Thursday, 29 January 2009

It's arrived

The day I have not been looking forward to arrived today... my beautiful kids started school proper for the first time. I have loved homeschooling and I so hope that this will not be the end of our homeschool journey but just a little detour to experience something new and different! Isaac was comforting me this morning by rubbing my arm and saying 'there, there mummy, we'll be back soon' whilst I blubbed quietly and tried not to make too much fuss!

Evie was excited to see a few of the girls she had met on her trial days at the end of last year and bagged a seat next to one of them so that was good for her and meant she had someone to chit chat with. She has two teachers this year, sharing the week between them and overlapping a little bit too, and as I was chatting to Chris (one of the two teachers) I was excited to learn that he was homeschooled for the whole of his secondary education! How cool is that! It made Evie feel special that she had something in common with one of the teachers!

Isaac enjoyed his day but being used to his own pace at home found school a little quicker than his handwriting could cope with!

One of the hardest things for us all to cope with today was the heat.... it hit 108 degrees during the day and the school has no air conditioning so the kids did flake a little bit (though they were provided with an icy pole at the end of lunch break as a little treat!) but they couldn't wait to get home to strip down to their underwear and have ice cold drinks! I resisted the urge to join them.....

Only one more day and then it is the weekend..... yeah!

Here are a couple of photos from today... this is the junior school nestled amongst the gum trees (just needs a kookaburra!!)

They had assembly outdoors today under the trees....

Saturday, 24 January 2009

Don't you just love the things they say....

well sometimes anyway......

I was sorting out all the kids school work from last year,
and packing some of it away, when I happened upon a lapbook 
the kids made after our visit to the Roald Dahl museum....... 

one of the things we did was to make up funny sounding 
words and write a definition for them 
(words like 'whizzpopper' and 'snozzcumber' from the BFG).......

I had to smile when I came across one word that Isaac had come up with,
it was 'happilicious' ........ and his definition........
when you are so happy you can taste it!

what a great word....... I'll have to use it more often in future.......

Monday, 12 January 2009

Doesn't time fly....

when you're having fun.....
well it certainly doesn't dawdle.....
I can't believe we are well into January 
and the shops have Easter sweets in already.....

we've just had the best time on a 'camping' trip in the 
Cape Otway National Park.....

we booked into a campsite and because our car is not big enough 
to do the camp thing proper {tent, blow up beds, gas stove etc.}
we booked into a family bunkroom and used the camp kitchen 
for cooking all our meals......
what a splendid idea, I thought, a camp kitchen......
 you get to use all their facilities and you don't have to take any of your own 
paraphanalia with you, just perfect.....

we started by going south-west from Ballarat heading for a place called 
Warrnambool which is where the Great Ocean Road begins.....
we spent a few hours there at the most fantastic childrens playground 
and actually had to drag the kids away so that we could get to 
the campsite in time for dinner.....
we drove the Great Ocean Road from Warrnambool to a campsite 
very close to the Cape Otway Lightstation and were able to take in 
some breathtaking scenery on the way including the Bay of Islands, 
the Bay of Martyrs and, most stunningly, the Twelve Apostles......


 

 

 

anyway, I won't bore you with a blow-by-blow 
account of ALL the stuff we did 
{we did pack a lot into the four days!!}
 so let me just cover the highlights.....

the Otway Fly treetop walk.... 
brilliant, stunning and terrifying for Brian who is petrified of heights..... 
give him his due though, he did the walk 
{missing out the extras such as a 'swaying' 45m high lookout tower 
and an unsupported {and therefore somewhat 'bouncy'} cantilever platform!!}
 and met the rest of us at the end of the walk where he just took deep breaths
 and was very grateful to God to have his feet back on solid ground......
Evie and I however, wanted to go round it all again so 
we could absail off one of the platforms.....

 
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For Evie, a BIG highlight was her first horse ride on a 'proper' horse......
for those who know her love of all things animal you will not find it a 
surprise that she fell in love with Danny the horse and 
he in turn enjoyed all the attention.....

 


we had a day visiting a beach which can only be accessed 
by a LONG walk through bush but which rewarded us with miles of golden sand, 
an ocean as blue as you like and fantastic rock pools, shells and a waterfall to boot....
we actually had this beach all to ourselves as it is a bit off the beaten track....


 


Maits Rest, which is a rainforest walk, was beautiful and cool on a hot day 
and then time spent at Apollo Bay playing in the sand on another pretty much 
deserted beach rounded the trip off......

 

all-in-all we probably drove about three quarters of the Great Ocean Road 
and still didn't manage to do all we wanted to so we have booked to go back at 
Easter when my lovely family come to visit..... yipee.....

 
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oh yes, I didn't mention the Koalas...... 
the park is full of them..... 
lots of time spent koala 'spotting'..... 
what fun.....

endings and beginnings......