Plans, performances and play-dates.

The planets aligned! Well at least for us. Adam got holidays, kids have holidays, free airfares, I have been pushing to go for some time and when some good friends of our's mentioned their up-coming trip to New Zealand we decided to jump on the band wagon! (Luckily they didn't seem to mind us crashing their party, thanks Ally and Rob!) So we have been madly researching the south island where we will be embarking on an epic road trip with 4 adults and 12 kids (we adults are drastically out-numbered; let's hope there isn't a mutany!!) in the September school holidays. The kids are very excited and have started to count down the days!

Here is one of the places we hope to visit - Milford Sound.

I am excited to finally get to visit Ashburton which is about an hour's drive south of Christchurch. A town made famous by the Ashford family and their spinning wheels, weaving looms, wool and all things crafty. Adam says I can spend about 4 or 5 (hours??) minutes there! Ha! We'll see!

This weekend was also the time for the annual Iona College School Production. "Walls" was a collection of three plays performed together over three nights. E was in the second one and performed with about 20 other boys in a play about "good walls making good neighbours" that goes a bit "Lord of the Flies" wrong. E was very good and enjoyed himself so much he plans to do Drama next year at school. We all went along on Friday night, including M, who called out rather loudly when she could see E on stage! L was involved "front of house" and helped with ushering and organisation. It was a great night. The two boys were totally worn out after the final show on Saturday night.

L got his first ever eagle (2 under par) at golf on Friday afternoon which he was very excited about! (Have I mentioned that Lachlan is now taller than me! Ahh, I'm one step closer to being the family shrinkydink! (Remember those!)

E's soccer team won again (against North Star, Dad, yay!), maintaining their undefeated status, after a nail-biting second half.

T was able to compete in a junior school athletics meet at the University of Queensland because of a bye this week at soccer. He won his hurdles race and jumped around 3.5m in the long-jump.

J had his first ever sleep-over at his friend B's house, M had her first-ever play date with his sisters and Emma and Darren (their parents) had us over for dinner too. Thank you so much again! A good time was had by all.

News flash - Adam entered a photography competition with Quest Newspapers (the local paper) that were awarding prizes for the best Ekka photos capturing the spirit of the event. With the photo of the calf in last weeks blog, he won second prize and a $400 camera! (That new camera is paying for itself and now he can say he is a prize winning photographer!)

Here's one of his photos this week.

Life's ups and downs

Unfortunately the week started off badly with some close friends and their kids involved in a serious car accident. My friend Isa had significant injuries to her ear and head, and several broken ribs, while the other members of her family were released from hospital with broken bones and bruises. It was a miracle none of the kids were badly injured. After having a blessing, and spending the week in hospital, Isa made an amazing recovery that had the doctors astounded. We were all very relieved to hear she will make a full recovery and is now back at home with her family.

J was the only one of the boys that had not been to the Ekka (Brisbane Show) for a few years, so A and I decided to take him and M on Tuesday while the big boys were at school. We had a lovely time; it was sunny and warm and as we arrived early, it wasn’t busy at all. We got in and saw what we wanted to see, grabbed the show bags for the boys and were out by 1pm. Perfect! The best part was seeing Molly and Jordan with the baby animals and holding the baby chickens, except Jordan was adamant that he did not want to live on a farm!





Some of the sheep and goats were very cheeky, but there was one baby calf in particular that we fell in love with, he was so gentle. I love how A focused on his eyes in this photo!


Then as is the Brisbane tradition the kids had Wednesday (show day) off school and another two off for good measure! So we filled the rest of the week with movies, shopping and golf while stuffing our faces with all sorts of show bag goodies. Lucky it only happens once a year!

After rushing around as usual on Saturday, I learnt a valuable lesson about slowing down after I took a nasty fall in the golf club car park. Ouch! Fortunately my arms and hands took most of the impact but my chin hit the gravel with such a crack, I thought I might have damaged my jaw. Apart from some bleeding and bruising on my chin and hands I was ok. No one else was around but the kids were so concerned for me it was rather sweet. I haven't done that in such a long time I forgot how much it hurts. I promise to be much more sympathetic with the kids from now on when they fall!

For those of you that have seen me madly knitting my top-down circular needle short-sleeved top, it's finished!! If you want to see how it turned out click here to go to my other blog.

New toy

We got a great new camera this week so now I can show you some photos of the kids in action! It is a Canon five hundred D (I write it that way so it doesn’t come up in some random Google search) and we love it. (Thanks for your input Matt)

We were after a digital SLR to get better sport shots as well as macro photos for my other blog and it does a beautiful job. Here's a look-

This week Mum and Dad L flew up for Grandparents Day at Iona on Friday. It was a lovely morning and T gave them a tour of the school, followed by a fabulous concert put on by all the Grade 5 boys.

(one of the cute Dad's at the concert!)

Then on Saturday we watched 3 soccer games and A and Dad took L and his friend W to the Aviation Expo at the airport. L wants to be a pilot so we will have to start saving!

Thanks for coming up Mum and Dad it was a great week!

Ballet baby

This week M started ballet lessons. She was so gorgeous all dressed up in her leotard, tights and ballet shoes! She was very excited to have a little friend there and stood right at the front. She was a little new to ballet 'speak' though and when the teacher said point your toes, she pointed to her toes! So funny! There was no shortage of enthusiasm though and she seemed to love every minute of it.

Here is a little video of her-

And it was excursion central around here with J at an environmental centre (check out his blog for details!), L at Ikea for Commerce (A and I just happened to bump into him!) on Wednesday and E at South Bank on Thursday.

After a last minute invitation to the Iona Foundation dinner from a VB friend and a desperate call for babysitters, we flew Mum and Dad B (thanks again!!) up on Friday afternoon for the weekend.

Several games of soccer later and arming Grandma and Papa with pizzas and movies on Saturday night we left the happy bunch for a great night at the Gabba function rooms.

There were about 650 people attending and it was a very entertaining night with a few top Australian sportsmen telling some fabulous yarns! The other highlight was the 5 star food which was a bit different from the usual pizza and hamburgers that seems to be popular around here!

M desperately wanted to come too. It took some serious negotiating to get out of the door without her!