Australia Day

On January 26th we celebrated Australia day by going over to Penguin Island for the day. Dren and JB and mum and another dutch family joined us as we walked across to the island with our kayaks, and eskies, and towels, and drinks... It was quite windy, and the walk was pretty hard going, with the water being mostly waist deep but one place it was up to my armpits. Travis still has a great fear of the water (we don't know why) so I sent him across on the ferry with Natasha and Brooke. We spent a really relaxing day sitting on the beach, doing some kayaking and snorkelling; found some penguins and some king skinks who came for our food. We had a great time just yakking with eachother and having a great time. I got rather sunburned on my legs (okay, very sunburned...you'd think I'd have learned years ago, hey Elaine??) but the kids were all well covered in sun tan lotion. Dren and JB left around 3 as they were hoping to make it home by dinner time ans we headed back at 4, sending mum, Travis and Maria (little 3 year old from the dutch family) across on the ferry. I paddled back with Brooke towing behind me on a boogie board. The wind was blowing a gale, and it was really hard going but we finally made it back to the other side safe and sound. Then we rounded a most relaxing and enjoyable day off by ordering pizzas and watching "Coolrunnings", a bit of humour to top it all off.

Swimming Lessons

Yahoo!!
After going to the beach for 10 days in a row (well, okay, we did have the weekend off!!) our kids are done their swimming lessons and they all did very well. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera (see, I'm still getting used to this blogging thing and having to take lots of photos to make each entry exciting!!) so I don't have any photos for you so it's a rather boring post. Anyway...
Cody got his bronze medallion : means he can swim 400 metres under 13 minutes, do his CPR, rescue drowning victims and do search patterns. Yeah, that's as far as you go with swimming lessons; now he just has to keep it up-to-date every year. Way to go Cody!!!
Wade, Jessica, Meagan and Brooke all passed 1, 2 or 3 stages and completed stage 9 which means they can swim 10m butterfly, swim 100m freestyle, 50m backstroke, 50m breaststroke, 50m sidestroke, 50m survival backstroke. They also learned their basic principles of CPR and non-contact rescues. Way to go guys!!
And Brett completed stage 3 which means he can swim 10m freestyle (includes breathing properly), glide backward and kick 5m, demonstrate breaststroke kick, demonstrated survival sculling, and do a forward roll. Excellent job Brett!!

Bornholme Beach, Thursday January 3rd

Our last day at camp!!

So we decide to do something adventurous... let's see how well our car goes in 4WD. So the boys pick the most challenging beach to go to... Bornholme beach. It's a long 4 wheel drive trek and the last stretch is nearly straight down through deep, boggy sand down to the beach. So Dave and JB (and us wives and children dutifully followed and took mum along for the adventure) set off with another family, Henk and Leonie and their 9 kids. It was a contest, Suburban versus Toyota. Going down was relatively easy, although I opted to walk (or should I say, slither down) the last bit. We spent some time on the beach although it was too rough to swim in. The kids tried making a wall to keep the waves at bay, but there is no taming of the ocean...every now and then a wave would come over their wall and drench them all. Then the boys decided to do some fishing and wow, did they have a great time. All the kids that tried, caught something and most were catching 2 herring at a time! We called it a day when we had 37 fish, and it was time to try and get back up the sand dune. I was afraid we might be making an impromptu camp there on the beach. JB made it up the first little bit first, then Henk tried, and tried, then we got up, and Henk dropped his tire pressure down to 12 pounds and made it up, just off the beach. Then came the hard bit of 4WDing... up the long, sandy, like, very sandy, trail back up to the top. (the one photo, witht he hill and the ocean, if you look very carefully, you can see Henk and JB's cars down there, ready for the climb up!) Well, we made it up first go, although I will admit to having my eyes closed...at least some of the way!! Then JB tried, and tried, and tried, and tried....we lost count of how many goes he had coming up. Finally he let his tires down to 8 pounds, and took Dren's advice to go to the left of the track (us women are good for something after all!!) and he managed to get up. Then Henk slowly but surely crawled his way up. So of course the men (well, really the boys and their toys) were elated. Their testosterone levels were way up, their cars had made them proud!! And the rest of us, just relieved to be back on level ground again, okay and also maybe a little exhilirated!! Dave was so excited, he forgot his window was open, and when he say a muddy section to go through, he pushed his foot down hard...oops! He forgot about poor mum sitting in the seat behind him, looking a little mud spattered...

