Happy Surprises!!

**Surprise Number One**

You may recall in an earlier post:  "Gems and Frills" when I wrote about C, one of our dear granddaughters, being on a well earned trip to Paris.

Recently, we were thrilled to have a lovely family visit and catch up, when C so lovingly surprised us with some souvenirs... gorgeously delicious French chocolate and a beautiful painting.

The choccie has gone and the painting takes pride of place:

Here's some more photos of C's trip...

This is what it was like when trying to see the Mona Lisa!   


A different view of the Eiffel Tower:

Here's C enjoying her baguette, spread with Vegemite she'd brought from Australia,  for lunch in front of the Eiffel Tower:

... and finally, this is the lovely shop where C bought our delicious chocolate:

A great adventure indeed, and thanks dearest C for thinking of us - Hugs and Love, Grandma and Papa xoxoxo

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**Surprise Number Two**

Today in the mail, this little sweetie arrived:

She's a Dotee, and her name is Aurora, isn't she gorgeous!!!  She was sent to me by Vee who's been a blog-friend for quite a few years now.

Vee makes beautiful dolls, bears and now Dotees and I'd happened to comment on how beautiful they were...

Here's a closeup of Aurora's pretty little face and curly curls:

I just know you'll love to see all of Aurora's friends, you can find them here "Vee's The Bearister Blogspot"

Thanks very much Vee, I'm thrilled to bits at your kindness and totally wowed, once more, at your beautiful creation.

P.S. I have to say, that Tinnie Bear has been beside himself with joy at Aurora's arrival.  I managed to get this quick snap as he was making her comfy after her long flight all the way from Canada.  Firm friends already!

Cheers now :D)

A Lovely Day

Hello there,
A bit of a mixed bag for this post, but I've had my head down and brushes up for a while now.
Time to post something and to pay a few visits.

The other day started off with some painting... by the time MD had coffee ready, I'd roughed out a little acrylic.  Have a new fad to paint at the moment - vases of flowers.  The one in the photo below is of some pink nameless kind of flowers but I'm going to intermingle branches of the lovely silver grey eucalyptus leaves.  You can see I've got one of my photos showing on my laptop and I'm using that as a reference.  I'll post a photo when its finished.

We decided on a walk after brekky, so down we went to the lake.  Saw this lone Australian White Ibis (I think that's the right name) having a feed way off in the distance.  It was beaut because we don't often see them here.
(Sorry to not have joined in with Stewart's Wild Bird Wednesday but I can't seem to be organised properly these days ... blame the painting and swimming!!)

I'd wanted to do some sketching after we'd walked.  Got it into my head that I could do some boats and so we set the chairs up and I had a go.  Lol, I think that'll be as far as I go with trying to draw boats somehow... lost patience pretty quick - back to flowers and other such things!!

It was a lovely spot though:

After a little while, we noticed this fellow paddling along towards us.

"Hello" he seemed to say !!!!  "Got anything to eat?"

He soon got bored waiting for us to break out the snacks, so a bit of preening took place:

.... then a stretch.  Oh, what a beautiful sight, just a couple of feet away from us:

Wings down and feathers settled:

obviously time for a walk.  Up he came, right up close to MD.  Totally friendly, but really, really hungry apparently !!

Nothing doing, no food from us (we didn't come prepared), so he ambled on down alongside the road.

I'd been meaning to take some closeups of the swans' feathers when I next had an opportunity and this was as good as any.  Aren't they gorgeous!

Back home I played around with the photo editor, applied a filter and enhanced the colour... I didn't change the colour to mauve purposely, it happened as I applied more contrast and saturation. (I'm not technically minded but I love experimenting... can always hit the 'Undo' button!).

Last of all, here's one of my paintings that I've recently finished.  It's an acrylic that had been sitting on the easel (or near it) for the past 6 months.  Finally, I got stuck in and completed it.  "Kelp Forest Fantasy"... I enjoy painting the fishies.  There's a little mermaid in there as well.

That's about it for this post.  Thanks for taking the time to visit.
I hope life is treating all of you really well.
Cheerio and I'll see you over at yours :D)