Big One Tomorrow!

BGWLBH turns 50 tomorrow!

Nobody is allowed to mention numbers, but this is my blog and I make the rules :o)

A mini working bee was had today.  Three cars altogether and a horse float, to take all of the boxes and bags and some furniture away from the house.

We looked at another house and it has been offered to BGWLBH if she wants it, so she will contact the owner when she returns home.

She now has two possibilities, but neither are ready just yet, so that works out fine for road trips and holidays to fit in between.

There will be a birthday lunch at Deputy Daws' house tomorrow and everybody will bring some food, so that no one person has to do a lot of work.

We are looking forward to it... well ... speaking for myself ... I am looking forward to it.

We drove to the lake for the moon rise this afternoon, but because it rose at 4.40pm, there were clouds on the horizon AND the sun was still high in the sky ... it was less than spectacular.

We jumped in the car and drove to Scenic Lookout for a better view, but there was a wedding being photographed, so we had a limited area to use for photographs.

Funnily enough, we ran into Ms Nudey and her son, who was there with the same idea.  We both took candid shots of each other, which turned out quite good.

Ms Nudey's shot of me pretending to be paparazzi.

My pic of Ms Nudey taking a pic of the moon.

Ms Nudey and her cheesy grin.  She is lovely :)
I call her Ms Nudey, because she is the only person in our
104 group who has been able to get a shot of a nude human, other
than a baby.  Very tastefully done too!

Tomorrow night is full moon and it should be amazing, so we'll see what we can get.

The new challenge for the flickr group is 'Frozen in Mid-air', so I've got to come up with something a bit spectacular for that one.  I'm sure we'll find something on our ROCK STAR ROAD TRIP that will make an excellent entry.

Time to sleep.  I hope to have lots of photos of the party to share tomorrow.

Nite all.

Excited Mini Post

Well, my Rock Star Road Trip chant worked!

We are moving BGWLBH's belongings to her parent's house, then we have a few fix-ups to do here in this house and THEN we are on the move!!

By this time next week, we should be well and truly into our road trip :o)

By the time BGWLBH comes home in June/July, there will be a farm house out of town available for her (pending unforeseen circumstances of course), so she can move in before she goes back to work.

Anyway, we won't get TOO excited just yet ... but right now, things are looking up.

Tonight we went to dinner at a farm in Yenda and I found these little guys right on dusk, behind the house.

Blue Breasted Fairy Wren (male in front, female behind)

That's all for now.  I am exhausted after a big day and not much sleep last night.

Catch ya tomorrow.

Once more for good measure ... ROCK STAR ROAD TRIP   ROCK STAR ROAD TRIP   ROCK STAR ROAD TRIP

Nite all.

What was that about a road trip?

It has been a day of ups and downs.

A good news, bad news kind of day, but mostly 'nothing' news that leads us nowhere ... especially not to our road trip.  We are teetering on the brink of crazy insane frustration!!

We just need 'something' to fall into place ... one piece of the puzzle, so that everything else can fall where it should and we can move on with our long awaited holiday plan.

But the waiting continues ...

So, this morning while waiting for a 'rock star' phone call (rock star is what we call out when we want something great eg 'rock star car park'!  'rock star phone call'!) I played with a couple of shots from the weekend...

The lavender bush seems to be playground to a few different insects.  There was a beautiful butterfly resting on a flower today, but I couldn't get my camera quickly enough and he flew off before I could capture him in frame.

Two more photos from Scenic Lookout yesterday (or was it the day before?)

See the pigeon - top left??  He's the king of the world :)

We've been invited to dinner by one of BGWLBH's work colleagues tomorrow night.  She has horses and I said that I would attempt to take some good shots of her with them, so we will get there before the sun disappears and hopefully will have some shots to share on here tomorrow night.

I do know that we are having Roast Pumpkin Risotto for dinner and Tapioca Pudding with Golden Syrup for dessert.  She is vegetarian, I am gluten free and BGWLBH is allergic to seafood and nuts, so that makes for very limited choices!  How nice of her to go to so much trouble for us!

