The last few months....

So much has been happening I don't know where to start... We had a very relaxing holiday in Canberra and NSW at Barry & Paivi's farm. Poor Jim had to stay home and work due to an extreme shortage of fishing guides in town at the moment. It was great to catch up with Jeromie, Lynette and the boys, as well as Fi.
Liam was a lot of fun and Stewart just smiled non stop. Then we were off to the farm. The kids had a great time -riding around on Barry's tractor and in the back of his ute. We saw lots of wildlife including foxes, possums, rabbits, roos, wild deer and even a koala. Barry & Paivi have a gorgeous puppy named Suzy -the girls went beserk over her, especially Teiah. We also got to see Kai and Tash which was great.

Kids at Questacon

The "big red tractor" was very popular

Last weekend Keely turned 7. What a big girl! She had a party at "Go Bowling" and had lots of fun with her friends. She was very happy with the DSi that she received.

On Sunday Teiah went fishing with Jim and caught 7 fish. Way to go Teiah! Whilst she had Jim trapped out on the boat she managed to convince him to go to the RSPCA to check out a puppy she had seen on their website. Needless to say they came home with her so we now have a new member of the family - LUCY. She is a staffy cross and is soooo cute. Harley is now a surrogate grandpa and loving it.

Welcome to the family - Lucy Millar

                           

Rain, rain & more rain

It is Sunday afternoon and we are meant to be up on the Tablelands at Tolga for the CBA Cup under 11's cricket but funnily enough it has been called off. Maybe something to do with the fact that we have had 1/4 of our annual rainfall in the last 4 days!!

 The kids have even had enough of playing the Wii and just need to get outside.

On another note Guy was elected house leader for Gillies (red house) at school which is great!
He also went to a leadership forum at the Sebel hotel last week -pretty flash for a 10 year old.

Apart from that I totally forgot to mention that Jim and I were at that Jimmy Buffett concert on Australia Day in Sydney... yes, the one where he fell off the stage! It was a great concert but not a great end. Luckily he is ok! Hope he comes to Cairns next year!

Still cleaning up...

Still without phones & real power (thank god for that generator) here so not much to do but clean and clean some more. We did manage a game of Monopoly last night -check out the girls with their "mocktails."

The little mermaids did a good job of retrieving the furniture from the pool

Still looks ok here but is brown and creek-like now after all the rain

Jim has been playing with another of his toys -the guerney!

This says "YASI" (believe me!)

The Clean Up

Jim likes his chainsaw!



Not much left of this palm tree..

  

What a lovely bunch of coconuts!

After Cyclone Yasi

Wow - we made it! What a scary night. The wind gusts went on for hours and every time something hit our roof we all jumped. Being the middle of the night we couldn't see anything so that made it worse. Keely was pretty unfazed - she fell asleep at 1130 just before all the action really started. 
I can't imagine what it was like in Mission Beach where the eye crossed. We had no damage to our house or fences, the boat did not get blown away (phew!) and all we lost was a coconut palm, which is no great loss, and lots of palm fronds everywhere.
I have dug the camera out so here are some before and after shots.

                                                                       Before

Our outdoor setting in a safe place

The rainforest beside our house


After

We ended up putting the boat between our neighbour's houses and thankfully it was safe

Good work boys! Generator is up & running!

Keely checking out the driveway

Didn't really like that coconut palm anyway..

Might need to clean up before the kids get in

Cyclone Yasi

I really wanted to post some before photos of Cyclone Yasi but have already packed the camera in a zip lock bag in a waterproof tub and it is too hard to get out. It still doesn't feel like there is anything unusual happening.. I am sure it will soon though. We have had so many phone calls and texts and emails asking if we are ok - it is really nice to know that people are thinking of us.
The power will probably go out soon. Guy has been on the Playstation all day playing with his friend Lachlan, who lives on the Esplanade. The girls have had free reign of my computer-just to keep them preoccupied and keep the cyclone off their mind for as long as possible. They did agree to bake some cupcakes for us all though. (took a lot of convincing! not..) 

Anyway we'll see what happens and hopefully it won't be as bad as we are expecting!

Anna's birthday

Happy Birthday to me! Woke up to another beautiful sunny day in Cairns (what rain??) and decided to do something different and fun for my birthday so we picked up Guy's cricket mate, Will, and went to Mareeba to the Go Kart track. A great time was had by all, and even Keely got to have a drive! I think Jim could have stayed and done laps all day but maybe in a bigger, more powerful car.. next time, Jim!

Will in the red kart and Guy in the blue

Keely -  YOU GO GIRL!!

Jim speeding around a corner with Guy in the background

Anna - looking mean in no. 10



Nothing to do with my birthday but Keely wants everyone to know that she got her ears pierced yesterday and got "green diamond"earrings.

January 2nd

The boys got down and dirty today removing a traveller's palm that got full of water and died. Jim had fun playing with the chainsaw but I knew he would regret it the next day..

Then we went roller blading. Keely got roller blades from Santa and was desperate to try them out. (None of the photos actually worked - we must have all been going too fast!)

New Years Eve

In great Millar tradition we took the boat out to watch the fireworks on the Esplanade. The weather was kind -the rain stopped just long enough for the fireworks display.

Boxing Day 2010

Brekky at Restaurant 59

Mini-golf - check out the weather! We were meant to have just had a cyclone..

Guy -not looking too competitive but beware!

Keely looking angelic.
We were waiting for the RACQ to come and jump start
our car whenTeiah captured this gorgeous shot.

Christmas Day at Paradise Palms

Santa was here!

A big hug for Daddy

Christmas Day was spent relaxing at Paradise Palms Resort.

Teiah & Keely enjoyed the playground with cute cubby houses

A round of mini-golf anyone?

Keely riding a "Reindeer"

Welcome to our blog!

Thought that might get your attention! 117cm barra caught by Jim last week.


We decided the millars needed to get with the times and have a blog so here we are. Our good friends, the quirkes, moved to Tonga a year ago and they have the best blog ever - having said that, their life seems to be one big PARTY! (unlike ours) But we also have photos we want to share and good stuff happens all the time.

Teiah got a fantastic little camera from Santa so she has been voted our professional blog photographer. The first photos are of Christmas Day,Boxing Day & New Years Eve.