Aquarium Adventures

Yesterday we took the trip up to Townsville, about three hours drive from our home in Hamilton.
ML had some meetings up there and we thought we would check out the aquarium .... and learn about all the marine life we had seen on our trips around the reef. The kids loved it and they got to get up close to lots of the marine life they have learned about up here without getting freaked out (like they did when we were in amongst the fish at the reef)

The Aquarium is completely funded by public donations, and the volunteers there do an excellent job, you can really tell they have a passion for educating the visitors about the Reef and its inhabitants. We sat through an entire presentation with the marine biologists and my big Sunshine was transfixed, absorbing the information like a sponge ... I love watching their little minds at work, you can just see it in their eyes ... also made me realise how grown up my girls are getting; their thirst for knowledge is exciting, the beginning of a new chapter.

I gave the girls the camera and we snapped lots of the things we saw ... I think I'll use some of these shots to make them a little laminated book about their trips to the reef ...

Ever since we arrived I've been in love with Seahorses ... still yet to see one out here in the wild!

This week I want to do some Aboriginal inspired art with the girls, I'm going to try and think up someway to use this fish as our inspiration ... I love the colours and patterns - spectacular.

My Little Sunshine was in a Nemo induced euphoria in this fish tank .... sweet little face!

After the aquarium, we were treated to a special tour of all the sick sea turtles in the Reef HQ Sea Turtle Hospital .... an amazing place which again is entirely funded by the public's donations ... we were so touched by this place ... and the girls and I have a particular facination with the Sea turtles up here, the girls think they are just so cute! (I was warned not to let the girls get their fingers too close to the tanks as the turtles might nip them off ... YIKES!)

This is "Phil" the big daddy who was almost 80kg and was 50years old ... who if fully recovers from eating the plastic bag in the ocean he thought was a jellyfish should live to up to 150 years! Amazing! He was HUGE!

If you would like to plan a trip or find out more about the great work they do at Reef HQ and the Turtle Hospital ... here is the offical website. If you are ever up in Townsville its a MUST find out all the details here :  Reef HQ Website

Mermaid Beach Inspired Treats.

Since the sale and hand over of Fantasea a few weeks ago ... our trip across to Airlie beach on the ferry has changed slightly .... before we would go straight from Hamilton Island Marine across to Shute Harbour on the mainland ... now we have to often go via Long Island and daydream Island before we get to the mainland ... and while this almost doubles our travelling time to Kindy, one of the bonuses is that almost everyday the girls get to spot the Mermaids at Mermaid Beach on Daydream.

Mermaid Beach is the main beachfront on Daydream Island, its very pretty and on the rocks there are three big iron sculptures of mermaids. The girls LOVED it when we took them for their first trip to Daydream. Its "Little Mermaid" heaven.

In our house we are a bit obsessed with all things water related since this move, and top on our list are mermaids. You may have noticed this in the kids artwork ... we do A LOT of mermaid inspired art, craft and dressing up .... and today its Mermaid inspired cooking!


So Here it is .... This was todays project ....


                                                      Super Spicy Gingerbread Cookies
(An adaptation of my mum's Gingerbread Recipe from the Family Circle Cookbook circa 1980 somthing!)

This is what I work from ... all my recipes are like this ... old and tatty!

We use:

125g butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg yolk
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons golden syrup

What we do:

Cream butter, brown sugar , adding egg yolk.

Combine all dry ingridents and then add in three parts alternating with golden syrup.
If dough is too dry add a teeny tiny bit of water.

Roll out, cut shapes and bake in moderate oven for 10 mins.

VERY spicy but great with cool lime royal icing!
(Also great for Xmas! The aroma id awesome!)

We spend A LONG time rolling and cutting (and often eating the dough)

This cutter the girls chose in Sydney a while back, its super cute

I kind of dread the icing stage, but the girls LOVE it ... its messy and sticky and we BURN through the decorating supplies ... BUT its half the fun of these cookies ... a LOT of icing is consumed during this stage of this recipe.

