The story of a mystery Christmas present...

Our tale begins several weeks before Christmas, when a mysterious box-shaped gift appeared under our Christmas tree one Saturday afternoon...

The gift tag noted the receiver as Bec, and the giver as Andy.  What could it be?

Andy appeared extremely chuffed with himself.  The box was heavy, difficult to move, and felt as if it was solidly packed.  Bec thought: this has to be a trick!

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After weeks of guessing and coming up with possibilities as to what, indeed, the gift might be, Christmas morning eventually dawned, and at last the time came to reveal the mystery...

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The paper was removed, and the tape was cut.  The flaps were lifted:

Inside the box was an assortment of Andy's tools and many colorful and dirty old rags from the shed.  

Amongst them all was a smallish wrapped gift, which when opened revealed a box with a power point logo and the letters HPM on it.  (At this point Andy could not contain his glee, and the levels of chuffed-ness and chuckling were great!). 

On opening this second box, more old rags almost tumbled out, but amongst them all a small yellow piece of paper was found, with a message scrawled on it: Look in Andy's bedside table for the real present.  (Abbie was most pleased to be included in this part of the process, finding the first large box a nice place to sit and watch all the frivolities!)

Eventually, the real gift was fetched and finally, with great anticipation, Bec's fingers excitedly tore open the paper...

To reveal...

AN IPAD!!!!!!!

It was a moment of high excitement for all.  At last, the mystery of the large heavy gift under our Christmas tree had been solved! 

Bit of this and that...

MASTERCHEFS

I love it when the kids come up with their own games to play during the school holidays.  A few days ago, I overheard some serious and rather familiar-sounding commentary coming from the patio area.  It turns out the game was Masterchef, and both kids were doing 'cooking' challenges using leaves, flower petals, rocks, dirt, water, twigs, bark, and even a little bit of stolen sunscreen!  Time limits were set, and the creations were 'plated up' in various positions on the patio floor.  Gotta love creativity!

 

Liam's creation: "White leaves and stew".

 FAMILY PHOTO...

We don't get many of these (good ones at least).  Even Abbie is looking at the camera!!!

Cool...angatta...

Well, we didn't do so well on the weather front for our week at Coolangatta this year.  What began as a beautiful week - sunny skies, mild breeze, awesome beach weather - slowly deteriorated into one of the coldest starts to summer that Queensland has seen in quite a number of years.  Having packed for a beach holiday, we were ill-equipped for the cold snap, and mostly wore the same 'warm' clothes several days straight.  As the weather grew progressively worse - from overcast and cool, to drizzly and cool, to very wet and cold - we cut short the week this year and headed home a couple of days early.  

So what does a family do whilst on a beach holiday without being able to go to the beach?

Take a daytime nap...

 Have tickles...

 Play Angry Birds on Uncle Aaron's phone and Joke's iPad...

Watch episodes of 'The Muppets'...

 Read... (under the doona to keep warm)...

Visit a playground in between showers in the hope of using up 

some of the kids' pent-up energy...

Watch the nearby oval slowly flash-flood in the downpour... 

We did manage one good beach day, took a few beach walks, visited op shops and the local library, had morning/ afternoon teas at local coffee shops, played board games and cards, etc.  It was still nice to get away, even if the weather did let us down.

Another last day concert...

It happened all too fast: the 2011 school year ground to a halt recently, and the children all presented several Christmas-related items at the annual Celebration Morning.

Being in year 3, this was Liam's last Celebration Morning, as next year, years 4-6 attend a Celebration Evening instead.  It doesn't seem all that long ago that these 'big' year threes were the cute little Preps... how time flies!