Life – Page 40 – Life is a Journey

Meeting Paola

Posted on February 4, 2011October 14, 2026 by Libby Withnall

Yesterday I drove down to Berry to meet another blog-friend, Paola, of Spades and Spoons. We met at the Berry Tea Shop, which you might recall I visited in December.

The thing I love best about meeting fellow bloggers is that you don’t have to worry about getting to know each other or learning what each other is interested in. All that has already been done. From the moment the lovely and elegant Paola entered the tea rooms we talked, over a delicious cup of tea, non-stop about all sorts of things. Eventually we wandered to Sew and Tell and spent at least 30min poking around the shop ohhing and ahhing over all the gorgeous things. So jealous that Paola has this shop in her local town, but at least that gives me an excuse to come visit with her again :-).

NOTE: I believe you “should” be able to see the photos from Kevin’s Birthday dinner now.

A Birthday Dinner

Posted on February 4, 2011October 14, 2026 by Libby Withnall

Kevin really didn’t want to do anything for his birthday this year so we just had a family dinner.

Being that it was Chinese New Year we thought it fitting to have Chinese.

And there was, of course, cake.

Kevin’s not a big fan of birthday cake but this one had Mango cream – which I thought he’d like since he loves mangos.

And it wouldn’t be Chinese without fortune cookies.

So it was pretty low-key birthday for Kevin. We do however have our joint Birthday trip to Alaska in June to look forward to :-).

Australia Day

Posted on January 27, 2011October 13, 2026 by Libby Withnall

It was very relaxed, lazy Australia Day in the Withnall household. With only having gotten back from holidays on Monday no-one was in the mood to do much.

We did, however, have a BBQ for lunch…

which featured damper…

Kevin had a steak, Amy & I a veggie patty.

The afternoon included a few odd jobs, like ironing, some computer time, some scrapbooking and finally a swim. Then Kevin had the great idea to turn the pumpkin cob he had bought into a cob loaf dip for dinner. This is basically a cheese sauce with creamed corn. Yum, yum, yum. An unusual, but delicious dinner.

A change of plans

Posted on January 16, 2011October 14, 2026 by Libby Withnall

Today we packed a picnic lunch and headed to Jamberoo Action Park. Unfortunately by the time we arrive just after 10.30am the carpark was already very full and we knew it would be very crowded in the park. So much to Christy’s horror we drove back out of the carpark. We had passes to use so we will be back – actually we’ll be back twice before the close of season at the end of April (we have two family passes).

Without really knowing where to go – only that since we were all wearing our swimsuits it needed to involve a swim – we headed to Kiama, then Shellharbour and eventually ended up at Killalea State Park. Both the girls had been here on school excursions but I had no idea how beautiful the area was and that it included two surf beachs.

As you can see it is a popular place on a very hot Sunday during the school holidays.

After applying suncream we set off to the beach. We weren’t too pleased when we saw this sign :-(. So the girls were given strict instruction not to go beyond waist height in water.

We had a brief swim – the water was freezing and we were a bit paranoid about a potential rip, then had our picnic lunch on the beach.

We only ended up spending about an hour here as it was midday and the sun was very strong. We decided to go and the girls a snorkel set that they can use when we go on holidays tomorrow and also in the pool. So after that we headed home and had a swim in our pool – which was ridiculously warm – and they played with their new gear. Then it was time to think about packing for our annual Summer holiday to Port Stephens with Nan & Pop.

So while today didn’t quite turn out as planned it was a good one :-).