It was a great way to end our holidays....

Brett's Birthday

On Wednesday, January 2nd, we celebrated Brett's 6th birthday. He was spoiled rotten with loads of presents in the morning (there are some advantages to having lots of brothers and sisters!!). He got a fishing rod, a cricket set, smurfs, uno attack, a psalmbook, two lego sets; a cement mixer and a fire truck, rollerblades... yeah, he's spoilt. Zach could also finally give his present to Brett that he'd bought months ago already!! He gave Brett a great little remote control car.

Then we went to Light's Beach since it was too windy to go to any beaches where we could take the boat out. Light's Beach was an awesome beach, with huge waves (not for swimming!!) but behind the rocks was another lovely pool that was knee deep, where the kids played for ages. Cody and Chris disappeared and did some Australian toboganning - sliding down the dunes on their boogie boards and the other kids did some more rock climbing. Brett also had to have a go with his cricket set, and later on in the afternoon, he had a turn at fishing, although he didn't catch anything but he got quiet good at casting!! For dinner we had a delicious pizza feast.

Christmas Holidays

Wishing you all a blessed 2008! and I'm looking forward to keeping in touch with this great blogging tool again this year!

Well, we made it back safe and sound from our 2 week holiday in Denmark. We had a great time with the family; Dren and JB and their 4 kids, Andrew and Michelle and their 2 kids, Mum and Dad Lewis, and mum and Chris joined us for the last week since Chris had to work over Christmas. And of course us and our 7 kids!!


We went down to Denmark (a 5 hour drive) on Christmas Eve and spent the afternoon setting up camp and relaxing. (Those 2 actually do go together!!) Christmas day we drove to Albany (50km away) and had a lovely sermon on the humility of Christ. Then we headed back to camp, had some coffee and cake and then headed off to Ocean Beach. We spent the afternoon boogie boarding on the waves, and kayaking and just enjoying eachother's company. And then of course we stuffed ourselves with too much food for dinner....

Our campground was very nice, with lots of room. They had a huge bouncy dome there that the kids spent loads of time on. Cody had a summer romance... The kids found a mulberry tree which they had a ball picking and eating. They would come back with hands and faces totally stained... Our young entrepeneurs, Brett and Zach, made some 'delicious' watermelon juice, made by squashing watermelon between their dirty hands...then they sat on the side of the road, hoping to sell their wares. Of course JB and Dave bought their juice and so Brett happily bought a fishing float for his rod!



Boxing day was another lovely hot day so we took the boat down to Madfish Bay where we had a great time in the clear water, swimming, kayaking and exploring the little rock pools. There was a great shallow section where we could sit quietly and these beautiful little fish would come out from under the rocks to explore the monsters looking at them. We also did some knee-boarding and biscuiting behind the boat. It was a fantastic day.


The next day we did some more "beaching", this time at Green's Pool where we also managed to do some snorkelling, and saw lots of fish and even a stingray trying to hide in the sand.


The next number of days we had cooler weather and so we did a number of touristy things... we went to the Dinosaur world and bird park where we could see and touch some spectacularly coloured parrots and other birds. And of course a display of dinosaur skeletons, but also a number of snakes. We explored a few more beaches, Conspicuous Cliffs, and Peaceful Bay.On New Year's Eve we all went to Walpole and enjoyed the tree top walk, which is a steel walkway which takes you 40 meters above ground, into the treetops. It's pretty awesome up there, and if you're like me, you do that bit very quickly. There's also a gorgeous walk at the bottom among the trees and ferns...our little bit of WA that's lush and greeen. We also went to a spot along a river called Circular Pool and enjoyed God's Creation some more.
The last 2 days deserve a page of their own so I'll continue in a moment!!