I'm still here......

nothing drastic has happened!! Lots of fun stuff has happened including 3 birthdays, in a family of 4 that's quite a concentrated ratio! Afternoon tea for 8 year olds was organised, dinner out for 40 year olds was enjoyed (yes, I am that old!!) and handmade books were exchanged and enjoyed and cried over!

Other exciting happenings at the moment: Evie went on her first overnight camp with school and had a great time - archery, rock climbing, learning how to hold a 'footie' ball (like a rugby ball for those of you UK people!), a night walk where they could see the milky way, movie night - the list goes on and I am sure that as the days pass she will come out with more little snippets of what happened during her two days away. She came home exhausted and dirty which in my book equates to having had a good time! Tomorrow it is Isaac's turn - he goes on a three day, two night camp where they go into the bush and do a bit of outdoor survival stuff and lots of outdoor pursuits, which will suit him down to the ground. He has been on camps before so is not as apprehensive as Evie was but I am just as apprehensive - always am when my beloved ones go away!

We've packed his bag and backpack and he is tucked up in bed asleep now - I'll miss seeing his beautiful blonde curls on his pillow and having those lovely hugs and kisses that only Isaac can give but I know he will have a fabby time!

May the force be with you.....

At Scienceworks museum in Melbourne at the moment is a Star Wars exhibition and being the fans we are, Isaac and I dragged Evie and Brian along for a look.

There were loads of the original costumes (the white Princess Leia robe took me back a couple of years to our fancy dress family Christmas dinner when I put bagels on the side of my head, wore a white choristers robe with a shiny belt and voila, I was Princess Leia - I won't attach a photo, you'll just have to picture it!)


This is Evie with one her favourite characters....


There were tons of hands on activities which made Isaac a very happy boy. Here he is playing with the virtual reality set making a Jawa camp and seeing if he could defend it against some baddies (they may have been Tuscan Raiders but I really don't remember!!)



And here are the two kids enjoying the company of a Storm Trouper.... what a great way to spend a day.....

Look what Isaac has been up to

Isaac has been beavering away using the schools k-nex set which he got to take home for the holidays. During the Christmas vacation he made the huge marble run machine so this holiday he was keen to make something else..... enter the k-nex spiral roller coaster!!

Some playmobil people have been for a ride and the granddad has been ridden over, dropped from a great height, got stuck in the mechanism and generally man handled! Bless him!

 

Now it is time to break it all down so that the set can go back to school on Monday.... that means it is nearly the end of the holidays.... boo, hoo!

My birthday celebrations have begun.....

I do love birthdays that go on like an Indian wedding! This year promises to be a bit like that.... the celebrations have begun and it isn't my birthday for another 9 days!

Brian arranged for us all to go away to a little cottage in the Dandenongs, a mountainous, forested area about an hour east of Melbourne which we have not explored at all, and what a delightful two days we had. The whole thing was a surprise for me (the children knew and they managed to keep it a secret!) and could not have been a nicer treat.

The cottage we stayed in was set back into the forest with its own secluded back garden, wonderful log fire and babbling water all around. It was a very quaint timber cottage with a corrugated tin roof, something I have come to love since living here. It was situated in the town of Olinda which has a number of lovely artsy, crafty shops and galleries and quite a few nice restuarants too (that was dinner all sorted!)

Here are the kids standing on the path leading up the cottage, you can see our little place in the background.


After a browse round the local shops and galleries, and dinner in a lovely restuarant, we came back to the cottage for a family movie night in front of a roaring log fire!

Today we spent most of the day taking a trip on Puffing Billy, a famous steam train line that runs through a section of the Dandenong Ranges. On this train the upper part of the sides are open with bars across the 'window' sections and the passengers are welcome to sit on the 'window' ledges with their feet dangling outside the train as it makes its journey through the forest! I'm surprised that there isn't some health and safety body stopping such behaviour but I'm sure glad they don't because it was a hightlight for my kids to be able to dangle out the train, even if it did cause their noses to freeze!








At one point the train goes over a 300ft long timber bridge...... and everyone is still excited to be dangling out the windows!!