All over for another year

We had a lovely Christmas this year - we had a visit from my Brother, Niece and Nephew (who I haven't seen in over a year!) on Christmas eve and I hope to catch up with my brother again before he heads home to Roebourne on Friday.


Christmas day was very quiet, just the four of us and yummy food and drink to savour when we felt like it. We watched about 8 episodes of Two and a half Men back to back and just chilled out after the present thing.
Boxing Day was great, we had friends over to have leftovers (we had plenty to go round), why is it that we over cater on Christmas Day? I squashed my finger in a folding chair whilst trying to move it, oh and I tried electrocuting myself...picture this...me swimming in pool with girlfriends...man kicks empty stubbie off the verandah....smashes into million shards of glass....Steve cleans up as much as he can with brush...get vacuum cleaner...I get out of pool to plug into socket near pool....vacuum has loose wires at plug...I'm soaking wet...fingers connect with lose wires while trying to plug in....bang...house trips, power goes off...me doing funny dance around the pool...very entertaining...NOT! I never been electrocuted before - it really hurts!!!!!

The last few days have been spent trying to complete my office and get my big Ikea shelf out of the girls' bathroom....lucky we have a large enough bathroom to store it. I bought 3 pieces of Ikea furniture which we (the girls and I - Steve refuses to have anything to do with it!) spent about 5 hours the other night putting together, once piece we had to do twice - I was tired and it went together with once piece the wrong way around - don't you hate it when that happens at 10 o'clock at night? The furniture is now back in the room and the last chore is to go through everything and purge, purge, purge before finding new homes for it all. There might just be a few giveaways coming up on the blog, so stay tuned! By the way - do you like my new look blog? If you want to find out more of how to do some upgrades to yours then the Blogger Unwrapped tutorials at The Coffee Shop Blog are great.
I can't wait to get stuck into some creating in my new space in the coming weeks. Ideas are swimming around my head.

On Sunday we visited The Cowans and spent the afternoon in the pool chatting and being blasted with water pistols by the kids.....it was great to catch up with them - we are all so busy living life we get very little time to just chill.

Another year is nearly over and it's now I like to reflect on what the year has bought for my family but also to look forward to the future. 2010 is going to be a challenging year for the four of us in different ways but hopefully a successful one.

So on that note I'd like to wish all my readers (and commenters....hint hint) a wonderful New Year and please stay safe.

Sharon xoxoxo

I always find the lead up to Christmas very stressful but this year I seemed to be better organised than others, that or I'm just not worried about all the finer details and I'm trying to concentrate on the bigger picture. Our girls are much older now and the traditions seem to have gone out the window, hang on, I'm not sure we ever had any traditions to tell you the truth, it just feels like things are much calmer this year.....maybe it was the holiday I just had!

I know I haven't been around much lately and there are several reasons for that. One is that I have stripped out my Scroffice and I'm totally re-decorating my space to suit me. Renae and Gemma have been helping me alot and tomorrow Steve picks up my new timber flooring, so hopefully that will be laid sooner rather than later. I've been taking photos along the way and I hope to share the transformation early in the New Year - finger's crossed!

The other reason is something that I can't quite share yet - but rest assured it is an exciting project I have taken on for 2010 and whilst it will be ALOT of hard work, I hope that it will be enormously successful and something that you can be part of too!

Photography sessions are starting to fill up for Jan and Feb and even April is turning out to be extremely busy time for me. My new website and blog are in development too - so it's action stations around here. I've been printing photos, canvases (even got one of my own I will share in a future post) and organising framing for my clients for Christmas presents this last week too.

Kelly and Sam were married on 4th Dec and I'm still editing away in between everything else - usually early in the morning when the house is quiet and cool. This was the first official shoot with my new Canon 5D and all I can say is I'm in love. So are Kelly and Sam, they made my job very easy indeed. Here's a sneak peek of/for the happy couple.

Kelly in a reflective moment at the altar - She was truly a stunning bride.

Love this photo of the two of them - Don't worry Kel, there's more of these ones too in colour but I really liked the velvetyness (if that's a word?) of the sepia.



These guys were soooooo much fun - and very willing particpants to try anything - It was an extremely hot day and they were very thankful when I said they could take off their jackets, but I had an ulterior motive as I wanted them to do the Toyota ad jump thing - and they did it willingly - so willingly I can't show the R rated version of this shot on my G rated blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!




Whilst not a perfect photo this one gives me goosebumps.....got them now.






I think that's enough of a teaser so I'll finish by saying.....................

20 Years and counting!

On 2nd December my gorgeous husband and I celebrated 20 years of marriage......in Bali!

After a very hectic week and an end of year dance concert to contend with (which is always a stressful time not matter how much we try not to make it stressful) Steve and I departed Perth on 22nd Nov for 12 glorious days in Bali.




We were delayed out of Perth by about 1 1/2 hours (always the way when you are anxious to be somewhere else!), but when we finally arrived at the Ulin Villas we were met with something like heaven.


It was everything and more than we expected - our very own Villa complete with pool, kitchen, breakfast prepared daily by our own chef, lounge dining and outdoor bathroom. Magic! You can see more here if you are interested - we really can't recommend the accommodation enough.

We swam....



We went sightseeing....



We ate and drank....



We re-connected and re-discovered why we married each other all those years ago...no pictures of this sorry!!!!

We celebrated...

On our last night we decided to have a BBQ meal prepared in the Villa and when I came home from dashing out to get some last minute shopping done I was greeted by this image and it truly took my breath away. They are Frangipanni flowers strategically placed around the grass area of the Villa - just stunning - we also had some woven decorations hung from the ceiling of the dining area too. Our feast was prepared and then we were left alone to celebrate our 20th Wedding Anniversary and just relax. The day was perfect!

Our 12 days away were amazing, we felt like we had had a holiday. Our girls missed us terribly and we missed them very much too.

It was straight back to work for me as last night - I had a wedding to photograph - so I'll be back with some sneek peaks sometime next week of Kelly & Sam.

I have had so much time to think about so much whilst I was away that I now have a list of things I would like to achieve in the coming year, some of which are already underway and include a new blog and website so stay tuned for those.

My girls have their awards night on Monday night and we have had confirmation that they will both be receiving awards - what a great way to finish off a very successful year for us all.