The Baynhams

Last night we went to the Annual Dinner Dance fundraiser for Gareth's rugby club. It was a chance to leave the kids at home, dress up and party! Oh how rare an opportunity this is in our busy lives. I made the most of it. As did everyone else there!


There was even a proposal in front of us all. I've never seen this in real life, only on tv. You can see two photos as he was on bended knee and after she accepted if you look closely to the left of the main centre image.

We came home very late, very happy and very broke!

Here's looking forward to 2012!

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We have good friends Charles and Sue Cliffe that live in the UK. When we first emigrated to Australia they were already here on a work contract and we spent lots of weekends with them and their kids, exploring Sydney and having BBQ's. Now they have returned to the UK our contact is more sporadic. Like everyone else life is busy and the intention is there to send lots of chatty emails but reality has a way of stealing time away from you.

Recently I came upon a sign that made me laugh out loud. The friends I was with had no idea why I got my camera out to take a photo. I would love to say that this is the sign exactly as I found it but that would be a lie. Perhaps a small amount of editing went into this image to add on an extra "e"

Either way it made me laugh, it made me stop and think about Charles and Sue and it got me to send them an email. In this busy life that's always a good thing!

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Last night we went to Sydney to see Australia play South Africa in the first of the Tri-Nations matches.

Months ago we were offered tickets though Gareth's Rugby Club for only $20 each which is a bargain. Other club members also booked on-line using the special voucher codes and none of us knew our seating allocation until the tickets turned up in the post a few days ago.

Out of a stadium that seats 80,000 we didn't expect to manage to actually meet up on the night so imagine our surprise when one friend rang me as they were on-route and told me her seat numbers were within shouting distance of ours.

Then as we found our seats and wrapped up warm another family came and sat side by side with us, they were our South African friends Lucy and Rob! Another family from the club sat two rows in front of us. What are the chances of that in such a huge stadium!

One of the best parts of the evening (Apart from WINNING! Sorry Rob!) was when the crowd did a particularly energetic Mexican Wave. I managed to capture a part of  it on my mobile...

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Time spent sitting on a train.

Rain running down the outside of the window.
Playing with our reflections.

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The teacher was telling the kids about words with "nch" in them. The twenty-five 8 and 9 year olds put up their hands and called out lots of examples. Pinch. Crunch. Bench. Inch...

The next challenge she set them was to expand these words, Pinching, Crunched etc.

The next challenge, put them into a sentence to show that they understood the meaning. If they were unsure of the meaning she helped them look up the class dictionary.

One little boy's sentence made her stop. She read it and re-read it again. She asked the boy about it and then read it out loud to the rest of the class. She decided to write it at the top of the whiteboard as the " Quote of the day"

When the boy's Mum was helping in school one day she saw her sons name on the board and commented on it to the teacher. That's when she found out that it wasn't just the "Quote of the day"  It turns out the class didn't want to wipe it off the next day so it became "Quote of the week"  then " Quote of the month"  then  "Quote of the term"  and now as we start the third term of the year it has become a bit of a joke and looks like being the "Quote of the year"

And yes, that Mum was very proud of her boy!

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My oldest girl Sian is 13 and getting more and more gorgeous everyday. As she grows up I see her change. She is getting taller and has her own taste in clothes and music. Not always the same as mine but that's normal! One thing she loves are Converse style lace up canvas shoes and boots. It surprised her to know that when I was her age I bought a pair of red Converse shoes in the market of a small French town we were travelling through on my summer holidays. I wore those shoes every day that summer until they were worn out and had to be forcibly removed from me and thrown out.

When we were walking along a local jetty this week I begged her to stop and let me take a photo of her feet with my phone. She reluctantly obliged while muttering about her mad mother.

I think there is something timeless about these young fresh shoes and the worn and aged wooden timbers of the jetty.

Kind of like my gorgeous young vibrant Sian and poor haggard me!

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If you read the recent post about Tommy the Turtle you will know that we had a really great family day out recently at the Hunter Wetlands. We had signed up for a daily "Special offer" email and one day we had the chance to buy a family entry pass to the Wetlands for $11.50. On signing up Byron had been given a $10 credit to his account so we only paid $1.50 on our credit card to buy the voucher!

We packed a picnic and rugged up warm as it was quite a chilly winters day. The cold seemed to keep the visitors away and we felt as though we had the place to ourselves.

