Broadbeach Christmas Carols at Kurrawa Park

A Winter Wonderland!

Again, they came with their tables and folding chairs, their silverware and Christal, their hors d'oeuvres and snacks, their battery operated candles and Christmas toques and celebrated Christmas communally in the park.

Instead of decorations, children hung from the trees and the birds in the park sang along to the Christmas tunes almost drowning out the sounds emanating from the loud speakers!
Where: Kurrawa Park Broadbeach
When: 5.30pm

Saturday 19 December 2009

Entertainment: Donald Cant

Danielle Everett

Casey (Australian Idol Finalist 2009)
& Michelle Barnes

The Australian Youth Choir

The Rainbow Teddies

Samantha Mooney


Steffi Burns (Australia's version of Miley Cyrus (but she is only 12 years old and performed like a pro!)

Santa and his elves and so much more... this fantastic night of entertainment concluded with an incredible Christmas Fireworks display on the beach!










The firework display on the beach was magical and totally awesome! It's wondrous excitement was only surpassed by the romantic walk home on the deserted beach, under the stars and the moonlight with my soul mate!

A walk on the beach

Regent and I were walking along the beach on Saturday morning, planning our Christmas Holidays deeply engrossed in conversation, when a wave splashed across our legs and left a horrible sting around my foot upon it's retreat!

The pain was instantaneous! When I looked down, I realised the reason for the pain was the dreaded Portuguese Man of War that was wrapped around my ankle! So, after I did my dance of unwrapping my foot without touching the dreaded tentacles to the tune of Regent chanting "Are you o.k., your foot looks mighty red" ... we continued on our way, with me saying, I'm OK, it's not so bad...it just really stings!

We then came upon the Lifeguard Unit like a mirage in the desert. A simple spray bottle was taken out from the back of the Lifesaving Truck containing something that I believe he called "Sting Go!" or "Sting be Gone" (I was really too busy gazing into my savior's baby blues to actually take note) and sprayed it on my foot. The Lifeguard said that when he saw me dancing around he knew exactly what had happened!

The relief was immediate for both of us...for me as it immediately took the sting away and for Regent as he would not be forced to whip it out and urinate on my ankle (I'm sure that's what they recommended to do on National Geographic)...! So when blue eyes said: "I can tell you are not from here with your accent" , we answered in unison :"We're Canadian eh..."

Our Christmas picture

We took a dozen shots with the cat, without the cat, with the automatic timer to include in our Christmas card this year...you know, with girls it's not so simple! The hair must be just right, the expression
must be just so with not a hair out of place...OMG! , such drama. A consensus we did achieve and got the pictures made at Walmart on Saturday morning as planned. Thank God for small favors!

So what I did in Canada for two weeks was my theraputical Christmas baking, namely Gingerbread cookies and Chocolate chip cookies which the girls tell me taste exactly like the ones at the Subway Sandwich shop! I told the girls that they must have stolen my recipe, which they promptly reported to all their girl friends at school (although I showed them the recipe was on the chocolate chip package). It's nice that someone in this world hangs on my every word!

Gingerbread cookies (great for bribery purposes)

Sift together,

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon soda

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt
In a large bowl,

Cream 1/2 cup butter until soft.

Stir in 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup honey.

Add 1 whole egg.

Stir flour mixture into this mix.

Wrap in wax paper and place in fridge for about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Roll dough and cut into desired shapes.

Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 10 minutes.

Our family favorite frosting: 1 cup icing sugar + 1/2 cup Nestle Quick + a few drops of water.

I had better not come across these at the Subway Sandwich shop!

Regent and Gabriele with the Worlds greatest Grandaughters!

Joyeux Noel!

Merry Christmas!

Felice Navidad!

The long and winding road back to Oz...

This is what we left Montreal in on Sunday afternoon. A harrowing 1.5 hour journey to the airport (that usually takes 30 minutes!), that included a detour back to Nicky's when Alicia noticed that I had grabbed her mom's shoes when I left the house instead of my own!!! I was not popular in the car, let me tell you!

Then the "hurry up and wait" at the airport on the tarmac for "de-icing" which made our trip to Toronto (the first leg) 2 hours instead of one ... full of worry if we and our checked baggage would make it to Sydney airport. Well, the good news is ; we made it in plenty of time and so did our luggage! The flight left Toronto and then Vancouver on time; with us in our lovely business class seats! No worries and no complaints!
We were sad to leave our loved ones again, however once we got to the Gold Coast Airport in Coolangatta and felt the heat and wonderful humidity of this warm climate, well it did a lot to soothe our sadness...
So, yesterday I went grocery shopping and the cashier at the Woolworth food store asked me if I had been away for the past couple of weeks as he had not seen me around? I do believe that we are quickly becoming locals around here!