And our finished "mermaid inspired treats"

I'll have to admit that I'm also slightly partial to a bit of mermaid myself .... at the Hamilton Island gift shop I've been eyeing off this pretty vase .... I think I might have to take it home as a keepsake for our trip up here ... I have no idea where I'll use it or where I'll put it ... but I think I still need it! Perhaps there is a bit of mermaid in the heart of every Northern Beaches Gal ??

Bakescapades ...

Last year, two of my very favourite friends bought me the baking bible "How to be a Domestic Goddess" from my the queen of comfort food ... my idol Ms Nigella Lawson. And since moving here I've made it my mission to bake my way through the pages of this book ... London Cheesecakes, New York Cheesecakes, Strawberry shortcakes, Fairy Cakes, and Victoria Sponge .... its been delicious ....and fun ....

Im not sure why I find baking so appealling now .... my granma is the QUEEN of the date scone, and still to this day, if you pop down for a cup of tea (she lives on the same block of land as my parents and aunt and uncle - on our little family compound ) -  STILL always has something home baked, usually fresh that morning to offer .. and it would appear she has raised an army of all cooking  - all baking powerhouses in her five daughters, my aunties and mother. So I do wonder if this new found love of baking, was something ingrained in me, which I would discover when the time was right. -- Im not sure if I've quite mastered the skill yet, but I definately do appreciate the whole ritual of baking and its theraputic qualities.

My Mother always let us bake with her, and as soon as my first born "Sunshine" was able, my mother started baking with her too .... I admired my Mother's gentle, patient way with her little granddaughter teaching and watching my little girl mixing and pouring and tasting. This also was a gentle lesson from my mother to me, on how to exercise patience with my children, how to let them learn through their own involvement and experiementation and perhaps most importantly - that very oftern in order to have fun, we have to expect a bit of mess! And so - as much as I can, I let the girls bake with me - I have about a fraction of the patience of their Granma, and I'm sure its no where near as much fun baking with Mum ... but we give it a go, and most times we get to enjoy a yummy morning or afternoon tea as a result!

My very favourite cupcake recipe (yes even more than the famous Magnolia Cupcake recipe) Nigella's Fairy Cakes

Gingerbread men and women with zingy lime royal icing

Melting Moments

Ballerina Red Velvet Cake with Pink Lustre Cream Cheese Frosting Lovingly decorated by the kiddlets.

Baked Cheesecake with Rasberry and White Chocolate Chips

The Fruits of Island Fever ...

So ... as much as I love living on this Island, when the weather is less than paradise perfect, being stuck inside with two little ladies can be tricky.

Unless I'm willing to shell out sixty something dollars to play indoor Coconut bowling, or take them to an indoor art class with the art gallery (for a lazy $50 per head) ... then my wet weather entertainment options are EXTREMELY limited. I do feel sorry for the holiday makers with young children when this weather hits, its hard!

On the days facebook status updates become more and more frequent, you'll know the Island/Cabin fever is starting to get to me .... and when we hit the CRAFT you'll know its getting serious!

One of the things that appealed to me about the move up here was the chance to slow down, and just enjoy the girls, spending time with them, doing the art and craft with them that i just never found the time to do in the city .... and learning to stop, to breathe and to appreciate how great these girls i'd been blessed with were. I think I managed that.


Here are a few of the cute little craft and art projects the girls have done during our time up here ....


Meri The Mermaid

How cute is this ... the my big girl "Sunshine" did this one .. my sister and I just cut out the shapes and mounted them on black card ... we did lustre paint, pretty hair made from string and beads and sequins that the girls chose .... this occupied the girls for a good while ... and they sent the finished artworks back with Granma's house to the Gallery (aka the Fridge)

Turtle Mosaic

This was a big effort ... we had to cut up lots of paper out of magazine (something that can be triky when the little one insists she can help and use the scissors) ... then we made some home made craft glue something I'd wanted to try for a while ... I used THIS RECIPE for the glue ... it worked really well (great because my girls plough through the glue)

So first we drew our outlines ... then we pasted them with paper tiles and glue ... then we painted with lustre and texture paint ... the girls LOVED this activity ... and so did I ... and now ML has our artwork hanging in his office at work (Now I wished we had waited for his birthday so I could have killed two birds )

Its a GREAT activity with the kids, but it is messy and can required my constant help and supervision ... so you have to be feeling it! Next the girls want to try a crocodile .... which should be cool!

