Awesome day.

This weekend is the Queen's Birthday long weekend. Now I'm pretty sure her birthday is actually in April and the rest of Australia celebrates it in June but we have a holiday to celebrate our state's foundation then so we get to celebrate it now... when the weather is better! Lucky us and lucky Queen Elizabeth II... if she gets birthday cake 3 times a year.

Yesterday we had a leisurely picnic at Houghtons winery in the Swan Valley. It was a perfect day, our boy found some kids to play cricket and soccer with. I am amazed at his capacity to make instant friends where ever we go. I guess if an only child can't do that who will he play with? We caught up with our friend Louise and finally got to give her birthday gifts... only 22 days late. This is one of the gifts I gave to her. It is a C10 with the pattern from Barb's Echo Stars on one side and an interlocked stars pattern on the other. This is the final temari in a set of three that I have been gifting to her. I have previously made two others in the echo stars pattern, a smaller and a medium size. Now she has her gift I can share it with you too.

Today we spent the day at the Perth Royal Show. Our son has been doing odd jobs in earnest to earn extra pocket money to go this year. We arrived at 10am and walked around and around all day long seeing the animal exhibits, heritage machinery, wood chopping, and so on. We also got to send a message by morse code across a big shed and get it typed out by the morsecodians group of WA... some teenagers didn't quite get the fuss until I mentioned that this was the first version of text messaging, the gentleman volunteering overheard me and piped up to say that it is less costly and quicker than modern text messages too.

I really wanted to visit the arts and crafts and cake decorating competitions but just didn't get there. Although I did manage to see the photography and painting exhibitions which were really gorgeous. There was the most beautiful small canvas with a vase of ranunculus that I could have run off with... if I wasn't already weighed down with things we had already collected and there weren't two big security guards at the door. And I visited the CWA (country women's association) where two ladies were doing a demonstration of tatting. AMAZING!!! I even got a start on some Christmas shopping... I purchased one of the 2011 CWA calendars which are a little (but only a little) 'risque' with members almost baring all for the McGrath foundation (An Australian Cancer charity established by Glenn and Jane McGrath before she lost her own breast cancer battle in June 2008). The CWA has lots of chapters around the state and the president invited me to come along to one of their Perth meetings. It will have to wait until the new year I think but it would be nice to join up.

Our boy got to pat a pig and cuddle a chicken, try out a police bike, a real army gun and night vision goggles... these were his top 5 activities. The boys had 2 turns at the bumper cars, our son was so pleased because the last time he visited the show (3 years ago) he was not quite tall enough to drive. We took our lunch and found a shady spot by the grand arena to watch the parade. I have never seen so many beautiful animals in my life.  We sampled lots of yummy treats and had an awesome time.

I think my legs are 3 inches shorter and my arms 3 inches longer from carrying all the showbags and walking around for so many hours.

I have made some temari this weekend while my hubby was working out of town but I didn't get time to take pics yet. Hopefully I can blog them by Wednesday. No promises though... today is the first day of school holidays.

Happy days to you!