Early in November we went on a weekend holiday to my employers property in Nariggundah. Although only 30 k's from the main road it is very remote. There was no tv, a nice house and lots of animals. It was a great weekend as a family we didn't have the tube to tune anyone out we had to make our own entertainment, luckily provided via regulation size pool table and boardgames. Other highlights were seeing goanas, kangaroos and wallabies and a tiger snake (from the safety of our car). It was great. I would encourage anyone who can to get away from it all to do so. It was one of the highlights of the year. Another big higlight was having to cook on and in a wood stove and oven. We even did homemade pizzas one night that everyone enjoyed. A few of us pretended to be in a restaurant and took orders and others served it was so fun to have the whole family working together. I hope that you enjoy the pics and take time to visit picasa to look at our albums. Enjoy.

Haloween

I guess its about time to get back into the swing of things. Haloween is not real big down under but we still try and have some fun with it. Here are a few pics. It was fun this year we went to a party hosted by some friends of ours, the kids had lots of fun they had a haunted garage that everyone seemed to enjoy. As usual the kids all had fun dressing up. This year they were Pokemon Trainer, Super Girl, Idol Contestant, Beyonce (From the Single Ladies video), and Piglet. Hope you enjoy.

Picasa Web Albums - Matthew

Picasa Web Albums - Matthew

Lets see where this gets us

Bragging on Mr. Movie

With the kids going back to school we thought it would be fun to use this space to brag on our kids. Since we have 5 we thought we would start with the oldest. Mr. Movie gets his nickname from the vast amounts of time he dedicates to watching and rewatching movies. He does like other things like playing with legos... Mr. Movie is an expert on animals and as of right now his goal is to work at a zoo and one day to own his own zoo. He likes to quote lines from the movies he watches. His top 5 movies are... Hoodwinked, Transformers, Star Wars (series), Pokemon (Series), Dinatopia (series)

Mr. Movie tries very hard at school he works very hard to get through all of the material that is presented to him. He has been blessed with some very good teachers over the years. He is not the most athletic person in the world but one of his biggest achievements this past year has been to swim up and down the lenghth of a 25 m pool. He likes scouts and loves going there weekly.

Back to School

We realize that for most of you who read this back to school was 5 1/2 months ago. Down here though we have just finished summer holidays and have sent the kids back to school. This has coincided this year with some of the hottest days so far, so lots of fun for both teachers and kids.

We feel that are kids have been assigned a good set of teachers.

Mr. Movie stared year 5 and got Mrs??? (she got married over the summer break so we are not sure what she will go by when she gets back). Little Miss Scholar is now in year 4 she has been placed in a huge class her teacher is Mrs. Doyle but she is co-teaching with Mrs. Micallef they are running the class as a double class, there are over 60 kids so hopefully all the children will recieve the attention that they need. Little Miss Spongebob has entered year 3 she is in Mrs Dallas' class and is excited to finally be able to praticipate in sports field days and other excursions. Finally to start school and Enter Kindy was Little Miss Drama Queen she was placed in Mrs Roubens class and it looks like a good fit and she looks so Cute in her school uniform. This leaves Litttle Miss Smiles at home alone with Trexbo.

We are hopeful this year that they will all do good enjoy thier classes and standout as good students. We think Little Miss Smiles is enjoying her time alone as she likes to stay up and not take naps and give lots of cuddles and kisses to her mum.

The older three kids started school a week before Little Miss Drama Queen the night before LMDQ was supposed to start she was either to nervous or to excited and it took her forever ie 11 pm + to fall asleep. She kept getting up and just wanted to talk and to stay by us. Having done two years of preschool and the last year three days a week for 6 hours a day, we did not think that there would be this much seperation anxiety. But once at school she did well and made it through the day with out being to tired.

We are Slack

I am slack we do so much yet report so little. Since my last post we have been busy. We lost Nan and said our goodbyes, we had Christmas welcomed in a New Year in very subdued fashions. While I can't write with the same vigor in regards to Nan as she was my wifes mum I still must say we lost a great and courageous woman to cancer. She tuly loved her daughters and her grand children and I am sure she looks in on them often. She is buried with our first in the beautiful Shoalhaven Cemetery. We will all miss her.

We did however get a visit from my parents and while it started warm 41 C (106 F) it cooled down 25 C (77 F) before it heated back up 35 C (95 F) with lots of humidity. We enjoyed visits to Green Patch, Mogo Zoo and the kids really enjoyed their time on the two dolphin cruises they went on with Granny and Grandpa. Yes it took two tries to see the dolphins but they did it. As we said our goodbyes in Sydney we all choked up and to help keep the kids minds off of another goodbye we took some time and went to the Power House Museum and the Sydney Aquarium at Darling Harbour. The day before we had enjoyed a walk around the harbour as well as the Australian Day fireworks that evening. I have embedded a few pics and if you can find me on Facebook you can see even more. I have also added a slide show of our visit to Green Patch I hope that you enjoy.

Video from Camp

Here is some more video from the camp.