Only Ryan!

One of my kids is not like the others. He is different and we love him because of it and I greatly admire how comfortable he is being himself!

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

Christmas time in our house is just crazy! I start with the first Christmas concert at preschool tomorrow. I've been to three Christmas dinners so far! Throw in the added fun of Nathan being overseas and it is even madder. That is my excuse for the poor blogging!

I wanted to quickly share our Chrissy photo from this year!

I also wanted to share Matthews letter to Santa.

I second his request for 15 million truck loads of cash. I really hope the big red fella follows through!

Moo Poo

Many, many years ago there was a man called Ray who had a daughter called Bev. She was in her 20's when Ray took Bev to help him buy some bags of manure. The very helpful sales assistant told Ray not to worry about carrying the heavy bags out to the car, the boy with him would help surely! Bev eventually grew up (and grew boobs too) and had children of her own called Jodie, Jenni, Jacki and Noddy. Ray thought this was great more people to help cart manure!

By the time I grew up Ray no longer bought bags of manure, he bought trailer loads of it! I learnt to drive with a trailer load of manure following me! Now Ray was a massive joker and I spent most of my youth rolled, smothered and shovelling manure.

Ray is no longer with us but his spirit lives on......

Through his great grandsons who have spent the weekend carting, being rolled in and shovelling.....manure!!! It is a little bit funny that when I see manure I think of my Grandad!!!

Movember...Just for Uncle Brenton

Uncle Brenton is currently doing Movember. You can sponsor him here.

Now his mo, 11 days into Movember is a mix between a caterpillar that died on his top lip and breaky that he spilt his on his top lip!

For I while I have doubted his ability to grow a Mo. I've based this on his big brothers attempts last year! So for the last little while I have wagered money that my youngest son Ben could grow a better mo. And here is the proof.....

 It is as white a Uncle Brenty's is!

 And this is not the first time a Rickard boy has sported a moustache. Back in 2009 after a visit from Poppy all three Rickard boys grew Moustaches'. (That were better than Uncle Brenty's!)

Please sponsor Brenty! It is a such a good cause! The link is at the top of the page!

Nathan & Jenni

Way back in the beginning of the year we organised for Cleon and Michelle to babysit the kids so we could go to my brothers wedding in early November. We spent months talking and preparing both them and us and the boys. As we leave them very rarely! Just recently for reasons I am not going to go into because they are so heart breaking on many levels (but all parties are healthy if not happy!) my brother was unable to get married. (We do hope it will be able to happen some time in the near future!) With everything else that has gone on in the last couple of months including Nathan's health scare and Ben's hearing issues we decided it would be best if we stuck to our plan but instead of heading to Adelaide we went to Merimbula instead.

 It was a great opportunity to remind ourselves of Jenni and Nathan. Not Mum, not Dad, not defence analyst extraordinaire, not volunteer giver. We went out to look for Nathan and Jenni before children and work etc, etc. Remember before you got married and your relationship was about getting to know each other with dinners, dates, holidays and quality time chatting about the meaning of life? Our aim for the weekend was to get back to that!

We started with an early knock off for Nathan and a gorgeous trip through Bredbo and Cooma. When we arrived at Merimbula we had one of our very favourite meals fish and chips. That's not special you might say but for us when it is on the beach it really is!

 Now things were not exactly like Jenni & Nathan BC (before children!) because in those days we might not have woken up until 10am. We couldn't shake off Rickard mornings so quickly so we still woke up early. So we hit the Benjamin Boyd National park for a quick hike to the most beautiful site. We could see footprints in the sand at the bottom that must have been penguins or seals or something other than human!

 During out hike we came across a black wallaby on the track. Unfortunately Nathan was a bit slow on the camera and we missed the shot!

 We then walked along the beach with not one other person in sight! If it had have been warm enough in the water we might have gone in but the water was ICY!!!!

 After our walk along the beach we drove off in search of some wineries. We drove all through out Bega looking for one that was not where the internet said it would be! But it was a gorgeous drive through Bega cheese country. Finally, for Nath we found the second winery on our list and he picked up a couple of bottles of Merlot and White Shiraz. We then moseyed on through Bermagui where we followed a Maserati much to Nathan's delight. We had a funny conversation about how we could have a Maserati if we chose to live in a shack. The Maserati then pulled into his driveway at the end of which sat..... a shack!!!! We arrived back at our hotel just in time for our massages! Yum!

