Bits n Pieces.

Hey everyone, it's been ages since I've done a post so here's a heap of photos. Our camera is actually broken so that's why it's taken me so long to post this time.

We saved quite a few of these frogs from the dogs in the rains recently.

They're cute and tiny, but have a big expanding throat and that makes them very very LOUD.

Australia day was at our place this year. This is Brodie with Kylin, they had a great day together. View from the kid supervision seat by the pool. Not a very good photo but a great day. :) This one's out of order. After the cyclone, Filiz and the boys were left without power for quite a few days. They came over for some fanning and a swim.

3 beautiful girls came to visit from Melbourne. They are my sister in laws nieces. Gorgeous! and Kylin just adored them all. Kerry and Dean came too of course but we didn't get pics of them. We had a great day together at the lagoon then a BBQ at our place.

TADPOLES!! Heaps and heaps and heaps of them. yayyyyy. So many that I had to give them their own pool. :)

Cyclone Yasi. Very scary. Thankfully for us it speared off south at the very last minute. This was our set up in the en-suite, imagining we might have to spend some time there.

I took the labels off the cans and put some of the big water bottles with them, in the pool. That way if we lost the roof and everything got sucked out, we'd still have food and fresh water afterwards.

This was our yard before.

When we'd done as much preperation as we could. We walked around to Tina's to wait out the hours until it hit us. The media were beating it up heaps and we were all really scared. Tina had taken in two other families who had been evacuated from the northern beaches. So in true north Queensland spirit, we drank - it was all we could do.

Kylin slept in the shower and I set up his DVD player on his tray, he thought it was brilliant and once he was asleep, he slept through the whole thing.

Polar took a similar relaxed attitude to everything despite being buffeted by leaves during the night and still had his breakfast in bed.

This mess was just a small section of our pool. It was like a pond. It took Damian ages to vacume and scoop it all out.

Our yard afterwards. There was little structural damage just heaps of trees down and leaf litter everywhere.

The rain continued in torrents afterwards and poured in sheets from all around our house, despite the gutters being cleared, it rained that hard that the gutters were full and spilling over all around the house, it was amazing.

On another note - I made apple and pear cider - mmmmmm!

Our dear friends Bindi and Dan left Cairns and have moved to Perth. This was taken on the night of their farewell dinner. I cried all the way home. Saying goodbye to her kids was awfull. They have been such a big part of our lives and I miss her, and those little people very much.

Bindi's oldest boy Brodie and Kylin at their farewell dinner.

Luscious little Baylie. xo Miss you too little one.

Lots has happened in between but our camera broke so no pics except for this one of Kylin last Friday who came home from school sick and slept for nearly 18 hours then woke up a new boy. :)

Because Damian posted last time, the Feb and March babies were neglected so lets say a big belated happy birthday to our February babies:

Marie, Merial, Marisol, Jessica, Mandy, Ernie, John, Kimmy and Taylah.

Hope you had a wonderful birthday. xoxo

Congratulations to Trixie, Keir, Blake, Taylah, and Ashleigh on the arrival of their newest addition Chase born on the 17th Feb. Congratulations to you all he is just gorgeous. xoxo

Happy birthday to our March babies:

Beccy boo, Jenny, me, Jacinta, Joanne, Nick, Rob, Michael, Stuart, Finlay, Aimee, Sooz, Rach and John C snr.

We hope your day was, and will be, fantastic. xoxo

In anticipation that we may not post again until the camera is fixed lets shout out to our April babies as well.

Mia, Blake, Randy, Meg, Muriel, Lisa, Susan, Dirt bag, Bindi, and Noah.

We send you our best wishes and hope you have a brilliant day. xoxo

Anniversary shouts to

Danny & Caroline

Us - (we met 10 years ago March 2001) and wedding anniversary in April

Susan & John

Shane & Marisol

Congratulations!!

Hugs to those who loved my nan for the 6th April. xoxo

Hope you are all happy and well and life is bringing you loads of reasons to smile. :)

Hugs and love - from us. xoxoxo

Hi there everyone who reads our wonderful Blog.
Karen does such a great job with keeping everyone up to date n Kylin and her activities and the photos are just brilliant. I thought it was probably timely that I gave you all a bit of an update on what I’ve been doing over the last six or so months. As you may know I started work as a train driver with Pacific National Qld in Townsville in February last year. I was driving freight trains between Cairns and Mackay. The Townsville to Cairns jobs were great as I got to see Karen and Kylin (Kylin really loved visiting me in the hotel in Cairns where we had our rest period before driving back to Townsville). I really enjoyed the Mackay jobs as well as I was the only driver on the freighter and we were allowed to do 100kph on that route!

