Growing

My nieces came to visit their favourite Aunty last week and of course I had to get the camera out and record their visit.

They are growing up so fast!!!!

Favourite picture - the last one.

It's November

So I did promise a few posts back that you would have to wait for November.

It's November.

Time for a Love Story (and before you get excited, it isn't mine)!

It was the end of June. My sister who lives in Florida happened to spot this fair beauty from afar. She hadn't seen her before but noticed she was sitting with my sisters friends. They have 2 little adopted kids and this fair beauty was playing with them. My sister enquired as to this strangers appearance and who she was. The answer was "she is my sister just visiting from New York".

How nice.

Is this sister you speak of single? Why yes she is! Oh joy! My brother is single and your sister is single. Would she like to be email pals with my brother? Why yes she would.

So started a lovely friendship. Emails turned into once a week 5 hours calls. These calls turned into a visit at the end of August.

The meeting place: Orlando, Florida.

They had 1 glorious week together and decided that this relationship should move forward.

They went back to their respective places of residence and continued their phone calls - which by this stage had become 3 times a day and 8 hours each weekend.

It was her turn to visit Sydney. She only had a week also. But it was enough time to decide they wanted to be married.

On 7 January 2010 in Orlando - where they first met, they will be married and I will have a new sister in law. And she will live in Sydney. This will be exciting as both my sisters live nowhere near me!

It has been a whirlwind romance. Congratulations! May you have lots of kids for me to take photos of and continue my reign as the Favourite Aunt!

One Picture ...... or maybe Two

How cute is little O!!!!

And the fact he said my name (so many times I might add) like a pro - which believe me, for a little kid to say my name is pretty amazing - made him my new best friend for that afternoon!

As you can tell, I have very high standards when choosing besties, saying my name is at the top of the list.

And then I decided to get all arty on his parents.

It was a great afternoon!

and another month rolls on by ......

I must have constipation of the mind! Things are going on but I can't think of what to write.
Oh well, take heart, it is nearly November.

Let me leave you with some pearls of wisdom:

Chuck Norris kills anyone that asks, "You want fries with that" because by now everyone should know that Chuck doesn't ever want fries with anything. Ever.

THE END

Slacker

What, wait! A whole month has passed without me blogging about it! Woah!

Well, life certainly has been busy busy and even though I have lots to say I need to hold back for just a bit so you can hear the WHOLE story - wait til November and then it will be all yours to read about! he he.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I have been working most Saturdays and gettings *Dimples* up and running and it has been SO much fun.

Luckily I have great friends who have used me and hopefully they have liked their pictures and will come back and see me for the Christmas special!

So with not much more to tell you at this point I leave you with a few of my favourite pictures I have done in the last month or so.

Hope you enjoy them!

A Name

So I have finally done it. It's all official. There is a name. I have a certificate from the government and everything! And now I can share it.

Some of you may have seen it on my facebook page.

I have decided to go into taking pictures of people! Woohooo.

Taking photos has always been something I loved to do. And a camera purchase was something I wasn't a stranger to.

Now, I realise that most people take photos - but I LOVE taking photos. Seriously.

Back in the day of film processing you had to wait until you got your prints back from the developer to see how they turned out but now days with digital you can take a billion shots and see instantly.

My friend Mary really started me thinking about steering my love of photography into a certain direction. She takes really beautiful photos and I wish I had half her talent!

I lap up all the blogs online and have my favourites and from there have narrowed down what I like and what I want to take pictures of.

Years ago my favourite and ultimate photographer was (and in part still is) Ken Duncan. He takes awesome shots of landscapes. I could stand for hours looking at his photos. I vowed to one day have a house filled with everything he had done. My favourite of his is this. Don't ask me why but something in that picture just gets me. That for me is the beauty of photos. Everyone sees things differently.

I don't want to take pictures of landscapes - I will leave that to the experts.

In recent months I have come across a ton of blogs that focus on weddings. They do such an excellent job detailing and capturing this special day for people to remember in years to come. I am all about memories and for me, that is what photos do. One day I would love to be like them. But not yet.

What I really want to take pictures of are kids. All kids to me, are beautiful.

