An up and down week

We knew this was going to be a hard week: our darling Maxie died 12 months ago on the 25th November, Rob's dear old Mum died a year ago too (on the 23rd November), and Rod lost his great mate Kev (the surgeon from Mildura) in the past week too. It's all been a lot in our thoughts this week (even more than usual!)

But our lives are full of ups and downs these days, and this week was no exception.

We met up with dear friends on Friday afternoon at our favourite spot on Aspen Island, for drinks and nibblies picnic style - as the sun set over our beautiful lake.

We all feel the presence of our amazing friend Irene too, especially at times like this. We lost her on 5th March this year. 

However it's special to share happy times in this beautiful place again while remembering so many happy gatherings with Irene here too.

The end of November brings final preparations for Christmas and I was pleased to get the girls' Advent boxes ready for their handover at the start of this coming week. I've been doing Advent boxes for them for quite a few years now. It used to be a novelty chocolate a day when I first started but now I try to outdo myself by finding 48 tiny gifts of every size shape and category for their Advent gifts - to give them an extra reason to look forward to the onset of the silly season!

The girls stayed over with us at the weekend. But prior to this Abi ended off the week in her usual space - at the workshop helping her Daddy work on his current collectible car project.

Josh and Jody hosted their work Christmas party on Saturday: a slap up lunch for all the workers, partners and families, then hours of fun for everyone at the new "Kingpin" venue in the Canberra Centre. Ella and Abi came home with us after this session while the grown ups partied on for a few more hours in the city. 

Abi found she had all the necessary riding skills for the motorbike game at Kingpin.

It must have seemed quite tame here with us after the excitement of the party... but Abi always looks forward to a play in our park and the chance to meet up with all the resident puppies - and other wildlife.

We even had the excitement of a fire alarm this morning which was a bit of a novelty for the girls (no fire just a bit of dust in one of the sensors caused by the strong winds today, apparently).

We ended off an up and down week with a lovely interlude tonight. Our nephew Joel and his Kay are living in London now and their Vincent (Prince Vincent) turned 2 today!

The whole of the UK is currently in very strict lockdown (a 4 week lockdown due to end next Tuesday) so there was no way PV was able to have any friends over to share his birthday celebrations - so we came instead - from all around the world, via ZOOM. It was pretty special to see PV blow out the candles on his bumblebee cake, open his presents and share the joy with family in Seoul, Geelong (and PV Joel and Kay in London).

Happy grandparents: Ros and Pete.......