2013 - MY YEAR IN PICTURES

This is a month by month picture round-up of highlights of my year 2013.

Hope you also had an interesting year and may 2014 bring you all you wish! 

If you follow the highlighted links you will be able to read more about those events.

JANUARY

Australia Day, celebrated on 26th of January was celebrated with friends. 
We still have no plans for this year's celebrations ...

FEBRUARY

Our en-suite bathroom was finally finished after a few months of working on it on and off over the weekends.
Thanks to my dear husband and son who did the tiling, and a plumber knowledgeable friend who helped with some of the piping before the basin could be installed.
The difference is amazing, as we had a 1970's house complete with all the colourful and un-matching tiles, wallpaper, floors, counters, toilets....Very groovy!!

A big difference from the blue toilet and counter top (seen here on the bottom corner) and blue patterned tiles in the shower, to a modern cream and white bathroom with storage and enclosed shower.

MARCH

My daughter and her partner arrived from France, a day after my birthday and a few days before her birthday. We celebrated both our special dates by having a lovely party in our backyard with our friends.

Just before departing on our very long road trip to the North of our state of Western Australia, we managed to squeeze in a visit to Cottesloe beach to see the weird and beautiful works of art at the "Sculpture by the Sea" exhibition.

We travelled almost 3000km from Perth to Coral Bay and back, and had an amazing holiday.
You can follow our day to day along the following 7 posts and see some wonderful West Australian sights.
part 1 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/a-long-way-to-top-perth-to-coral-bay.html
part 2 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/perth-to-coral-bay-part-2.html
part 3 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/perth-to-coral-bay-part-3.html
part 4 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/perth-to-coral-bay-part-4.html
part 5 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/perth-to-coral-bay-part-5.html
part 6 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/coral-bay-to-perth-homebound.html
part 7 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/coral-bay-to-perth-homebound-2.html

For me the highlight was seeing the dolphins come to feed at the beach at Monkey Mia.
We spent 9 days relaxing, swimming in clear waters, fishing, looking at the coral reef and enjoying beautiful sunsets. I took just over 800 photos on this trip, my family says I must have a Japanese ancestor somewhere! 

APRIL

I joined the "Postcrossing" group swapping postcards with snippets of info about Perth.
Strangely enough, the first address Postcrossing gave me was Braunschweig, the German town where we lived for almost 6 years in the 80's. I'm glad there are still so many people who enjoy putting a pen to paper instead of just typing away at the computer keyboard, and it's also a lovely way to get to know the world.

MAY

I visited the city of Adelaide, and then my husband and I took a ferry to the millionaire fishing town of Port Lincoln, where we spent a few days getting to know the area. 
Both cities are in the State of South Australia.

The river Torrens in the city centre

An old building in the seaside suburb of  Glenelg., by the sea side.

A fishing boat coming from the sea in Port Lincoln

JUNE

For the first time I attended the WA Day or Foundation Day celebrations in the city on 3rd of June. The centre was full of people having fun around the most diverse activities.
































On the 22nd June, my son got married in Sydney to his lovely bride and we spent 3 days there and once again visited the usual tourist sights. 
This was our third time in Sydney since we have been in Australia.

Part 1 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/sydney-weekend-day-1.html
Part 2 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/sydney-weekend-day-2-wedding.html
Part 3 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/sydney-day-3.html

Sara & Michael cut the cake

Darling Harbour, Sydney

A wet day greeted our visit to the Opera House

JULY

For the first time we enjoyed an Australian Christmas in July dinner.
It makes sense when Christmas falls in the heat of Summer in Australia, and people want to get the feeling of celebrating Christmas in the middle of winter.

AUGUST

A couple of renovating projects that I embarked on during the month of August and September were the renovation of my son's bedroom, now a guest room, which started with me painting the end wall with stripes.

As you can see from the before and after photos, the room looks brighter and modern now.

Before - gray walls and black furniture

After - Gray, white and turquoise

This chest of drawers that I bought on Gumtree also had a make-over, with a splash of colour in each drawer, mimicking the striped walls, from white, turquoise to dark gray.

Another project was the "framing" of the bathroom mirror  in our main bathroom, changing it from a just plain mirror to a more contemporary mirror.

SEPTEMBER

Kings Park celebrated 50 years of flower power with yet another amazing display of Spring wildflowers. 
For the first time yarn-bombing was introduced and it was a success!

The "Florettes" walking around the park, delighted young and old. 

