We spent the weekend with the Mc Clures (Yeoval), Spriggs (ex Yeoval) and the Letchers (ex Yeoval). They were kind enough to delay our annual October long weekend get together to this weekend when were were in Sydney. Here are all 15 kids !! We had an awesome weekend!

Kylie, Kath, Renee and I treasured our weekend together. We had a lot to catch up on! I'm very blessed to have such a great group of friends!

Good times! All the girls (including the mums) had a sleepover. Whenever you get a group of girls together, the dress ups just have to come out!

No more training wheels!

Yay Lucy!!!! Riding with no training wheels for the first time. What a star.... you got it so quickly!

We spent Saturday evening at the Blowes. Us girls thought it was fantastic sitting back and watching the boys make the pizzas. They were very gourmet!! We had such a great evening with great friends and great food!

Chris and Jono standing proud after their efforts in pizza making! This woodfire pizza oven Jono made was just amazing.... and the pizza was so delicious.

Happy Birthday Aunty Jess! We hope you liked the cake we made for you! Yum!!!

We dropped into the Charlestons at Cootamundra. The girls had a great time playing with their cousins. A few days after we left, Evie Rose was born. We look forward to meeting her at Christmas!

A Visit to Yeoval !

We were just so close to home, so couldn't resist driving out there and catching up with friends and family. We were shocked to see snow on Mt Canobolas and definitely felt the cold coming from Darwin. We first dropped into church for a catch up, then went to the Verdon's. Megan cooked us a yummy roast for lunch. We spent our 2 days in Yeoval drinking tea and coffee, eating homemade baked goodies and loving being around friends and family we have missed so much.

The Tremains

Just like old times! It took the girls no time at all to rekindle their special friendships. A big hug and then holding hands they ran off to play. They had a sleepover and from what I heard, it was all smiles and giggles. It was so good to see each other again! While the girls had their catch up Chris and I were also catching up with good friends. How lovely to sit around and chat into the early morning with great friends.

Yeoval Central School

While we made the trip back to Yeoval, the girls visited school for the day. They were allowed to sit in with their classes and join in. They loved seeing all their wonderful friends again. We know you look at our blog all the time....so a special hello to Miss Welch's class!!

Bridget with her good friends Sydney and Mackenzie. She spent all lunchtime on the monkey bars and suffered for it the next few days with a terribly sore blister!

Home Sweet Home

WOW!!! We haven't seen our farm look this green and amazing in sooo many years. There was even water in places where I've never seen it. It was a little hard for us going into our house. The girls started getting attached very quickly. But I guess the good thing is even though we've seen some gorgeous places around our great country.....there really is 'no place like home'!!!

While at home the girls jump on the back of the ute as we take a look around our farm. We can't get over how amazing it looks!

Trista and Phil's Wedding

The day after my brothers wedding Chris and I went to my friend from uni's wedding. It was wonderful to share with Trista in her special day.

Greg and Kiri's Wedding !! 15.10.10

Wedding number 3 for the year. This time it's my brother Greg and the wedding is in Sydney. We fly from Darwin. It was a lovely afternoon and even though the rain threatened, it held off and we were able to enjoy the ceremony in the beautiful grounds of Curzon Hall.

The girls with Uncle Greg in their pretty new dresses ready to go to the wedding.

This is my family (minus Damo and Sienna). We've got bigger and bigger this year with all the weddings.

Greg and Kiri were married in the grounds at Curzon Hall - Nth Ryde. It was just gorgeous!

Too cute! Lucy couldn't resist holding the train of the beautiful bride!!

Claire and Lucy with Uncle Mark, Aunty Jess, Uncle Doug and Aunty Amy.

The happy bride and groom after a beautiful ceremony. Mr and Mrs Tovey!

Family Photo.....my mum, dad, sisters and brothers.

The best and only way to end the night!!! The girls all carved up the dance floor (I think they take after their mum!!!) Lucy even gets to dance with Uncle Greg. Fun Fun Fun~!

DARWIN

We have now arrived in Darwin and are based in Palmerston. Chris has already started work for mobile mission maintenance. It feels strange to be in a city after so long in smaller country towns. The girls and I have found the library, so will spend a fair bit of time there. School has started again for us...term 4 is underway! It's hard to believe it's October already!

Soon after we arrived in Darwin, the afternoon storms started. It had been a long time since we'd seen rain and we liked the sound of it on the roof of the caravan. As you can see in the photo the water just sat on the ground around the van. By morning it would all just disappear.

