E is for…..

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Today is brought to you by the Letter “E” ( I feel like the voice over on the Sesame Street TV show… blame the Grand-babies, we LOVE Sesame street!)

E… that could be considered one of the harder letters, but look at the date… its “Easter”

We’ve just gotten home from an amazing four-day weekend with family and my Bestest best friend and her family.. technically not “blood” family, I class her as more of a sister than anyone who shares my blood.

What’s that quote “Friends are the family you give yourself” I am so thankful to ME that I gave myself Deanne…. you’ll meet her later on it the Alphabet!!

So on Thursday my Cousin Lee (again, another one that classifies as a “sister” but with diluted blood,you’ll meet her at letter “L”) and her daughter and Star Son and I got into the car with Polly the dog and set off for our “Easter Escape at St Leonards” Lee was towing the camper trailer that my Bestie and her family were staying in because our Caravan ark doesn’t allow tents! weird I know!

And here we all are, although only half of Polly!

We got down there at about 2.00 pm and Lee’s partner (which sounds kind of clinical.. so I’m upgrading his to “Cousin-in-law” ) Craig arrived not long after so we three set up the Camper trailer and had it almost finished when Deanne and Steve and the boys 17 yr old B and 13 yr old J. Let the fun begin!!

That night marked the official opening season of “footy” (In Australian it’s AFL, and here’s a link to see what I’m on about: http://www.afl.com.au/ while you are there check out Richmond or Tigers… then in future posts you’ll know who I’m on about that’s the only team we all follow) So we sat around and watched TV and caught up on all the gossip, let the marathon crochet begin tomorrow!

“Good Friday”

Deanne was up early she didn’t sleep well and so we had an early start, Lee came over and did some art and Deanne and I started crocheting our “Hooded Scarf” Link… http://crochetncrafts.com/beginner-hooded-scarf/ needless to say mine was once again an utter failure… and I had to pull about 3/4’s of it out and re start it… I am not so good with the fancier stuff and I cannot read patterns but once I have the pattern in my head I’m totally fine!  Lunch was tuna sandwiches (it’s GOOD FRIDAY no meat!) for dinner that night we have prawn and scallops  skewers cooked on the BBQ with satay sauce and rice. Yummy!! and did more crochet… that was when Craig decided that tomorrow we should ALL get together and cook a huge meal (Last Supper??) and announced he was cooking Roast Lamb.. ok, anyone who has had Craig’s roast lamb never, ever, says no a second or subsequent times.. so we were in..

Easter Saturday

The Shops are open again, so we headed out to do the shopping for “The Last Supper” the people over the road were doing vegetables, the people next door to Craig were doing desert, so we got to supply little things like onions, foil trays, cutlery and crockery and they put Deanne in charge of the washing up… now being a Good Bestie, that I aim to be,  I wasn’t about to let her suffer in agony, so I brought plastic plates and cutlery and table cloths and at the end of the night we rolled the whole lot up and threw it in the bin! YAY!! While we were out shopping for that stuff we had to do a detour to all the second-hand/ charity shops in the area.. we have certain things we look for in certain shops, and so I was ale to get some more wool in one shop, some books for my Grand babies in another shop and the final shop is where you usually hit payload!!

 

And today was no different, all these wonderful learning books yay!

So once we got the shopping and got back to camp it was after noon, Lee decided that we needed to walk along the beach, so I started collecting shells for my “Ocean Memory garden” I’m going to need a lot more!

The Dinner was “OMGosh to die for” we all sat around I think there ended up being 18 of us.Lots of laughter, lots of chatting and we blocked off the whole row, so no cars coming or going. Roast lamb, baked potatoes, pumpkin, broccoli, carrots, home-made gravy and plenty for seconds. Then for dessert there was Pavlova and cheese cake and the children had ice cream in waffle cones.. I didn’t have any dessert I was full after the main meal. Here is the photo Craig took of our “Last Supper”

 That night I wrote the blog about my “Dad” for letter D and started researching my family tree, so my mind was wide awake and I slept badly.

Easter Sunday

Deanne and I were both awake early so we decided to go for an early morning beach walk and wear off some energy. We ended up walking to Edwards point reserve and then all the way back to the Foreshore caravan park to see where The Bloke’s Sister Leigh and her partner Andrew were camping, so we had a quick chat with Leigh and headed home again. Breakfast tie, we had done almost 10,000 steps our daily goal in one walk! Today at 9.30am there was an Easter Egg hunt on for the Children at the front of the Caravan Park and so they all loved that and then it was time to do the raffle, we had brought 5 tickets for $8.00 and all money raised goes to the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal we always support that hospital we’ve used it many times. We won a few little prizes and headed back to camp.

Steve and the boys had packed all Deanne’s camp up and so we sat around chatting, had lunch and Amber and Scarlett arrived for the night, they caught two trains and a bus! Then about 4.00 pm Daughter Number one and her partner Brett and Squishy arrived they were taking over Deanne and Steve’s camp site because over the Easter period you have to book a minimum of four nights, but Deanne had to go home for work so they could not stay, so Jasmin and Brett had their last night. Deanne and Steve and the boys went home at about 5.00 pm and we are meeting them again on Saturday to go and look at a camper trailer with them, if they buy it that means I’ll get to go camping with my Bestie more often!!

We cooked hamburgers and has browns for dinner and cleaned up and had a fairly early night.. in bed by 11.00 pm rare for us at St Leonards!

Besties forever.. 27 years so far, Deanne and I.

Star Son, J and Rachael

J and his Mum Deanne.

all the kids lined up for the Easter egg hunt.

waiting for the whistle

The Last Supper.. our boys!

The Bloke and I at the Last Supper.

Daughter number one with her God Parents and the boys!!

 Easter Monday

 Today was the big pack up and heading home, normally I would stay there longer but now I am baby sitting Squishy I need to be home, it’s school holidays for another week. We left our “home away from home” at about 11.00 am and headed to see my Mother in-law (you’ll meet her tomorrow for F) we had the “pugaliscious” painting that I did for her all wrapped and ready to go and an Easter egg.

I think she loved her Pug!!

“Pugaliscious” on Tanny’s wall!

So it’s been a great Easter weekend, it’s my first since I started learning about the Lord, and so I’ve been soaking as much about the actual events as I could, therefore, each day had a meaning and we even acknowledged Jesus at 3.00 pm when it says “his spirit left his body” I am currently reading a book called “24 hours that changed the world” by Adam Hamilton, which is really helpful also, and finished the Lent Bible study I was working on for the last 40 days. This is the first year that it’s been more than a “long weekend full of chocolate and nothingness”

So how was your Easter? did you have a nice time?