School Trip to King's Park

On Tuesday, March 24th, Brooke and Brett's class went on an excursion to King's Park. Brooke went in conjunction with her studies of the Anzacs and so looked at all the war memorials and Brett went to examine the plants as part of their plant study. I had the priviledge of accompanying Brett's class, and had 6 year 1 and 2 boys to take care of. We had a great day. The weather was perfect, not too hot, but nice and sunny, the boys were excellent, always eager to listen, and King's Park is just a beautiful place to visit!!

Looking out over the Swan River

Enjoying the walk with Ethan, Sage, Aidyn, Brett, Quinn and Tyrone

Drawing pictures of 4 different types of plants

Drawing leaf people and doing leaf rubbing was loads of fun
For lunch we went to the Lottowest Playground where the kids could play on the toys while the adults relaxed (don't worry, we only relaxed a little!!)
The year 5's and 6's having some fun

My group of cheeky boys

Brooke and Erin

While Brett was mucking around with his friends his very loose front tooth was knocked out. Now he has a gorgeos gapy smile. We're just waiting for the second one to fall out since that one is also very wobbly!

Jessica and Meagan Become Teenagers!!

On Friday the 13th Jessica and Meagan celebrated their 13th birthday. The day was a regular school day, and they were out the door by quarter to eight in the morning. When they came home the family came over to celebrate with them and then we went out to Hungry Jack's for dinner. All in all they had a relaxing day, with family and received some lovely gifts including some books, a shopping voucher (which we cashed in on Saturday and had a great time shopping for clothes and other girlie things) and a gorgeous necklace and bracelet set. So the girls are now officially teenagers, meaning we now have 4 teenagers in the house. Where has the time gone!!!

Monday was a student free day, and so they invited 6 friends each for a pink and purple party. They seem to mix in 2 quite different circle of friends which made it rather interesting. The party was from 11 til 4 and although at first I thought "help what have I done!! the time actually went by quickly and the 14 girls were kept well entertained the whole time.
The party girls are dressed up and ready for fun!

Meagan and Jessica blowing out their candles. Yeay, they're really teenagers!! Take note of the fancy cakes we even made. I was quite impressed!!
After prezzies and cakes the girls wanted to play 2 rounds of arrow hunt. Jessica's team went to hide first while Meagan and her friends painted finger nails and played a fuzzy bunny game where you had to keep stuffing marshmallows in your mouth until you could no longer say "fuzzy bunnies" It was pretty disgusting but kept the girls in stitches!!

Then Meagan's team went to hide while Jessica and her friends played some games.

They had a hard time finding Meagan's team which was good, it took up a lot of time!!! They came home once ready to give up but I sent them back out again and 20 minutes later they all finally came in, hot and ready for a swim so it was into the pool next!

The girls swam and played a few relay races before it was time to warm up again.

We did a few dances together like "the Hokey Pokey" ,"Chicken Dance" and the "Brown Jug Polka"

The girls also made a card and played a few more games like treasure hunt and the balloon stomping game before it was time to head home.
Another great party with lots of fun memories.

Swim Carnival

Brooke competed in the JCCC swim carnival today. The day started off very well when Rockingham came in first for the first event the whole school (years 4-6) baton relay. She swam very well, coming in first in breast stroke and back stroke for her heats, adding points to Rockingham's school total. She also did well in her freestyle and her relay team for the boogie board (nicknamed Betsy) came in first as well. It was a great day with the kids all having great fun, even in the hot weather; it nearly got to 40 degrees today!! In the end Byford took the trophy home with Rockingham second and Kelmscott third. Well done everyone for a GREAT day.

