Travis learns to Ride a Bike

Travis has finally decided to try riding a bike. His bike doesn't have training wheels but that didn't stop him! Within a day he was up and riding, with a wibble and a wobble but confident enough to imitate Brett straight away and put his feet up on the handle bars! What a clown. Now, a week later he is zooming down the grassed hill at the park, at full speed of course!!

Wibbling and wobbling

Look how clever I am!!

400 Metres!!!

I did it!! Today I managed to swim 400m in 1 go; 100m each of freestyle, breaststroke, sidestroke and survival backstroke. I'm so proud of myself...Now I just have to speed it up so I can do it in under 12 minutes. I can hear everyone cheering already!

Summer Rains

Well, after 2 weeks of temperatures soaring above 35 degrees, and another week ahead of the same, we had some reprieve from the heat. Today it rained, and rained, and rained all day. It NEVER rains all day out here, and in the summer?? It was absolutely awesome, all the parched ground is nicely soaked again. After school the kids took the kayak to the park across the road and had fun splashing in the "lake". Normally, this area is all grass, but with the rain we had today, it was a beautiful lake!! The kids had a ball.

Oh Canada!!

I'm so excited I can hardly wait. I'm Hoohoohooing like Tigger does! If all goes according to plan, Dave and I will be travelling to Canada to visit Nick and Lisa and Dirk and Amanda at the the end of May this year!!
HOO-HOO-HOOOOOOOO

Welcome Tyler Matthew

On Thursday, January 31st Helen and Mick were blessed with another healthy baby boy. Another little miracle. They named him Tyler Matthew, and he is a gorgeous little baby (but Aunties are allowed to be biased!).

I have the priviledge of looking after Nathan (20 months) while Helen recuperates. It's been great fun having a little one in the house again, although it's amazing how quickly you forget what a mess they make, and how much time they take up!! Nathan's a real happy chappy, even goes to bed giggling!!

I'm learning a whole new vocabulary....words of a toddler. He loves "pool", and walks around the house yelling "mum" which I finally figured out means me!! I'm not sure what he's going to think tomorrow when he goes home!! It's definitely going to be quieter around here without him!

First day of School

Monday, February 4th my house suddenly got rather quiet again...the kids went back to school. Wade, Jessica and Meagan were rather nervous, but stuck together and with Cody took the bus to school and quickly found out going to middle school isn't so scary after all. And they all came back very excited...their shirts don't have to be tucked in at all times this year. Yeah!!

I took Brooke and Brett to school at 8:30. Brett came home all excited because he got his name on the smiley face. We thought he'd been very well behaved because it was the highlight of his day....but then he told us nearly everyone got their name on the smiley face. But wow, that really made an impression on him. Brooke was just happy to see her old teacher back again as well as her good friends whom she hadn't seen all summer since they belong to Rockingham church.

In the afternoon Travis had his first day of Kindy. No separation anxieties coming from him, he was so excited. When he came home he kept asking me to sit down with him so he could tell me about his day at kindy. He sang songs, and knew Holy, Holy, Holy but not the one about "love, love, love". He did painting and Mrs Hordyk told him a story about Jim and the pool... Lots of excitement for a 4 year old.

And me, well, I didn't suffer from empty nest (yet) because I still had Nathan to look after. So we made dinner and went for a nice swim in the pool...