As the year begins, so do my thoughts of what exciting things the Sisterhood gals and I can come up with. So in readiness for this we've decided to start the year off with FUN!!!

It's summer in Australia and last year it was a wet and cold summer, no sun at all and extreme flooding in much of Australia, so this year I'm loving the fact that it's HOT enough to get out and do things like snorkel and walk the beaches that we are famous for. So what a better way to start the year off than a "BEACH PARTY!"

The kids are still home from school till the start of Febuary in most cases and so since three of the sisters have school aged children we're making it a "family friendly" day.

I know strictly speaking the "RHS rules are for us Gals only" but if MY group waited to be "kid free" we'd never see each other so occasionally we plan things with *gasp* kids and blokes along.

I have noticed as with our Christmas party the Blokes got into the decorating and frivolity as much as us gals did, we even brought along two mother-in-laws as they were the grandmothers of the Rug Rats, they loved it toooo...

His Royal Highness "The Bloke" (my husband) played Santa and each person out of the 20 or so that were there had a gift which was handed out and not before each person sat on Santa's knee for a Royal Photo. All of the Sisters wore Hand decorated Santa Hats and everyone else was told to dress festively!Either Christmas themed or coloured. We attended an Animal Sanctuary and had a picnic lunch and had LOTS of fun- adults too! on the Jumping pillow.. we now have three little girls 5,9 and 11, who want to be "Hatters" when they grow up! 

So the Beach Party for January's meeting is going to be held 10th Jan at the beach with kids in tow and we're going to build sandcastles and eat junk food and have fruit and Icecream and skip rocks and have lots of laughs before we have our meeting to pre plan the first 6 months of the years outings.

For Christmas I brought each Sister a day planner and told them it must attend each meeting so that there is no excuse for not knowing what is coming up. I also wote each sister's birthday into each day planner so they know each other's birthdays. I know this will help us plan meetings/outings that suit each sister around their family commitments.

I hope all reading this have a lovely 2012 filld with lots of Hatting adventures!!!

This coming Weekend is a long weekend for some in Australia namely in melbourne, on Tuesday we have the "race that stops the nation" and some parts of the rest of the world, a HORSE RACE!! The Melbourne Cup, so Tuesday is a public holiday and alot of companies now give their workers the Monday as well stops them having "sick days" to make a long weekend. My husband is one of the lucky ones and so we go away camping.

This year we're headed to "The Buchan caves" you can find out some more here

www.visitvictoria.com/Regions/Gippsland/...

So as usual my cousin and her family are joining us and she is in my Sisterhood and so another of the sisterhood mentioned she'd like to go camping and suddenly it's turned into half the Sisterhood is going camping. I hope they bring their PINK hats so we can take some Sisterhood pics!!