May Photo a Day Challenge - 3. Something that I wore today

I think we are having a breakfast or morning tea or lunch or something for BGWLBH's birthday on Sunday.  We were supposed to be on our road trip for her birthday, but now that we are still here, her friends and colleagues want to do 'something'.

What was that about a road trip???   Ah, the imaginary road trip.  In our heads, it was such a great road trip!  I think I'll go to bed and dream about a road trip.  If we say it out loud ... I know!!!  ROCK STAR ROAD TRIP!  ROCK STAR ROAD TRIP!  ROCK STAR ROAD TRIP!

Nite all.

Clouds Birds Turtles and Battleships

If you are a teenage boy - and I'm pretty sure that there are no teenage boys who read this blog - or if you are a male who likes 1.  Science Fiction  2.  Crap movies where American bad boys come good and save the world, and 3.  Crazy special effects and violence - then the movie 'Battleship' is for you!

It is definitely no 'Armageddon' (doesn't EVERYBODY love that movie???).

The science dude (who looked like he stepped out of The Big Bang Theory) was a shining beacon of reality and provided us with some light relief.

I guess you can tell that I am not a fan of this movie.  Glad I saw it, just to see what the hype was about, but wouldn't recommend it.

This morning, we were woken at around 5.30 - ish by thunder and lightning and heavy rain on the tin roof.  It was brief but it was loud!

The ground here is still sodden from the floods in March, so any rain that we get, lies over the ground in large puddles beside the roads for days.  This morning's storm has done just that.

So the clouds were forming over the city all day.  They would build up in dark grey clusters looking like a huge storm cell about to dump on us, but would then disappear just as quickly without a drop falling from the sky.

We decided to drive up to Scenic Hill again and try for some cloud shots from up high.

I also used this one for day 2 of the May Photo a day challenge  'Skyline'

A tree growing out of a rock!

It was nice up there, but too wet to be climbing over the rocks looking for Hermit's Cave (which I would have liked to do, because I never actually got to see it when I lived here).

Afterwards, we went to BGWLBH's parent's house and took them for a drive out to Tabitta, hoping we could find a way in to Barren Box Swamp from that end.  No such luck.

What we did see, on the way, was a number of Whistling Kites flying around high in the sky - and by 'a number', I mean 50 or 60 in about a one square kilometre area.

At first we thought they were over the garbage tip, but we turned up that road and the kites were not that far up the road.

So we stopped and I tried to get some photos.  They were very high in the sky, so the only lens that could capture them was the long 400mm and I couldn't open the lens wide enough to get more than four kites in one shot at a time.

It really was a spectacle to behold and I was disappointed that I couldn't capture it in camera.

So we drove on.  BGWLBH came to a sudden stop because there was a turtle in the middle of the road.  (I LIKE TURTLES!)  So we pulled over to the side of the road and rescued him.  We made sure to put him on the side of the road that he was heading toward and I got a photo (of course).

He was lookin' at me, but he wasn't comin' out!

Not much further up the road there was a Black Shouldered Kite hovering in the sky looking for food, so we stopped again.

I got out of the car and aimed my camera toward him and he suddenly turned and flew straight towards me!  He hovered above me briefly.  Long enough for me to get a few quick shots in and then he flew away!

As you can see, he was beautiful!  I've never seen these in Queensland where I live, so I'm going to take every opportunity for photos that I can.

That's about all I have to share for today.  We've been out for most of the day, so I haven't had much opportunity to play with my photos yet.  Perhaps I'll have a chance tomorrow.

A day filled with clouds, birds, turtles and battleships ... and now sleep.

Nite all.

We Avengered!

Finally, after all of my announcements that we would go to the movies to see 'The Avengers', we did it today!  And it was GREAT!

We saw it in 3D and the special effects were amazing and the famous names who played the superhero roles, outstanding.  I especially loved Tom Hiddleston playing the role of Loki (the bad guy).

Robert Downey Jr, who of course, played Ironman, absolutely 'made' the movie, but I could be biased because I have loved him for many many years now.

It was certainly chocka block full of eye candy for anyone with a pulse!

