On the Sporting Front

The soccer season has wrapped up. It's nice to have our Saturdays back if only for a few weeks before Little Aths begins. We survived the first soccer season of different fields and both girls seemed to have enjoyed themselves. They certainly both improved over the course of the season.

On a different note, Ella did well in her school athletics carnival, making it into the 'zones' for discus and shot put. On competition day at 'zones' she again threw really well and in discus with a distance of just over 17m, she scraped into the ACT PS Champs!

This inspired Ella to do a few last minute practices down at Cook oval.

Cousins, Mia and Luca also both made it to the ACT Champs. With the three cousins competing there was a Hogg descendent in nearly every 10 year old girl event! Not a bad effort really!

Ella's first discus throw was her best measuring 17m+ which placed 5th in the event. According to Nana and Cathy, who were watching, they had thought Ella's marker was in third but once measured it seemed that 2 others were a few centimetres further. Distances can be so deceptive! As for the cousins, both placed mid field in their respective distance races and long jump event. Luca was a speedster in the sprint races placing 2nd!

Book Week

Ah book week..it slowly creeps up on you. Luckily this year costumes were sorted early thanks to a birthday party that was held two week prior to the book week parade day!

Ella went as Artemis, the greek goddess of the hunt and wilderness. Artemis is a character from the Percy Jackson series which Ella has tapped into. She made her own bow and arrows and quiver set!

Katy chose Jane from Mary Poppins!  Katy's class has an app called Seesaw. Her classroom teacher is able to upload photos, videos and messages specific to Katy and her class which we can then view. On one hand I feel this app is another thing for the teacher to do but on the other hand it does provide us with an insight into their day like the following... a book week character review and a class photo.

All was Eggsellent until....

Our baby chickens have begun laying and thus we have been inundated once again with eggs!! They are so cute too being somewhat smaller (as seen in photo below) than Holly's who occasionally lays an egg. We haven't figured out who lays the lighter coloured one.

Unfortunately a few days after these photos were taken, Andy, who went out to feed the chickens, made a gruesome discovery. Both Maggie and Midnight were nowhere to be seen except for a scattering of their feathers and poor Holly was hanging on the fence dead. We suspect a fox had found it's way into our coop eating the little two chickens and attempting to get Holly who unfortunately hung herself on the fence while attempting to escape the foxes jaws.

The girls were devastated and so were we.

Girls Only Ride

As we left Andy asleep on the couch (he was recovering from an early morning long run), it was a girly affair for a late Sunday afternoon mountain bike ride at Majura with Cath and Aoife. All the girls had improved so much since our last visit here. As per usual the jump park was the highlight. We need to do this more often with them....if only there was more time....

Vegies saved!

The possum proof nets that Grandad and I made in the April school holidays are working! My winter vegies have blossomed. It looks like I will get a red and white cabbage. The brussel sprouts are doing something. For the most affected, the broccolini, well it's hanging in there although not sure how much we will actually pick from it! The kale looks curly and lovely. Both the spinach and bok choy are almost ready for harvesting. The broad beans are looking much smaller than the forest they created last year but maybe it's early days. The snow sprouts are climbing and soon we will be inundated with them. The rhubarb is emerging from it's winter sleep and I've just planted the potatoes hoping that there aren't too many more frosty mornings!

Taking Perth by Surprise

My beautiful Mum turned 70 and what a better way to celebrate her birthday with a surprise.... a surprise visit that is! In collusion with Dad and my brother, I arranged to spend a long weekend in Perth.

Flying in on Friday afternoon, Annwen picked me up and we spent several hours at a cafe catching up. Annwen then dropped me around to Daryl's place from where we made our way to Rockpool Bar and Grill at Burswood for an evening of elegant dining. Arriving fashionably late, we surprised Mum, who was enjoying a drink in the foyer area with Dad and their long time friend Sue.

During dinner Mum informed us that my arrival wasn't a complete surprise as she'd overheard Dad slip up during a conversation on the phone the previous day. She was slightly confused though that I hadn't arrived when she had expected me to so she thought she'd misheard.

Anyway dinner was a lovely feast. We skipped on the entree opting for dessert instead however by the time we got to dessert we were all stuffed and couldn't fit it in except for a small piece of birthday cake for the birthday girl!

With the rest of the family staying in Canberra, it was weird to have so much free time! I spent most of Saturday with Annwen walking on the beach, having coffee and going out for dinner. We found a fabulous restaurant in Fremantle called Bread in Common and will definitely be going back there in the future.

