Lucas and Alicia helped Daddy to bake some car cookies a little while ago. It was lots of fun, but (of course) very messy as well. Alicia had a little trouble with the concept that the icing is supposed to go onto the cookies, as opposed to directly into her mouth. As you can see, she ended up with a face that the Joker himself would have envied.
So, having said farewell to our cousins, the Birds headed south, towards Surfers Paradise, to partake in a bit of "Immediate Family Only" quality time. We actually stopped short of Surfers itself, and stayed at Main Beach, Gold Coast. We stayed at Oscar on Main, having booked some last-minute bargain basement rates there. We were all quite impressed with our suite, it was a veritable mansionette.
Of course, the main reason one goes to the Gold Coast is to visit the beach, and Main Beach certainly did not disappoint! The Oscar even had a little free-for-all store-room with kid-sized surfboards to borrow. Lucas found a surf board that he liked, and pretty much took it to bed with him. In any case, the kids had an enormous amount of fun in the sand, and (in Lucas' case) the surf as well.
Of course, being a luxury resort, the Oscar had its own pool (two actually) for those who tired of the ocean and took a preference for chlorinated water instead. Alicia was much more amenable to this kind of water, especially the heated sauna! Next time, we'll just have to try that bit harder to convince her not to drink the tepid water...
The Bird family recently went for a holiday up in Brisbane, in order to visit family and friends. Our first port of call was the Hill residence, to check up on our dear little Tessa, who had only just made it out of hospital! The poor little girl was a little bit tender at first, but was very quick to recover - it wasn't long before she was treating us to a few choice giggles and laughs. Sam was beside himself with excitement to see Lucas, and the feeling was mutual. Ted and Alicia, well... they simply agreed to disagree on most things.
As an added bonus, Nanna was there as well. She was quite chuffed to have all but one of her dear grandchildren gathered under one roof. This feeling of wellbeing soon wore off, however, when one of the aforementioned grandchildren passed on a rather nasty tummy bug that she brought with her from Sydney! Nonetheless, most of us (at least, those of us not evacuating their stomachs) had a great time.