They are hard word, they don't really take direction, they are extreme in their emotions - and I LOVE it. Just snapping away and in amongst all those photos there will always be one (or more if I am lucky) that will capture that child so perfectly in that moment of their lives. Another memory as the years go on.

As most of you know I am a "Favourite Aunt" and these days I have 6 beautiful little nieces who are the subject of my photo taking! Lucky for me they don't mind being in front of a camera.

I remember one photo I took of one of the girls and her father was just blown away by how beautiful and how grown up she looked. Not that he didn't think she wasn't beautiful but looking at a picture of his daughter probably bought back memories of her as a baby and how fast she is growing.

So I have rambled long enough and I hope that you got a peak inside my mind about one of the things that I love and what I hope will lead to bigger and better things!

Here are a few of my favourite photos:

Oh, and the name???? *Dimples* by analiesejane.

I hope to see you all soon and take some photos of your beautiful kids! Oh alright, you can be in them to!

My Ode to Tim Tams

I know, I said way back in my Vegemite post that I would do an "Ode to Tim Tams". It has taken me a while but here we are and here I go!

If you have ever been to Australia or known people from Australia or live in Australia, there is a pretty good chance you have heard of Tim Tams. And for you overseas folks, you may have even been lucky enough to have had 1 or 6 of these beauties.

If not you haven't heard of these bits of heaven, let me fill you in (courtesy of Wikipedia)!

Tim Tams are a chocolate biscuit (or cookies if you live north of the border) made by Arnott's Biscuits. A Tim Tam is composed of two layers of chocolate malted biscuit, separated by a light chocolate cream filling, and coated in a thin layer of textured chocolate.

According to Arnott's, around 35 million packs are sold each year – nearly 400 million biscuits, an average of approximately 1.7 packs per Australian.

Tim Tams were first put onto the market in 1964. They were named by Ross Arnott, who attended the 1958 Kentucky Derby and decided that the name of the winning horse Tim Tam was perfect for a planned new line of biscuits.

Unfortunately some bright spark decided to "expand" on the original Tim Tam idea and made the following variations: namely, Chewy Caramel, Mocha, Double Coat, Chilli Chocolate, Classic Dark Chocolate, Black Forest Fantasy, Creamy Truffle Temptation and the latest Choc Orange, as well as a range of special edition varieties.

In 2004, Arnott's caused a controversy when they released a range of alcohol-flavoured varieties of their products, including Tia Maria Tim Tams.

Suggestions were made that selling these biscuits was irresponsible as minors could get hold of the product and suck the living daylights out of the poor Tim Tam to get one drop of alcohol.

However, it would take several thousand Tim Tams for the alcohol to take effect, after which you would be the size of an elephant and want to to drink yourself into a stupor to forget that you had just downed several thousand Tim Tams. I am going to stop now.

One of the best things about Tim Tams are the Tim Tam Slams.

The Tim Tam Slam is the practice of drinking a warm drink by sucking it through a Tim Tam, with both of the ends bitten off.

Ideally, the inside of the biscuit should collapse but the outside should remain intact. Just before the biscuit falls apart, it is placed in the mouth.

There are reports that people in the USA have tried doing this using an Oreo as a substitute Tim Tam but without success........... *shakes head*

And there you have my little blurb on my favourite biscuit.

Mary

"Mary" is pregnant with her 3rd child.

We started re-hanging out maybe a year or more ago. Funny how you can be friends for so long and then sort of go off and do your things and then come back together like nothing has changed!

As she mentioned in her post, we had talked about doing some photos together. Something always came up and we never got around to it. Until this day! Mary wanted some photos of her belly and it was a public holiday and it was nice out. Check, check, check.

She has already shown you some photos on this post and this post and I did mention that I would also show my photos from that day. Brace yourself.

I love this picture (see, it isn't all bad).

We had actually talked a bit about what she wanted for her photos and looked through some other websites for ideas. I had the best idea of all. But she didn't go for it. Maybe the red top was just to much?
So we ended up with some of these instead.

They turned out well!

And of course, I had to put this picture in. Sorry about the quality but it is the "Mary" we all know and love.

