safe and Happy New Year.......

GOMA

On Sunday I took the kids on one of our adventures.  What this means is that we leave the house with a rough idea of what we want to do and take it from there.  Our intention was to walk into the city to check out the Christmas festivities.

As it was another rainy day in Brisbane-town we drove part way and parked the car near South Bank.  On our way past the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) we decided to pop in to check out the new exhibition '21st Century: Art in the First Decade'.  The following is an exert from the web site.

"This summer 2010–11, to mark the end of the first decade of this millennium, the Gallery presents ‘21st Century: Art in the First Decade’. This ambitious and ground-breaking exhibition will occupy the entire Gallery of Modern Art and focus exclusively on works created between 2000 and 2010. It will showcase more than 200 works and feature over 140 artists and artist collaborative groups – senior, mid-career and emerging – from more than 40 countries."

The following photos are just a tiny part of the exhibition.  Considering that we live so close to the GOMA and that the exhibition runs until April 2011 I am sure that I will post more photos as we spend our weekends taking advantage of the free entertainment.

Below the kids are adding to the cityscape as part of Olafur Eliasson's 'The cubic structural evolution project'.  The photo doesn't do it justice but they are sitting at one very long table covered with white lego.

We all chose a wish from the wishing wall.  Each ribbon has a wish printed on it.  I chose 'I wish I was a singer'.  We then wrote another wish on a piece of paper to replace the one we took and poked it into the hole.  Hopefully our wishes will be chosen to be printed by the artist on new ribbons.

Here the kids are watching a video that daughter number 1 made.  She wore a pair of glasses that were fitted with a small camera.  She then walked around an exhibit that included paintings and pottery and spoke about what she thought of each art work.  The video was then downloaded for viewing.

We spent some times making birds.  Even daughter number 2 gave us a hand with the nest making.

Son number 1 stayed and played computer games, happy to be unbothered by his big sister.

Good weather for frogs

Brisbane has recently been receiving a lot of rain.  Which is great, except when walking to walk, drying clothes, trying to amuse kids, getting out of the house in general.  But the frogs seem to be loving it.  This frog has been visiting our backyard.  We are hoping that it finds a mate.  We keep checking our fish pond for tadpoles (in those small periods when there is a break in the weather).

School's Out

I don't know about how other parents are coping but I find this time of year difficult.  The kids are on school holidays and are looking forward to Christmas.  Meanwhile Mr Man and I don't feel in the holiday mood at all and are trying to get everything ready for the big event.

So, while I am at work Mr Man tries to amuse the kids while keeping things going at home.  Last night when I got home son number 2 was in his bedroom (time out) for an indefinite period.  As the story goes the kids had been sitting at the dining room table eating dinner.  Mr Man, who doesn't care for dinner at 5pm, was in the living room sorting laundry when he heard laughter.  While we all love our children to be happy a noticeable change in tone usually indicates that they are up to something naughty.  When Mr Man went to see what was so funny he saw son number 2 standing on the chair flicking mash potato up in the air with a wooded spoon.

I personally blame myself.  A few nights earlier the kids and I watched 'Whip It'.  It is a movie about roller derby and includes a food fight scene.

P.S. Son number 2 wants roller skates for Christmas.

Outback Australia

I have been doing a bit of travel for work lately.  I consider myself fortunate that I get to see and experience the things that go with visiting mine sites in remote parts of Australia.

The picture below was taken while Doug (my travelling companion) and I were driving to a site in Western Australia.  The picture does not do justice to the colours.  The red of the earth and the blue of the sky were truely stunning.  And the colours constantly changed.  The sunsets were beautiful.

While in Western Australia Doug decided it would be a good idea to take a couple of photos of me to show the kids.  You can just make me out in my site uniform standing next to the historical display of mining equipment (no thanks to Doug's thumb obscuring the photo).

Another trip saw Doug and I travelling to the Northern Territory.  For those of you that have never stayed at a mine's camp (accomodation) the rooms are normally large enough to house a single bed, wardrobe and a desk.  So imagine our surprise when we were given the visitor's lodge.  It was a 3 bedroom house with its own kitchen (not that we used it as a bonus of staying in camp is the canteen with all you can eat food), lounge room, dining area and bathroom.  In the evening we would gaze out the window and admire the wallabies feasting on the mangoes that had fallen to the ground.

The only draw back of the house was that it didn't keep the frogs out.