For dinner that night we had our other favourite meal. Nathan had fresh oyster with a drizzle of lemon juice and I had fresh prawns with crusty bread and thousand island dressing. Devine!

 This was the view from our balcony,

 After dinner Nathan took me out or an ice cream.I picked chocolate and honeycomb and I picked Nathan mango and passionfruit. It always works out that Nathan eats half of my main and I eat most of his dessert!

We had one final walk along the beach with the sun setting before we went back to watch the swimming on the tele and then a soak in the spa before we headed back to real life. But with a much greater appreciation for the wonderful man who is going to spend the rest of his life with me!

Both Nath and I really do have to give a big thank you to Cleon and Michelle for having the boys. I know they had a great time and said it was easy and the boys were good and they loved it! But we still really do appreciate everything they do! We don't live close to family so the boys really aren't used to staying with other people and the fact that they did it so well is really a testament to how well you have become a part of our family. I don't think they could tell you the difference between the family they are biologically related to and the one they are related to with their hearts!

Look what followed me home!!!

We picked him up in a little town called Carbargo! We have been looking for a puppy for months and after many many false starts we were starting to think we weren't going to be able to come through on our promise of a puppy for Christmas! But we found this little guy and we knew he would fit right in!

 We didn't tell the boys we were bringing them back a dog. We came in with a handful of shells telling them that that was all we had brought back for them. We then showed them the puppy and asked them if they would prefer this instead. Guess what? They preferred the puppy!

 Matthew has not been further than this from him since he came home! He actually wasn't giving Ryan a chance to bond with him so we had to allocate some Ryan and Bolt time!

 On the drive back from Carbargo Nathan and I had decided to call him Bruiser. It had to be a "B" name to go with Busta and Barkley. (Sorry Hudson! But we didn't give you your name!) However, Cleon didn't like Bruiser and kept suggesting other names so his name is now Bolt! Our across the road neighbours have a Pepa and the idea is that they are now collectively "Bolt & Pepa!"

 He is still getting used to his collar and if he could reach it he would happily chew right through it!

 He is a gorgeous little thing. He is a purebred Kelpie (he doesn't have a pedigree but then again neither do we! So who are we to judge!!!)

It is interesting trying to get the boys to understand we have a baby in the house. One who loves to play but still really needs to sleep. I had prepared them for Bolt to cry all night but he slept through silently! Hope he does that again tonight!

G'day from WA!

My Grandmother recently turned 80. It was such an achievement! After 2 battles with breast cancer and losing Grandad 12 years ago, this woman has blossomed! I am so proud of her. So there was no way I was going to miss her 80th birthday party. Even if it was thousands of kilometers away in Western Australia!

She had a lovely day with her daughters throwing her a huge party. Her granddaughter, Julianne and her husband Steven cooked massive amounts of food that she requested. And all of her neighbours, friends and family lavished her with attention and presents!

 She was shouted breakfast by the beach and taken for a stroll through the trash and treasure market. (Which was freezing! I thought coming from Canberra I would find it insanely hot but it was colder than Canberra!)

I got to have my photo taken on the beach but it was far too chilly to stroll and we really didn't have enough time. But it satisfied my West Australian beach craving. (I had a misspent youth on the sand at Mandurah and Rockingham beaches!)

 I got to catch up with my favourite Aunt! She is looking beautiful after loosing a huge amount of weight by walking around Kalgoolie for miles and miles! She hasn't managed to give up the fags though!

 There was a brief visit from cousin Karen and Kevin but as they had their youngest son in hospital from a battery mishap it was really quick but lovely!

It was a bit mind blowing to see the cousin playing with each other in the same backyard that me and my cousins played in for all of those years. We really cant all be old enough to have our own children now can we???

It was a gorgeous but far too brief visit. But I am so glad I got to spend Nan's birthday with her and the other huge plus was because Mum's birthday is the day after Nan's I got to spend a part of Mum's birthday with her too! Yay!