It's Been A While

Happy New Year to family and friends, and one and all.

What an eventful year the Brosnan household has had.  We started the year with a young girl who started year 1 and had the fun and joy of helping and encouraging her with school.  At the beginning of January we purchased three, day old chicks and a day old duck.  We all thoroughly enjoyed making a pen, home and enclosure for our new family members, and our girl learnt all about caring and raising a pet.  Then in April, I was diagnosed with cancer, and had to have major surgery, and our dear little girl had to leave to other carers.  The road to recovery took a while with much support from my wonderful husband, parents, Katrina and well wishes and prays from many family and friends.  After recovery, myself and Warren have had many other children in our care and have had many experiences with those children, which has enable us better skills to care for the full time children we will care for in 2010.

In September our duck started to sit on 12 eggs, and after 40 days, we had 10 beautiful, fluffy, yellow ducklings.  This brought much joy to ourselves, family, friends and any children that came to stay during that time.  8 ducklings went to a hobbyfarm in Bundaberg, and 2 days ago the last male and female went to the local produce store to be re-homed, as they had grown to big and messy.

In October, after many bouts of illness, Rose, our 10 year old poodle, passed away to go to doggy heaven with Toby.  Rose was our baby girl and is still sadly missed.

In November we had our first overseas trip, to wonderful place called Fiji, and we really did have the best holiday of our lives.  This is a place I would strongly suggest you visit, as it is so much cheaper then staying at the Gold or Sunshine coast, and the atmosphere there is just so relaxed and child friendly.  They make your stay there so enjoyable.

When we came back from Fiji we purchased two new babies for our family, Lucy and Bob.  Lucy is a mini poodle and is nearly four months old.  She is a similar colour to Rose, a little darker, and has golden ears.  She has usual markings, as her nose, mouth, and around her eyes are a lovely chocolate colour.

Bob is a toy poodle and is just over four months old, he appears black, but he is starting to go silver. We are enjoying the puppy stage, but missing the adult dog that we were so use to.  The training of wee wees and poo poos is becoming a challenge but we are slowly winning the war.  They are just so cute at this stage and so amusing to watch.

We celebrated Christmas with two children and headed to Kingaroy to Warren's sister for Christmas Day lunch.  It was great to see everyone and spent an enjoyable day, eating and being merry with his family.  Boxing Day we had an great meal with my parents and beat the boys (Warren and Dad) , at a game called Sequence.  It was great relaxing day.

New Year's eve we went to the hill behind Web Park and slid down the very slippy and muddy slope.  The boys had an absolute ball and I had just as much fun watching.  New Year's Day we spent with my Mum and Dad and had yummy toasted ham sandwich's, the best for those after Christmas festivities, something mild and simple.   Then the boys beat us girl's (Mum and myself) at Sequence, but only by one and only because Warren got a lucky hand.  Final score being 4-3.

I have posted some photos of the boys at Webb Park and there muddy aftermath, and also of Bob and Lucy playing with the drain, not being able to figure why they could not catch the water coming out of the drain.

We are hoping for ourselves and for all to have a good, if not better year then 2009.  We can't have any worse then the year we have had, and I feel it is about time we had a good one.  Wishing one and all a Happy 2010.

One Muddy Hill

The Cardboard didn't work but found that awesome white house sign,

made out of thin metal and it zoooooomed down that hill

Getting it up the hill was a task and a half

Warren screamed like a girl, god I wish I had had a video camera with me,

very amusing, not to his liking

very sore bum

very very very muddy after

butts were much dirtier by the time we left

 

 

mud, mud and more mud

this is why we thought it was a good time we left, it started soon after.  It was so black.

We got home and took the puppies out to toilet, and they discovered the drain.

Said Drain

(who would think this could be the source of so much fun)

trying so hard, let me have a turn, I can get it

trying

trying

please help mum

one wet girl

one wet boy

SO MUCH FUN and then poor old Mum having to bath as they then got into the red dirt up the yard chasing chooks and ducks.

FIJI Photos

Well, what can I say about Fiji, it was the best holiday we have ever had.  The best part of the holiday was the 3 night, 4 day cruise, we were taken to many little island in the yasawa group, we visited an isolated traditonal Fiji village, which was in stark contrast to the way we live.  Extremely basic, but the villages made the most of it, and were the happiest people you could image, cheerful, friendly, and eager to please.  Our last day full day on the cruise we spent at a private island, swimming, snorkeling, relaxing in hammocks, jumping off the back of the boat, the evening meal was a tradiontal lovo meal, (underground BBQ), the meat was so tender and the moist, the most amazing I have tasted.  We had an evening concert and dancing, it really was the best day of our lives.
After four days we arrived back at the Hotel we were staying at, The Westin,
http://www.starwoodhotels.com/westin/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=202&EM=WI_WESTINFIJI.COM_202
We have never stayed anywhere so up market, the service was spot on, they have special beds at the Westin, invision  a soft fluffy cloud, now invision sleeping on that cloud, that is what these beds were like.
We did a couple of days trips, one was to Treasure Island, a 40min boat trip to an outer island.  It is surrounded by the marine reserve, and the snorkeling here was fantastic, Warren finally gave it a go, and became as addicted as me to snorkeling.  The fish and the coral were the most amazing colours, the photographs I took, really do not show the true colours we saw.

The other day trip was a hinterland cave tour, it is a physically challenging trip and by the end of it I was buggered and could not move.  I would not recommend this for unfit people.  Getting to the cave and exploring it, was well worth it in the end.  We also road a traditional canoe, called a billibilli.  We travel down the river on this canoe, and it really was a beautiful experience.
Other then that we just sat around the pool or the beach at the Westin, reading and swimming.  It was a sad day when we left, and we just wished it had been longer.