Ella girl is 12 now, and one of the ways she celebrated was hosting brunch for the Canberra family last Monday (a public holiday), our first cold bleak day of the season.
Present giving takes a lot of thought for teens and pre-teens. Angus took a lot of care to choose this one......
Lego was on Ella's wish list - and this set .......
ticked all the boxes .............
These sweet kids put in a few hours building this most amazing ship in a bottle Lego - from scratch! Just as well it held their interest as it was not much fun playing party games outside on this cold grey morning.
It was a serious business, involving great teamwork..........
Abi didn't feel as much part of the Lego team - which was nice for us as she put in a lot of time with Maxie and me instead telling us all about whale sharks (and other creatures).
Ella makes all the cakes in the family now - although she's a bit over it at the moment after making 72 birthday cupcakes for her school friends.
I tried to get a good group shot of these gorgeous kids - but only two of them are friends of the camera... I take what I can get!!
This might be my best shot!
Happy birthday dear sweet Ella girl!
We've just had 3 beautiful days in Coogee with J & J, A & E, having lots of fun and laughter together at our favourite city beach, great meals and LOTS of physical activity.
After noting the presence of the very imposing Wallabies RU Team (and the Q'ld Reds) we were all settled in our ocean view rooms at the Crowne Plaza by Saturday afternoon. The girls were primed to hit the big grassed oval at Grant Reserve and test out one of Abi's new birthday ball and racquet games.
Abi's recently mastered the art of cartwheels. She can do them PERFECTLY and is now practising doing them NON STOP!
A duet of cartwheels!
It helps when you have a big sister willing and able to teach you the next level....
We walked up to La Sen at the Spot, Randwick for a beautiful Vietnamese meal on Saturday night, adding a 3 kilometre walk (there and back) to our afternoon of running around Grant Reserve.
Sunday dawned cloudy but warm, good enough for a perfect morning on Coogee Beach.
Abi did hundreds of cartwheels up and down the length of the beach this morning.
Abi is "at one with nature" wherever she finds herself - always watching out for birds, insects, crabs and any other form of nature (and marine life).
A laid back lunch at the Coogee Bay Hotel and a 2 hour sleep after (for an exhausted Abi) ended off a perfect Sunday morning at our Coogee Beach.
We celebrated with dinner at our fave (but crowded) Barzura's last night...…. Coogee was as lively as a January summer this Canberra Day long weekend!
We were all down the beach again as early as possible this morning...…...
And just to make sure we all got the most out of our long weekend at our fave beach we ended off our stay with a walk to South Coogee and the beautiful rock pool (the Ivor Rowe Rock Pool) at the end of the Bondi to Coogee coast walk
Ella and Abi find lots of hidden treasures on these rocky platforms.
We ended off a perfect weekend with a late lunch at the Pool Café at Maroubra before the long drive back to Canberra. It was such a joy and a privilege to spend uninterrupted time this weekend with my gorgeous, funny, fit and always whip smart family - and there is no bias at all in that observation!
We've had an unprecedented run of 39-41oC days here in Canberra. It means we can't go outside much after about 10.30am without getting seriously uncomfortable. We've taken the girls to the movies on Monday (Mary Poppins Returns) and to the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) yesterday. Both were very successful outings.
The NGA Play area was focussed on activities around the gallery's collection of Ballet Russes costumes from the early 1930s (thank you Henri Matisse among others). The girls were happy experimenting with the activities here for at least two hours!
But another huge hit on our visit yesterday was seeing Yayoi Kusama's "The Spirit of the Pumpkins Descended into the Heavens".
This is the view we were entranced by: 46 pumpkins (Ella counted them) and a whole lot of mirrors and clever lighting ……..
But the polka dot room setting for the mirrored box is rather wonderful too...…..
We got the girls home in time for a slip and slide session in the back yard before a pretty wild electrical storm set in … although it didn't cool things down too much.
Lego was on Ella's wish list - and this set .......
ticked all the boxes .............
These sweet kids put in a few hours building this most amazing ship in a bottle Lego - from scratch! Just as well it held their interest as it was not much fun playing party games outside on this cold grey morning.
It was a serious business, involving great teamwork..........
Abi didn't feel as much part of the Lego team - which was nice for us as she put in a lot of time with Maxie and me instead telling us all about whale sharks (and other creatures).
Ella makes all the cakes in the family now - although she's a bit over it at the moment after making 72 birthday cupcakes for her school friends. 
I tried to get a good group shot of these gorgeous kids - but only two of them are friends of the camera... I take what I can get!!
This might be my best shot!
Happy birthday dear sweet Ella girl!
