Birthday Parks

Our daughter had her 8th birthday party on the weekend. We decided to have it in a park where relatives from both Brisbane and Toowoomba could meet. This is a special park. It's special because it has a big play area for kids of all ages, wide open spaces for leisurely walks - but also an animal park which showcased Australian native animals. It was the Ipswich Queen's Park and we all had a lovely time.

At the beginning of the day, Dad found himself in a tree, when you and your cousins decided to play with the air-pressured rocket, we got for your birthday. He climbed up to rescue your rocket from the tree branches.

You hugged the tree and was relieved when Dad made it down in one piece. Then another rocket soon found itself in another tree, which could not be climbed - so we ended up taking off our shoes and throwing it up to dislodge it. We amused spectators and cried a cheer of victory, when Dad's shoe eventually convinced it down. He did a victory lap around the second tree.

I'm just relieved no-one lost a shoe or received concussions from all the near misses!

It was time to play in the park soon enough. You enjoyed riding the flying fox, even if you did fall off it the first time! Followed by climbing the spiders web and playing with the water pumps.

Eventually you found the kids climbing fort and stopped temporarily for a photo. I loved your beautiful pink and orange dress!

After our barbecue lunch, we all decided to visit the animal area. For only a gold-coin donation (which wasn't even compulsory) we could visit the wonderful native animals that call this part of the South-East corner, home. There were so many interesting things, to spot and adore on our little walk.

Like the huge goannas! They were so captivating with their spots and long tongues

We soon came upon a black swan, bathing in the trickling water, feeding and basically doing what swans do best - swimming. The gardens in the background were exquisite too.

We loved finding this lone duck, darting across the enormous pond!

There were emu's too - I didn't get too close to this guy, even if we were behind a fence!

And the wombats were doing convincing impersonations of logs - how uncanny.

How you fell in love with the mosaic turtle and wanted to take it home with you.

How I fell in love with the paperbarks and lomandra grasses, and wanted to take them home with me too! We had to settle for photographs instead.

When we got back, there was the serious business of opening presents and eating cake.

Thank you to all our relatives who came on the day and especially to our little birthday girl, who made us feel like proud parents, simply because you are you!