I'm back!

Hello all - sorry it's been so long since I've posted, but as some of you know, we've been away on the Big Bradford Adventure!

Nick had long service leave to take, so we decided to have a nice big family holiday with the boys, before Ashton starts school (which is next week, by the way!!). So, we headed off in mid-December, and got back about a week ago.

We did have a totally fabulous time, but it's fair to say that the holiday didn't quite turn out how we expected.

We decided to go straight up towards Sydney, as we've done the SE Victorian coast drive enough - I wanted to see something different. So our first stop was in Gundagai, and then Wombeyan Caves for a couple of nights, then Terrigal just for Christmas Eve (we had a lovely fish'n'chips dinner on the beach while Ashton went nutso running around in the sand), then Hawks Nest for a couple of nights, then Manning Point for 3 nights, and then we went on to Nambucca Heads.

We were just settling down after dinner on our second night in Nambucca Heads when my mobile rang - Nick's mum was calling. Nick's dad had had some chest pain, went to the doctors, who sent him to hospital, where they did an angiogram, found 4 blockages, and he had been scheduled for quadruple bypass surgery the next day (New Years Eve). Obviously we were rather shocked by the phone call, and took an hour or so to work through our options. If possible, Nick wanted to get back and see his dad before he went in to surgery, so we booked him on a 6.00am flight from Newcastle, and set about packing up camp. We drove out of the caravan park at 1.00am, and drove through the night, arriving at Newcastle airport at about 4.30am, and we dropped Nick off. The boys and I headed in to Newcastle, and after quite a while, managed to find ourselves a motel for the day, so I could get some sleep. Dad flew up to Newcastle that afternoon, to help me bring the car and trailer home - was good to have someone to share the driving with.

Laurie had had surgery that afternoon, and thankfully had made it through very well.

We headed off after picking my Dad up, and made it to Mittagong, where we grabbed a motel room for the night. I got to spend New Year's Eve in the lovely Motel Melrose, with Duck Egg Blue walls, with my dad and my kids!

We set off early the next morning, and made it home late that afternoon.

At least we were able to be here to assist our friends from England, who had arrived on New Year's Day, and show them a bit about setting up life in Melbourne.

Laurie was making a really good recovery, and was out of hospital after 6 days, so we decided to head off again on our holiday once he was settled at home.

This time we went to Lakes Entrance, then on to Mallacoota for a week (lovely little part of the world, that one), then on to Jervis Bay to stay with Nick's cousin for a few days, and then drove up to Sydney so that Ashton could see the Bridge and the Opera House, and made our way down to Goulburn, then to Strathmerton on the Murray to camp with my friend Vicki for a night, and then finally home last Thursday.

We are all very well rested, and I am not looking forward to going back to work at all!

Unfortunately, my computer has had a little conniption fit while we were away, so has been rebuilt, and as yet I don't have photoshop back on it, so I haven't been able to work on the photos at all. Never fear though - I'll post some pics as soon as I can - and you'll be seeing a lot of them in my forthcoming scrapping work too!

I hope you have all had a lovely Christmas and New Year, and I'll talk to you soon!

Ness.
xoxo