And it also doubled as a nice stained window decoration ... seeing as this house has NO blinds.... anywhere! Not even the bathrooms!

Straw Blown Watercolour Pictures

We saw this one on "Mister Maker" a while ago and we were excited to try it (I LOVE that show, so many great ideas) .... anyway ... we just made the watercolours ourselves with water and food colour in little bowls (very watered down to avoid clothing and furniture disasters) - I let the girls choose and mix the colours with me so this was an activity in itself ... then we just did drops on the paper with the colour water and blew them into shapes ... both of them LOVED this (I will admit my silly little Dewdrop did drink a bit of the watercolour before she got the hang of it - so maybe this is better for kids 3 or 4 and up) .... but my older artist was amazing ....

Here they are with the colours and straws

And here are Sunshines creations ... (Mummy helped add the pencil accents after they had dried) but they are 95 percent her work ... I was very impressed ... and yes most of my facebook friends had to hear about it too ... apologies!

when I get home I'd love to make them into a digital collage which was something I saw here  HERE  that I thought was a great idea ... its a digital reproduction of a collection of the kids worked .. mounted and framed ... I LOVE it! So very cool.

Novel Memories ....

Right before we made the move up to the Islands, we decided that the girls should share a room ... when I was little all three of us had shared a room for most of our childhood years. So my Dewdrops and Sunshine probably started sharing a month or so before we left Sydney, and its been great. I love having them so close to one another ... especially at this new house where the layout is such that I feel so far from them at night ...

Intially I'd just kiss them goodnight and sit quietly wait for them to settle, then sneak out when they had fallen asleep .... but when we moved up here into a hotel at first before the move across to Hamilton I decided I'd like to try reading them little stories before they went to bed .... when I went looking into what would be good to start I saw this at the local bookshop .... The GORGEOUS re-release of the original first published Magic Faraway Tree book series by Enid Blighton ..... and it was perfect! The girls LOVE it, and its so appropriate to their age  (We tried some roal dahl but it was a bit too dark and confusing for them) .... I love that right before bedtime my Sunshine remembers excatly where we are in the latest book ... and what happend in the last chapter ... its a beautiful, calm and quiet way to wrap up the day with them and I thoroughly enjoy this little reading ritual too! And it will always something that will remind us of our sweet little home here on the Island .....

And so since introducing the girls to the Faraway Tree I've discovered I'm not the only one enjoying it all over again .... and I have to admit, I did let out a little squeal of delight when I was reading Shop Til You Drop Kids and saw THIS amazing Faraway Tree themed party ... which I now see has been feature on a few party blogs including one of my faves Hostess With The Mostess ..... Not only do I DIE for the styling (Im a sucker for anything with the colour theme green and white) but I love that the little birthday girl is called "Clementine" which is the name I have dreamt up for my imaginary third child (destined to be another girl, and yes Matt is unaware of this name choice, but I'm determined to convince him!!)

Check out this party .... if there was a way I could pull it off ... I would LOVE to decorate the girls new room with accents from this party ... its just precious!

Tea in the Tropics

During the last school holidays Our mornings kind of got into a little rhythm ... One all three of us quite enjoyed, so on our home days (the precious few that we don't have to do the now 4 hour commute here and back to Kindy in airlie beach) we have continued our little morning rituals after dropping matt to the ferry we head off for early morning trip to see all the animals at the wildlife centre ( the dingos and the cockatoo know us and come over to meet us when we visit them now!) and then we head home to bake .... And bake we do .... a big fat morning tea .... We love it! "tea in the tropics"

This morning was our first attempt at what I feel to be the Queen of Cakes ... The Victoria sponge .... And I think I need quite a bit of practice ... Nigella makes it look easy ... But easy it is not!!!


