Busy Week

It's been such a busy week. Tuesday the girls went back to school. Giulia will also be attending their school for two weeks. She will be in three of Kady's classes.

Mum, Debby and I stayed home for the day whilst I tried to work out my timetable and classes for Uni.

Wednesday we headed to Ballarat for a bit of retail therapy.

Thursday morning Dessirea and I did the food shopping for our karate christmas in July party. After we had finished shopping Mum, Debby and I caught the train into Melbourne. We went to the Victoria Markets and passed all the Melbourne Court Houses and Melbourne Mint. I got some lovely cuts of meat and some fruit and vegetable marked down on closing.

We had lunch at a lovely cafe near the market.

After the market with caught the city circle free tram around Melbourne.

Around Melbourne

Monday we took Mum, Debby and Giulia into Melbourne for the day. We caught the tram into Southern Cross Station and then walked and walked and walked some more.

We left Southern Cross Station (where lots of work for the Miki was being done) and walked up Collins Street. Kady introduced Giulia to Krispy Kreme Donuts. We walked through Australia Arcade and The Block Arcade and saw Gog and MaGog. The mosaci work in the arcades is amazing. Through the Bourke Street Mall, through Myers and into Melbourne Central with the shot tower.

We then walked to Melbourne Gaol. We went on the watch house tour. It was so funny. The prison warden officer treated us like a prisoner and called us names and locked us in the cell for a minute. All the kids under 15 weren't allowed to be locked up. Instead they were the wardens helpers.

We walked down through China Town and had lunch in a little food court and had the most amazing chinese buffet for $9 a plate. You could chose what and how much you wanted. It was very yummy. We continued walking down Swanston Street, past St Paul's Cathedral, Flinders Street Station and Federation Square. Onto Hosier Lane were the most amazing graffiti and stencils decorate the laneways. We got talking to one of the artists who had helped paint the living wall. It's bright and colourful and the more you look the more you see in each image. We walked through Federation Square and across the bridge to Southgate. Along Southgate and passed the Polly Woodside and Jeff's shed and after a long long walked we arrived at South Wharf DFO.

Kady and Giulia got some great bargains at DFO. We walked back to Southern Cross. It was nice to sit on the train home and rest after a great day out in Melbourne.

Happy 40th Birthday

Jason turned 40 this week. We had a party with family and friends. For J's party I went with a pasta theme and made the following



lasagne

canneloni

napoli sauce with olives

creamy mushroom and bacon

creamy mushroom

spagetti bolognaise

marinara



and



tortollini

spagetti

and penne pasta.



Thanks to all our lovely family and friends that bought a long a yummy dessert. J had a great night even if it did involve 40 pushups.


Earlier in the day I picked Mum and her friend Debby up from the airport. They have come down to spend a week with us.

Frosty Cold Morning

A frosty cold morning with an overnight low of minus 4.5 on the Trentham Weather Station.

She's Licenced To Drive

After a busy school term Kady finally had time to take her learners during the school holidays. She was a little nervous but did just fine.

Here's a quick pic taken with her learner receipt. Her licence will come in the mail in a few weeks.

Well done Kady.

Coen Storm

A little bit of heaven arrived into our family this week on tuesday 8th June at 5.40pm. I became a great aunt.Congratulations Emily. Coen is adorable and I can't wait to meet him and have a cuddle.

Happy Birthday Julia

Last night we went out to celebrate Julia's 30th birthday with family and friends at a little place in Melbourne. J and I had a seafood platter. It was only $23 and probably one of the best platters we have ever had. It had smoked salmon, a salmon fillet, calamari, prawns, scallops and chilli mussells. It's was delish. We had a great night before picking Kady up from work and heading home.

Baking

I have been baking a few recipes from one of my favourite blogs today............Frills In The Hills.


Soup Bread, Banana Muffins and Apple Cakes.


http://www.frillsinthehills.com/2010/02/lunchbox-legends-gluten-free-mini.html



http://www.frillsinthehills.com/2010/03/banana-cupcakes-with-honey-cream.html





http://www.frillsinthehills.com/2010/05/perfect-soup-bread.html

Happy Mothers Day

Happy mothers day to my mum and to my mum in law.

I was totally spoilt this year. Kady bought me slippers, pj's and Leah bought me some earrings. Sadly Kady had to work but J, Leah, Mary, Eddie, Kathie, Adam and I had a lovely lunch at a local pub.

We spent a quiet afternoon at home. Leah practised her Sax and J played guitar.

Renovations Begin

Budget renovation of the kitchen has begun.We plan on renewing the entire kitchen for about $2000. This includes a discounted oven, new sink, rangehood, new taps, new cupboard handles and new benchtops.

Can it be done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The two images below are what I hope it will look a little like. I love the French Provincial style kitchens. Light cupboards, dark benchtops.