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The local park. You just can't beat it. You don't need to travel far. It's free. It's good for the kids. It has benches for Mums to sit back and catch up on reading their favourite blogs watch their kids!

Some of our best holiday moments are the spontaneous days where you end up at the park. Sometimes with friends, sometimes just yourselves. One day this holidays when we had finished some boring chores in the local town the kids asked if we could walk a bit further down the street. We walked passed the cafes and the shops and around the corner until there was nowhere left to go. Nowhere but the park or turn back to find the car. It was cold and brisk but the sun was shining and when Gareth and Rhiannon wanted 5 minutes playing I was happy to let them burn off some energy.

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Here are a few photos from this weekends trip to Hunter Wetlands.

Plenty more to come but it's a busy week here on School Holidays!

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Today we went to see our great friends in a play in the YPT (Young Peoples Theatre)

The play was a modern twist on the fairytale "Cinderella" Sophie and Gemma played Fairies in Waiting. We were so proud of them. They have been attending rehearsals for weeks and weeks and have had daily shows during the school holidays. Some day when they are famous Hollywood actresses we will be begging them for tickets to the Oscars!

Flash photography is forbidden during the show so I just sneaked out my mobile for a couple of subtle shots.
I know I am very naughty but I will need something to sell to the tabloids for my "I knew them before they were famous" story!

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There is a lovely new cafe and bakery in our local town. Many days I have walked passed it in a hurry and just caught a glimpse of the inside as I rushed by. Now that it is the kids school holidays we are looking for things to do that help to pass the day without breaking the bank. I told the kids that one day we would get dressed up "Posh" and go to Queen of Tarts for morning tea. Today was the day!

Us girls primped and preened and I even squeezed into a skirt and high heels. Gareth reluctantly slicked a bit of gel in his hair but protested at a proper shirt and instead pulled on his Mr Dude T-shirt. You have to choose your battles as a mum, I let this one slide!

...and I had "Macadamia Caramel tart" They were all amazing, beautifully plated up and my cappuccino came with a tiny shortbread heart on the spoon. The whole bill for 4 cakes and my coffee was $20 which I thought was very reasonable, especially as we spent quite a while choosing, eating and then just sitting back chatting.

We recognised the man behind the counter as a dad from our kids school. It is so lovely to see small local business's working hard and doing well. It is so easy to just call in to the big generic Starbucks or Gloria Jeans for a caffeine refuel but it feels good to support the smaller family owned business's in our local area. I'm sure we will be back!

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I was a "Drive-in-wanna-be" until this weekend. I had never ever been to one but it was on my bucket list. When we were asked by a group of friends to go this weekend it was too good a chance to pass up. It's winter here so we knew it was going to be really cold and we gladly accepted all nuggets of wisdom from our Aussie friends. The back of the car was stuffed with duvets, pillows, sleeping bags, woollie beanie hats, a big flask of Hot Chocolate to insulate the kids and a bottle of red wine for the grown ups!

We gathered in the local town and drove in convoy to Heddon Greta. The cars were reversed into spaces side by side. 11 kids jumped from car to car looking for one with their friends and the comfiest blankets and best snacks. The grown ups lined up camp chairs in a row in front and passed along snacks and wine glasses. Some grown ups were designated drivers (sigh) and some took full advantage of this. I'm just saying Mr B....!

The next few hours passed in a blur of Mr Poppers Penguins and Cars 2 and lots of layering up in blankets and seeing our breath fog as we laughed. I loved it. I can't believe we have been here in Australia for almost 6 years and this was our first time to take advantage of such a fun experience. This is not simply something to strike off the list of things-to-do-before-I-die. This is a repeat performance waiting to happen!

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This mornings Rugby match was an early start but only to our local grounds as the Under 10's played at home. We arrived at 8.30am and there was a heavy fog misting over the rugby grounds.

The boys ran around enjoying the spooky chill and excitedly discussing how they would use the fog to trick the opposing team and win the game with lots of unexpected trys. Gareth was chosen to be the captain today and he visibly swelled with pride. The have not had much success as a team this season and had not won any of their matches so far. Many of the boys on the other teams are physically much larger and just flatten them like steam-rollers in the tackles and scrums. Today's opponents were physically much more evenly matched and it looked like our boys had a fighting chance.
For the first time ever they scored try after try and we gloated and told anyone and everyone that it was because our boy was captain! The fog made the atmosphere magic but before long the sun shone and melted the mist away.

Gareth's team won the day 41-19 and he ran off the pitch over the moon.

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