NT Mobile Mission Maintenance

This is Darryl, the NT MMM manager.
He was very glad that Chris had arrived to help him out. Not many volunteers had come through this year so he was looking forward to getting a bit done while Chris was around!

Chris tiling for MMM in Darwin. Here he's tiling the men's bathroom for YWAM.

Cullen Bay. We spent the afternoon exploring a bit of Darwin. We spent a few interesting hours at the museum and art gallery, wandered around Cullen Bay, then checked out the Mindil markets.

Boats, boats and more boats. We walked along the marina at Cullen Bay.

Water Park

WOW!!! We had heard about this water park before we even got to Darwin. We were all keen to check it out. Bridget was very impressed by the size of the waterslides and the whole thing was free!!!! We had a lot of fun afternoons here.

Apart from the waterslides, they had this great little water park. There was water spirting out from everywhere and lots of little waterslides as well as that massive bucket which would fill up with water and then dump it all over everyone.

Lucy was too little to go on the slides, but Bridget and Claire had a ball!! They just kept going up and down all afternoon. The red slide was their favourite. You go down it on a 2 person tube, it's fast and mostly pitch black......scary, but fun!! Needless to say we visited here numerous times!

KAKADU NATIONAL PARK

We spent a week in Kakadu. We took our time and soaked up a lot of what it had to offer. It's a huge place and very hot and humid at this time of the year (and we won't mention the 1000's of mozzies). We found out so much about Kakadu, all about the Aboriginal culture and the amazing countryside and how it changes through the '6' seasons. We loved it!! Enjoy the many photos....

Gunlom Falls

Our first stop in Kakadu was here at Gunlom. We were told it was safe to swim in the plunge pool at the bottom of the falls. Signs told us otherwise. We stayed close to some other tourists and just cooled ourselves down before getting out again pretty quickly.

One of the many rock pools at the top of Gunlom Falls. It's so still and peaceful now and hard to imagine the torrents of water flowing through here in the wet!

What a view!! In the dry this waterfall stops running. It leaves all these beautiful rocks pools for us to sit back and enjoy the view in!!

Living on the edge!! At the top of Gunlom Falls looking out over Kakadu. We needed a swim after the hot walk up to the top!

What a beautiful and special place to be! Aaaah serenity!!

These signs were everywhere!! At least we didn't have to guess whether there were crocs in the water!

This is Yellow Water Wetlands. We did a walk along the boardwalk and down to another billabong. We were disappointed by the lack of birdlife around. Perhaps you have to do one of their very expensive boat cruises. We were recommended a cheaper boat cruise further up north.

Nourlangie Rock. There were lots of sandstone escarpments around Kakadu. They said 80% of Kakadu is woodland. I guess the rest is made up of wetlands etc.

Aboriginal Rock Art

We were blown away by the Aboriginal rock art in Kakadu. Other places we visited we'd search rocks trying to find a bit of art, but here it was all over rocks in particular places. They even had free ranger talks to explain all the paintings. We learnt a lot about the Aboriginal culture.

We did a walk around Anbangbang Billabong. Nourlangie Rock is in the background. It was really, really hot and starting to get very humid. We were dripping with sweat from the moment we got up, so the walks were pretty hard work.

Ubirr

The view over Kakadu from Ubirr lookout. It was a fairly steep walk up and then the view just took your breath away. Wow!

Sunset at Ubirr

Sunset over Kakadu from Ubirr lookout. It is right up there with our favourite sunsets around Australia. Absolutely gorgeous!!

As we turned around once the sun had set we saw this stunning sight. Dark clouds had come across the sky but had beautiful colours in them from the setting sun.

A Day In Arnhem Land

We are driving over the Cahill crossing into Arnhem land. We had lined up to meet with Guy who has lived in Oenpelli in Arnhem land for 20 years. We met Guy in Broome when he was visiting the people we stayed with there. He said if we came to Kakadu to give him a call. So we did and had the special privilege of going into Arnhem Land and being shown around by a local. It was beautiful in there!

The girls were so interested in watching how the Aboriginal ladies made their pandanas leaf baskets. At the Injalak Art centre in Oenpelli they were able to sit and watch as this lady stripped the leaves ready to dye.

This lady was up to weaving her basket. It is a very long process and takes hours, even days to finish a small basket

Around the other side of the art centre the men were painting. This Aboriginal man shared with us the story behind his painting. It really made the painting come alive!

Unfortunately this photo just doesn't show how magnificant this view was. It was just gorgeous watching all the birds down on the billabong and looking around this beautiful country.

Chris enjoying the view over Arnhem Land.