Lightening Online

I did my “Easter Shopping” today. So I’m all ready now. I generally try not to shop too early as it’s too tempting!!! LOL.

We often go away for Easter but this year we’ve been so busy that we decided against an Easter weekend away. Fun as it would be, I just don’t have the energy to get packed up again (We’ve had 2 weekends away in March as well as being away Tuesday night for our anniversary plus 2 of the kids have had school camps this term).

Of course, added to that is the complication of “who” to spend Easter with. Farmboys family tend to gather at the family shack. We also have a few friends who we’ve gone camping with and it gets hard to choose who we will go with.

So, we’re looking forward to a little quieter weekend this year.

Our weekend looks something like this:

Thursday night - Tennis wind-up
Friday - Church in the morning then down to the beach to spend some time with DH’s family.
Saturday - Quiet day at home. Farmboy is planning to do some more paving and I’d like to get out in the garden (hopefully the weather is nice).
Sunday - unlikely that we’ll make the dawn service this year (would have to leave around 5.30am to make it) so most likely a quiet morning at home then down to the beach for more time with Farmboys family.
Monday - another home day

It should be pleasant without being too overwhelming or exhausting.

We also seem to have fallen into a kind of pattern for what we give the kids:

* pr winter pj’s (would buy anyway but it’s nice to put out for Easter as it’s often about when the weather starts to cool down - although being so early this year, they might not get used for a few weeks).
* book
* chocolate eggs

Plus I’ve bought some small eggs for an egg hunt (another tradition we’ve done any Easter we’re home since the kids have been little).

We also give to the nieces and nephews on Farmboy’s side of the family (when we see them which is most years).

I’ve tried not to buy too much chocolate this year but by the time you add in hot cross buns with butter, chips, dip, cheeses etc, Easter is a really DANGEROUS time for my waist line.

So, what are you planning this Easter?  Heading away or staying home?  Do you have any family “traditions” for this time of year?

And the big one:

What do you do in the way of Easter “gifts”?

Do you buy the same things each year or vary it.  Do you set a money limit?  Do you buy more than just chocolate for gifts?

I mentioned in my last post before going away for Easter the certainty of having plenty of smiley moments over the Easter weekend.

I obviously wasn’t thinking straight.

Or didn’t expect:

• To bash myself in the eye trying to unload the kids bikes from the back of the ute
• To come down with a cold and spend half the time sweating and the other half shivering uncontrollably.
• To have a young child crash into me while riding their bike
• To get bitten by March flies and have to endure HORRIBLE itching from the bites1
• To poke a stick through the bottom of my foot and end up with horrible bruising all around the wound that I can feel every time I take a step
• To be picking up after my children every half hour so that I can find the caravan under all their stuff!!!!
• To eat so much my pants don’t seem to want to do up (okay, I did kind of expect to eat too much)

LOL.

It wasn’t all bad, honestly. 

We did have HEAPS of fun!  It’s interesting to holiday close to home and really get a chance to have a good look around “in your own backyard” (figuratively speaking).

Views like this make my wonder why we’d ever want to go anywhere else!!!

These are some local fishfarms on the horizon:

The kids enjoyed running up and down some sand-dunes.  These are not far from where we stay in January every year and I had NO IDEA they were there!!!

Lleyton feels like he’s “on top of the world”:

We tried our hand at  Geogaching for the first time.  It’s a bit of a treasure hunt using GPS co-ordinates.  I don’t know a lot about it but the friends we were with did the research and found out about it.  We simply tagged along for the fun.  I think we’ll try and do some while on our big trip.

This was the first one we found:

Lots of fishing was the order of the weekend.  We even managed to actually catch some!!!!

And you gotta love a man fishing with a PINK fishing rod!!!!

Pity you can’t really tell from the photograph. 

I think you could safely say that “a good time was had by all”.  And the wonderful thing about not going far away is that we’re home, the caravan has been unpacked AND cleaned (go me!!!  I usually put it off for about a week) AND so far 2 loads of washing have gone through the machine (something for which my parched garden is extremely thankful).

The weather over the weekend was absolutely superb.  Great living weather.  We’d be happy for it to rain anytime now though. 

On the agenda for tonight is eating up leftovers and getting to bed early!!!!

Hope you all had a fabulous Easter weekend!!!!

We’re home.

And I need a holiday!

To get over our holiday!

A full-on week with extended family followed by a week of travelling back and forth for swimming lessons (yeah, we stayed at the beach but our kids did Vacswim at the pool in town). Next year we’ve decided to stay at home for the week of swimming lessons. Farmboy may as well get some work done while I’m travelling back and forth and we can have a weeks break (or even a few days) a little later in the holidays (so goes the plan anyhow).

Topped off with a sleep-over for Singstar Princesses 8th birthday.

We had lots of fun swimming and fishing and staying up half the night talking (and trying to get a room of 5 cousins asleep at a decent hour!).

But in a way I’m relieved to be home.

Or at least I will be when I get through the mound of unpacking, washing and sorting of Christmas gifts that needs doing.

Oh, and I guess I should take our Christmas tree down sometime.

And pack away the decorations for another year.

Is it just me or do the January school holidays tend to fly by?

Only 2 more weeks and the kids are back at school!!!! It’s unreal!

I can’t complain too much about the busy-ness of the past 2 weeks though. I managed to read my way through 6 novels in that time! Ahhh….bliss!!!!

My apologies to those who were looking for Smiley Saturday on Saturday. We should be back to regular programming now (whatever that means around here) and look out for the return of Smiley Saturday this weekend.