I moved back to Cairns in November and started back as a Lieutenant Commander with the Hydrographic Group at HMAS CAIRNS doing Navy Reserve days. There is tons of work to do (mainly writing Service papers) and helping get the survey fleet fully operational with their new survey systems. I’ve been advised that the Navy has given me work until the end of the financial year and I’m pretty certain that there will be more to come in the next FY.

I decided to move back to Cairns because even though I was getting home regularly from Townsville on my days off and when I brought the train up, I was still missing Karen and Kylin so very much. They both needed me here in Cairns and I needed to be with them also. It s been so wonderful being back home and being able to see my beautiful family everyday. Kylin has been into work at the Navy base quite a few times and he absolutely loves it. He says "he is part of the Navy crew and everyone knows him now". He always does some colourful drawings for each of the staff in the office and everyone thinks he is great.

I haven’t completely lost touch with the train driving. As well as the Navy work (which is Mon to Friday) I also am employed as a casual employee of Cairns Kuranda Steam. Cairns Kuranda used to run a steam train up to Kuranda but they predominantly operate a railmotor (The Savannahlander) out to Forsyth. They also are subcontracted by Pacific National to operate freight trains to and from Townsville when they are running short of crews or their drivers are fatigued. I have had quite a few runs up and back to Townsville which keeps my qualifications and route knowledge up to speed. The main thing is that I don’t spend anymore than a night or two away from Cairns and I still get to "play trains".

I’m also enjoying being back because there are always so many things to do around the house and in the yard. And of course the dogs love the fact they get a couple of walks a day in now.

I've attached some photos of a trip I did between Townsville and Cairns. Hope you like them.

Melbourne visit Jan 11th to 19th.

Hello everyone. I have just returned from my trip to Melbourne. Here are some of the photos. This is the view from the road overlooking my friends house where I stayed while I was there. Beautiful, peaceful, and very relaxing.

Some amazingly detailed graffiti.
Sightseeing on my way to the museum.
Exhibition building.

A whale skeleton. The shadows were amazing.

Jacinta, Micheal, Liam and Emma ran amok with me at the museum, we didn't stop laughing the whole time. Gorgeous people. xoxoxoxo

Liam and Emma in the roller coaster.

For very small babies

Naaawwww she's sooo cute

Went to visit Trixie, Keir, Blake, and Ashleigh and had a great catch up, the day flew. This is little Ashleigh with her dad. Thanks for having us guys. xoxoxoxo

Then it was off to see luscious Cameron. We couldn't get a good photo of us both at once so I used a good one of him. Thank you for a magic afternoon Cam. xoxoxoxo

We went to the cricket to see England and Australia play.

Had fantastic seats on the fence, the weather was great, we had an awesome day.

Later on we moved up into the higher stands, the view from up there was magnificent.

Wayne's birthday we gathered at Tony and Tookta's for a BBQ

Little Wayne :)

Pete n Deb came and brought loads and loads of wood for us to play with. Thanks for coming to see us guys. xoxoxoxo

The birthday boy looking coy.

Safety issues? what safety issues? He is the firestarter!

HAHAHAHAHA

The ashes!

Stu turns the fire into a submarine.

I had a fantastic time, saw some incredible bands, ate loads of delicious food, caught up with my other mum who is just such a beautiful lady. Saw Greg, Sharon, Ali, Mark, Simon and Emily. Discovered the mighty Boosh to which I am now addicted. Saw the sun come up quite a few times. Got introduced to loads of new music. Brought some magic sparkly converse shoes (life is too short NOT to have magic sparkly converse shoes) and did some advanced relaxing. My dear friend Wayne drove me everywhere, thank goodness he's used to driving a lot cause we covered some miles, he picked me up and dropped me off at the airport, put me up, and partied with me till he couldn't. Namaste my friend -Thank you. xo

The next post wont be about me at all - I promise :)

Hope you are all happy and well and everything is great in your world.

Love from (cyclone) Kaz. xoxoxo