News & Updates from Vicki Avcin ~ AusCrafts · Page 79

Being a firefighter and my daughter a police officer, my teddy collection tends to relate heavily on being fire teddies and police teddies.

Although strictly speaking they arent all teddies.

I have a cute little police dog, police koala, a fire dog and a little fellow that is a hamster and when you press his foot sings Hot Stuff.

But the rest are teddies of some kind.They hold pride of place on top of some bookshelfs we have and arent for playing with as most are limited edition and cannot be purchased now.

The police service do have speciality bears available through the Community Supporting Police organisation ( a not for profit organisation) with funds from purchases go to provide for the families of police officers in times of illness or distress in crisis situations and Voluntary assistance programs designed to enhance and build relations between police and community.The fire service directly doesnt sell merchandise but other organisations supporting QFES does bring out items from time to time which makes the fire teddies collectables.

Other teddies I have have been gifted to me or Ive seen in shops occasionally.

Australia is renowned for having venomous creatures and tourists find out we are also renowned for big things.

Theres the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour NSW, The Big Lobster in Kingston SA, The Big Pineapple in Gympie Qld, The Big Mango in Bowen Qld, The Big Merino in Goulburn NSW, The Big Guitar in Narrandera NSW, The Big Gumboot in Tully Qld, The Big Prawn in Ballina NSW to name a few.

But we also have big lizards which are called goannas. And we have them right in our own back yard. Goannas are a predatory monitor lizard that are found in most parts of Australia. Some species of goannas can grow to 2.5m in length.

We always know when one is about, no matter if its a baby at 2 foot long or one of the bigger ones at over a metre long, because the birds go crazy.

They squawk and carry on making a huge commotion to warn everything that the goanna is around, as these goannas climb trees with ease and take eggs from the birds nests.

Other things in their diets are snakes, frogs, and further up north Queensland one of their favourites is crocodile eggs.

It will also eat small animals according to its size, the bigger the lizard the bigger animal it can catch and eat although the prefer carrion to live animals.

They come in varying shades of greys, browns, tan and even greens.

Goannas feature heavily in Aboriginal folklore too and can often been seen in Aboriginal paintings. The fellow in the photo was up a tree in our front yard recently. He wouldve been about 1.5m long and blended in well with the bark. Can you spot it?

On Tuesday morning a 2.18am our daughter in law Chiquita and son Jamie welcomed into the world Clay Stanley Avcin.

He was born by C section after 19hrs labour and weighed in at 7lb 12oz and 50cm in length.Little baby Clay is our 8th grandchild.

He is a little brother for Nathaniel and Bella. Nathaniel wanted to know if he would cry. When told yes he seemed a little shocked and said but hes a boy. Sorry Nathaniel but hes a baby and babies cry.

Mum and Bub are doing fine although Mum needed a blood transfusion today (Friday) so they are still in hospital.

Now I am a little biased but I think he is one gorgeous little bubba! I would like to thank everyone that has purchased my card designs, designer resources and cutting files throughout 2017.

I hope everyone has a safe and peaceful Christmas and hope you can all be with those you love. Merry Christmas to you all!

Saturday 2nd December we had our local Community Association Meeting which was followed by our community Christmas Party. Great time of the year when the community get to meet up and socialise.

Normally we have our community meetings every 3 months and although we have a great number of locals coming to the meetings, the last one of the year tends to see the numbers swell.

At the Christmas Party there is always the raffles which is usually bottles of wine but this year the raffle was a Christmas pudding and some fruit mince tarts.

Time for the draw and the first draw was won by our local councillor who forfeited it and asked for a redraw.

Second time and he won again with a different ticket, so they redrew a third time and would you believe…..the councillor won again!

So yet again for the 4th time the prize was redrawn and surprise surprise, hubby and I had the winning ticket!.

It was a welcome prize as we arent wine drinkers, so the pudding and the fruit mince tarts will be devoured with pleasure.

Trying to keep them till Christmas is another story as I love a good fruit mince tart. The win was a very welcome surprise as we never win raffles usually.

Last Wednesday night was my Fire Brigades station Christmas Party. We decided that it would be a Fancy Dress just to be different. In the past few years we have gone to a Chinese Restaurant but decided that wed try something different and do it ourselves.

Every member contributed the food (and wow did we end up with heaps of food) and the brigade purchased the meat for a BBQ.

We also thought to have a bit of a laugh wed come in fancy dress for those who wanted to.

As you can see from the photos I went as a police officer and hubby went as one half of the Blues Brothers.

Another brigade member went as the other Blues Brother. We had cowboys, Fred Flintstone, another police officer, Wildlife Rangers, pirates to name a few and of course Mr and Mrs Clause.

We did a secret Santa also which was fun. A fantastic night was had by all with some managing to party on till around 2am.

The fun and laughter and camaraderie was fantastic and everyone enjoyed the night. Already talk that we will do it this way next year as it was such a success.