Annual School Sleepover

Brooke and Brett went on their school sleep-over on Friday night. The anticipation was fantastic. It's always a much talked about event and the kids always have a ball. Brett packed his bags on Monday already, although I had to explain that his pillow and tooth brush are last minute things to pack. Friday morning we headed off to school with the car loaded with all their sleeping gear and extra clothes and bits and pieces but when we got to school the look of horror on their faces when they realized that they had both left their school bags (and lunch boxes) and library bags at home was priceless!! So I had to rush back home to pick up the missing bits before I went and did my turn at mother's help in the preprimary classroom with Travis.
After school the kids all went to the beach for a swim and the evening was packed with games to try to tire out the kids and a movie to try and lull them off to sleep. I don't think it worked too well because Brooke was quite impressed that she hardly slept at all!! She was still mucking around at 2am!! Brett loved the pancakes for breakfast. All in all it was another successful school sleepover.

Labour Day Long Weekend

A long weekend!! Yeah, what else to do but to gate crash at Dren and JB's! But this time we went there in style...took along our caravan. No sleepless nights in a strange bed... had my own shower, took along our own toilet and toilet paper even. Poor Dren was a little out of sorts that her facilities weren't good enough. Just kidding, we had fun letting the comments fly!!
Of course the weekend was packed with loads of fun: lots of yacking, the kids had a ball catching up with their cousins again, and us adults suffered from lack of sleep as usual!
Saturday, after Dren and I decided we would like to do the touristy thing (staying on the tarmac of course), JB and Dave took us in the opposite direction!! We couldn't possibly miss out the opportunity to go 4 wheel driving!! We had a fantastic day, fitting in lots of different experiences. First of all we stopped off at the Donnybrook Apple Funpark. It was a fantastic park with all sorts of play equipment for the kids from slides and castles to ropes and swings. And there was even a circle of things which I thought should have been for adults only. A lovely little circuit to work out all those muscles you didn't know you possessed!! I had a great time, and the kids had even more fun watching me being unco-ordinated on all these sporty things.
After our bout of excercise we continued on past Gnomesville, where we had to stop and see all the gnomes that have gathered there from around the globe.

An Emu we saw on the side of the road.

Then it was on to the Collie River where we stopped off at Big Rock where the kids (that's the big boys included!!) all had fun sliding down the rocks into the freezing waters! The sides of the rock was so slippery that they helped eachother out with the rope. Once you started going in, there was no stopping!! Cody also tried catching a yabbie but was a little too worried about those nasty looking nippers. We got to sample some smoked sausages for lunch from JB's smoker. Why is it that things always taste delicious when you're out of doors?!



Then on the road again because the boys had seen in the book a cool 4 wheel drive track to take.
Well, after some navigating, we found the track and it was beautiful. My kind of 4 wheel driving; a dirt track with a few bumps, lovely trees, following the river....well, they managed to lull me into a false sense of security. Once I was relaxed and comfortable, the real 4 wheel driving began!! I'm sure the track had been made more challenging by the 4 wheel driving club. Our tow ball kept digging furrows in the mounds we had to go over and then came a nice, sandy hill (not nice white sand of course but lovely red dust!!)... we made it up in a huge pile of dust, and of course no windows were closed!! Then when I thought it was nearly over, we had to go up one more steep hill. Dren thought she would be somersaulting backwards back down the hill, but we all made it, and lived to tell the tale of another 4 wheel driving experience with Dave and JB.

Along the Collie River
Sunday evening we had a relaxing time catching up with Ray and Theresa. Cody and Damon took off to the mud and came back looking like black boys. You could hardly see any skin on them, they were so covered in mud. But they were grinning, had a great time sliding down the dam bank into the water (or was that the mud??!!) The girls had fun going around the vineyard in a kaboda. And the little ones...well, they always have fun!! The kids all swam in the dam by Ray and Theresa's house as well.
Monday was a final day for more adventures. This time we headed off to Dunsborough; stopped to pick up some lunch from the bakery, ate that at a beautiful beach and then headed off to shell beach where we spent lots of time clambering over the rocks and collecting lovely shells. Even Dave collected a bag full of tiny shells for me.... On the way home we had to stop off at Simmo's for an ice cream cone: Raspberry sorbets, chunky monkey, black licorice...the options were delightful!!




And then our weekend was over and it was time to head home again. Thanks JB and Dren for another fantastic weekend. Look forward to our next one...
PS: Dren, I'm still waiting for some photos from you!!