Family Photos @ MindSay

Tell me what you think of our photos.  My dad took the two family photos.  He didn't listen to me on how to take the photo but they are still okay.  I just dont' take decent pictures.

 

i took the rest of the photos in my mom's house since it started raining.

I am generally NOT a fan of over-indulgent holidays, and for years Christmas has been a difficult time for me/us.  It started out this way again this year, but something has changed.  I hope it's ME! 

 

In Celebration, I'd like to make a list ...

 

 My 10 favorite things about Christ-mas!

1. Jesus: He was willing to come stripped as a baby, to grow and live among us, and show us God's heart.
2. Family: imperfect yet loveable - even my brother and his family.
3. Friends: together, they form a mirror through which I can see myself, check myself
4. Home: a shelter from the weather, a refuge from the world
5. Decorations: a real cut tree, big red bows, lots of lights & candles, a menorah - because it is a story worth telling & remembering
6. Aromas filling the air: cinnamon, pine, pumpkin, "wassail", oranges
7. Driving around with my kids to look at seasonal lights!
8. Handel's "Messiah"
9. Cards and letters from distant family and friends
10. Photos of past Christmases ... NEW photos (posted next week, hopefully!)

~ B

 

in the photo from left to right: traci, melissa, sam, nina, shezz, naomi, me, lauren, laura and brooke.

 

 

well last night was my year 12 formal. overall it was a good evening. there were however a few hiccups throughout the day.

i started getting ready for the formal at 2pm when i went to the hair dressers. i loved my hair, however i had a few pieces of hair left down from the upstyle, they were curly, but the heat made them drop, but they still looked good.

i got home from the hair dressers at about 3.30-ish, would have been earlier, but mum had to pick nat up from school. i came home and went straight down stairs with all of my makeup and my dress as it was like 5 degrees cooler down stairs.

at about 4.30 i started to apply the makeup. it turned out nice, it took me a half hour, but the end result was pleasing. i got into my dress, put the shoes on and went up stairs, only to be harrassed by my younger sister (who was taking the photos) and by mum who controlled the video camera. i went outside and had photos taken with my family.

nina arrived at my house at about 5.15 and we both had photos taken.

at about 5.30 we left to go to the memorial park in wollongong to meet up with the rest of the clan to have photos as one group. it was sooo windy. most of the photos had everyone fussing of their blown hair.

we left abit after 6 to go to the formal at win entertainment centre. the pre-drinks wasnt too exciting, but it was good to see everyone with their parents and whoever.

abit after 7, the entree was served, then followed the main meal and then dessert. the food was nice, it was better then the food at the year 10 formal. there were alot of photos taken throughout the night and alot of twirlling done..lol.

nina, shezz, sam and i left abit before 11, on our way to coonies. mind you, my feet were now killing me. we got outside of coonies and waited ages to actually get in. but once we were in, we got a drink and hit the dance floor. my legs felt like lead, and it was so hot on the dance floor, and i wasnt too keen on people spilling their drinks on my dress. we moved to the other part of coonies to sit down. we pretty much stayed there the rest of the night.

i saw these 3 guys sit in a booth with this girl, who was with her boyfriend but he went to get drinks, and when he came back, the girl and the boyfriend left. the 3 guys were left in the booth. 1 of the 3 came over to our table and asked as if we'd like to un-bore their situation as there were 3 of them and at that time 3 of us (sam had gone to get a drink) but i explained that there were actually 4 of us and that would just totally imbalance the whole ratio of 3:3. i looked over at the 2 other guys and low and behold one of them was my next door neighbour!! haha..i cacked up laughing!

a moment later we were approached by a guy who soon become known to be tim, he had a bet going with his friends about why we were all dressed up, but he soon left when he found out that he won the bet. shezz left to get a drink and then tim came back over, sat in shezz's seat and said that he was keeping it warm for her, we chatted but when shezz came back he left.

nina and sam pointed out that tim had gotten up from his table of friends and went somewhere, so, they dared me to sit in his seat and say that i was just keeping it warm for him, and i did..suprise, suprise. but when he came back i got up and left.

when a booth was free we moved to there, much more comfy. we were then graced with the presence of angus, who was apparently scottish, hence he had scotch and coke..lol. he moved to australia when he was 13.

when angus left, we were soon rejoined with tim, once again. he pretty much stayed the rest of the night with us, with his friend mark and some random (colin) and steve (he looks like pedro) until he had to go. lets just say that the space between us soon shrank, with the encouragement from certain people....

when tim and his friends left, guys from our school came to join us. sam's dress ended up stained with jim bean, the floor soon flooded by alcohol, daniel got slapped by sam like 3 times..haha so funny and pranga's bottle got broken.

in the taxi on the way home, it was soo completely and utterly hilarious! the taxi driver, after finding out we went to berkeley, came to the conclusion that we were rebels or something..well he probably thought that we were skanks or something, well after what i was going on about anyway and what he just assumed..haha it was so funny! he gave us great advice! hahahahaha

sam is so hilarious when she is pissed! haha she falls all over the place..lol

we got home at about 3am, went to sleep about 4am and i woke up at about 7. so, 3 hours sleep, and suprisingly im not tired..lol

but i must say, that friends can be very persuasive! and overall, it was a great night.

 

... rocks.

I used to have a website dedicated purely to photos of av for friends and family to view. It has its own domain name and I hand-coded it with HTML from scratch. And I've been delinquent in updating it nearly enough.

I finally gave in and bought a "Flickr Pro" account for 25 bucks. The yearly fee gives me 2GB of uploads per month (more space than I have with my provider for my website!) and unlimited total storage for photos (again, more than I have with my web provider). And I can add relatives and give them the opportunity to save high-resolution photos, print them out, have prints mailed to them, or select prints to pick up at their local Target store!  My Dad's getting a kick out of it.

So -- it's been a fun weekend -- batch uploading.  I'll give out the public URL when I'm good and ready.