Grace's Merit Certificate!

Gracie got a Merit Certificate at assembly on Friday. We organized this term for her to be tutored twice a week which she loves attending. She is an average student but just needs a boost in her confidence. Her certificate was awarded for "all the extra work you do to improve your reading, writing and spelling skills. You are a very responsible and reliable student Grace. Fantastic effort! Well done. PS. We love your artwork too!!" Go Gracie!!!

Happy 7th Birthday Milly!

Happy 7th birthday to our Milly Moo! Being a Tuesday you had to go to school, but you didn't mind as you love school, your teacher and your friends. You handed out 24 pink cupcakes before recess, you came home covered in stickers! You bring so much joy, happiness, laughter and pride into our house as you are our daughter. We love you very much Matilda.

Broome.

We have just come back from six days in Broome. It was lovely! We went to Cable Beach. To swim....

... to enjoy the sunset...

And to ride camels! Here is Milly looking very confident at the start. That changed the minute she sat on our camel, he was named Bully and had a loud groan/grunt when he went to stand up with us on him, it scared her!

And a family before shot, still smiles from Milly!

This was my view from behind everyone.

We also enjoyed a few beers at Matso's which was fantastic. Daz is here giving the chilli beer the thumbs up before he actually drank the stuff!

And this photo is for Mum to show, yes, we really did see Uncle Scottie in Broome!

Miss W's Quilt Revealed!

I don't blog quilt stuff here but I know Mum reads this blog and not the other, so thought I would post this here!

Today was the day we gave Miss W her quilt!! We asked Miss W to leave the room for a few minutes while we worked out what child was going to say what. Then she came back in and sat, very puzzled and curious. Six kids spoke a sentence each. "Miss W, we are very excited about your wedding." "We wanted to make you something special." (She starts crying about here!) "Miss Helen helped us do some drawings at recess and lunch." "It was top secret, we had to pinky promise not to tell you!" (More crying about here!) "We hope you like your present." "We wish you and Mr H lots of love and hope you live happily ever after." Then she got to open it and because the kids hadn't seen the quilt it was zoom, they all rushed in. Then there was squeals of "Look there is my drawing!" "Look that's mine up there Miss W!" "Look Miss W I drew you holding Mr H's hand!" It was fantastic!

Here's Miss W with Alice. I told Alice her block was my favorite, she got all shy.

And here is Miss W and I in that happy post quilt gift giving glow. I am so looking forward to their wedding in a few weeks. She is such a beautiful lady, has a heart of gold, an amazing teacher, it's going to be a joy to share her day with her.

Here are the amazing kids of Room 12! Their art makes this quilt so special!

And here is the quilt. There you go Jules!

Daz's 40th.

Daz turned 40 last week. We had a party to celebrate. An F themed party, you had to come dressed as something beginning with the letter F! He came as Froddo. Mr H came as Fred Flinstone.

I was a French Maid. Mrs H was a Fortune Teller!

We had Flappers, Footy Players and a Flight Attendant!

Best costume of the night was Mrs T as a Fan Tale! The writing around her costume was Daz's life story! Mr T was a Fireman!

The man on the left who shall be known as Mr G came as the character in that movie Face Off. The basic plot of the movie is "a revolutionary medical technique allows an undercover agent to take the physical appearance of a major criminal and infiltrate his organization." So Mr G took a photo of Daz's face off Facebook and photocopied it 16 times and stuck a stick to the back of each mask so everytime you turned around at the party all you saw was Daz's face!

Like this! As demonstrated by a Farmer, Footy Player, FBI Agent and artist Frida Kahlo.

And in the left over cake!

Happy 40th Daz!!!

Charlie.

I started this blog when we moved up here to share all our adventures. The good and the bad times. Monday was a bad time. Daz and I had to make the choice to put down our dog Charlie. Saturday morning we woke up to him just lying on his bed, awake but unable to get up. Picking him up Daz felt a large lump one side of his belly. We dashed to the vet, they took some needle biopsies. The results were inconclusive, they ruled out an infection or a bite from a snake or cane toad but left a question mark over what the lump was exactly..... He stayed there till Sunday afternoon, we were allowed to bring him home for the night and told to return Monday morning so they could do more tests. He was a little better that night, could walk but wasn't his usual self. On waking up Monday morning, it wasn't good, he couldn't move again, just lying on his bed. We dropped him at the vet and it became pretty obvious that all the tests in the world weren't going to fix him. He was 15 years old and we didn't want him to go through that. Daz and I decided he should go to sleep, hardest phone call I have had to ever make. We were there at the end, well Daz was, I was standing outside watching through the glass doors with tears streaming down my face. His body trembled and then just relaxed and was still. No more pain for him. We told the girls after school amongst more tears. We were allowed to take his body home and buried him in a quiet spot out of town. The back yard seems very quiet without him in it.

Milly's Merit Certificate.

Matilda received a merit certificate at school yesterday. Every Mum thinks their child is smart, but this child of mine, she is switched on! She is reading at a higher level than Grace.... she'll stand behind Grace when she is doing Mathletics on the computer and while Grace is still thinking about the answer, Milly will call out the answer..... its a bit spooky! She's the model student, her work is so neat, her handwriting is lovely. And all this in Grade One! Well done Matilda, we are very proud of you!

A busy week....

As usual it has been a flurry of activity this week. Last Thursday we had the school sports carnival. It is a twilight affair running for 7 hours after our normal school day. It is exhausting but we do get the next day off school. Milly enjoyed one of the perks of having a Daddy who works at the same school she attends, getting to have a cuddle while waiting in our faction bay for events to commence!

