Where did December go?

I can't believe that it's been a month since I posted!
Life has been busy until the last couple of days with the usual - work - and of course all the end of year events.

Damian finished his exams and did quite well in them! The exams were followed by the annual Wesley Boarder's Christmas dinner which was a good social get together, if nothing else! The meal was delicious and company most enjoyable. My only complaint this year was due to the huge constructions currently taking place on campus we had our dinner in the marquee we had to stand for the duration of the dinner and it was just too long!
This was followed a few days later by the annual Awards & Speech evening held at Perth Concert Hall. 152 young men graduated from high school and about the same amount received awards, and apart from all the usual speaches we were also treated to a few items - the senior string orchestra performed "Pagodas" while the academic staff had their processional into the concert hall. We had a musical item called "Urban Dreaming" which included 2 young Aboriginal Boys playing Didgeridoos, an almost Gregorian Chant by one of the school choirs and some boys doing a gang like stomp (sort of like Romper Stomper?) - sounds wierd I guess, but it was put together really well. Gave me goosebumps! The graduating class sang a song and we were treated to another musical item "Mr Bojangles" performed by the college concert Jazz orchestra and sang by a student! Of course at the end we are always treated to "Auld Lang Syne" with bag pipes and drums! A most enjoyable evening!

This year I made all my Christmas cards (a feat on it's own!) and actually had them all out on time - by mid-December at the latest! Haven't managed that for a few years so I was most pleased with myself.

We drove all the way to Mount Barker and back one day - 14 hours in the car in total. Not a bad day really - went looking at a farm property, which sounded good on paper but really wasn't what we were after. So we are now looking a little further afield to find something suitable. We have created a wish list of what we would like in a property and we have since found a couple more of interest to go and look at. We'll wait until after Christmas to take the drive though to view these ones.

Had dinner at our neighbours house Saturday of last weekend. Great night!
Also had my family here for Christmas lunch on Sunday of last week due to the fact that my parents arrived in Hong Kong around 9am this morning! Their friend David has gone home for Christmas & Dad decided it would be nice to join him as they have been asked several times to visit Hong Kong/China with him. Got a text message to say that they'd arrived safe & sound. They have only gone for a week but are booked into a restaurant for a Chinese Banquet on Christmas Eve. Sounds yum! They also plan to spend at least 1 day in China!
So for Christmas lunch we had my parents, my brother Jason, his girlfriend Jenny, her daughter Chloe, and our friends Marion & Allan who come to Australia for summer (3-4 months) each year from the UK. I started our lunch with a Cobb loaf dip of tuna, cheese sauce, mushrooms, spring onions, curry powder ... yummo! Followed on by 3 different boned & seasoned chicken rolls, roast vege (including purple carrots!), peas & asparagus and finally fresh fruit. Everyone was stuffed full and Jason even had a snooze for 20 mins!

Finished up work on Thursday ... finished Christmas shopping on Friday and yesterday we spent a few hours with Brian's youngest sister & the kids as we'd not seen them in about 2 months and weren't sure just how long we'd see them on Christmas day!
Today we are taking it easy - I wrapped all the Christmas presents and cooked breakfast .... thought I'd update my poor neglected blog and will spend some time reading today I think. I also have a couple of cards to make and there are a couple of small jobs in the garden I'd like to take care of before it gets too hot in the next few days.

Ok ... being that it's now 11am and I am still in my pj's ... time for a shower.
Merry Christmas everyone!