Time with Family

On Friday Elizabeth's best friend, Mary, married Ryan in Gerringong - beautiful church overlooking farmland and the ocean. Mum, Jenni and I had to see the wedding - the service was lovely, the bride absolutely gorgeous, and our darling girl a beautiful bridesmaid.

Mary allowed the three bridesmaids free reign over their dresses as long as they were black. After spending ages trying to find a dress she liked and not succeeding, I offered to make Elizabeth's dress, so we went pattern/material shopping in late March and I made the dress on Good Friday. The design is a Butterick pattern from 1960 and is made in a heavy delustered satin. I didn't manage to take a decent full-length photo of Elizabeth so I'm looking forward to seeing the "official" photos.

Today is Mothers' Day in Australia. We took lunch to my mother-in-law's place, where we met up with my mother, our children and their partners. Jenni brought along sweets:

a three-layered icecream cake from Cold Rock - delicious (chocolate with maltesers/white chocolate with cookie dough/butterscotch with Crunchies).

Today is also my birthday, so it was extra-special to be able to spend it with the family. Lots of flowers, cards and presents. My friend Diann, who is still blogless, dyed the pink fabric in the left foreground of the photo - it is so pretty. Received the latest Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Chiaverini books, perfume, chocolate shoes and the children tell me that a new exercise bicycle is being delivered some time this week - they think my poor old bike is lethal and should be chucked into the skip in our back yard.

One present from John is a trip to Queensland next month to attend a 3-day quilting retreat with some dear friends and a couple of extra days holiday, so am very much looking forward to that.

I am very fortunate to have a wonderful family and such dear friends. Thank you for the emails, phone calls, sms messages.