It was a long movie, but I enjoyed every second of it and will definitely buy it on dvd when it's released.  It ended, of course, with a hint of a sequel, so we can all look forward to that :D

Didn't do much else today, except play around with some photos that have been sitting here waiting to be actioned.

I'm also attempting to do the May Photo a Day challenge, because I fell very short in the April challenge.

Splash landing in the main canal.

Waiting ... 

Anyone for golf?

Sunset over a rare little farmhouse - most of them are mansions now!

For the May Photo a Day challenge - May 1 'Peace'

I watched BGWLBH do some repair work around the house and we watched 'The Voice' on TV tonight, which we are both completely addicted to, and have even started filling out the program from the newspaper, with the winning names as they go into the next round.

How sad are we?  We really need to do a road trip ... and soon!

I think tomorrow we are going to have a go at Geocaching.  Vegan Chickie, the Bare-chested Chef and Chicklet have been enjoying this pastime for over a week now and are really enjoying it.

Tomorrow, I will explain what it is and how you can try it too, so stay tuned!

Nite all.    

It's a Girl!!

Adoring Husband is currently floating on cloud nine somewhere on the Gold Coast celebrating the fact that he is now a grandfather to a new baby girl.  She was a hefty 8lb 2oz and Mum and Bub are both doing well.

I wish I could be there to give him a hug.  I know that he will be feeling very emotional but he'll also be very happy to share this exciting life event with his son.  A new baby in the family always brings happiness.

I am now waiting patiently for him to email me the first photos of the little bundle of joy.

In the meantime, let me show you the results of today's photographic journey.

BGWLBH and I were up before the crack of dawn and made our way to Scenic Lookout in time to watch the sun rise over the mountains to the west.

While the light was just right, we were able to put together a silhouette shot for this months flickr group challenge.

April challenge - 'Person in Silhouette'

Then while the morning light was highlighting all the colours in the rocks, I got a few more good shots.

We stopped at Maccas for coffee and brekky, then drove uptown, dropped the car off for it's service and then walked along Willow Park and the main canal.

For the 104 challenge - A Cockatoo
Photo 81 of 104

For the 104 challenge - A Lollipop Person
Photo 82 of 104

We walked to Deputy Daw's house for a quick cuppa before she dropped us off near the skate park.  It was very wishful thinking that we expected kids to be skating there on a school day!!  Ah well, no luck there.

BGWLBH decided to ride the wild pony.

Then a quick walk down the main street of town before we got the early phone call to collect the car!

Last of the Arty Farty shots.

So a busy day with the camera, a LOT of walking around town, a trip to the tyre bloke to get a big screw taken out of the back tyre, a few houses from the real estate to drive by, a lunch date with Deputy Daws and a bit of grocery shopping.

That filled our day and wore us both out, so BGWLBH napped while I sorted through my photos and then I cooked a deliciously healthful stir fry for dinner.

It seems you will all have to wait until tomorrow to see a photo of the new bundle of joy, because it's almost 12.30 am and it hasn't arrived in my inbox yet ... I'll wait five more minutes.

Introducing to you, our new little bundle of joy

Drum roll please ........

Straight from Poppy's phone to us!

Well, I think that's enough excitement for one day!  Time to rest and recuperate in preparation for the next big instalment!!

Nite all.

Maggie's House

This is Maggie ...

We had afternoon tea at her house today.  Her house is positively swishing and swirling with so much love, it is filled to the brim and overflowing!!

This is her family ...

They love each other too.

What a beautiful home they have on a lovely big block and landscaped with gorgeous pink, white and yellow roses, along with some gorgeous rustic little nooks and crannies scattered around the place.

Just lovely to wander around with the camera in the afternoon light.  I will post some photos later this week.

Unfortunately, by the time Dad got home, the light had almost gone, so our photos didn't turn out quite as I'd hoped.  I think I need to get a little more creative!

Tomorrow morning, we are leaving here before sunrise, so that we can be at the top of the hill near Pioneer and catch the sun rising from up high.  I am praying for some scattered cloud to bring a bit of colour to the occasion.

We then have to be at the other end of town by 8am to drop the car off for a service.  So we have a whole day to fill ... somehow.

The number one rule is ... wear comfortable shoes!!

Nite all.