my family knows how to par-tay

Greetings all,

Oh WOW, how much fun was my niece's 21st in Sydney on Saturday night??!!  Everyone embraced the 80's theme - Bon Jovi, Blues Brothers, Billy Ray mullets, Madonna, Beetlejuice, Olivia Newton-John, Miama Vice & Tina Turner + some choice 80's resort wear.  Some boys came as 80 year olds with walking frames, so funny!!  By 1a.m. i started ferrying family members back to my parent's house 2 streets over & found horror movie character 'Jason' (complete with mask & knife) getting into a taxi cab.  Even better, there was really heavy fog in the street.  Only in St Ives would that be completely harmless & not an actual threat!! 

My son had worn his 'Say It Don't Spray It' Tshirt all week & left it (clean) on his bed in Canberra, so he rocked the 80's nightclub owner look. 

 My girls (3 on the left) in . . . bubble skirt with rainbow half head of hair; the 80's sports star; & the tulle tutu with Converse, skinny tie & single streak of pink hair ensemble. 

 There were LOTS of legwarmers with Converse or heels, nice!!

 I come from one of 'those' families . . . we are loud & enthusiastic about everything.  Here is my eldest brother, the rocket scientist, dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle & his wife rocking out the fluoro dance gear with denim.  They are the proud parents of the birthday girl & brave owners of the house/ par-tay venue.  They are in the middle of moving house!! 

 My other brother, the trauma surgeon & anaesthetist, came as Devo, complete with his squash goggles; his wife is Crystal Carrington from Dynasty (she's a dentist so she can't show you her face).  He he, an 80's toothbrush ad joke for you!!  If only their patients could see them now.

 My sister with her boys, wore a bit of fluoro but shockingly did not get into the dress ups.  She was 18 when the 80's finished & RIGHT into the fashion, in the worst way - she was a dancer & doing theatre!!  80's: fail. 

 The country cousins had a blast - on weekend release from boarding school.  Rubik's Cube & Wonder Woman's 2 big brothers came as Top Gun pilots, flight suits rolled down & topless on the dance floor all night.

 The birthday girl doing trashy 80's sans shoes with her little sister in sky high heels, in her mummy's genuine 80's dance leotard!!

 My son pre-party being chased by PacMan.  Yes, there were props.

 The hero-in-a-half-shell cooking up a storm!!  As always, delicious food.

 Devo kept his hat on all night - look at the expression my nephew's face.  The big boy on the right is the next 21st on the calendar, he's studying medicine so is not sure whether to have a country 21st with family, or party at Uni with friends. 

 This is how all good parties end, collapsed on a blow up mattress!!

We danced & laughed, shared old photos & . . . picked up 10 cases worth of beer bottles!!  I was up at 7a.m. cleaning up the rest of the mess.  So cute to see my nieces & nephews with boyfriends & girlfriends; so weird to see them driving cars; so much fun to party with them now they're adults.  My children commented on my dance moves (negatively - especially my 'running man') & i realised that 36 is actually pretty old, sitting with the 'grown ups', talking about our children high school!!  My husband would have loved the party, danced with our daughters & shown them that we used to be cool!!  Everyone else in my family was there - my parents, my siblings + their husbands/ wives, our collective 14 children - spread over 2 houses for the weekend.     

I took the children to the beach on Sunday to unwind & soak up Sydney.  Love Posie  

join us on a road trip, Posie style . . .

Greetings all,

Road trips . . . with 4 children . . . they have never frightened me, even driving on my own, i just go.  My guys are brilliant 90% of the trip.  The first time i did the Pacific Highway drive from Sydney to Brisbane alone was 6 years ago, with a breast fed baby boy & 3 little girls, it was such a nice easy run dotted with road side wee stops in sugar cane fields (sorry sugar lovers).  Have to say, things haven't changed much with the wee stops!!  Travelling with young children on your own does look at tad like you're fleeing your husband or worse, i told one hotel receptionist i was visiting my husband interstate & she asked "is he in prison??"
We don't have DVD players, electronic gadgets or hand held things-which-go-beep, my guys have to read, do hand craft, draw or . . . talk & interact with each other pleasantly for car trip entertainment.  We're positively Amish - even my son has been doing car embroidery since he was 4 & most recently, finger crochet.  I have never put children's music on in the car, just left the radio on our station & load up the iPod with music.  Thanks to Rihanna, Avril, Veronicas, P!nk, Ke$ha, Brittany, Madonna & Kylie - our car was rocking along (clean versions of songs of course).  See how cool i am that i know it's P!NK & KE$HA??  Brittany is so damn catchy, even my high schooler pleaded for me to stop singing for 500km.    

My husband drove up yippee, but i was banished from car craft sigh & surprisingly he wouldn't slow down so i could take a close up shot of the koala fencing - see how the vertical posts don't go the whole way to the top to support the mesh - this stops koalas from climbing over to become road kill.  Clever!!

 This is for possums to cross high above the road, although our children desperately wanted to give it a go, like an obstacle course or something Bear Grylls would use to get across a raging river in a gully/ zooming cars on a highway.

 Road trips should only include sandwiches, fruit, cheese & crackers, i'm quite the healthy bore when packing car snacks/ lunches - why give children sugar & hyper-inducing-junk when they have to sit still??  Junk is expensive & messy + my children can't open chip or biscuit packets (really, they can't, they fail at opening yoghurt containers too).  Anyway, i did sneak in these freckles from the roadside fruit stall in Macksville NSW, between 6 of us, we got a few chocolate+100s&1000s magic each.  Look everyone, affordable bananas!!

 The Pacific Highway bypasses most towns now, blink & you miss the view of Byron Bay.

 Before you know it, you're in Brisbane!! 

 Still trying to get the dream photo of our 4 children, all looking happy, natural, prefectly dressed, hair, background, lighting & of course, completely unposed & candid!!  This is Queen's Beach in Moreton Bay QLD, zero surf.

 When my husband drives, he's focused & determined, A to B in a set time, robot!!  Me, i'm like "oh hey, check out this sign, Emerald Beach, looks nice, let's stop here for a swim in our clothes".  I'm hardly bohemian but trust me, a good 45 minute play in a park or swim in the ocean "at a real surf beach" will buy you a good 4 hours of exhausted silence in the car.

 Beaches in Winter = freezing, it didn't stop them from diving in.  Children have a different thermestat to adults.  No idea why i didn't pack bikinis, i know them well enough that they'll swim at every opportunity??  Clever me kept fresh towels in the car & dry knickers.  I also ordered "no one tell me you're itchy from the salt water or this is our last beach stop!!"

 Bless her drowned-rat heart, she was blue in the lips but when i mentioned wrapping up into a towel & getting ready to leave, she ran right back out into the surf again.  So glad i stopped here on the way back (one beach north of Coffs Harbour NSW) as the rest of the trip was in torrential rain & zero visibility, i even aqua planed & was very grateful for the world's best tyres on my 4WD.  If Yokahama would like to pay for my next 5 Geolanders, i'd be thrilled to do a fascinating blog post on them - truth is, we still need a couple more new tyres but they washed away in the Tsunami in Japan.

I can not wait to go back up in Summer, this was so much fun & i allow a good 2 full days to do the 1300km trip each way from Canberra to Brisbane, i'm not trying to be a hero on the road.  I also swap between going inland & coastal.  Don't get my started on P Platers zooming past me.  Idiots!!  Happy road tripping people, love Posie