First we began with removing all the doors....... We bought a primer coat so this eliminated the need to sand all the varnish off the original doors.

J sprayed the doors outside and I used a rollar on the main body of the cupboards. The cupboards received three coats (plus primer) and the doors received two coats (plus primer).

The oven was removed and J cut a hole in the existing cupboard for a new stand alone oven. We ended up with a Westinghouse with a separate grill.

End of day one............

Easter 2010

We had a lovely Easter this year. We spent the morning at home before taking Kady to work and then going on to J's family for the day. Late afternoon J went and picked Kady up from work so that she could enjoy Easter with the family.

The day began with checking out what the Easter Bunny had left everyone.Then onto to our traditional Easter Egg hunt in the back yard.

Off to Mary and Eddies, where the Easter Bunny had left more goodies for Leah, Zac, Megan and Kady. Megan and Zac enjoyed searching Babcia's garden for Easter Goodies. Each year all the kids get new pj's. It's so cute to see them all dressed up in the by the end of the day. Kady came back from work and put hers on straight away.

A few photo's in Babcia and Djudjals magical garden. All the fairy mushrooms near the pine trees. There were hundreds of them this year. They looked amazing. Megan was quite fasinated by them.

Off down the block to ride Boof the sheep and the neighbours horse. A walk through the vineyard and to finish off the day we picked lots of vegies from Babcia and Djudjals huge veggie patch.

We finished off the evening with lots of traditional Polish food cooked by Mary and Eddie. We had a lovely day.

Lamb Shanks In Red Wine Sauce

One of our favourite meals are Lamb Shanks in Red Wine Sauce............ Real comfort food.


4 lamb shanks

olive oil

plain flour

salt n pepper

1 brown onion

2 celery stalks

2 carrots

garlic

1 cup red wine

1 bottle passatta sauce







1. Heat oil in frypan. Season flour with salt and cracked pepper. Coat lamb in flour.



2. Cook for 5 to 10 minutes until browned. Remove from pan and set to one side.

3. Dice carrot and celery.



4. Cook onion, carrot, celery and garlic until onion is soft and clear. Remove from pan and set to one side.



5. Increase frypan heat and add red wine. Simmer for a few minutes then add Passatta sauce and onion, carrot, celery and garlic mix. Add lamb shanks.



6. Cover with a lid and reduce the heat to low. Simmer until lamb is tender.



You can also cook this dish in a slow cooker. Brown your shanks and then add everything into the slowcooker and enjoy later that day. Tastes delish no matter how you cook it.



Serve with creamy mashed potatoes and lightly steamed green beans.

Family Photos

Uncle Michael sent me a few pictures today of Dad's side of the family from slides. A fantastic good morning to open the inbox to a few treasures. Will share a few today.

Group photo of the family on Dad's side. Not sure what was happening this day. We have a pic that I have scrapped that must have been taken on the same day. Will have to find it.
In this photo, Auntie Karen, Uncle Richard, Jackie, Uncle Michael, Dad, Tony (part of him),
Grandad, Me (half of me), Nanny and David, Auntie Beryl, Mum and Peter.




My first Christmas. December 1969. The date is wrong on the first picture. It amazes me how much like Leah looks like me when she was a baby.

My beautiful Nanny. She never looked any older. Love this lady to bits and miss her so much every day.

My Mum and I. Kady looks so much like her.

These photos must of been taken in early July or late June before we emigrated to Austalia. Brothers Richard and Will, Mum and my cousins David and Peter. The panda looks very familiar.

Mum and Dad look so young. Mum was 25 and Dad 27. We moved to Australia just the four of us and Mum knew only one girl she had been to school with. Not sure what Mum and Dad are looking at in this picture.

Happy Birthday To Me

We had a lovely relaxing weekend. I worked all day Saturday and the girls had a sleep over at a friends on Friday night. Saturday night we went out for dinner at a local pub that has recently reopened and is more a restaurant style than pub. We all got dressed up and I actually wore a dress. First time for a little while. I bought the dress to where for Christmas but it was too cold on Christmas day to wear it.

We had the most amazing meal. For the first time in a long long time we had entree, main and dessert.

J had a lovely Thai Raw Beef salad that was just amazing. I had a Prawn Cocktail (been years since I had one of these). For mains J had the Beef and Reef served with a creamy seafood sauce and I had the Beef Pie with a red wine sauce on a bed of mash and peas. Its was delicious. For dessert the girls and I had a chocolate pudding with a vanilla cream. We waddled out of there at the end of the night.

I received some lovely gifts. J made me a card from my scrapbooking stash ( I was so stunned and love it) and he bought me an organice vegetable gardening book, Kady spent a small fortune from her pay on a lovely bottle of Max Mara perfume. It's so yummy. I received $25 from Mum and Dad that helped pay for my Garden of St Erth membership. Friends bought me a lovely top, a bottle of limoncello lemon liqueur, some hand creams from Innoxa ( a lovely set of four).

