Sunday, March 28, 2010

Random Ramblings

We celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary on wednesday night - it was a very romantic dinner at some posh restaurant - NOT! I was busy finalising the start list for the easter twenty10 carnival and Andy was off socialising with an old friend from Canada who was in Canberra only for a few days! Perhpas when this carnival is over we will go out for dinner somewhere nice...

I headed off to Bateman's Bay for an ultrasound conference on Saturday and took up the opportunity to stay over night. It was my first time away from Katy and about my 4th time away from Ella!! I was looking forward to a relaxing night but ended up in bed by 9.30pm with a cold! Typical - but at least I did get about 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep which I haven't been able to do for absolute ages - well at least 10 months or so. The other irony is that Katy slept from 7.30pm til 6.30am (or else Andy didn't wake up to her crying.) Andy enjoyed his first go at going solo!

The conference content was mostly interesting well presented. Topics included Working out Multiples (twins, triplets..), What can the placenta tell us?, Head to Toe - Interesting Cases, Shoulder and Groin ultrasounds. It was also nice to socialise with my colleagues without the time pressures that we have at work :)

Countdown has begun for our easter twenty10 carnival. Things are mostly under control. The traffic issues I previously blogged about has been resolved. Now the main problem is 2 packets of maps from Day 2 have gone missing in the post! The maps have been printed on special paper called Teslin and done in Adelaide. Fingers crossed we will be able to track them down tomorrow.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

O @ Glendale

As we needed to checkout the parking area (again) for Day 1 of easter twenty10 on Sunday so we decided to go orienteering as it was on the way. While Andy ran around the long course, Ella, Katy and I decided to tackle the blue course. I'd brought Ella's bike with us thinking that the course would be on tracks and therefore I wouldn't have to end up carrying two girls.



We met up with Nana, Maki and Luca who were also going to do the blue course. By the time we got to the start Ella had a meltdown - mainly because there were 2 SI cards for 3 little people. So I headed back to the rego to borrow another one. Then at the start we discovered the course was pretty much all through the bush so we ditched the bike.



It was slow going with 3 toddlers walking and falling over through the bush. Just before number 6, on some nice grass under a shady tree we decided that it was time for a rest and picnic. It was there Nana and I discussed how far to go - which started off with let's cut off part of the course and ended up with let's just walk straight back. A wise decision - Maki and Ella were hot and tired and Luca needed cuddles most of the way back!


Off to Gudgenby on the way home to calculate how many cars we could fit in the limited parking area which turned out to be all ok.

Monday, March 22, 2010

From Little Things...

Big things grow! We have been watching a few interesting things in the back garden recently.

First - is pumpkins! Apart from an abundance of
tomatoes, the pumpkins were our only other success in the vegie patch over summer. And now some of them are ready to be picked.

Second - is flowers. Ella LOVES flowers. She
planted petunias with Grandpa which are all flowering beautifully. The most recent flower to blossom is this big sunflower.

Third - is caterpillars! Ella actually spotted the first caterpillar on a leaf of our lime tree as I was hanging out the washing. Then together we found another 2. Each day we check on them to see what they are up to. Today we could only see 2 caterpillars. Not sure whether the other one was hiding or has disappeared (eaten?). They are slowly getting fatter and I hope will soon make a cocoon.

Andy told me how last Friday on arriving at Sundews (childcare), Susan (one of the carers) asked Ella how the caterpillar was going. Ella replied something like big caterpillar, made a big house, then came out as a big butterfly with lots of colours and flew away. Hmm perhaps she was thinking about the Hungry Little Caterpillar Book cause our caterpillars are still munching away on the lime leaves much to Andy's delight!

Friday, March 19, 2010

Fantastic Friday (but not for Andy).

Today was FANTASTIC!

Perhaps it was because I had done all the
housework/food shopping during the week and because I didn't need to go to any appointments and because I didn't have to much stuff for easter twenty10 (the program is nearly finished!)

We began our morning with a long walk with Pippa. I can't remember the last time I had time to just go for a walk (without walking to the shops/markets/playground). Katy chatted the whole way in the backpack.

Back home a few little chores needed doing - unpack dishwasher, hang out washing, water the back lawn etc. Meanwhile Katy did her own exploring - she has begun to crawl! She isn't doing marathons yet but she is definitely up on all 4's and moving in the right direction. After all that exercise it was off to bed for a sleep.

Lunch followed with Katy eating slices of semi cooked apple as she now really enjoys feeding herself. Then while Katy entertained herself with her toys I did a few computer things related to easter.

