Advent Swap - 2nd December

Day 2's gift from Maree

Lovely bauble ribbon and scrapbaooking embellishments!

Thank-you Maree

Advent Swap - 1st December

Well hopefully all packages have arrived or will arrive shortly to all advent swappers. I opened my first gift this morning from Maree and she's sent me some gorgeous spotty fabric! Thank-you Maree!!
Now ladies remember to post regularly and thank your partners and you can also upload your pics to Flickr so everyone can see what you've received.
Just click on the Advent Swap pic on my sidebar and it'll take you to the flickr group.
Once again thank-you Maree and I look forward to opening the rest and seeing what everyone else receives too.
Merry Christmas to All!!
Hugs
Jo

Survivor

I'm back from an exhausting 3 days of camping with my son's Grade 6 class. It was full on, lots of activities, preparing food, cleaning up and having fun.

We headed off on Wednesday to one of Tassal's salmon farms just south of Dover. Here we learnt about the life cycle of salmon, their biology and how the farm operates.

Cockle Creek was our next destination, we arrived and set up camp. There was about 10 tents for the 27 kids that they put up themselves and then they helped some of the adults put up theirs.

We played on the beach for awhile then headed back to camp for dinner and marshmallows before lights out.

Up bright and early Thursday to prepare breaky and lunch for the day's hike. We walked for 2 hours to South Cape, through different landscapes to arrive at a breathtaking view.

and here's proof that I was actually there

When we returned from our hike we relaxed for 1 hour and then headed off for a bit of fossicking.

We found agates and petrified wood.

An exhausted bunch of kids and adults slept well that night as the rain came in. Friday morning we packed up in the rain and headed off the Hastings Caves.

The kids sang the school song in the Newdegate Cave and it sounded lovely.

Afterwards we headed to the Thermal springs and the kids had a swim and the grown ups had hot showers. We finished up with a BBQ before heading back home.

I've been extremely tired and a bit sore from the walk but I enjoyed every minute.

I am glad to be home in my own bed!

Goodies and camping

Here's a quick peak at the goodies I purchased at AQM:-

A layer cake of the the new French General Range called Rural Jardin some kits and a free Homespun Diary a FQ bundle or Panache and some Honey Buns Plus a range of gorgeous patterns by Marg Lowe

I could've spent lots more but Jetstor would've slugged me for the extra baggage!

On Wednesday I'm heading off for 3 days of camping with my son's Year 6 class to a gorgeous location, Cockle Creek
We'll be bushwalking, exploring caves and thermal springs, swimming, playing in the sand, fossicking and heaps of other fun stuff. I just hope the weather is fine! I'll see you all next week!

Pot of Gold

There really is a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow, well rainbow swap that is! This week I received a gorgeous package in the mail from my Rainbow Swap partner, hosted by Trash Can

The parcel was from Kate at Kate's Quilting (& other Fibre Arts) Blog and it was full of some yummy goodies

The chocolate didn't last more than 5 minutes after the photo shoot, devoured by my son and hubby and a wee bit by me. The candle has a sweet Vanilla scent and the lemon bath bomb is living in a drawer now giving everything a fresh smell. The mini quilt is so bright and cheerful and I think it'll make it to my office to brighten the dull walls up.

Thank-you so much Kate for all the work you've put into this swap, it is greatly appreciated and will be cherished forever! My parcel hasn't reached it's destination yet but it should be almost there. I forgot to take a photo of the goodies I sent so stay posted and as soon as there's a post about it I 'll direct you to my partner's blog.

PS Thank-you to Trashy for inviting me to join this swap and being a good first time swap mumma, everyone's gotta start somewhere!