The first storm this winter

Alicia and Joanie's cat, Zuba is quite happy but I suspect also a little bored!
The cat is happy that he is getting a whole lot of attention with the dog in the kennel this week; but I think he is a little bored because we are not quite as exciting as the dog during the long day with the girls gone to school. He appears to like me even though cats never like me; and puts up happily with my petting and talking to him.

So, the weather man lied as the snow only began the moment the girls set foot outside to take their bus to school. They were so sure about not having to go to school, it threw a wrench into their negotiation tactics! They were not happy campers!!!

Over the day though, we got 30 something centimeters of snow, so the minute the girls got off the bus, they put on the full Monty of snow equipment and headed out to play with the neighborhood kids until dinner time! The big excitement of the day for them was when their bus got stuck in the snow and the bus driver made them all go sit in the back (to put weight there) while he maneuvered the vehicle back and forth out of the snow trap! We

were offered two very passionate reenactments of that episode. After dinner, the girls called their friends to find out what radio or television station we would need to listen to in the a.m. to confirm to their grandma that their school is closed. There was no doubt about the school being closed on Thursday, as one friend's mother who "works for the school", said that all schools would be closed because the buses would get stuck on the uncleared roads on Thursday.

The girls went to bad last night with the reassurance that there would be no school this morning!

The snow stopped late Wednesday night, but the road clearing crews were out in force, so that the promised day off from school was not to be! Much to the girls chagrin...

Darn those street cleaning crews!!!

Our week in Quebec

We arrived at Pierre Eliot Trudeau Airport on Friday evening and Nicky picked us up. So, it appears that she changed her car again to accommodate their trysts to the cottage every week end. The girls and Nicky had Friday off, so we spent the day together and went for dinner at a Greek restaurant the whole family together including Stephan. As the 9Th December is Pascal's birthday, we celebrated that at the restaurant as well.
Veronique and Pascal were driven to the airport by Stephan at 04:30 (!) as their flight out of P.E. Trudeau was at 06:20 to Miami Beach and then to the Port to catch their Cruise Ship.
On Saturday, Joanie's Cheerleader School held a little show and so we attended that. Joanie was very proud to see us there seeing her being tossed around and into the air! Very nerve racking!!! After the show, we went over to Stephan's in Morin Heights to check out the renovations he made on his house. Great job; what a lot of work from the heart! My son, he is such a perfectionist!
On Sunday we were invited to Regent's mom's place for dinner. We picked up Rolande on the way and headed up to Ste-Julie. There we had a lovely, typical french Canadian Christmas dinner complete with home made Tourtiere, Ragout de boulettes, feves au lard, etc... We had a great time, lots of laughs and great food!

Great to catch up with the Dussault family news and to see with our own eyes that everyone is doing well!

On Monday, the girls did their best to negotiate a reprieve from going to school, without success. They made the best of it, as they still had the special opportunity to come home from school on the bus instead of Nicky picking them up after work.

On Tuesday, the girls did their best to negotiate a reprieve from going to school, again without success.

On Tuesday evening, the weather forecasts a 30cm dump that will begin during the night. The girls are convinced that their wish for a Wednesday without school will finally come through!

Darn weatherman!!!

On the way home

Sydney Airport, waiting to board our flight home to Canada on Friday, November 27Th ...
We are very excited, checking our emails for any news from home!

Lee Ann will be picking us up at the Airport in Toronto tonight around 16:30 ... she has the whole week planned out for us. We are looking forward to getting our first look at her baby belly!

Arrived as planned at Toronto Airport. We spent the evening at home catching up with Lee Ann. So nice to see she missed us as much as we missed her!
Saturday morning, we were up at 03:00 without any hope of getting back to sleep. Did a few housekeeping chores and went to the bank once it opened. We took a ride out to Cambridge to visit Walter and Noreen, which was great, catching up on things we missed while we were away and seeing that Noreen is doing well! The ride home was really something, fighting "jet lag", screaming at each other in the car with the windows open so that we would not fall asleep.

As we made a pact to stay awake until at least 8 p.m. we tried hard to remain awake, but we were tittering
on the edge of a coma, so after waking up a couple of times by our own snoring we packed it in at 06:45 !
What a great sleep that was! Pure Bliss!
On Sunday, I made spaghetti sauce and Gord and Lee Ann came to dinner. That was great, back to normal life...
On Monday Lee Ann and I went to the Arts and Craft Show downtown Toronto to look at all the cool Baby stuff they were offering. We did more window shopping than anything else, planning for her little sweety!
On Tuesday, Lee Ann and I made a surprise visit to our old CPC office...so great to see everyone again! We had a lunch date at a Vietnamese restaurant in Etobicoke and then on to my current office for a "December Birthdays" celebration with my friends! I got to show off my daughter and my granddaughter in production! On Wednesday, Lee Ann and I baked Gingerbread cookies and Sucre a la creme. She now has her Christmas supply. Thursday we packed our bags and closed the house again. On we go to Quebec to spend a blissful week with our grand children!