April 2018

April was a bit of a blur for me this year.  Work was crazy busy due to a raft of changes that were being introduced, uni was busy with an assignment that took way more time than I expected, and home and family life was busy as well.

Thankfully there was a bit of VERY fun stuff along the way.

School holidays for Easter were in full swing, and my dear friend, D took the Little Big Fella to the movies, then had him for a sleepover, then took us up to the Tablelands for a beautiful day's hike and picnic.  We are SO blessed to have such great friends, and such beautiful places near by!

Looking down on the spot where we normally swim.  I found out later friends of ours were the ones down there!

The view from our little beach picnic spot

Can you see our little friend?

The Commonwealth Games were in the Gold Coast, which is in our State here in Australia, so there were promo items all over the place.  I really enjoyed seeing the paralympian events integrated with the regular games!  It was so good to actually see them during peak times, rather than normally when they're on during the day when everyone is at work.

I started my first ever mosaic this month as well.  It's fairly basic, and still needs to be grouted, but I quite like it.

Unfortunately I didn't finish any art work this month because my uni assignment took all my spare time.  I'm going to have to push pretty hard to get something done for the high school art show at the end of May.  The challenge is set!

The Big Fella has been working on a new brewing system, which he finally completed in April.  Still a few tweaks to be done, but he's mostly happy with it.

I came home one day after a stressful few days, and found a bunch of roses on my table!  Apparently the Fellas had been shopping and the Little Big Fella suggested they buy them for me.

One of the Big Fella's mates has a 100 acre property about 2 and a half hours from us.  He had a big birthday so a bunch of us went and camped out and spent the weekend with him.  It was so good to get some time out, again in such a beautiful place.

The bigger boys tried to do some electrical work for the shed, while the Little Big Fella dinked his mate on his motorbike.  (Note that helmets were put on as soon as this photo was taken!!!!)

One of the guys has a clay target "trap", so everyone had a go with the shot guns.

Meet some of the piglets!  They thought I was bringing them food and were HIGHLY unimpressed (and noisy) when I didn't.

On the night of the actual party, one of the ladies brought out her face painting stuff and entertained the kids for a while.

The aftermath!

The night before ANZAC Day, the local junior footy club held a glow run.  The Little Big Fella and I went along for the fun and caught up with a bunch of friends at the same time (I haven't got their permission to put photos up, so you just get the ones of us).

They had a bit of a disco afterwards, with plenty of black lights to show the glow.

I ended up going to the ANZAC Day dawn service the following morning.  It's an interesting tradition, quite strong here in Australia.  It began as a commemoration of the Australian and New Zealand troops' participation in World War I, but now symbolises the "coming of age" of the two nations, and a recognition of our participation in conflicts since.  As all of the WWI veterans have now died, and many from WWII are gone, it's becoming common for their youngest living relatives to wear their medals at the dawn service or in the morning march, and "keep their memories alive".

Well, that's about it for April, 2018.  I'll finish up with a few photos of the bees in my basil - little native ones and "standard" ones.  See you at the end of May!