Happy 6th Birthday, Ryan!

A big Happy Birthday to my son Ryan who turned 6 on Saturday!!  His big brother came all the way from Tallahassee to celebrate.  His favorite was his BIG party on Sunday with all of his friends at the bowling alley!

Mexican Flag Cake

This cake was for my daughter's spanish class.  I actually got the order wrong - it is suppose to be green first, then white, then red!  It was delicious they said, regardless.  I made the emblem out of dark melting chocolate (the wilton candy wafers).  Next time to note:  Cooking time for cakes in aluminum pans is much longer than the box requires...and for RED icing color, make sure you buy a large container of red gel colorant!  You'll need it!



I WON!!

Last week I posted a Michael Mead giveaway link on my blog, and I am so happy to say that I actually won the drawing!!  I am so thrilled!  I won a $100 gift certificate to Tippy Stockton Jewelry Designs! I have been looking at her site, and I can tell right now, I'm going to have a difficult time narrowing down what I want to pick out.  Everything is so gorgeous!  Take a look for yourself, and let me know what you just can't live without!

Matthew Mead and a Giveaway

Have you seen this?


Don't miss out on this holiday must-have:
 
Matthew Mead holiday book-a-zine!

I already ordered mine MONTHS ago!  You can see a video sneak peak as well!

Moms of Boys!

I saw this commercial last night.  Too funny!

Australia Zoo

Crikey!  One of the highlights of Brisbane was taking a tour bus to the famous Australia Zoo.  This is Steve Irwin's zoo, the Crocodile Hunter.  It is hard to imagine he was killed just a few years ago, but he is alive and well here.  Everywhere you look they have his image.  Even toys in the souvineer shop!

I made a friend while waiting for the bus, who was from England, and we took each other's pictures.  Here I am feeding the elephant.  Most all of the animals here at the zoo are not wild, but tame.  Including the Elephants, the tigers, the kangaroos, the dingos and even the wombats!

You can purchase a bag of feed and feed the kangaroos and wallabies.  They roam around a large area and come right up to you and feed out of your hand.  They are soft to pet, also.

Koalas are everywhere.  They have tree structures up, then place fresh eucalyptus branches in the holders and the koalas feed off of those branches and stay up in the trees.  I never tired of watching them.  I would say most were sleeping, but some were awake, like this little guy!

Steve Irwin, larger than life at the Crocoseum.  We watched a bird and reptile show there.

This big crocodile's name was Graham, and the trainers were trying to prove a point that crocodiles are very slow to move on land, but don't get near the water if there are any nearby!

Here I got to hold a Koala.  SO soft and cute!  Loved it!

And this little guy was SO fast, I could hardly get a picture of him -- the Tasmanian Devil!  Looked just like a little DOG we have here at home, and acted like him too!

Australia - Part 2, Brisbane

After staying 3 days in Sydney, the Rocket Scientist had a speaking engagement at a conference in Brisbane, Australia in Queensland.  He would be busy at the conference for 3 days, so I had time to roam around this city and take a bus tour to see some of the local sites.  I just wish we had more time here to enjoy everything this beautiful place has to offer!

The first day, we thought we would have a quick flight from Sydney to Brisbane with the entire afternoon and evening to take in the sites, but that wasn't the case.  The Prime Minister was speaking just a few yards away from our hotel, which caused many delays in our flight schedule and even getting to our hotel once we landed.  It literally took 3 hours, longer than the flight, to get to our hotel from the airport!  We were not happy...so by the time we got to the hotel, it was dinner time and we were starved!  We made our way down the South Bank and I said let's just eat at the first place we see, which was Ahmet's Turkish Restaurant...and I am SO glad we did! We had a wonderful meal with Turkish Bread and dips, a vegetarian appetizer platter, and lamb, chicken and beef kabobs, all on platters and ready to share!  I brought home the leftovers for lunch the next day...I have got to learn how to make that bread, it was SO good!  Our waiter I asked if he was Turkish and he said no, he was from Slovakia!  I thought it was funny when I asked for a "to go" box, a nearby young waitress had to go ask someone else what I was talking about.  There, it is called "take away"!  Too funny!

Right outside our hotel room on the river's South Bank, there was a beautiful arbour walk and a gondola ride where you could see the city from up high.  There were many shops and restaurants around this area, so I made my way around in the morning to do a little sight seeing and did some shopping in the afternoon.

The Arbour Walk along the South Bank

Streets Beach - an actual swimming area along the north side of the river, where you can swim and sun!

A yummy pastry called a Caramel Slice that was REALLY good!

A short walk over Victoria Bridge takes you to Queen Street, which boasts to have over 700 shops, and boy they were not kidding!  No cars can go up and down this area.  It is all stores!  I bought many of my gifts here and even met some soccer players from the Brisbane Rush soccer team that were signing posters and giving them out.  I picked up one for the College Boy since he is SO into soccer!  He loved it!  It was a little warmer in Brisbane compared to Sydney, and slowly the shops were getting in the Spring fashion line and putting their Winter items on sale, which was good for me since we are just going into fall/winter here.  I noticed the fashion trend was boots or flats with leggings or black tights, layered under skirts, tunics or shorts with large black purses (similar to the girl in the photo up above).  Spring looked like alot of lacey items and stripes!  I asked a girl working in one of the shops if she thought the trend was ahead or behind the states, and she thought their style was behind.  I guess we will see!