E.J. on the Move!

I just took this very cute short video of Elijah walking today. He's so happy with himself!

Precious time

It's been a wonderful week of enjoying the incredible sun filled days.

EJ is walking with increasing determination. The development from rolling, crawling, standing and walking has been so amazing to watch unfold.

I am in awe of the incredible core strength that babies develop. One of EJ's favourite games at the moment is going from squatting to standing again and again. His control is superb and he just keeps going. Long after I'm lost in laughter on the floor at my inability to keep up.

We had a very interesting discovery on our garden path the other morning.

Everybody say hello to the nice (and thankfully previously deceased) the North Qld Tarantula.

Nice set of fangs.

It has been an incredibly refreshing experience here at Grasstree.
We go for walks down to the beach, chatting with puppies and their owners, watching horses swim and meeting the people who live in this idilic spot.

The friendly openness and genuine sense of community I've felt is just so lovely.

EJ has a ball hanging out with some of the children. We've been lent toys (check out our spishy red wheels), had play days and generally enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

All the excitement leaves us a bit tired.

  What a way to nap though, eh?

This afternoon, EJ fell asleep in his Papa's arms. And together they slept. 

and slept

and slept.

So I took photos and blogged. lol. I do love photographing these two.

For me, this time is so precious.

All time with EJ is, it's true. I find that in these increasingly rare moments of just me time though, that I have the opportunity to unwind, drink a hot(!) tea and read something wonderfully interesting. And just breathe. Ahh. Then I am renewed and ready for the next instalment of The Incredible Adventures of EJ.

Our first (unofficial) wwoofing experience

While staying with Rosie's Mum & Dad in Bundaberg I took on the task of creating some gardens for growing organic vegies. I figured it would be a good way to toughen up my 'chiropractor's hands' and get used to a bit of manual work. I thoroughly enjoyed having a project to keep me busy! Here's how it panned out...

Deltry prepared the area a few weeks before our arrival by laying down some black plastic to kill off the grass. This turned out to be only moderately effective and probably needed to be done for a lot longer to really make a difference.

It took me a day or so to remove all the grass and level the area as best I could. That earned me a few blisters!


We decided to make 3 garden beds each 3m by 1.4m with a 90cm path in between each bed. Now we needed the wood for the edges. I did some research and decided that the best wood to use would be untreated hardwood. Treated pine is easier to use but the chemicals from the pine can leech into the soil, which is not ideal for growing organic vegetables! I phoned around and managed to find a second-hand timber yard that had some fascia board that was perfect, and so much cheaper than buying new timber. In total the wood cost $70.

I cut it all to size by hand and enjoyed using some 'elbow grease'. I secured the corners by screwing the fascia board to some square hardwood beams I found with stainless steel decking screws ($20).

Elijah kept a keen eye on things and seemed to approve of the progress.

Now that the edges were in place we needed to fill them. On the bottom I laid some cardboard to deter the weeds. We had plenty of cardboard from all the boxes we used to move out of our house. I had some soil from where i had to dig to level the gardens but we needed quite a bit more. I bought a trailer load of organic mulch from a guy at one of Bundaberg's local markets and also bought some soil/compost mix from the local landscape place. All up the soil cost $120. I also decided to cover the paths with some woodchips to stop the weeds and make it tidy.


And here is the finished product! Deltry has planted a range of different vegies and they are doing well! I'm looking forward to sampling some of the produce in a few months time.

Now we're ready for 'real' wwoofing!

On the 6th day, there was sunshine

When we were on the Gold Coast, a good friend asked us to come and look after her chiropractic centre ASAP. So, much sooner than we were expecting, we've headed up north again, postponing our first wwoofing experience for the moment. Instead we've set up camp at our friend's house for the next eight weeks. Right on the ocean, in a lovely area, it's a short walk down to the beach. Not a bad trade off.
Friends in the area had been talking about the rain, and it's unabated nature for the last four weeks. And true to their word, from the day we arrived it rained. and rained. and rained.

And then like all things, it had an end.
So we celebrated as all good folk do and went and ate the beach.

Along for the ride...

These happy little chappies sit on the dash of the car, keeping us company on our way.

Tamborine Mountain

After a wonderful stay with my Mum and Dad in Bundaberg and the creation of a superb vegetable garden (a post coming about this soon!)... we headed to the Gold Coast.

I have had a very serious change of heart about the Gold Coast. My experience with it in the past was mainly of Surfers and they weren't glowing memories.

This trip, Stu, EJ and I stayed at Burleigh and adventured around the area. There are some absolutely awesome spots and the whole feeling on the coast in the areas we stayed was very friendly, family oriented and forward thinking. It's lovely to be surprised by a place, especially with all my pre-conceived ideas of how tasteless it was.

Here are some of the shots from our journey..

A sunset from Tamborine Mountain. Glorious :)

We've taken to checking out Botanical Gardens, and Tamborine Mountain's was stunning.
The volunteers that look after it do a wonderful service. Lots of meandering paths, flora and fauna and plenty of space to stretch.







There is nothing like the act of journeying for the opportunity to be shown things that I may need reminding of.

One thing for me that keeps being made abundantly clear is the perfect timing of everything. Not my timing. Oh no, if I had my way on our day trip up the mountain, we would have been home by four, bub would have had his sleep on time, we could have been home and making dinner... and so on. Travelling with a baby means for a lot of 'allowing' and 'letting go'.

So because Elijah fed and didn't feel like getting in the car when we did, we had an extended play... and so when we drove along the road with the spectacular view, it was at the perfect time to watch the sun set and I was able to take photos of my boys that I will treasure always.