Awards nights

After a teary goodbye at the airport as Adam went to Brazil we launched ourselves on the week ahead and what a week it was!

On Monday morning we travelled into the city for T to complete his first piano exam. Ruth (his teacher) was there with several other students who all passed their Grade One exams! Well done T! We are very proud of you and all your hard work this year!

On Tuesday it was E's 13th birthday so we celebrated having another teenager in the house.

On Wednesday night we had the first of Iona College's Award Ceremonies at QPak at South Bank. This one was for the junior school and T received an award for Grade 5 Drama. Well done again!

On Thursday night it was the senior school's turn and E received a Bronze Academic Award and L received a Silver Academic Award, Academic Effort Award and Christian Leadership Award. I was soooo proud of them all!

E went to a Young Men's Deacons camp on Friday/Saturday and went to Coochiemudlo Island off the coast near Straddie. He had a great time and was absolutely exhausted when he arrived home in the afternoon after all the water sports. No photos unfortunately but imagine him with a pink nose and looking very tired!

We have kept in touch with Adam this week on Skype and it is great to see him in Brazil. There have been a few problems with the aeroplane (in particular the paint job!) but hopefully they will get away on schedule. He is enjoying the experience but is very busy getting everything organised. They have had some time to sight-see though and he spent a day at Paraty soaking up the sun on Saturday so we don't feel too sorry for him!

Poor tooth fairy!

The tooth fairy was stretched to her financial limits this week with three of the boys losing their teeth! E started everyone off with the first lot of extractions in preparation for his braces, walking out of the dentist surgery on Tuesday afternoon minus two pre-molars with a rather shocked look on his face! Poor boy! He was extremely brave and by the next morning he was fine and went of to school without complaint. Two down , two to go!


J was next with his front tooth falling out on Wednesday at school after a lot of wiggling and T finished off with the loss of a baby molar that had been flipping around for days on Wednesday afternoon. Needless to say the tooth fairy was cleaned out by Thursday morning and hopes that she can save up in time for E's second lot of extractions in a couple of weeks! (Especially given the $$ spent getting them taken out in the first place!)

On Saturday we had a party to celebrate E's 13th birthday (a little early) and a "slide night" to relive our NZ trip with the Douglas'. Adam won't be here for E's actual birthday so we had a mini one to celebrate having another teenager in the house!

On Sunday we had the Manly Ward Primary Presentation which went off well and J and T delivered their parts very well. I was called as the new Primary President which means that I am now in charge of the children's music, sharing time and Sunday school. I have two great counsellors, Laa and Alyson and I am excited about the year ahead.

That afternoon Adam flew out to Brazil via NZ and Chile. It was a bit sad parting at the airport but he is going to have a fabulous trip bringing another Embraer back to Australia. (We can't wait for him to return though!!)

Beautiful spring!

This week E found out (much to his dismay!) that he has to get braces and 4 teeth removed. He insisted that he wouldn't care if he had crooked teeth when he was older, but we begged to differ! Trust us E, we wouldn't be paying the $$$ for them if we didn't think you would change your mind one day!!

Adam and T went off to the Iona grade 5 school camp this week for three days of action packed fun. They went to Australia Zoo, King's Beach, did camp craft, survival exercises, played mugby (rugby in the mud), did tie-dyeing, sock puppet making, you name it! Adam drove the school's 22 seater bus (his free ticket to ALL the camps!) and couldn't believe that after all that, the boys still had some energy left on the last afternoon for another trip to the beach, before returning back to school on Friday.

The next morning we found out, after a visit to our family doctor, that T had contracted an infection through a blister on his foot. He went down-hill kind of fast so we knew something was going on but fortunately he responded well to the antibiotics he was given and returned to full health again by Saturday night! We are always very careful with these types of infections after Dad's brush with Golden Staph several years ago.

It was a beautiful day here on Saturday and while T rested, L played golf and Adam studied for his sim check next week, I took M, J , E and two friends down to the wading pool for a spring swim.

Ethan dropped a crab in the pool and couldn't find it again!