We were pleasantly amazed to discover that week that Milly could run. I mean run fast. A few days before the carnival they had a morning of running trials. Every grade had to run around the oval, out of about 50 grade 1 girls, Matilda came third! Third?? So on the night of the carnival she came third again in the grade 1 girls first division! And then the grade 1 mixed relay team she was in, came first! We have a runner in the family!!! Very proud.

And this week we have had Book Week. Celebrated a week early for some reason...... We had the Kimberley Writers Festival a few weeks ago and Grace attended a workshop by an illustrator and cartoonist called James Foley who has just illustrated his first book, The Last Viking. She was inspired so we spent Monday after school with some cardboard, paint, brown wrapping paper, lots of staples and sticky tape to transform a beer carton and stack hat into making this costume. And we, oh I mean she won a prize, a book!

A special note to my Aunt Connie who reads this blog very faithfully which I think is fantastic. I'd like to thank you Aunty Connie for the inspiration behind my recent fitness regime. I am NOT pregnant!

Purnululu!

I have wanted to visit Purnululu or the Bungles since seeing that Qantas ad on telly. And we have just come back from an amazing three day camping trip there.

I took 318 photos before my camera battery died. I thought I had recharged it before I left. It would help if the actual charger was plugged in though!

282 of those photos taken were taken from a helicopter! My Dad, Grace and I went up for an 18 minute flight over them. It was just incredible even if I spent the first ten minutes thinking what have I done?? I never go on those rides at shows that take you up fast and whiz you around and here I am in a helicopter with no doors for fun?

The view was just awesome though. Grace was breathless when we got off the ground. Something to tell for news when she goes back to school!

Oxidisation of the iron in the sandstone gives the range the beautiful orange colour. Darren tried to convince the girls the bee hive domes were giant dinosaur droppings from millions of years. They laughed at him.

On the last day we did the Piccaninny Creek Walk. Amazing views along an eroded creek bed.

We walked up to the lookout.

Running back along Piccaninny Creek. Matilda's energy was boundless despite the 32 degrees!

And another lookout!

Milly strolling through the Domes.

We did walk Echidna Chasm too. Initially you walk through a palm filled gorge, but that soon becomes narrower and narrower, and then narrower still till at the end it's less than a meter wide.

One last view from the sky. Can't wait till Daz's folks come backup so we can go again with them.

The Show!

It was show weekend in town this weekend. There was squealing in the pavilion when we found out that Milly had got a first place for her entry in "4 - 6 year old drawing, any medium" plus a ribbon and prize ($20 gift voucher to local craft/stationary shop) for being "the best overall exhibitor aged 4 - 6 years". Go Milly!!!! Very proud. We are already thinking about what we can do next year, moving up into the 7 - 8 age category! I scored a 2nd for my Rainbow Squares quilt which I was happy with. I didn't take a photo of it as it was just folded up on the display, too big to pin out I think!

I was involved this year in the school's P&C committee, cleaning up the show grounds. So I was off doing that in the afternoon, turned around to look on the oval to find Milly had made her way into the grand final of the aged 6 and under Lawn Mowing Pushing Race! They had to push it under a bar and then around two poles and then dash across the finish line, she was excited to come in second and scored $15.00 for her effort. Which was immediately spent on the dodgem cars!

Grace joined in the Melon Olympics. You had too scoop out the flesh of two watermelons so you could wear them as shoes, walk down the slippery bit of plastic clutching a honey dew melon and throw it in a tub. Just for the fun off it! We are on school holidays now for two weeks and are off here on Tuesday. Can't wait!!!

Grey Nomads do El Questro.

My parents are back in town. This post is for you Aunty Connie! Thought you might like to see some snaps of our outing last Sunday to El Questro.

We did a day trip out to have a swim at Zebedee Springs.

As you can see Dad likes the massaging effects of the waterfall!

Then we drove up to Pigeon Hole Lookout. Lunch, and then back home by 4!

Ord Valley Muster Wrap Up!

It has been a massive two weeks up here for us due to all the activity of the Ord Valley Muster!

After watching Daz have all the fun last year singing with the Adult Community Choir, I joined up this year. Those who have heard me sing karoke are puzzled by this! But it was so much fun. Here we are about to go on stage for the Kimberley Moon.

Straight from the hairdressers!

And here we are on stage! I'm third on the right and Daz is on the left, at the back, about 5 faces in? Can't see him that well but you could certainly hear him!

Then we had the kids triathlon. One of the Mum's at school roped me into the committee in March. Me? On a committee for a triathlon??? Whoever thought I would be saying that sentence a few years ago. The kids had a great time though.

Go Gracie! And we did it all again the next day, this time with the adults!

Daz has been training since February, has lost 10kgs in the process! Looking very trim and terrific as he zoomed past on his bike.

We all cheered as he crossed that finish line. Well done Daz!

We also dug for diamonds. Remember last year? 25 pink diamonds up for grabs this year. See Milly head down in the yellow shirt? Alas, no diamond for us, although it was exciting to know about a dozen people who did win one! Daz dug up nothing. Grace dug up nothing. Milly dug up a $10 voucher to the local toy store which was better than a diamond to her. And what did I dig up then? A 3 day self guided canoe tour down the Ord River. Cool!!! Now to wait for some grey nomad grandparents to arrive to leave the kids with so we can go off and do it!

And amongst all that, Grace and I made some lanterns with an artist called Bec Massey who makes these amazing lanterns. The bamboo structure here behind Grace becomes a boab tree.

Then on the last day of the festival, that night there was a street party and the lantern's had a parade.

Spot the boab tree at the back?

And so ends another Muster! See you all next year!