The "Special" Ones

Could these girls be any funnier?? Their ability to pull faces is outstanding. See for yourself!

Frostbite Anyone?

So in between all the madness of May we headed to New Zealand for my Uncle's surprise 60th. One day I am going to get there in the summer time.

Winter in New Zealand is just so bitterly cold. Now, I have endured standing in the snow for hours and days on end and that just doesn't even compare to the biting cold that I experience each time I go to New Zealand. Apparently when I was there it was quite "warm".

Did I say it was cold?

Here are a couple of shots from my stay there.

The city.

New Zealand Harbour Bridge - sort of like Sydney's but not really. I tried to be arty and get the NZ flag in there.


This place is called Rangitoto. It is an island in the middle of the harbour. It doesn't matter where you are looking from, the island always looks like this:

And my last attempt at being arty - in the mirror of the car you can see a small mountain - I was just on top of that taking pictures.

See you next time in summer New Zealand!!!

Im Tired

What a month was May!! After the fun trip to Cairns my sisters all came down for a visit with their kids.

I got to be the favourite aunty since there were going to be 6 nieces and no other aunties in sight, but come on, like I really had any competition.

I took a week off during their visit and we planned and did some great stuff.

We visited the aquarium and the girls LOVED it. We went on a ferry boat to get there on a cold winters day but no one seemed to mind much.

We also hit up New Zealand for a few days. It was my Uncle's 60th and we had already booked our tickets to surprise him and when my sister from USA decided to come over she thought it would be nice to also be there for him so along she came with her family.

Can I tell you how bitterly cold it was there! I got really sick and was sick the whole time but wanted to get out and see stuff which we did. I will post photos later of the NZ trip.

But for now here are some family shots I was able to get when they were here.

My sister Hannike with her husband Steve and their kids Chloe, Ella and Courtney.

Here is one of my other sister Karen with her husband Mikey and their girls Leilani, Isabella and Gabriella.

And being the favourite aunt I have to show you how cute all these girls are.

Yes, Isabella has food/stuff all over her face - cause that's how she rolls.

And Gabriella and her eyes - that was her look the whole time. So cute.

And now May is over. It was so nice to have 'sisters' around and to be with family. Now we just have plan for the next one!

Part 3 ..... Goodbye Cairns

We had to be up early the next day. We were going snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef!!! It was a beautiful day and we headed up north to get our boat. We chose a smaller tour of about 50 rather than the 800 that usually sign up for these deals. They took us to the outer reef. We took our sea sick tablets and thank goodness because it was kind of rough.

About 1 hour later we reached the middle of nowhere. It was time to snorkel. I wasn't sure how I was going to go since the last time I tried to snorkel was in a Hawaii a few years back and I wasn't very successful. Something about not getting the breathing down without thinking I was suffocating. But I was determined to give it a go. I was ready. I was pumped. And then they gave us the briefing. Here are the hand signals you need if you find yourself in trouble. Stay close to the boat if you are unsure. We will have someone on watch the whole time on the roof of the boat so we can see if you get in trouble. If there is a shark or a stingray, don't swim away from it. just be calm and swim towards it. WHATTTTTT. I am not going in. NO WAY. But then I would have been the only one on the boat. Pride won over fear.

We were then told we might need to rent a wet suit to avoid being stung by jelly fish. Those wet suits are really confronting ....... this time pride lost over fear.

This was the first of 3 stops we were making. I didn't do so well on this leg but it was a start. Everytime I went underwater I saw how close I was to swimming with the school of fish. Amazing and terrifying at the same time. Not a good time to have a conflict of emotions in the middle of the ocean!

The last stop was right at the edge of the continental shelf and the reef and I thought the boat was going to turn over. I didn't want to go in but it was safer in the water than in the boat so off we went.




The ride back was the worst ever. There was a storm and we were all headed back and there were quite a few sick people on this trip. Lucky it was none of us.

What an awesome trip. We did some things we will probably never have the chance to do again and the fact I swam with Nemo and his friends really made the trip worthwhile!

Thanks girls. I look forward to our next adventure.