This week Tomas was star of the week, which means he had to complete a story about himself with drawings and photos. And bring his favourite things to school (hobbies, toys and photos) to put on display for the class. Then on Thursday he did a presentation to the class. I was lucky to be off work that day to attend – so cute!
During the first week of school holidays, we booked a holiday house in Kangaroo Valley – a gorgeous spot about 2 hours south of us. It was a nice change for us as we usualluy go camping! We were lucky in that we chose a house that not only had a beautiful back porch that overlooked Kangaroo River, the house was also next to a park with a nice walking track that took us to an acess point to the River. The River bank at this point was full of rocks and the kids learned to skip stones and they spent hours buidling rock damns across the River.
The highlights:
A 2 hour kayaking trip down the River. I was impressed that the boys lasted so long on the water without complaining! They were really into it and enjoyed seeing the water dragons sunning themselves on the rocks. Tomas esecially liked the short patches of white water that we went through. Poor Mike got stuck in these sections as his weight was so unevenly distributed in the double kayak as Ethan sat in front (desperate to be with dad). He ended up getting turned around at one point and kayaked backwards! I’m sure it was thrilling for Ethan! Towards the end of the kayaing trip, Ethan had started winging and it was good that we wrapped things up after 2 hours. We docked at a lovley camping spot downstream where a few people were throwing the ball around in the water. Tomas joined in the fun while Ethan climbed up and down the rock ledge making me nervous as heck! Overall a fab trip and I made a mental note of all the camp sites along the way as in the future I hope that we could do an overnight trip when the kids are a bit older.
Feeding the farm animals. The kids loved feeding the goats and a pony at a neighbouring trailor park which we revissited as the kids were really takenby these animals who pretty much ate anything we passed through the fence! (Probably not the best idea for these creatures however – we did our best to give them lovely green leaves and our left over lettuce!)
Fitzroy Falls. We did a 1.6km round trek through native bushland to a look out at the top of Fitzroy Falls. The falls are about 100m high, cascading down a steep valley, so the trek was fenced along the top of the valley as the drop was severe. I was glad for that as the kids really loved running along the path ahead of us – especially Tomas who was like a little ball of energy (really he does get plenty of time outdoors!!). Although the national park didn’t seem very large, as we could hear the highway not far away, it was a nice trek – something we don’t do very often. The falls were a big hit and the kids especially liked the enormous termite mound! On the way back, as we drove through Fitzroy Village we stopped in at an antique shop where we saw tons of unique things, espeically tools like Poppi collects. The kids relaly wanted to buy Poppi something but I explained that one of those saws just wasn’t going to make it home with us.
Alone time – what??? Mike and I enjoyed our evening after the kids had gone to bed and the dishwasher had done our dishes. We vegged out on our back porch listening to possums scrabling up trees. We loved having the extra space for a while – so nice!
Other things that we enjoyed were the amazing meat pies at a restaurant in the middle of no-where, where we ate our pies in the crazy mish-mash back garden of the restaurant and watched the cows across the road; an improptu swim at Gerringong Beach, and delicious freshly made donoughts in Berry (too bad the kids didn’t like them!).
So once a kid receives 10 merit awards from their teacher (for good effort sounding out words, tidying up, listening, etc), they get to go on stage at school assembly and receive a principal’s award, which is handed out by the principal. It’s something to be proud of, that’s for sure! Tomas received his in august – so late with this post!
See Tomas at far left of kids on stage.
Tomas’ performance for kindie to year 2 was held at the prestigious Nida theatre at UNSW. Each class did a song and dance. Tomas’ class (KI) performed the Bare Necessities! It was super cute. The bears danced in a clump at the centre of the stage. It took a few minutes to pick Tomas out among the bears!
The show went for an hour and Ethan very entertained watching it all. Lucky for us that our dear friend Maddie came along. She kept Ethan occupied during those critical last 15 minutes and what a nice surprise for Tomas to see Maddie at the end of the show.
Great performance by all the little-ees!
(Photos taken before the show)
Also just thought I’d mention that the costumes were made by bits and pieces offered by the school and a lot of sewing by the mums including me!!
Enjoying the lovely spring weather…..
Ethan plays rescue with dad while Tomas throws the ball as hard as he can towards………family members who else?
oops missed this post from August 21st – my birthday!
I was spoiled by my lovely family. The boys decorated a beautiful cake covered in heaps of icing and lollies – just the way….I ….er …..they like it!!
The boys also made beautiful bday cards and Tomas picked out a beautiful pair of earings (with some help from Mike – apparently he was going for the really big ones to start!!!).
I also enjoyed a delicious dinner prepared by chef Mike! And then I was off to the Joan Baez concert at the opera house – fab day!
September 1st was father’s day what a lucky dad mike is! The boys made several gifts for dad. Tomas made some beautiful cards with lots of writing inside -that’s a first!! He even drew dad’s portrait – quite the likeness i might add! He also bought dad a pair of guff links from the school’s father’s day stall.
Ethan painted mike a mug and also made some beautiful art pieces!
How loved you are daddy-o!
Happy father’s day!
A very excited Tomas and little brother dressed up in their superhero suits for the school’s parade. Kids were dressed as their favourite book character (although several appeared as movie or TV show characters). Each class paraded around the courtyard while parents and younger sibs watched -too cute!