L was tested this week to see if he knew his 25 scripture mastery scriptures from this year's Seminary class. There has been a group of about 17 youth studying the New Testament in Manly Ward and he was the only one in his class to know all 25 from memory! His teachers (and us!!) were very proud of him for his first year of seminary and he was awarded a little black hymn book by the Bishop at Friday night's graduation party at Sizzler. (Well done L!)

iShop, iSwim, iPod

Adam had a lot of days on reserve this week, so we went shopping (yay - I love shopping with Adam) and we got almost all our Christmas shopping done - shock horror - this level of organisation is just unheard of!!

And after many months of saving and payment for doing their ad the boys all got their new iPod touch's (J got a Classic) and they disappeared into a strangely quiet world for a day or two while they loaded them all up with games, videos, music and applications. Adam, our resident expert in the field took charge and I, having just got Adam's hand-me-down iPhone, followed along happily getting lots of tips and advice from the kids on what I should put on it (thanks guys!)

I love our tropical weather! We have come to my favourite time of year with the stormy afternoons, night rain and crystal clear sunny mornings. We are trying to make the most of the beautiful weather now that we have a little less to do on a Saturday so we headed down to the wading pool with the Douglas family. It was a very windy afternoon but don't you love how kids make the most of every situation and after a long swim in the warm water they all had a "throw your towel in the air and see how far it flies competition!" (We had to do a few road retrievals!) Rob had his new kayak and gave the kids a turn in the choppy waves of Moreton Bay. We came back to the house and I helped the little kids make double chocolate brownies for dessert. YUM!

M went to her pre-prep (kindy) orientation on Saturday. She will be going to the same kindy that T and J did, for two days a week next year. She loved it and keeps asking when she can go to 'her school'!

T and J both got awards at school this week.

Encore Encore!

This week we all attended the U13 Wolves presentation dinner. This was a very nice celebration of the achievements of Ethan's soccer team. We all had a wonderful evening and it was great to have the opportunity to thank Dean and Dragan formally for their hard work in coaching. The boys of the team have been together for three years now so they are all good friends and it was nice to see them in a relaxed setting having fun together. We had a great night and Molly was particularly impressed with her party bag full of stickers and pencils!

At church we had a Ward Talent night and Adam performed a song called 'Angel' by Jack Johnson with his guitar and T played a song that he has been learning for his first piano exam coming up soon. Both of them were amazing and performed very well to huge accolades. I will try and post the videos as soon as I can work out how to get a small section as they are too long to download here.

Towards the end of the night we performed as a family with Adam and E playing guitar and the rest of us on vocals. We sang a lovely song by the Jonas brothers called "Love Bug". Unfortunately Jordan couldn't sing as he had a cold but I think the rest of us did a pretty good job and Molly stole the show by making sure she was singing directly into the microphone in the middle of us! She didn't know all the words but sang the chorus beautifully!

Here are E and M making Blu-tac dinosaurs.

This is Adam mucking around with the Skype special effects. We were all literally rolling around on the floor laughing at some of the faces!

Camps and carnivals

This week the kids went back to school for their last term of the year. 9 weeks to go for J, 8 for the other boys, then it's summer holidays, wow!

With the end of soccer season comes the beginning of Futsal and Indoor soccer (we are crazy I know!) J is playing indoor with his team and as the competition is played according to skill, their first game was against 12 year olds, much to their surprise. Accordingly they lost 6-1 but they were still pleased to have scored one goal against some much larger boys!

T is competing in a Futsal competition with a team made up with some boys from the development squad. Futsal is similar to soccer but with only 4 players per team on a smaller court.

Adam appeared in an advertisement for Delfin this week. Delfin is a Lend Lease development company selling houses at the Hyatt Regency at Coolum on the Sunshine Coast. They shot the ad over three days, showing Adam getting out of a BMW and going into one of the houses, playing golf and having dinner at the restaurant (tough gig!!) Unfortunately I don't have any photos! The ad will be on tv late November so we will be looking out for it! (We spotted the boy's Suncorp ad the other day and it is really good. You see the boys only fleetingly, playing rugby league together, but they were very excited to see themselves.)

