photostory friday: golden years

these photos were taken on saturday april 23, 1960

and these were taken on saturday april 24, 2010

my parents have been married for 50 years!

..and mr scrappy and i have been married for 25

75 years between the 4 of us

not a bad effort

i feel quite honoured to have been a part of their celebrations

they certainly are amazing role models for marriage

they drive each other crazy i'm sure, but for better or for worse (and all the other 'and/ors')

they look pretty damn happy to me!

(this last photo is a little blurry, as my dad was spinning mum around the dance floor, and that wonderful portrait lens of mine has a VERY narrow depth of field!)

i really enjoyed scanning in their wedding album (for the photo board), and the opportunity to touch up many of the photos, and i now look forward to scrapping them too!

Hosted by Cecilyand Caitlin

wordful wednesday: just like pioneer woman's, but blurry and without the chips

i really do take my hat off to PW - how she photographs EVERY stage of cooking a meal

it was all i could do to get this photo in decent light (had to photoshop later of course!) before the hungry masses bore down on me and scooped up, what turned out to be a very popular (and easy to prepare) meal!

thanks P-DUB!

although most of my family have NO idea who you are

(despite the fact that i talk about you all the time),

they sure do love your recipes, and (so far), the sloppy joes all appear demon-free, as do my children

(well, mostly...)

for more wordful wednesday, visit angie over @ seven clown circus

do want the recipe?

well, here it is!

photostory friday: pictures of oz

firstly, by way of explanation, "OZ" is a kiwi way of saying 'australia'

our trip to see tara and her fam for 8 days during the recent school holidays was simply wonderful, and contained a little and a lot of everything...

an early morning start

friendship and joy

a second birthday!

beaches

did i say beaches already?

how about jumping at beaches...

and some snorkelling

then there were the wharves

the local council allows houses to build RIGHT to the water, so there are any number of private wharves, but plenty of public ones too

perfect for jumping off...

then there was our day trip to sydney

this involved a lot of ANTICIPATION

then exhaustion..

did you know there are ONE MILLION 56 THOUSAND TILES

on the roof of the sydney opera house?

and here's just one of them!

chocolates galore at the lindt cafe

our week was full of cute dogs too

and chocolate pizza

WHAT holiday is complete without chocolate pizza?

and big knickers

i almost forgot about the big knickers

did i mention the beaches already?

and more joy (for the jumping of)

sightseeing too

and ice skating

i almost forgot about the ice skating

and the scary pelicans

was there ever a FREAKIER bird?

i don't know how big their brains are, but they're smart enough to wait by the fish filleting table at the beach and wait for the leftovers to wash out

watching one pelican try to carry off the remains of an entire fish without all the other pelicans stealing it off him was entertaining.  freaky but entertaining

then it was time to say farewell

and thank goodness for skype :)

Hosted by Cecilyand Pam

wordful wednesday: unemployed

it's been an interesting week in the scrappy household

on april 1st i left my job

on april 2nd the school holidays/easter break started

on april 3rd, misses 12, 13 and i flew to australia to spend a week with tara and her girls

because it was 4.34am and i was feeling playful or stroppy or both - i decided to answer the 'occupation or job' question thus...

interestingly, the australian arrival and departure cards ask 'what is your USUAL occupation', so i could answer EVENT MANAGEMENT, but i figured a stupidly open-ended question deserved an equally obnoxious answer.

...which begs the question, do i now revert to being a SAHM, or am i simply unemployed (and an official statistic)?

was i unemployed those 20 years i was a SAHM, and what sort of statistic was i then?

all those unpaid hours

all that undocumented work

makes ya think

for more wordful wednesday, visit angie over @ seven clown circus

photostory friday and the belated birthday party

miss 12 observes her birthday each year whilst we are camping

because we have always camped in a big group, we've thrown a birthday party camping styles and she's had a pretty good time!

she does however, miss having her CURRENT CLASSMATES at her birthday party

this happened to miss 20 when we lived in the states (her birthday is in august)

any child in north american who has a birthday from mid-june until august will understand!

this year we were camping on our own, so there was no birthday party

we even made her wait until lunchtime to open her presents

(we had taken shelter in a nearby restaurant from the RAIN!)

...so i decided to throw her a birthday party

we finally settled on the 2nd weekend in march

here be the cake - a whole tray of cupcakes-cake if you will...

arty shot of said cake/cupcakes

(taken with my portrait lens - of course!)

and the maker/designer/person of said cupcakes/cake

 don't you just love a reaction to a birthday persent like this?

i should get so excited over erasers...

do you have SMIGGLE where you live? it's all the rage here

i do a pass the parcel with a diference

in each layer there's a mini chocolate bar with a question about the birthday girl attached

if you don't know the answer, someone else will, and it's a great way to get to know her better

everyone loves a happy birthday!

after everyone arrived and we did presents and pass the parcel, we drove 10 mins to play a couple of games of laser tag.

we were gone from the house no more than an hour so

i ENCOURAGED the girls to leave their cell phones behind

i only had to talk one girl down off the wall

when we got home, she had 55 text messages on her phone

FIFTY.  FIVE.  MESSAGES

i asked "are they all from the same person wondering why you didn't text back?"

no she replied, looking like i'd just asked the dummest question EVA!

her phone is like a 2nd skin.  NOT healthy.

ready for action!

blowing out the candles

happy birthday to my cupcake queen

Hosted by Cecily and Mamarazzi