This photo cracks me up every time I see it!
Looks like she is spraying leaves out of her mouth.

Happy Socks

These always make me smile

I normally wear just normal ankle sports socks. White, with maybe a little bit of color.

These socks always make me feel happy. Silly how a pair of socks can make you feel happy, but they do.

I brought them when we were in California, visiting with the Fairy Godmother and family. They are just cheepies from Target, and i needed them because i felt that ankle socks just were not going to cut it in the windy, slightly chilly temps.

I wore them while we walked all around San Francisco. I wore them when we brought Maggie home. I wear them to friends homes where i know we have to take our shoes off. I often wear them to work on Mondays, so that when i change back into my runners at the end of they day they go back on, and they cheer me up - even though I've still got 4 more working days to get through!

Silly how a pair of socks make you feel better.....

An Adventure to Phillip Island

As part of our Christmas gift from The (now former) President & First Lady, we where given a voucher to have an Ultimate Penguin Tour at Phillip Island.

We have both been and seen the Penguins on a number of occasions, but The President & First Lady did this tour last year and loved it! 

So, we took a Friday afternoon off work, and headed down to the Island for an overnight stay (Maggie was picked up by Lucille in the arvo for a sleep over with the First Family).

At 5.30 we arrived at the Penguin Parade centre to check in for our tour. We meet the rest of our group (there was 7 including us - they have a limit of 10 people/day) and had a full briefing with our ranger, got geared up (headset, wet weather/wind gear, backpack, seat & night vision goggles!) and headed off to our own private beach (Shelley Beach) for the viewing. 

Our ranger was very informative. We sat down on the beach just as the first wave of Penguins started to come out of the water. It was amazing to be so close to them. Often they would walk past us about 1meter away. As part of the Centres research, our ranger roughly counted the number of penguins that came out of the water in front of us, and it was over 200. Pretty good numbers, and there was more all up and down the beach.

After about 50min of sitting and watch (through the night vision goggles!), we headed off the beach and walked back to the centre. This took about an hour, even though it wasn't a far walk (maybe just over 1km). We stopped and watched Penguins heading home, standing out the front of their burrows 'talking', saw other native animals and chatted about the penguins and the Centre.

Coming back into the Centre, we headed in though the research area, and got a super up close (almost brushing past our legs) visit with some very large Little Penguins! The Penguins who have homes right outside the doors of the Centre are often found wondering inside the research buildings if doors are left open.

The tour was AMAZING! and we would definitely recommend it to anyone who heads down to Phillip Island, even if you have seen the Penguins at the main viewing area of the Centre, this is a much better way to see them, and to have the ranger there giving commentary and answering questions is great.

Shelley Beach

Native geese

The next day, we went and visited the beach we went to and also went and had a look at The Nobbies.

Seal Rock

Bubbles checking out the Penguin tracks & burrows

To Market we go...

The other weekend Spanky decided to take a leap, and had a stall at the Ivanhoe Makers Market.

She had a really great day, meet lots of new people, had visits from family & friends and sold lots of magnets!

The stall is booked again for the next two markets (3rd Saturday of the month) and the date for the next market is Saturday 18th June (10am-3.30pm).

A HUGE thank you to Sam from Red Letter Studio for the push to do the market and for the logo!!

Miss MuddyPaws

Winter has not even started yet, but we find that we have to introduce to you Miss MuddyPaws already.

Its a bit of a tip of the hat to the Bond films, but its just oh so very perfect.

Who Me??

One part of the day that always makes me smile, is when i pull into the driveway when I'm coming home from work. I look through the gaps in our side fence to see if there is a little face standing there waiting for me, or if she will come tearing around the corner of the house when she hears the car. When her face goes up against the fence, i can see her eyes and the strip of white on her face. Lately, this strip ends up being not so white as Miss MuddyPaws likes to spend parts of her day with her head and/or paws in any small bits of mud that she can find.

We love her to bits, and are so used to her leaving wet paw prints on the lino in the back part of the house. If she is very muddy, she knows she will have to get a dry off, so often waits in the laundry to see if we are going to dry her paws off. We are very thankful that her coat drys off very quickly and the dirt just brushes away (generally onto our floors!!).

Easter Weekend (better late than never!)

So, off we set, with Bubbles at the wheel

We had all types of weather during the car trip. Rain, shine, drizzle. Not bad for a 1.5hr drive!





We stayed in a lovely 2 bedroom house in Hepburn Springs. It had a fully fenced yard, so Maggie got to come with us on holidays. There was a wood fireplace in the lounge room that heated the whole house brilliantly!

Everyday we went for a walk into the main street of Hepburn Springs, which was about a leisurely 10min walk. Then in the afternoon we would take Maggie for a different walk: we walked around the lake at Daylesford, did a 3km bush walk to a lookout in Hepburn, went for a look at a blow hole created for mining.

We spent time together relaxing, eating at cafes, watching DVDs and reading.

Happy 1st Birthday!!

Today, our little girl turns 1 year old!

Happy Birthday Maggie!