On the weekend Adam looked after the kids while I went to the Iona Mother's Camp. This was held at the school's camp near Perigian Beach, just south of Noosa. It is such a lovely spot and we were very impressed with the camp and its surroundings. We all agreed our boys were very lucky to have such great facilities.

I arrived on the Saturday morning and met up with my lovely friend, Julie and some of her friends at the Eumundi markets. We had a wonderful day indulging in hours of market scouring, followed by a gorgeous lunch at Monteville, more shopping in the antique and collectible shops at Monteville finishing off with an indulgent afternoon tea and some final browsing. I don't think I have done that much shopping since L was born fourteen years ago! It was an amazing day and I got some lovely Christmas presents and knick knacks.

On our return to the camp we enjoyed a lovely dinner with everyone decked out in the night's pink theme and had lots of fun socialising. Sleep was a little sporadic as it usually is when you share a 30 berth cabin and hear every noise and snore but the next day we weren't too worse for wear. I enjoyed a nice walk to the lake with some of the girls before breakfast and then I made the journey home.

Adam had a very busy Saturday while I was away, taking kids to golf and the Spring Fair at the end of the street. Everyone had a ball but I think M enjoyed her carousel and pony ride the most from the photos Adam texted to me. Adam was exhausted at the end of the day!

And E had yet another soccer presentation, this time to award the boys with their premiership medals. The club put on a fun day as well with carnival type activities which the kids enjoyed again! Here is E, first with a few team mates, and second receiving his medal from Dragan.


L, J and T all made the most of the day!




L got involved in a University of Queensland inter-school competition this week to design a moon settlement. Together with 9 other boys and 10 girls from Lourdes Hill Girls School, the team worked hard this week to put together a proposal and are hoping to be selected to compete again over several days in January. Several of the team members were seniors who made it through last years competitions to go to NASA and compete internationally, something L is hoping to have a chance to do in senior school.

Holiday fun

While we were away at New Zealand, Grandma and Papa Barr arrived to house sit and mind Ted for a few days and visit us on our return. During this time the east coast of Australia was hit with a massive dust storm that originated in South Australia. We saw it on the NZ news and were told by Peter and Genny that even our locked up house had a fine red dust over the floor. Ted went orange and they hosed down the verandahs because they were so dirty! Sydney was hit worse than Brisbane and the photos on the TV showed everything looking dark and red! Spooky!

On our return to Brisbane aiport we were told that the Embraer our family had named had just arrived from Brazil, so the kids posed for their photo in front of "Kanga Blue."


After a good nights sleep we launched into the soccer spectacular that is the Gold Coast Cup. E's BJL (Brisbane Junior League) team competed daily for 5 days against a pool of 5 teams out of 24 other teams in their age group. After two exciting semi-finals they made it through to the grand final on Saturday only to be defeated through a dodgy referee decision and penalty kick in the second half of extra time 2-1. This was their third runners-up title in three years of competing at the GC Cup but the boys were philosophical and by Saturday afternoon Ethan was in his usual high spirits.




We were also able to sneak in a quick visit to Dave and Lou's holiday apartment at Main Beach on the Tuesday for a bit of fun and a yummy family lunch. Thanks Oscar and Aiden for sharing your pool and spa with us! It was great fun!




That night we had a bit of a fright as Molly had what doctor's suspected was a febrile convulsion because of a spike in her temperature. Unfortunately for Genny and Peter, Adam and I were at the movies for the first time in about 4 months but they handled it very well. It was relatively quick and she was fine shortly afterwards but we came home and took her to the Children's hospital to be on the safe side. They were so wonderful there and checked her out so thoroughly we were very impressed. I am sure M was wondering what all the fuss was about! Fortunately she will grow out of this tendency by the time she is around 6 and it is not harmful. Phew!

Tasman celebrated his 10th birthday in style on holidays as usual and was pleased to have the whole day to admire and experiment with his new phone and presents. Happy birthday Tas!! He requested brownies instead of a cake so we put them in the shape of the number 10. We also had a Barr family get together on Saturday night to celebrate again.



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