Holden, the Australian car maker celebrated 100 years as well, and some stunning and unusual flower displays were made with two very old cars.

PS - Sadly, General Motors has decided to close down the Holden car plant in South Australia in 2017.

OCTOBER

The 46th Telethon was held in Perth, and raised just over an astonishing $20,700 ,000.  Yes, you are reading right -  Twenty million, seven hundred thousand dollars!!!   It's the best fundraiser worldwide!

NOVEMBER

For the second year Perth participated in the "Open House" event, celebrating design, architecture, interiors, etc and showcasing the most important public and some private buildings in Perth.

My favourite was the very modern Central Park building, the tallest building with the best views over Perth. Follow the links to read about my visits on 4th of November.

The Swan Bells tower and the new "Elizabeth Quay" project under way by the river Swan

Part 1 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/open-house-perth-2013-council-house.html
Part 2 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/open-house-perth-2-spacecubed-and.html
Part 3 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/open-house-perth-3-qv1-building.html
Part 4 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/open-house-perth-4-central-park-building.html
Part 5 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/open-house-perth-5-bishops-gardens.html

Also in November I met up with two bloggers, one from Perth, the other from Braunschweig, Germany.
I took Iris and her husband to visit Penguin Island. It was a short visit, but enough to enjoy seeing these cute little creatures that inhabit the Southern coast of Australia and New Zealand.

Penguin Island

Towards the end of November I flew again to Adelaide, to celebrate our wedding anniversary on 30th. The city was decked out for Christmas of course.

November was certainly a busy month!

Rundle Plaza in Adelaide - a pedestrian mall

We had our wedding anniversary dinner at a restaurant in the Glenelg Marina

DECEMBER

For the second time I watched the Perth Christmas Pageant that takes place the first Saturday of the month. 

The Broome camels are very popular, and so are characters from kid's story books.

Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas Day lunch was held at our house with the usual gathering of our "Australian adoptive family".

New Year's Eve was celebrated with a few friends at the Portuguese Club of Hamilton Hill. The food was great - lobster, prawn, calamari and octopus. 

Desserts and starters could be brought in by the guests, if they so wished.

The music - live shows and then DJ music was entertaining and good enough for dancing.

My husband and I and our son and wife

It's now time to get back to normal and stop over-eating on so much junk. I can hardly look at food today!

Have a happy 2014, with health, peace and happiness!

I look forward to having your company again this year.

DIY Christmas Gifts

This weekend I made some of the DIY presents for the ladies, and a few days before Christmas I will make a few jars of spicy or candy nuts for the men, so they are nice and fresh. 

One of the blogs I follow for Paleo recipes has some recipes for natural cosmetics and I made Foot Balm from Elana's instructions and from another blog I made Body Lotion Bars and Lip Balm.

All quite easy and rewarding to do, I just had to go and buy beeswax, that I found at an Art shop, and Cocoa butter and essential oils at the local health store.
I found some small plastic containers at Red Dot (a cheap novelty store) for $1 and a travel pack for $3 with among others, 3 tiny jars ideal for the lip balm.

Travel jars and Lotion jars from Red Dot

Here are the recipes:

LIP BALM
1 part beeswax
1 cocoa butter OR olive oil OR coconut oil
A few drops essential oil
Melt beeswax and cocoa butter in a double boiler, remove from heat and add a few drops of essential oil and pour into small containers.

The blue metal container held mints and was a gift from Iris, the German blogger I met with (see Penguin island post)

FOOT BALM
30gr beeswax, grated
1/4 cup cocoa or shea butter
2 tablespoons coconut oil
2 tablespoons olive oil
10 drops essential oil of vanilla
10 drops essential oil of peppermint

In a double boiler melt beeswax and cocoa butter, add coconut and olive oil and stir well.
Remove from heat and add essential oils. Pour into small containers.

Melting beeswax in a double boiler

Ingredients for the Foot balm

 BODY LOTION BARS

Beeswax
Cocoa butter
Coconut oil
Optional - Vitamin E oil (2 teaspoons) and Grapeseed oil (2 tablespoons)
Optional - Essential oil of your choice

Melt a 1:1:1 ratio of the first 3 ingredients in a double boiler (small pan inside bigger pan with boiling water).
Stir well, and remove from heat
If you are using them add the Vitamin E oil (I didn't use it) and the Grapeseed oil. Add about 25 drops of the essential oil of your choice.
Pour into silicone moulds. Let the bars cool for a few hours and unmould.
To use them rub the bars between your hands to soften the bar enough to use over your body.
They are good for people with eczema and very dry skin.

