Phew!

Hi everyone

im sorry its taken THIS long to blog...as always, work and play has kept us away...keep reading and you will understand!

what a couple of months it has been for us...

I will start off by saying that I attended the light the night celebrations on 15 September...thanks so much to those of you who joined me in the treasury gardens. It was a lovely night...i thought i would be ok to be honest, but found it extremely overwhelming when i first got there...so many old and new faces, and sad to hear the new leukaemia stories which have affected peoples lives...if you ever feel the need to feel humbled, attend one of these nights...it truly is a very special time to share the success stories as well as the grief and to remember loved ones lost - regardless of the age of the patients.

a couple of pics for you to enjoy below!

I got to put a candle in the first "E", right in the middle...The effect of the candles took my breath away

You kind of get the feel for evening with all the gorgeous balloons...

Tania Cushion from the LF and me...Tania spent a fair bit of time in hospital with Eli and us...she is a good stick and it was awesome to catch up with her again...

we have also FINALLY made progress on our house...i wont go into details, but i can say the hold ups due to the ridiculous red tape has been the only factor. On a good note, our planning permit came through about one week ago. Given the delay however in permits, our builder cant start now until after christmas...it has been a very 'character building' experience for us both...we just cant wait to see the thing started...the closer we get to the house 'happening', the closer we will be to opening up melon's cottage...will keep you posted on progress!

Speaking of the cottage, a massive THANKS goes out to Anton and Dianne from MinterEllison who is helping us through the paperwork and legal stuff to have the cottage all systems go. We still have some time before we formalise everything (surprise suprise, we have to wait until the house starts), but we have some really 'firm' ideas on how its all going to come together which is great. Thanks anton and dianne...you have taken a massive load off pete and i...it has meant the world to us....We also have David Rogers - CEO of Challenge, supporting kids with Cancer heading down in November to have a look at the cottage. All our bookings for use of the cottage will be done through Challenge, so we are keen to get his thoughts on how it might work from their end...yep...its all starting to come together! Whooooohoooo

The chooks and i have have continued to be very busy over the past few months...with the angel ball wrapped up, we have turned our attention to more fundraising...all of us have been busy with the needle and thread and are whipping up some fantastic bags, purses and crafty stuff for xmas markets...if you are interested at all in any of our wares, let me know...i will try and get some pic's on the blog...any interest, just email me on eli-simpson@hotmail.com...we can do mail orders if needed...ALL proceeds will get divvied up between challenge, angel flight and the leukaemia foundation...

speaking of Angel Flight, i did our first 'official' presentation on Angel Flight to the Metung Lion's Club last month...it went really well and i think touched a few people..its easy talking about something you are so passionate about...its all about raising awareness of the wonderful work these charities do for regional people...they did a great job with an 'on the spot auction'...raising $105 for angel flight (by auctioning off a little angel bear and a $20 meat voucher)...it was really overwhelming and great for angelflight!...

The other thing the chooks have been consumed with is attending Bingo here in lakes on a monday night through the month of october..the lions club of lakes entrance supports community groups by allowing them to work for 3.5hrs on a monday night (setting up tables and chairs, serving tea and coffee etc) for a total of $1000 at the end of the month. This money will come in extremely handy as it will allow the chooks to run events under our own banner because we now have enough money to pay for public liability insurance. To date, we have run our events under the charities banner as we havent been able to afford our own insurance. Any money left over from the insurance will be donated...so we are really looking fwd to doing stuff on our own!

A big cheerio as well to a local chap and his gorgeous wife - Bob and Ursula Crosdale who donate money to AngelFlight through the sale of their paintings, a percentage of sale gets put aside and donated. If you would like to help us by setting up something similiar, please let me know and we can help you. It is awesome to have bob and ursula on board and if you see bob around Lakes selling his paintings (which are AwESOME by the way)...please support him as some of your money will go to one of our charities!

We have had a bittersweet couple of months. We are coming into the time when the 'anniversaries" are happening...our love and thoughts go out to Chad, Alex and Nick, who all passed away within a couple of months of Melon. We take comfort in the fact that they all are up there somewhere mucking around and eating twisties. They all knew each other. Its sad to think that our four beautiful boys were taken from us so close together. This will be the glue that binds our families together forever.

It would have been eli's third birthday on the 28th Septemeber...to think that our little man would have been three is amazing to us. What would have he been like? What would he have looked like? Would he have eaten all his vegetables? Would he have looked like a simpson or a smith? So many questions we will never know the answers too. HAPPY BIRTHDAY our baby boy...we miss you everyday...

Melon on his first birthday....love you loads melon...today and EVERY day

life is so bittersweet...Nick's mum Belinda just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Isabella Rose...we wish them all the very best...Nick would have been a fantastic older brother, and im sure he would have been as proud as punch.

The other bittersweet news i guess is that Eli is going to be an older brother...pete and i are expecting a little baby around 21 April. We are trying to keep things ticking over as normal, and are very keen not to have 'fuss'...We are both excited but sad. We know that melon will be watching over us all...and number '2' will grow up knowing that his/her brother will always be around us.

Thats the majority of our news now...i hope you can understand that even though it has been a while since posting, we have been extremely busy...(and ive been a bit crook with morning/day sickness which has left me with not much energy to do too much, and to post!)

our love goes out to you all.

lots of love and sunshine

the simpsons

xoxox