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G’day folks, we hope you and your loved ones are happy and well. I am glad to hear that the weather in Blighty has decided to behave and so your thoughts are maybe turning toward planning for the summer holidays. All is well at Chez Chissell and the Aussie weather on the whole has been kind so far this winter. Today as I write this, the sun is shining brightly and not a cloud in the sky.
It has been a while since my last update and I am reeling about how quickly this year is whizzing by. Both Phil and I celebrated our birthdays recently and we both wish to say a heartfelt thank you for the lovely birthday gifts, cards, phone calls, letters, postcards and good wishes. We are truly fortunate to have such great friends and family.
Since my last update, Phil’s mum Penny joined us for a visit which flew by far too quickly, as usual. We also managed to get away to Byron Bay for a much needed holiday over the Easter break 
Strolling along King Island
Lunch at the Sports Club, Wellington Point.
Lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe before hitting the beach at Surfers paradise.
Sad Goodbyes at the Airport
It was a shame that part of Penny’s holiday coincided with Conor’s five day school camp.
Conor and some of his besties Aiden and Adam waiting to board the coach. Can you tell how they are excited? Five days of team building fun on the beach in sunny Tallebudgera, on the Gold Coast. 
Byron Bay in New South Wales was as beautiful as ever. Phil managed to find a great holiday apartment and we combined dips in the pool with a tour of the NSW Hinterlands.
Our apartment and resort pool. It wasn’t quite warm enough for me to have a dip, but Phil bravely took one for the team
This is an actual bone fide open air Cathedral. What a beautiful place for a wedding
By the river in Ballina where we stopped for lunch and visited the awesome naval museum.
Lots of hands on fun. The image on the sail of this raft was painted by Salvador Dali.
Check out those early washing machines at the municipal museum in Lismore?
Lennox Heads, simply breathtaking.
The Crystal Castle in the glorious NSW hinterlands.
This place was not quite what I had expected, very peaceful and dare I say spiritual. Olivia was thrilled with her Crystal keepsake.
Mum, Alanna and Orla you may remember Minyon Falls featured in the blog update when you came over. As you can see we managed to get quite a bit closer this time and look there actually is water LOL. 
This Goanna thought he would join us for some picnic nosh. Staggering how fast and big these creatures are! Word got around about the yummy tucker and we were swooped upon by a number of hungry Kookaburra’s , who knew…..?
Over the Easter break, we also had fun at Movie World. Still being a big child and all that, my personal favourite part of the day was when Batman defeated the Scarecrow. 
The children have been busy with some very exciting activities and Ryan marched for the first time on ANZAC Day with his Scout group
As you know, we Chissells never miss an opportunity to dress up and the Supanova Comic Convention (Gold Coast) was no exception. The children devised their own costumes in homage to their favourite game/TV characters. Their ingenuity was remarkable and the event itself was extremely good fun. We saw lots of TV favourites such as Alex Kingston (Professor Riversong) Sylvester McCoy (Dr Who), Eliza Dushku (Faith in Buffy/Doll House) and Rose McGowan (Paige in Charmed) among others. We cannot wait for the next one scheduled for November in Brisbane.
Introducing Conor as ‘Altir’ from Assassins Creed, Olivia as Link from The Legend of Zelda and Ryan as ‘Arthur Pendragon’ from Merlin. 
As usual, term 1 begins to wind down with the autumn sports carnivals. Olivia ran exceptionally well and was selected to compete at the ‘District’ level competition.
Term two kicked off a pace with exams, Twilight Concert rehearsals and ‘Beginners music’ band camp. Both Conor and Olivia have been very busy with the ‘Hot Vibes” group (think Glee Club) before and during school rehearsals and Olivia has been focusing on her French Horn studies. She attend a 5 day intensive music camp which she enjoyed enormously. Not a dry eye in the house when she performed in concert at the end of the week and when both she and Conor performed at the Twilight Concert. Lol, Olivia had lots of costume changes on the night as she was also singing with the Year 4 choir on the night.
Olivia performing pieces such as Beethoven’s Ninth.
Below, Conor and Olivia in their hip hop clobber performing ‘Price Tag’ (Jessie J.) and ‘Hall of Fame’ (The Script).
Your turn will come Ryan! xxx
Term two is now drawing to a close and Ryan’s 7th birthday is looming. Congratulations to my little sister Sheelagh who celebrated her birthday and her 20 years of wedded bliss to Alan. Sorry we couldn’t be there to join in with all the fun. But we did get to celebrate with our good friends Steve and Hazel, who also marked their 20th anniversary. In fact, on the 22nd June, Phil and I will be celebrating an anniversary of our own, six years of living down under!
Winter down under means Scout camping season. The children have been working hard towards achieving more badges (yay more sewing!). Ryan made this cool bird feeder at Joey Scouts and Phil helped Ryan erect it in the garden. We can’t wait to see if it all works out. 
So that is all our news for now lovely folks, keep sending us your newsy messages and gorgeous pictures. we value them greatly.
Wishing you all a warm and sunny summer from across the miles, with love, respect and affection,
Mr and Mrs C xxx 