Today I had both girls home sick from school. Leah has had an ongoing pain in her tummy for months. She has been on a dairy lactose free diet for the last two weeks with no improvement. As a baby and up until a few years ago she was very intolerant of dairy, lactose.

We went back to the doctor today. Tomorrow they have arranged blood tests and an adominal x-ray. The blood tests are to test for a range of things including if she is gluten intolerant.

Tonight I made the most delicious Seafood Pasta dish.

Lemony Seafood in Saffron Garlic Sauce

1kg Mussells

500 grams green prawns

250 grams pineapple squid

1 cup white wine

1 cup water

1 lemon

pinch of saffron

fettucine pasta

40 grams butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 cloves garlic

4 green spring onions, chopped

1 cup cream

2 egg yolks

2 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano

Scrub mussels, remove beards. Shell and devein prawns, leaving tails intact. Combine mussels, wine and water into frypan. Cover, bring to boil and simmer for 1 minute. Strain and reserve liquid.

Thinly peel rind from lemon ( I use a grater). Combine rind in pan with reserved liquid and saffron, simmer, uncovered until liquid is reduced by half. Strain reserve liquid.

Add pasta to large pan of boiling water, boil, until tender. drain.

Heat butter and oil in pan, add garlic and shallots, cook stirring for 1 minute. Stir in reserved liquid and combined cream and egg yolks, stir, without boiling until slightly thickened.

Stir in seafood, juice and oregano, simmer, covered for about 2 minutes or until prawns are tender. Serve sauce over pasta. Garnish with spring onions.

Sauce can be made the day ahead, not suitable to freeze.

Garden St Erth

Yesterday we visited the Garden of St Erth not far from us. Each season I buy all my seeds (both vegetable and flower) from here. They have a fantastic range of seeds and many that are suited to our local area.

Here's a little history about the garden and house.

The Garden of St Erth features an extraordinary range of plants from around the world. Thousands of naturalised daffodils carpet the lawns in September, and through the summer months the herbaceous border features Digger's perennials and grasses. The garden culminates in an extravagant display in March for our Fruit and Flower festival. May marks the end of our gardening year with a blaze of autumn-coloured trees and late perennials.
Cocooned in the Wombat State Forest, the bush garden plays host to a variety of native birds, as well as being a place of restful contemplation. The natural spring of Koban's pool is a cool place to escape the summer heat.

In 1854 Matthew Rogers, a Cornish stonemason, left Sydney in pursuit of gold discovered near Mount Blackwood in Victoria. In the 1860s he built a sandstone cottage, naming it ‘St Erth' after his birthplace in Cornwall.
Rogers attached a wooden building to the western end of his stone cottage which served as a post office and store. Behind it was a boot factory that formed part of a bustling town of 13,000 people. His daughter Elizabeth and her husband Jim Terrill continued at the store, but as gold ran out, the wooden buildings of the town were moved to Trentham. For a time the house lay empty and the bush moved back in. Eventually it was bought by a group of Melbourne businessmen who called themselves the Simmons Reef Shire Council.The Garden of St Erth is also a garden of plenty, with fruit trees and food plants, espaliered heirloom fruit trees and a permaculture-style food forest.

For a few years I have been meaning to join the diggers club. Yesterday I joined us up as a family and now look forward to visiting the garden whenever we want without paying to get in each time to all the different events run throughout the year. The garden changes so much each season. It's a lovely, relaxing place to visit.

http://www.diggers.com.au/

Yesterday I bought a dragon fruit plant, two types of sweet pea seeds, poppy seeds, allysum seeds, coriander, cabbage and cauliflower seeds, pink and blue spring garden mix, two butterfly bushes, ranunculus bulbs and two catmint plants. Hoping they all grow so our garden looks nice and colourful this spring.

Bella

One year ago today Bella came to join our family. We love her so much. She is so sweet, cuddly, pulls our trees and plants out of the garden but we wouldn't be without her.

Bella at 8 weeks.

Here's Bella at 12 weeks.

We love our Bella.

Redecorating

After deciding not to sell our house and stay put here for a good many more years we decided to spend some time updating the house a little.

Firstly we are starting to update the kitchen. Our kitchen is currently pine timber cupboards, slate look vinyl and a cream textured benchtops.

We are hoping to achieve this look by painting the cupboards Dulux, 1.4 strength Hog's Bristle it's a cream) and replacing the bench tops with new laminex (lighter than the pictures) and painted glass splashbacks.

We need a new oven and cook top and have decided to buy this Westinghouse model. It's a free standing stainless steel stand alone unit with a separate grill.

The benchtop colour we are leaning towards at the moment is Smoke Granite by Laminex. It has brown, grey, black and cream tones.

To finish the cupboards off we will add new handles. We are hoping to get the cupboards done over the Easter holiday.s