Catching up with friends and family...

The main aim of our first week back in Brisbane was to catch up with family and friends, so this meant spending each morning catching up with various people.

Saturday involved a family afternoon/dinner with Peter's parents and the Colyer's to celebrate Linda's birthday. It also included a visit from Peter's cousin Matthew (who I had never met before). Ben and Joanna both enjoyed playing with their cousins and we all got to meet baby Amy (the latest addition to the Colyer's) for the first time.

Sunday we caught up with our Unichurch family at the morning service. Ben is old enough now that he remembers people and places, so he enjoyed seeing his friends again and getting to spend time with them in Kids church and playing afterwards. This also meant I was also able to chat to a number of people afterwards.

Monday we spent the morning with Dania, Sofia and Owen - our old Kenmore neighbours. It was the first time we had met Owen and it was good to see how Sofia had grown up. Dania was also able to fill me in on all the baby news from Kenmore mother's group. Ben and Sophia had great fun playing ball together.

We caught up with Linda, Matthew and Amy again on Tuesday morning. Joanna enjoyed being a big girl, looking after/watching baby Amy. We also got the added bonus of seeing and patting some farm animals that were making a visit to the playgroup at the church next door. Ben had a tomato sauce, tuna, and cheese sandwich for lunch - because his cousin was having a straight tomato sauce sandwich.
It was great to catch up with Ben's mothers group on Wednesday - we hadn't seen them for a whole year. The kids have all certainly grown up and it was interesting to watch them all play and interact together a whole lot more. Ben seemed to decide that Felicity was his special friend and wanted to do everything with her. It was also good to be able to celebrate Joshua's 4th birthday at the same time.

We spent the day with Kathryn, Rohan and Xavier on Thursday. Firstly at Rocks Riverside Park, where we had planned to play in the water. But unfortunately the council had decided to do maintenance on it that day (before school holidays started), so the water was turned off . The kids still had great fun playing in the sand, going on the flying fox and attempting to climb the spider's web (with a rather dramatic moment where Xavier was hanging on, legs dangling in mid-air - half way up - waiting to be rescued after his feet had slipped off the ropes). We then went back to their place for lunch, sleep/DVD watching, playing and dinner before I took 2 tired kids home. Ben and Joanna really enjoyed playing with Rohan and Xavier and wanted to spend more time with them.

Friday morning was time to catch up with mum's and kids from Unichurch. As I arrived at the park early (our old park just down the road from our old house), I was able to fit in catching up with Jo (from Kenmore mother's group) and meeting her 2 week old baby girl (which was suppose to be a boy). It was good to be able to sit down and chat with friends while the kids were having fun off playing on the play equipment. We also got to meet the latest addition to the Avery girls.