Easter Extravaganza

We hope our regular readers (both of them) will excuse our blogging performance of late; the point is that we've all been rather busy, thanks to our easter twenty10 orienteering carnival. Things really ramped up in the last couple of weeks before the races, and stayed at fever pitch for the Easter weekend. We had a few days to draw breath before we were up to Cooma for the second set of races. All in all, 7 races, 6 Arenas to set up, courses to check, trucks to drive, crises to deal with. Despite about 100 or so volunteers there was still a staggering amount of work to be done, and much of it fell onto the shoulder of Nat & Al.

Needless to say, the kids pretty much played second fiddle during this time, as Nat & I raced around trying to get things done. For starters, we experimented with camping in 2 hiking tents -- Nat with Katy and me in with Ella. The first night we camped was Good Friday out in Namadgi and if it weren't for the stress we were under it would have been a beautiful setting. Having never camped before, it was great fun playing around inside tents and with sleeping bags, but there were a few difficult adjustments. Ella had trouble staying in her sleeping bag and kept getting cold -- at one stage she even tried to escape from the tent. Katy just did her normal trick of waking for a 2am feed, and Nat then discovered how much more difficult it is to prepare warm milk (and Katy is *very* fussy about the temperature of her milk) when you're in a tent. But we all survived, and by Sunday night (our second camping expedition) they were kind of used to it. It also helped having the Collector Hotel nearby with steak, chips and beer on offer.

The second weekend we stayed in a small cottage onsite, and had Al, Rob, Max & Mira with us. Ella and Max had a great time together and slept in the same room!! (Until Ella crept into our room at ungodly hours each morning.) They also ran around a lot together, but as tiredness took it's toll Ella's capacity to niggle Max came to the fore. Katy took a fair interest in Mira -- poked at her eye and grabbed at her ears. On the other hand, Ella has a new best friend, Becca, a 12year-old super-child-minder (see photo).

Finally, we're back into a normal routine, but have returned to work feeling very much like we need a holiday. Luckily we've booked our regular holiday house down the coast for the Anzac day weekend.