Souks and Abra's

The journey has begun! After a relatively smooth flight I landed in Dubai a few nights ago.

Our first stop after we had recuperated, was to the textile, gold and spice souks

Firstly, the textile souks. My eyes danced as we wandered through here. There was an amazing collection of colour, design and texture!

Then we hopped aboard an abra to take us across the river to the gold and spice souks.

What a beautiful way to travel - the vibrant colour of the water contrasted against the whites and creams of the buildings that perch along the waterfront.

The spice souks were my favourite part of this journey. The vibrancy of the colours and the warm smells of cinnamon, dried lemon, saffron were incredible. It made me want to dream up a thousand dishes and spend the afternoon cooking.

I forgot to photograph the gold souks! I was in awe of the incredible amounts of bling everywhere!

Sadly, photography cannot do this place justice as there is no way you could capture the beauty and the detail that could be found in everything.

What a feast for my eyes!

Goodbyes

Leaving always means there is a Goodbye to be said. I am not a huge fan of saying Goodbye for obvious reasons. With our trip overseas looming only 9 days away there have been plenty of sad Goodbyes already and many more to go.

The thing that I have loved about saying Goodbye, is that it has meant I have been able to spend lots of time around the fabulous people that have made our time in Brisbane (and elsewhere) incredible! Thanks BrisVegas! We will miss you!

Goodbyes began way back in December, when we went to visit my little sister, Claire, and her beautiful family.

Lazy afternoons on the lawn.....

Christmas day was spent house hopping Chris' family and mine.

A family portrait amidst the chaos of Christmas Morning

A beautiful collection of moments captured

More of that fabulous family of mine.

some very cheesy hat shots

hanging out at the powerhouse museum with ike and nina

strolling around

Great friends

And the hardest goodbye of all - my fabulous husband!

Goodbye wonderful people! See you soon!

xoxoxo

A Birthday

A significant day was approaching within my family with one of my sisters reaching a certain milestone birthday. We spent the months leading up to this event, playing secret squirrels in order to try and arrange a surprise dinner for her. This may not sound like a complicated task, but we come from a family of five girls. Our current locations span three states/territories. We needed to co-ordiante people coming from Darwin, Mareeba, Goondiwindi, Brisbane and Sydney to all arrive in the town of Kingaroy without my sister knowing............easy hey??

We had it all sorted. Flights were booked. Accommodation arranged. Restaurant organised...........and then it began raining, and raining, and raining.

Of course all of this rain resulted in the recent floods Australia has been experiencing, which had a devastating effect on so many people, the landscape and so much more.

As we watched the floods unleash their fury, we began to realise that roads were being cut and this would be a decider as whether any of us would even be able to reach Jan for her big birthday bash.

Optus would have worshipped our family throughout this week as phone calls flew left, right and centre between us trying to determine what was the best and safest choice for all of us.

In the end we were sad to learn that two sisters and their families weren't able to make it, but rejoiced in the fact that some of us were able to be together for Jan's birthday. Jan is usually that wonderful person in family who is organising all of us for catch ups, so we were pretty excited to be doing this for her.

We finally made it all safely to Kingaroy and had a gloriously wonderful weekend, beginning with..........

The surprise dinner - sadly I was late, so missed the 'Surprise' moment.

Awaiting to sample the birthday cake

A divine Tim Tam cheesecake - made by Chef Jeff.

Scrumptious!

what good is a party without sparklers!!!!

three sisters

Cooling off period

A garden full of discovery and wonderment.

The sounds of talented musicians filled the house.

Guppy Hunting!

Punks ;)

After all the drama of executing our brilliant plan, I felt so blessed to be able to spend the weekend with my beautiful family..........people who are filled with adventure, compassion, laughter, joy and who inspire me to no end.