If you lived in Queensland or NSW, you were lucky enough to enjoy a long weekend like us and here, the weather was perfection for the most part.

We did lots of swimming, ate healthy lunches on the go, had a Japanese lunch date with my sister and niece, celebrated the Roosters' grand final win with a party at my parents' (thank goodness as the alternative would have devastated my dad and sister), visited Wet'n Wild,





 
ate lots of frozen fruit - my new addiction ... and a few ice creams, and caught up with wonderful friends and their children.

As always, the weekend goes far too fast, even with an extra day but the plus side, its a short week!



I also did some shopping, kitting out Ethan's summer wardrobe with some new shoes, funky new tees and shorts - Scott of course is a big fan of the Atari inspired Space Invaders tee. Best part, everything was at least 50% off. Although I'm on a bit of a ban, I snapped up this gorgeous Charlie Brown 'Masai' print wrap dress for me as well. The print and colours are so beautiful in real life and this dress will be ideal for work or play I figure.




I discovered a new TV series, The Blacklist, and I'm hooked. Got to love James Spader in pretty much anything but throw in some secret agent FBI mystery, a reasonably entertaining plot and I'm happy. The only problem is, we're too used to having a series available all at once but this one only has 2 eps so far and a week is a long wait!


We also made a big purchase yesterday morning but more on that another time :)

1. Country Road Dragon print pants - love that these have a zippered ankle and are perfect for dressing up, work or the weekend.

2. Hocus Pocus the movie - one of my all time childhood favourites, I was reminded of it recently from Jessica at Little Baby Garvin's blog (http://littlebabygarvin.blogspot.com.au/). I had forgotten just how funny this movie is and how much I love Bette Midler, SJP & Kathy Najimy- a classic for sure!

3. Bubbles - Ethan, Scott and I are just loving bubbles and have wands stashed all over the house. Every time E catches sight of a wand he goes crazy shouting 'bubble bubble bubble' until we get cracking on blowing them. My favourite are the Moose brand ones E got for his birthday (thanks A) as they smell good enough to eat, have good bubble production per dip (very scientific) and the bottle seems neverending.

4. Mason jars - another Little Baby Garvin inspired love. For drinking, storage (ear buds, bobby pins etc) etc I just love how fun these are.

5. Mexican food - We love Mexican food in this house but more than ever lately. Some hits this month have been an amazing chicken nachos made with shredded roast chicken and Mission's new chipotle &d black bean salsa and Quesadillas made using Brooke from Our Happy Day's blog 'Fiesta chicken' recipe (http://www.ourhappydaysblog.com/).

6. My Fun VIP 3 park fun pass - considering each theme park is $90 per adult per visit, these passes are just the best value. These passes are $99 each and as we've already used them twice in the two week's we have had them, they have already paid for themselves. Seaworld is great for E with the animals to see and Wet'n Wild is ideal with the weather warming up as its about 15 mins from home so we can pop there after nap-time on the weekend to have a splash for an hour or two.

7. Glasshouse Candles - particularly Cuba, Rio and Coney Island. I love lighting one of these on a Saturday morning once I sit down after Ethan has gone down for a nap and I've finished tidying up. The scents give instant relaxation and make our home smell amazing.

8. Crayola My First Crayons - I pop E in the high chair on our balcony most sunny weekends with some paper and these crayons so he can exercise his inner Picasso. Mostly he just bites or throws the crayons but we do get the occasional scribble and he seems to enjoy it.

9.  Burleigh Heads beach & park - we love walking a long this strip on the weekends and playing at the park afterwards. We really do live in a stunning part of the World and are blessed to have areas like this to visit and use.

We enjoyed a fabulous if exhausting weekend here on the Gold Coast.

My Saturday started at 3am... that's not a typo, it really did start at 3am and by my choice not Ethan's. My sister and I were captaining one of Moncrieff's largest booth for our local member in the Federal election and part of that duty is setting up the booth as a 'sea of blue'. We determined that 3am ensured us prime position and little competition... and thankfully we weren't wrong. Here are some pre and post dawn shots to demonstrate how we really did paint the booth a 'sea of blue' - yes, every corflute and banner is ours! Our competition didn't start arriving until 7:30am (polling opened at 8am) and we copped some pretty nasty abuse and aggression from the Labour and Get Up representatives for not leaving anywhere for their signs. In fairness as we pointed out, they were entitled to arrive anytime they liked but so were we and we cared enough to be there early to ensure our message was clear. Labour did nothing to endear themselves to any of us throughout the day with ongoing nastiness and I also observed one of the young booth workers for Labour having a cigarette while handing out how to vote cards - disgusting! Then they packed up at 4pm and left for the day with 2 hours still to go - there's commitment for you.

Polling closed at 6pm and we had to stick around to observe the vote counting as scrutineers. We won our booth by over 500 votes but it made me so angry that there was almost 200 informal votes - either not even marked, filthy drawings and comments or numbered incorrectly. Apparently this was a trend across the booths. Just jumping on my soapbox for a minute - there are people around the World who are literally dying for the right to vote and these people couldn't even be bothered to give 5 minutes to the future of their country.

Saturday night, we of course celebrated our win (by over 20,000 votes) and that we are now in Government  with a big victory party before going home to crash!

There was no sleep in Sunday with the munchkin around so we did some chores in the morning and made the most of a perfect sunny day by heading to Wet'n Wild after naptime. E was in Heaven, loving the water, the slides and all the jets and attractions. He ran from pool to pool, giggling and clapping his hands as we went and squealed with delight when a timed big bucket tipped over and dumped water on his head. He loved an afternoon treat of hot chippies and then it was time to take our worn out boy home.

We purchased the myfun 3 theme park passes and I'm so excited about making the most of them with E - we are headed to Seaworld on Saturday with Scott's family for our niece's 1st birthday and if its another hot Sunday, I think I will take E to Wet'n Wild again for a little afternoon play. I can see us getting lots of use out of our passes as its easy enough to head to a theme park for a few hours after nap time and a lot of fun for us all. We are so spoilt living on the Gold Coast with so many great options for entertainment and the passes are only $99.95 for a year of unlimited entry to Seaworld, Movieworld and WW while single entry to each is normally over $50 per person.