half way........

i cant believe we are half way thorough the July school holidays already. I feel like we've done so much but yet so little all at the same time.
right this very moment i am up at mums and i am listening to my kids playing nicely while Hunter is supposed to be having a little sleep but is making all sorts of cheery noises in his cot. That's right - the aunty is in charge! Mum is at work and Mandy has gone to the beautician. And I've forgotten what to do with a 7 month old baby, lol.
The reason for me being at Mum's is because tomorrow we are headed off to the zoo for the day. Hunter's very first trip and we all want to be there to enjoy it with him.

So last week was a mad capped week. We did all sorts of running around.

Monday - i had a doctors appointment so the kids went to play at Britneys while i was there. When i picked them up Britney came swimming with us and then out to Spur's for dinner.

Tuesday - we went to the movies to see Ice Age 3. The kids loved it and i struggled to keep my eyes open.

Wednesday - i took the kids to watch Hunter at his swimming lessons. We had coffee and Gloria Jeans and took one to mum while she was at work. The decided to go with Mandy as she is more fun than me, lol

Thursday - i had a sleep in and then started to prepare for the retreat on the weekend. Mum and Mandy brought the kids back home about lunch time so i met them at the Alroy for lunch and the kids had a play in the park.

Friday - the kids and Anthony left early to head down the farm for the weekend and i packed ready for the retreat.

AND what a retreat it was.............

We arrived after having a little adventure on the M7. Some of the kits we'd loaded into the trailer, of course without a lid on the box. Well the tie downs and tarp came loose and the next thing i know i am driving along at 110km and bang i see kits hitting Cath's car behind me. We all pulled over and Joh and Cath got out and walked up the M7 to try and find them. Thank god it was only one bag containing 3 class kits and not more!
Can i just say - the M7 is a scaring place to be stopped on.

We headed off again and about 20 minutes later i got a call from Sami to say she had got to Picton and realised that she had left the class samples and challenge kit samples at home! LOL. It was turning out to be a great start to the weekend.
But thank god that was it!
We finally arrived a bit later than expected and Tracy had already set up the entire scrapping room all by herself. Talk about an angel - thanks Miss Trac.
All the ladies started to arrive not long after us and they were into it. It was great to see so many familiar faces and meet lots and lots of new ones.
The room was "cozy" for lack of a more suitable work, but we managed to squeeze 52 very creative ladies in one room and had the shop in the other room which worked out very well. Having heaps of room for the shop meant more room and time to browse!
Sami did her Christmas layout class on the Friday night which everyone loved and were very easy to teach.
Friday night wasn't too late with everyone gone to bed by 3.10am:)

Saturday morning i awoke a bit late - whoops. But trac and i made a deal that i stay up with the last scrapper and get up late and she goes to bed early and gets up early! Good deal i say.
Sami was into her next class - the Masculine Layout. It was awesome. the ladies loved it that much that over the course of the weekend we saw lots and lots of the layouts appearing in different themes. It was a great technique.
Trac did her awesome mini album class in the afternoon after lunch. I walked around later on in the day and saw so many different variations of the class they were amazing. So much talent in on little room.
After dinner was our Christmas Themed dress up night. OMG!!!!! the costumes were great and some just too funny. There were a pair of elves, the bad elves from Bundeena, some sparkly wine drinking elves, a Christmas tree, a Christmas box, the 3 wise women and so many more. All the ladies put so much thought into their costumes it was great and definitely an addition that we will be keeping at our Scrap Girls retreats.

Sunday is of course the day for packing up and heading home which is always sad as we never want our scrapping weekends to end. But they have to unfortunately.
I'm so pleased that all the ladies had so much fun and i had a ball running it for them.

Now I'm looking forward to going to a retreat with LSBS in August where i can sit back and do a class or two and not have to worry about what to do next and loose my voice from all the talking and announcing that i have to do.

As you have no doubt realized if you got to the end of this long, long post, that i actually wrote it on Wednesday but am uploading on Saturday - whoops! i pressed the "save" button instead of the "publish" button. It must have been the madness of school holidays

photos will come very shortly once i download them off the camera
hope your holidays have been as fun as mine :)