Book Week!

It's Book Week this week. Technically it is about "celebrating books and Australian authors and illustrators. Classroom teachers, teacher librarians and public librarians develop activities, offer competitions and tell stories relating to a theme to highlight the importance of reading." Now I am all for the importance of reading but who decided the parents would get the task of dressing up the kids in a home made costume to celebrate their favorite character from a book??! Who's smart idea was that?! I got creative for one child's costume, that was my limit!

Grace decided she wanted to go as Scooby Doo. Easy I thought. Pants with a tail sewn in, yep, no problems, sewn a few pairs of pants in the past. Done! The top though, I was worried about the top. Putting a combination of words like children, costume, easy, simple, shirt, top into good old google, I stumbled on this pattern here. Perfect! So Sunday was spent sewing this up and then painting black dots on the back. It was a really easy pattern, gathered at the neck to hide all my dodgy seam match ups! For the paws we painted some white socks brown, decorated a cereal box with some Scooby Snack signage, I laminated a mask printed off the internet and wolah!

I didn't sew a thing for Milly's costume and she looks pretty pleased with herself. Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth hey?

Sports Carnival Day!

It was Sports Carnival day and night last Thursday. Its done a bit differently up here. Its school as normal and then a quick toilet break and the students assemble in their faction groups and march across the road to the local oval for events that wrap up at 8pm. So a 12 hour school day! But they make up for that by having Friday off. What a stunning backdrop to the evening the scenery was.

Matilda's classmates started the events. Have you ever seen such concentration for the egg and spoon race?

Friendly participation and just trying your best was the aim of the preprimary kids!

Grace did her best kangaroo impersonation with the sack race.

But the best moment of the day was watching Grace come third in her running race! Third!!!!! Our kids are unlikely to become sports stars with me as their mother, so I am more than proud and happy with a third for running!

Local Pumpkins!

Milly had a friend from school over for a play date this afternoon. When the Mum came to pick her daughter up, she had these pumpkins for me! They are massive! Straight off the farm. So this week it is pumpkin soup, pumpkin scones, roasted pumpkin....

Keep River National Park.

We have been across the border a few times to the Keep River National Park. So we packed the grandparents and drove the new car across the border into the frontier that is the Northern Territory! It was the grandparents first visit so we stopped at the border for that snap you just have to take!

I am still amazed at all the walking of trails and gorges that we have done in the last 6 months, the girls still love doing it. They don't complain about it being boring, they set off always going first, sometimes even holding hands!

My favourite shot of the day.

We did the Gurrandalng Walk. Gurrandalng means Brogla Dreaming. In the dreamtime two Aboriginal people traveled from the sea to here. They collected grass and bushes, made a large nest and started to jump around and make noises like a Gurrandalng (Brogla). As the country listened they changed into Broglas. This place is named Gurrandalm - the place of the Gurrandalng.



At the top there was a fantastic view. Here is Milly with her red cheeks, placing a rock on a pile of rocks already there, one rock for every person that has walked here she said.

A whirlwind few days...

Well it has been a busy week with the new car and family here. We have done a lot! Been to Ivanhoe Crossing.

Finally climbed up Kelly's Knob for a view of our town.

Here is Don pointing the way back to Rottnest!

What's a trip to Kununurra without going and feeding the fish at Zebra Rock Gallery!

Think petrol is expensive your way??!! We braced ourselves for the first time we filled the tank! And that is for only half a tank! We then drove back to El Questro and stayed at Emma Gorge Resort like we did last time.

On the drive out we popped into Molly Springs on the way.

Emma Gorge is as beautiful as always. Way to cold for me to swim but Daz, Don and the girls went in for a brisk dip.

Then the boys had a spot of fishing along the Pentecost River.

This view makes up for that horror of a few weeks report writing!

And on the way home we checked out Wyndham which I found bleak and depressing and was so thankful that we got Kununurra as a posting rather than out there!

The New Car!

We interrupt all sewing activity to acknowledge the arrival of our new car! Big day here today! Daz's folks arrived with our new car. We are very excited, having a 4wd just will open up a whole new world of exploring up here. And having such a flash car too!!

The girls were very excited to see their grandparents too. They have driven up from Perth, so about 3,500kms.... we drove out the last 60kms to the Wyndham turn off to meet them, that's how excited we all were!

Here is Daz about to go for his first drive! Let the adventure really begin now!

Milly's Merit Certificate!

Well after being in Grace's shadow when it has come to getting merit certificates, Matilda had her turn at school today! When her name was called out she was a bit surprised and slowly made her way up to the front wondering huh? me? I could just see it on her face! Awarded for being a kind and caring class member who has taken on the role of Sleeping Beauty during our Fairytale theme this term! You were brilliant! (She has fallen asleep TWICE in two weeks at school. Once during story time in the afternoon and this week curled up in a box in the middle of the playground during lunchtime in the sun!) Congratulations Milly!! A great end to a fantastic semester of school, couldn't be prouder of you!

It has been quiet in this KNX blog as it has been a busy term. Sorry Deney I haven't been supplying any lunchtime reading for you! School holidays start in 3 hours (who is counting?!) and then it will be action packed for the next two weeks. Our new car will be arriving on Tuesday, so there will be LOTS of blog action.