To break up the afternoon we had a swing in the front garden and then ventured to the post office and bookstore. Now Katy is asleep again!

I know Andy's day wasn't fantastic like mine. After submitting all the road traffic plans to the relevant people for the easter carnival, it was discovered that they had used the wrong intersection on one of the major highways. We thought it wouldn't be a problem and could just move the already established road signs 2km up the highway. WRONG!

Now the NSW RTA have said they couldn't accepted the plans anyway as they wouldn't be able to reduce the speed limit on a major highway on Easter Monday. Background information for you is that we will have around 400 cars turning right off the Federal Highway (a big dual carriageway highway with a 110km speed limit) into a small road which services several farms. This turn is on a sweeping right hand bend with a small slip lane for the turning cars.

Ok so let's go with plan B (turning left off the highway onto a small lane, follow this for about 1km then turn right onto another road which then intersects with the Federal Highway and cross over then head back to the event turn off which would then be on the left.) This all looked good on google maps however when Allison drove out there today just to check, the road which we plan to turn left onto has a locked gate across it!! Haven't heard what has happen as yet but will keep you posted on this lastest easter twenty10 saga.

Monday, March 15, 2010

easter twenty10

At the moment life is a little crazy - busy crazy that is. I don't have anyone to blame except for Andy perhaps....He suggested just over 12 months ago that we should help organise the big Easter orienteering carnival to be held in Canberra in 2010. So together with Allison and Shannon Jones we formed the organising committee for the easter twenty10 carnival.

For most of the time it's been pretty cruisy and usually involved eating cookie n cream ice cream while discussing items on the adgenda. There have been a few stresses along the way - mostly revolving around the technical aspects of the carnival - one of our mappers became very sick prior to finishing a map and gaining permission to use Namadgi National Park for one of our days.

The new year saw the workload slowly increase as the carnival gets closer. The last few weeks have been particularly tiring as I have been compiling the program booklet - gathering information from too many people and trying to condense it as much as possible as well as making orienteering maps of a section adjacent to the arena for the Blue Sparks to use. They will provide fun activities for 5 - 12yr olds. This is also the reason for the lack of blogging entires over the past month.

A friend told me today that I have three jobs - part time work 8.30am - 5pm, family work 5 - 8pm then night job 8 - 12pm! All I can say it that I am looking forward to when my night time job finishes....actually it's now 8.32pm and I'm late for work!!

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Just for Grandpa

Hi Grandpa
I've been watering the plants just like you said to and now look aren't the flowers pretty!
Love Ella xx

Friday, March 5, 2010

Thief

There seems to be a thief in our house who likes to chew the eyes off any soft toy that happens to by lying around on the floor. Seeing though neither Andy nor I like chewing soft toys; Katy only has three teeth and Ella well she has a good appetite which revolves mainly around pasta, it leaves only 1 other person (actually dog) in the house - Pippa!

Pippa is usually good about leaving the girls soft toys alone. I think one or two may have become hers and a few have had a tour around the back garden. However lately I have noticed that Pippa takes out a soft toy from the bottom shelf of Ella's bookcase, only chews the hard eye out then leaves the toy and the eye on Ella's rug. The emus are all now blind and today Pippa's latest victim was the leopard!

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Returning Home

I got home from the US after 2 weeks on Sunday. The girls were happy to see me, and in fact both had a hard time letting go of me when I dropped them at childcare on monday. Actually, Ella bawled her eyes out (which hasn't happened fo about a year), so I guess she did miss me (despite her assertions to the contrary).

One of the reasons the US trip has been much anticipated is because of plans to buy a chariot bike trailer while I was there. As with many things, the Chariots are about half price in the US, but buying it there created several complications. The first was the difficult in persuading REI that I really wanted it, and the fact that my spam filter eliminated their emails when they wanted to check whether I was real. So, when I got to Portland I headed straight across to the store (20 minutes walk) and emerged with a box which was impossible to carry that distance. Taxi was the only option. Then I had the problem of getting this box to the airport on the train, getting it on the plane (the united baggage girl wanted to charge me, but I told her it was a stroller which doesn't incur a charge -- she asked me where the baby was, of course ...) getting it through a jammed customs hall in sydney and, finally, having to unpack it from its box to fit it in the car home from Sydney. Nonetheless, the trailer is now here, and the girls seem to like it. We've had a few rides around the block, but Katy is still a bit small for her helmet, so riding to uni with them may hav to wait awhile....