                                    This is little "Oprah" ... she is named after Oprah Winfrey because apparently the first time she peeked out of her mothers pouch was when Oprah was visiting the Wildlife Centre ... Little Oprah is one of our faves ... before we leave I'm going to pluck up the courage to hold her and get my photo taken with the girls .... Im not quite there yet!

And "McCulloch" ... named after a Chainsaw ... he's the most animated Croc Ive seen in captivity ... My little Dewdrop girl LOVES him ... and asks to cuddle him each time we visit .... shes CRAZY ... he looks like he wants to eat us most of the time. Im thankful for the glass

Postcards From Paradise

Instagram how I love thee ....  although really ... who needs it when the landscape and seascapes are this stunning ... here is a collection of some of the 1000s of photos ive taken since our arrival in feb ... and probably the reason why my little Sunshine and Dewdrop cringe when they see a camera ... and yes I realise my children are discustingly overexposed on facebook ... my apologies!

Whitehaven beach and our "Stinger Suits" ... Im glad we missed most of stinger season ... one drawback to the tropical waters .... kind of scary when you see the beaches in Airlie desserted on a HOT HOT 40 degree day .

Above is the picture we took from the helicopter over whitehaven beach ... it is hands down the most beautiful thing I have ever seen ... shortly after we saw whales breaching just off the shore ... I hope the girls are old enough to remember it ... beacuse it was something pretty special.

                                                  Barrier Reef Bound from the chopper to reef world ... pretty amazing view from the chopper ... the helicopter flight around whitehaven and out to the reef is $$$ but it is beyond worth it to get a full appreciation for the amazing reef and all its coral channels ... ive never seen anything like it ... the day we did this was one of the best days of my life ... it was astounding, and something that should be on EVERYONES bucket list.

                                  The girls fave place to make sandcastles and have a splash is the "resort side" beach called Catseye ... its gorgeous ... behind is the passage toward Whitehaven beach ...

Ive got to figure out what to do with all these photos when we get home ... Id love to make something for the girls so they can remember it ...  right now I'm stumped for inspiration ... any suggestions

 

Feeling the distance ....

I unapologetically live and breathe my family.... I joked when contemplating the move that at birth they forgot to cut the umbilical cord that connected me to my mother.
So, I knew this move would be a challenge, and I was ready for some pretty intense home sickness. However, I did surprisingly well for the first few months, being busy establishing ourselves, moving and settling the kids into a new home and a new school. I was surprised and impressed with how adaptable my babies had been and I relaxed... Interestingly, the thing that I had been most scared of turned out to be the thing I found most liberating... I enjoyed the slower pace and loved and still love the luxury of being able to wake up with the girls and let them choose how we will spend the day... I know that won't last forever so I am trying to let them enjoy the freedom that this lifestyle allows.
When my dad and my sister were both hospitalized within weeks of each other I got a big smack in the face of what it really means to be living away from "home" and how hard that can be…Thankfully both recovered well and they are doing great, but that was my first lesson on how unexpectedly and severely home sickness can strike. Since then, the almost non-stop influx of visiting family and friends has helped keep homesickness at bay (thank you everyone!!)

Touch down .... Feb 2012

These are my two favorite photos from our very first day here, it was completely surreal .... Such a beautiful part of the world, and the people were just as warm and sunny as the climate ... I guess it's hard not to smile when you call paradise home.

my dewdrop and little miss sunshine were in heaven!

Good Morning Dewdrops and Sunshine

So with less than six weeks to go before we have to leave our little island paradise adventure ... I have finally figured out how to set up this blog.

I want to keep some kind of record of our time here up on the great barrier reef ... I wanted a place for us to remember what an amazing experience this was for our girls ... and later we can look back and be shocked at how lucky we were to have been able to take them on this adventure.

And so "Dewdrops and Sunshine" is born lets hope its the beginning of a beautiful friendship bewteen myself and the world of blogging! Wish me luck!