This year we decided to have a small birthday lunch with friends and so a few days before I decided to turn our dining room into Mr Men Land.
Wrapping paper was used to draw the scene for the walls, but you could go wild with a whole room full of cardboard props. I think the Mr Men theme offers so many possibilities for big or small parties, an art/illustration party, retro party, etc etc, but this is a simple and quick last minute option.
The table is drawing paper (so easy to clean up!) with drawings to be coloured in. I used stamps for the names.
The cake is a three layer chocolate buttercream cake, retro style.
The boys decorated the birthday tree with their own drawings.
A very Happy day!
J has been building mini robots with Lego and has named them X1, X2 etc. He has quite a collection now.
The garbage collecting robot and the law enforcing robot.
We have been studying Australian exploration this year in more detail and since we recently returned from exploring ourselves, I thought it appropriate we do a summary of important people and dates in our history of exploration.
J did a map with a key using some vintage study guide books and this one below...
Next we will look at the European explorers who mapped out our vast continent.
I found this cork tile in the cupboard so next we will make flags and mark some areas of exploration.
H traced a map of Australia and worked out where states and Territories were divided.
Then we built a ship for exploration (not quite the Batavia).
We took books away with us to write in daily, a little summary, something we did to remember our trip by.
Some days we had to write a few days worth, but in the end we had a page for every day...
By H.
By J.
In the shadow of a building in the afternoon.
In the shadow of a brother.
Under the shadow of clouds.
An early birthday lunch and cake with Nanny and Poppy.
The Ipad comes in handy sometimes, especially those wet Gold Coast days.
Catching up with old friends from school.
We spent a week on the Gold Coast for work recently and stayed at a few different places, there are plenty of accommodation options here and many bargains to be had, each have their pros and cons, but this is what we thought...
First the QT, which was once the Gold Coast International I believe.
This is a basic hotel room with two queen beds, however if you are only sleeping in the room I quite like this Hotel, it has a really good vibe (a little bit retro/cool) and the restaurant is actually quite good. Just a short walk to the beach and Surfers main strip.
Thongs and robes in room and a free diy lemonade delivered to your door on arrival.
Views to the hills (or ocean if you pay a little extra) and fun furniture.
Large modern shower.
Next we went to Q1 and stayed in a two bedroom apartment on the 40th floor. It had lovely views, especially from the main bedroom and bath.
Can you see something hanging from the tall building? I zoomed in and saw workers in a basket (see below). There is so much to see from up here, we watched storms roll in and emergency vehicles, people playing tennis, surfers, etc etc etc.
Watching the wheel at dusk whilst running the spa bath was really quite relaxing.
These apartments are big, plenty of room here. They have all you need in the way of cooking and laundry facilities, but each one seems to be decorated a little differently, which we found out after moving rooms because our air conditioner was not working and it was quite sticky up there.
The boys really enjoyed watching from this height, we played eye spy and watched all the lights come on.
There isn't a restaurant inside the building, however down below there are plenty of options for dine in or take away.
The pools are good and you just walk across the road to the beach and a few more steps brings you to the main street of Surfers Paradise.
These are those workers I mentioned...hmmm not something I would want to try.
Next we moved to Silvershore Apartments near Runaway Bay.
We had a two bedroom here also, but it was tiny compared to Q1, however it really has more than enough room for 4 people...
These are new apartments and each individually decorated. I didn't quite get used to the glass wall or the decorating theme in this one, however it was comfortable and clean. We stayed on the water side which is also on a main peak hour road and it was noisy even at the top level 9, sometimes it was hard to hear each other sitting outside on the balcony, perhaps the hinterland side would be quieter. It is an easy walk to a few restaurants and Charis seafood.
On one of our walks into Surfers we stumbled on a new wood fired pizza place called Vapiano which was fun looking, it had a basil plantation in the middle of it and the Margharita was ok too!