I made 6 heart bars and 2 round bars of Body Lotion.

I also have some beautiful almost good to eat soaps made by Mamie Fidler which I bought from her site to supplement my home made goodies. I usually made my own soaps, but just plain ones, nothing as fancy or colourful as these ones below.

Soaps from http://heartflutterings.blogspot.com.au/

At this stage of my life I feel I have far too many possessions and have no need for much of anything, so it's a bit difficult when people ask what I would like for Christmas, as I really don't need anything, and I would rather people donated their money to Charity. 
At Christmas time I always donate to "Cat Haven" who do a great job of saving cats from euthanasia, and they were the ones that helped me adopt 5 out of the 8 kittens that were born from the two stray cats that adopted us, back in 2007.
Another charity I like to help is "World Vision". In Australia you can find representatives in some shopping centres and from as little as $5 you can help buy pencils for students in poor communities.
I like to give a gift of "goats" for $40 or "piglets" for $50, which I know is going to benefit a community somewhere in the world!

Do you make your own gifts?
Do you think the gift recipients appreciate home-made gifts?

Have a wonderful Christmas in the company of your family and friends. 
xxx Sami

Perth Christmas Pageant 2013

Last year I went to the city to watch the Christmas Pageant, but went too late and landed up hanging from a statue with a friend to be able to see some glimpses, and halfway through the parade my camera's battery went flat...

This year I was better prepared! I convinced my family to be in the city by 5,30pm so that we would be able to sit on the edge of the pavement - first row seating, and my battery was fully charged!

The 42nd Perth Christmas Pageant was held on Saturday 7th December, on St George's Terrace, over a 1,4km long stretch of road. Starting time was 7,30pm lasting for about 1 hour.

At 5,30 the pavements were already getting crowded

Even arriving at 5,30 we only got a second row "seat". There were 4 of us, and we had taken 2 beach chairs and a picnic blanket and a small "esky" (cooler box) with food and water.
There was a cool breeze, and halfway through our wait my husband and I decided to go to Target on the next street and buy some polar fleece bed throws for all of us. 
When we returned the pavements were all so blocked up by people that we struggled to return to our seats, and people were wary of letting us go past fearing we were just trying to get to the front and cheating them out... Crazy!!

We ate and chatted, and watched the street entertainment until the much awaited parade started.

Street entertainment before the Pageant started

WA, TV stars parade in a fancy American car

Lisa Scaffidi (the Lord Mayor of Perth) and Samantha Jones (X-Factor 2012 winner)

Close to us some celebrities were being interviewed - the Lord Mayor of Perth - Lisa Scaffidi (in the violet jacket) and Samantha Jade, the tiny Perth singer who won X-Factor 2012, and who was the Pageant's start attraction.
  

Just before the start of the Pageant you can see the crowds

Just after 7,30 the first floats started coming our way and the crowd perked up.
The parade was made up of floats representing children's stories,  of dancing schools, gymnasts, some communities like the Chinese, South American, Taiwanese, etc were also represented.























    

This giant watches over the buildings of the city centre

This rotating candelabra was a popular float

Remember "Thomas the Tank engine"?

A float for the Swan River Boat

       

This huge "My Little Pony" delighted the kids

We all enjoyed the show, the only downside was that we sat near a rubbish bin and once in a
while the wind would blow the awful smell to our side....not pleasant! I don't think I will convince the family to go again next year... And we also had a lady that although she was sitting "front row" insisted on standing up most of the time while taking photos and blocking my view...

When Santa's carriage came by, it was the end of the parade, and everyone suddenly got up and started running towards the nearby Esplanade train station. 
The crowd moved quickly though, as there was no need to pay for tickets. The trains were coming every 5 minutes, and my husband and I managed to get onto the first train that stopped, but we lost sight of our son and his wife, who only managed to get onto a train 15 or 20 minutes later.

Apparently there were 200 thousand people watching the Pageant. Can you imagine 200 thousand people, 8 to 10 rows deep, crammed on the pavement, stretching their necks to have a view of the pageant going by?

The crowd rushes to the station...

Do you have Christmas pageants in your city? Do you watch them or do you feel they are just fun for the kids?
I had fun, and I think the atmosphere is half the fun, but I don't think my family was too impressed with the time spent sitting there, so it might be the last time I have their company...