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I took a bunch of photos yesterday. We went to the park in the afternoon. These photos were all taken with the HTC Touch Diamond. After the first few photos I decided to play with the settings and see what could be done.

Here is Erin and a shot of the kite flying. Erin climbed the light pole to the top and Mercedes got on the base of it.

I have had such a heavy workload lately that about 2 weeks ago I planned an entire day off – knowing I would need it and the family would be needing me. So yesterday was locked out in my diary as being work free. well it didn't entirely work out as thanks to Optus screwing around with my plans I had to go and do a wireless internet install and local network setup for a client in their home. 3 hours later,  5 PCs online, mostly patched for windows updates, AVG 8 installed and updated, and Live Mesh installed for some users and synchronising backups. I left for this really early so we were able to leave the house and be ready to go at lunch time! We stopped on the highway for Maccas and KFC for lunch 15 minutes after leaving. hen it was back ont he road again and off to Mapleton Falls National Park. This is part of the great Sunshine coast walks and I was on a recce for a great bike ride that we are planning.

I had used the camera heavily the previous two days taking photos for the geek girls dinner and then for the missions fund raising dinner. Check the photos and the 3D photosynth out of the dinner. So the camera batteries were on the charger and I only had my mobile phone camera. Still I took some reasonable shots. The panoramic picture picture above was created using Live Photo Galleries cool panoramic feature from the falls look out platform. I would estimate that the height was about 100 metres straight down. I also made a photosynth of the same pictures – check it out – it is way cook and allows you to zoom in heaps.

We took heaps of pictures on the rain forest walk all up on Flickr. Here's some fun ones of all our shoes and then all our faces. Click the photos to be taken through to Flickr and the rest of the photos.

After that we headed out to Coolum Beach for nachos and doner kebabs by the beach. The children jumped waves and played for a while and then it was time to go home. I relaxed with Jude for a bit before settling into code for a few hours before hitting the sack. All the Coolum beach photos are on Flickr also.

I love having weekends off. I decided not to work this weekend and it was a great time.

I am going back to Thursday, because I took Thursday night off as well. After work I went to the park in the late afternoon / early evening with the kids. I dug a big sandcastle with the shovel including a tunnel through the castle wall. The kids had lots of fun playing this – and the games they thought up were amazing.

Friday night I also took off and we watched a movie together before I watched the tour De France with a mate.

After scouring Brisbane by phone I finally located a possible Wii Fit. One store had one that had been set aside for a customer – they were going to ring and see if they still wanted it. It was my lucky day. As I arrived to pick up the Nintendo Wii, the chap said he had manage to secure the Wii Fit for me as well.

I rang 10 or 15 outlets yesterday to discover none had any in stock, yet all were advertising them like mad. Responses ranged from “we can put you on a list but its first in first served” to “we will guarantee you one by Christmas!”

Last night was the last night my parents were here on their current holiday staying with us. It coincided with family night, and we kicked off after dinner with a game of UNO with everybody involved. Mercedes is funny. She likes to get the cards and when she has to put cards down thinks that is bad. When she has to pick she loves it!

Jude usually wins UNO and did again last night by a big margin.

After we put the little two to bed, Miranda Jadeen, Jude and I and Grandad and Grandma played a game of Carcasonne. Mum has played it before but Dad hadn’t. It was a very close game with the end result being a win to me, and then Miranda second with Jadeen and Dad separated by a point with grandma next and Jude coming last.

The results aren’t really important. What is is the time spent bonding as a family, learning group communication and playing skills (for the girls) and the time spent together.