Rick's Birthday

Tricky celebrated another birthday recently

Liam wishing his Uncle Rick a happy birthday

The boys checking out the birthday pressies

To mark the occasion we went out to the V8 Supercar race track

where Rick got to do a few laps ...

Registered and ready to go

Meanwhile Sophie passed the time by doing a bit of reading

(wearing her Mr Magoo specs)

Heading out to the track

Off on the test lap

Toby watching his progress

Moving in for the overtake

Nine laps completed

Question time afterwards

Done

The Big Roast Dinner

Another day, another dinner together! Dad was the master chef and whipped up a feast of roast beef and yorkshire puddings which we demolished with gusto. Another great evening with lots of good company, good wine, good food and stories to tell.

A rare photo of Rick and I together ... usually one or the other of us is behind the camera

More paparazzi!

A nice family photo

Katie!

Dad doing the carving knife thing, getting ready to carve

The kids having a bit of a rest in between games

Sophie found it all a bit much and had a bit of shut eye ... all the girls were sharing a room and I think there were a few midnight meetings under the light of the torch

Dads shoulder was comfortable too

Kerrie

XX

Family BBQ

It's not often the whole family gets together so it was definately cause for a BBQ when Leigh arrived from Sydney after finally giving up on Virgin Blue and booking on another airline. It was a photo fest with the paparazzi out in force.

Not quite sure which camera we should be looking at!

Tricky was a bit daunted by the sheer volume of food that needed to be barbequed, but he held up to the task well

The foods out and we are all in (yep thats me tucking in first!)

All our photo smiles were firmly in place ...

No not another photo Mum!

Just wanna eat my dinner Aunty Kez!

Sophie's hair

After a week of plaits Sophie was ready for me to undo them all. With a bit of help from Leigh and Rick we got them all undone and Sophie looked like this:

She tells me a shampoo and conditioner treatment have never felt so good

Kerrie

More Vanuatu ....

On our third day in Vanuatu the Pacific Dawn cruised into the Port, and on it were some friends of ours who live up the road from us! They braved the minibuses out in force and hottailed it to the resort where we met up for the day

Toby and his good mate doing a not so good job of hiding from us

Meanwhile the girls hit the pool

The girls found a dainty little starfish to play with...

while the boys came up with a man size version of the same

The man size boys got into a bit of paddling

...while Sophie tried out her stand up version

Then it was into a minibus to the Port to do a bit of touristing

They are fascinated with the All Blacks there - this was one of several vehicles we saw supporting them

After a spot of lunch we had a leisurely walk through the markets back to the ship (I don't think I have ever been so hot in my life)

Sophie getting her hair braided back at the resort ....

and the after shot -along with a bit of sunburn

All in all a great day. Boy was that pool back at the resort good.

More soon

Kerrie

Vanuatu!!

We spent the first week of the school holidays in Vanuatu - had a fabulous time with lots of touring, resort activities, relaxation, eating and drinking. A bit of something for everyone! Heres some photos from our first couple of days .....

Sophie contemplating the flight ahead ...

We knew we were getting close when we starting getting views like this from the plane

Our resort room ... home for a week

The resort was right next a tropical lagoon - and the usual watersport type things

Sophie posing with a big black figurine type thing

I was so relaxed I even ventured into the pool a few times

Rick and the kids cooling down

The local market-place

There was a game of soccer every afternoon - it usually started with just us and ended up all the local lads from the village

Out for dinner one night

Sophie counting her millions to pay the bill