You know you grew up in the 80's...

Last week the The Goldbergs appeared on our TVs in what served as a swift trip down memory lane to the 80's. And didn't they rock!

The Goldbergs are awesome! Their story is told through the camera lens of Adam Goldberg, the youngest of three - think The Wonder Years type premise. There is big hair, leg warmers, head bands, VCRs, and a whole lot more.

Hubby and I spent the entire episode laughing and remembering this time in our lives that wasn't ruled by the Internet and it's social media.

After watching The Goldbergs and being thrown back to the 80's like a dis-guarded fluro sock, I felt a list was in order....

You know your child of the 80's if any of these ring a bell..

• Fluro socks
• Bubble skirts
• Leotards and leg warmers
• Big hair - on men and women
• The Jacksons - Michael and/or Janet
• Stonewash denim
• Care bears
• Rubik's cubes
• Puffy sleeves
• He-man and She-ra - The Masters of the Universe
• Cassette tapes
• Video tapes
• Fingerless lace gloves
• Hypercolour T-shirts
• Back to the Future
• Ferris Bueller's Day Off
• Rambo
• Pac-man
• Roller skates

What would you add to this 80's awesomeness list?

Did you watch The Goldbergs? Thoughts?

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My earliest memory

Whenever I think of my earliest memory I am not sure if I am actually remembering it or if I am recalling photographs or perhaps stories from my parents.

But I am pretty sure my earliest memory is when my brother, who does resemble Ginger Meggs a wee bit, ran over my fingers with a billy cart.

We were five, it was the Easter school holidays. All the neighbourhood kids were in the street, racing billy carts. I was pushing my brother, he lent back, the cart tipped up, my little fingers were scraped along the tar road under the weight of my brother and the cart.

Shocked ensued. Blood ensued. My brother was petrified of getting in trouble, so a friend walked me home.

As it was Easter the Dr was not readily available. My Dad had to take me to the surgery to meet him after lunch. I recall shaking from the adrenalin and the Dr picking tar out of my fingers. My little bitty fingers.

I had to have the bandages changed every day for a week. It hurt like hell.

That wasn't the most upsetting of the whole ordeal though. I was devastated about missing school. I loved my kindergarten teacher. Mum took me up there every day to see her though.

My fingers are still scared, perhaps that is why I remember.

What is your earliest memory?

Does anyone in your family resemble Ginger Meggs?

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree

Have I mentioned that I love Christmas? Oh, I have. Several times, you say. Sorry bout that! I just can't help myself. I LOVE CHRISTMAS!

I love all things about Christmas, including the tree.

When I lived at home with my parents, we always had a Christmas tree. Each year I would lovingly put it up and decorate it and then mum would begrudgingly take it down some time in January when I couldn't be arsed.

Then I moved out to live with one of my close girlfriends, we had a little Christmas tree the few Christmas' we spent together. Lovingly decorated and filled with presents for our families and friends.

When Hubby and I lived together and Christmas rolled around, he poo-hoo'd the Christmas tree. He said he didn't want a Christmas tree until we had kids around at Christmas time. WHAT! I was sad, but still we didn't have a Christmas tree.

All that changed five years ago though when our little miss had her first Christmas and we had our first Christmas tree! And we have had one ever since. As where we have lived has gotten bigger and bigger to accommodate our growing family - a unit, a townhouse and now a house, our Christmas tree has grown too. Hubby now has to hold little miss up so she can put the star, the sparkly pink star, on top.

I love seeing other people's Christmas trees too. There are some that are so beautifully styled with matching colours and decorations, that even change every year.

I started to think that maybe we were the only ones that had mis-matched decorations, some handmade with love and care, or picked up at a market by the beach. Until I read a post by the lovely Renee over at Mummy, Wife and Me, titled Memory Tree.

I thought, that is what we are creating too, a Memory Tree! So I decided to share some of the memories that we have added to our Christmas tree over the past five years.

Top left: A Santa bell from little misses Grandma that she found in a shop in Batemans Bay.
Top right: A red and green surfing koala from little misses Poppy. He bought this in Noosa because we follow South Sydney and little miss likes koalas.
Middle: An angel made by little miss at preschool this year.
Bottom left: The Christmas decoration made by little misses carers when she was in the baby room at daycare four years ago.
Bottom right: A guest gift from a wedding three years ago. The brides dad had made them and one each was given to the female guests, so you could use it as an earring, pop it in your window or on your Christmas tree.

Do you have a styled Christmas tree?

or a mis-matched tree?

or no tree?

Splendid memories from Splendour

I love photos.

I love looking back at photos and the memories they conjure.

I love to have photos around my house of my favourite people.

I am in the process of redecorating our house and therefore changing around some photos and frames. My parents have had some of our frames in storage at their place while we moved and then moved again.

We have been in this house for a year now and finally yesterday I started collecting all the photos that I wanted to re-frame and I came across a photo from my trip to Splendour in the Grass in 2007 with two of my favourite people, Hubby and Mrs M.

Mrs M, me and Hubby

It was my first sojourn to Byron Bay and my first trip to a music festival. Beautiful sunny days, followed by freezing cold nights. Hubby and I stayed in a cabin that had walls as thin as sheets. We slept in our clothes.

Every morning we caught the bus to Belongil Fields with tens of thousands of other music lovers. The music highlights for me were Operator Please, Hilltop Hoods and Xavier Rudd.

We also did the touristy thing in Byron; hitting the beach, trekking to the lighthouse and meandering around the local markets.

At the time Hubby and I were trying to conceive our first bubba. It wasn't going well. I am sure I was the only person at Splendour that year that wasn't drinking because I was doing everything "right" to try to get pregnant.

A couple of months after this trip, I conceived our little miss and my BFF, Mrs M moved to Hong Kong to work for a year.

I look at this photo of the three of us and I smile every time. It was a great moment in our history together, caught forever on film.

I haven't re-framed it yet but I will. For now, it will live on my new office cork board.

Love you Hubby and Mrs M. Thanks for the memories.

Do photos conjure great memories for you?

The grass taketh over

Absolutely, completely, utterly still loving our grass! It looks awesome.....and is growing like wildfire!

The Sydney weather of hot humid days and then rain, rain and more rain has ignited the growth hormone in our Sapphire grass and I am sure that I can actually see it growing - on the odd occasion I actually have time to look out the window.

Due to the fast growth, Hubby scurried off to Bunnings and purchased a lawn mower and whipper snipper - yep, that is right we are totally suburban grown-ups now as the proud owners of some serious gardening equipment that sits proudly in the shed.

Since these purchases he has spent every weekend (except the raining ones) mowing the lawn and snipping the edges.

We really have graduated to the next stage of our lives - creating childhood memories for our own kids. As the smell of the freshly mown grass and that petrol mower smell that engulfs our shed now reminds both Hubby and I of growing up and our fathers mowing the lawn and how they let us help push the lawn mower or empty the grass catcher.

Do you have this childhood memory too?