July

The year is flying by so quickly ~ here is a few things that happened during the month. Janelle came home for a few days for mid year break. We went for a drive down to Samudra and had a lovely lunch and admired their fantastic vegie garden ( i wouldn't mind their Kale crop)...

Yummy Samudra lunch

We called in and had a cuppa with Mum and Dad J, somehow the conversation moved to weddings and Mum J got her  nearly 65 year old dress out to show Janelle...

Janelle and I then attended Uncle Arnie's funeral. He is the last of a generation on Grandma's side (her brother) and was just 8 weeks shy of his 99th birthday when he passed away. He lived such an interesting and full life serving the St John Ambulance since 1935 until well into his 90's, farmed the land, did ball room dancing, made wooden rocking chairs which were sold all over the world and could get 7 cups of tea out of 1 teabag!! His pride and joy Valiant  was parked at the funeral chapel...

 Peter and I have been going over to Busselton regularly to chop wood for Mum and Dad J. I talked them into purchasing a Nutri bullet to make smoothies and showed Mum J how to use it...

 We enjoyed some lovely weather in July ~ some cold nights but beautiful sunsets...

Some days it was hard to believe it was winter as we left our footprints on the sometimes deserted beaches...

Nicole and Daniel went to the ice hockey spectacular in Perth with Canada playing the USA ~ definitely not something we get to see often in Australia.  Janelle also went with some of her friends...

 Canada won much to Nicole and Daniels delight...

Sarah and Nathan have been showing off their culinary skills in the kitchen a few times ~ home made gnocchi was a real treat...

 As was Pad Thai...

And roast on parsnip puree...

Janelle made these raw salted caramel tarts...

We went to Perth to attend Pete Evans talk on the Paleo Diet. It was a huge disappointment with the venue being freezing cold, started very late and his guest speaker from America was sooooooo boring! We left before it finished and wrote a letter of complaint to the organisers (which they acknowledged)...

Thats Pete on stage

Janelle has become a committed "instagrammer" and loves to post food and healthy lifestyle photos. She tags a lot of her pictures with Lorna Jane Active Instagram account and was thrilled when they reposted one of her photos on their account. She gained a lot of followers and was later named as a top 25 instagrammer on their blog! This is the photo they chose of hers (so a few hundred thousand people looked at our little Bella)...  

Original post on Janelle's healthy_embrace account

And reposted on Lorna Jane account... 

A look at a few of her July pics

Peter finally started his 5 months of long service leave. We took the dogs for another test walk in their stroller. Lucy was pretty keen to escape but eventually settled down...

It is getting easier and hopefully they will enjoy it one day ~ well they don't really have a choice!

June

June came and went with not much happening and hardly any photos taken.  Even though it was meant to be winter we enjoyed some lovely days and evenings (along with some days of not so nice weather).  Nathan had his surgery and in between looking after him and studying Sarah did her mid year nursing exams...

 Having fun down the beach in the soft glow of a winter's sunset...

The girls bought us tickets for Mothers and Fathers day to the Grease Musical. Janelle came along with us and it was a fantastic show...

More fun down the beach on another lovely winter's day...

May

With the weather starting to cool it was time for our annual wood gathering. So much easier just to hook on the trailer and head to the wood yard and load up than those years of going bush and trying to find the perfect fallen tree (although it was a fun day out). We now have the added advantage of loading up the back of the Colorado as well...

 We traveled to Perth to watch Janelle receive her grant from the Masonic Lodge. She has been very fortunate to be successful with her applications for the 6 years of her studies and is very grateful for the assistance and to be recognised for her hard work...

We had some very wet days early on in May with one day breaking a 50 year daily rainfall record. This caused havoc at my work and a minor leak we have had there for years soon turned into a full on indoor water feature! ...

 With power out in 3 sections and customers unable to access certain areas we used every available tub and bin to catch water which had to be continually emptied. Overnight one of the green bins burst and caused more flooding. Thankfully most of the repairs have been done and we are back to the small ongoing leak!...

 We met Janelle in Mandurah on Mother's Day and enjoyed a lovely afternoon tea at San Churros. (unfortunately Sarah had to work)...

A lovely rainbow for our arrival back home...

 Sarah's Nathan had a terrible accident on a skateboard and broke his leg in a very complex way (Tibia bone). He had to be transferred to Perth and had to wait 11 days before they could do surgery due to the swelling. He has a long road ahead and will not be able to work for 3-6 months and will have intense physio.

In emergency before any tests or xrays

 Janelle and I had a great night out at a lovely health cafe in Cottesloe. It was a presentation by Therese Kerr (super model Miranda Kerr's Mum).  It was kept very small and intimate with only about 30 guests. Therese talked about all sorts of things but her main agenda was chemicals and what we apply to our skin. She is also promoting her new Divine range of body products which are all organic and chemical free. We were served all sorts of delicious health foods, drinks and smoothies as well...

Mini raw pizzas

We got to have a nice chat with her, she is a lovely person (can see where Miranda gets her height from) and she was very interested in Janelle's studies and her future hopes of combining food and nutrition with medicine...

We were planning on going caravaning on the long weekend but too much had been happening and we needed to be home. So we decided to go caravaning for a day, hooked on the van and went for a drive to Busselton to show Mum and Dad J the new "skirt" we had done (complete with working zips now!) and have a cuppa with them. Peter also did a few odd jobs for them and chopped some wood...

A nice day out. 

Ironman

Last year Janelle and 2 friends signed up to do the Busselton half ironman as a team. Competitors come from all over the world for this event. Erin would do the 1.9km swim leg, then Janelle would do the 90km bike ride and Cameron the 21.1 km run. It seemed so far away with plenty of time to train. But it came around very quickly and they were all concerned about achieving their stages in the allocated time frame.

Janelle had to travel down the day before and check her bike in... 

With over 3000 competitors there were so many bikes but all very well organised..

With that done it was time to enjoy a beautiful sunset...

Janelle stayed at Nan and Pops house so she wouldn't have to travel on competition day. Mother nature turned on the most perfect Autumn day for the event. The individuals started their swim at 6am and Erin was scheduled to go at 10.20am with the other teams.  The water was so calm...

Having a little warm up swim

Team Generincam

Erin did her swim in great time and Janelle took off for her 90km bike ride which was two 45km  circuits. It wasn't really a spectator friendly event as we had to wait 1.5 hours to see her flash past and try and get a photo!...

Patient spectator

We went and had a cuppa with Mum and Dad J in between laps and got back in time to see Janelle finish...

Go into the transition area and send Cameron on his way...

Janelle was a bit emotional after her ride (and relieved) she had done it in the time frame (she had to do it in 3 hours 15 mins and she did it in 3 hours 4 mins)... 

Feeling a little stiff

One way to burn off some chocolate!...

Cameron was also very pleased with himself finishing the run...

The all received a Finisher medal and a deep sense of satisfaction...

They came 80th out of the 193 (of those who finished) for mixed teams and 188th out of the 423 total teams which was a pretty good result.