Sunday and Monday I spent at Mum and Dad's place doing the odd job, read a couple of books,  did a few runs and tried to tame the garden once again!

We planted more plants, pulled up lots of weeds, mulched the roses and slightly rerouted the pond pump line. All in all a good productive few days.

I returned to Canberra on Tuesday although I was sad to say goodbye to Mum and Dad after a great few days,  I was very happy to be reunited with my little family.

Our ski week finished not exactly how we expected....

Ella and Andy skied off on the Doorack Lodge Challenge. To complete the challenge one starts and finishes at the lodge but must ride the Ridge chair, Eyre T-bar and Scott J bar (representing the three furthest points of the resort) in any order. The time taken is then recorded.

Meanwhile the rest of the gang would head over to Blue Cow, to drop off Josh at his final snow boarding lesson and continue on for another adventure. Conditions were variable with the sun constantly disappearing and reappearing from behind clouds. Ahead of schedule, we decided on  a quick run down Side saddle. Coming off the lift, the sun disappeared making the snow look very flat and the terrain difficult to seen. Katy, Mia and Patrick were out in front and didn't see Josh fall. He was clutching his arm and looked in lots of pain when I got to him. Susie meanwhile was having a little difficulty descending in these conditions with motion sickness.

A nice snowboard instructor came to our aid, asked Josh a few questions, established that he could move his wrist and arm. Josh bravely put his board back on and slowly made his way to the bottom with Susie. I skied ahead informed Patrick of the situation and took the girls who were a bit cold from patiently waiting, for a quick ski.

As arranged earlier we met up at the coffee shop a short time later. However it was only Patrick who was there. It was suggested that Josh have his arm checked out at the ski patrol medical room before continuing to his lesson. A quick assessment and the ski patrol sent Susie and Josh on the ski tube down to Perisher for a 'just in case' X-ray. We enjoyed relaxing in the warmth awaiting some news.

Eventually all energised again, the girls decided they were keen to return to the lodge to play in the snow. With no news we skied back to Guthega. On our arrival we heard that Josh had a buckle fracture of his radius and was getting a temporary back slab!!

A very pleased Ella and Andy arrived having finished the Doorack Challenge in a time of 3h19mins having skied 28kms. After some food, Ella was happy to join Katy and Mia playing in the snow. Josh, with his arm mobilised and in a sling, was making his way back to Guthega via the ski tube and a ride on a skidoo! Andy and I donned our gear aiming to met up with Susie for a few adults only runs around the Summit Chair.

Turns out that Cath and Aoife were coming up to Perisher for the Ski-O weekend. After much indecision thanks to the weather and Josh's accident, we decided to try to meet up texting updates on our progress and location. Susie was keen to get back so left the us to it. Unfortunately my phone died of coldness while we were on Summit and although we still has Andy's phone, Cath had gone strangely quiet on the other end!

Giving up hope, we thought a coffee was in order before heading back to Guthega and so into Cowpuccino we went. While drinking our hot drinks, we watched the comings and goings of outside and suddenly spotted someone looking suspiciously like Aoife! Turns out Cath's phone had died too! They had spent some time at Summit watching skiers come down hoping to find us without any luck!

With the afternoon quickly disappearing, we only had a small ski with them before we both needed to return to our respective accommodation. We definitely need to work out a better plan next year!

And so Andy and I skied fast after realising that the Freedom chair was about to close. Thankfully we just snuck on before enjoying our last run off Guthega Peak returning to the lodge ending our ski holiday for 2017.

Thursday's Tales

Weather conditions were due to change from nice to windy today. Our mission was to ski over to Smiggins and explore the slopes there. So we made a beeline for the Piper t-bar, the link between Perisher and Smiggins.

A beautifully timed morning coffee break at the little cafe at the bottom of the Pretty Valley Chair meant a catch up with a work colleague of mine! While the gang continued on towards Smiggins, I remained and had my annual ski and a lovely catch up with Vera doing a few loops of Interceptor. Soon the wind had picked up as predicted closing the Interceptor chair forcing us to make the crossing over to Smiggins too!

We arrived wondering where the others had got to, only to spot them coming down the run closest to us. Turns out they had finished skiing all the trails and were ready to make their way back! Vera and I did one last run together before parting ways.

Skiing Smiggins Escape we popped back over the ridge and straight into a very strong head wind. Discovering that most lifts were on wind hold, we took advantage to ski on to front valley and catch the skitube up to Blue Cow. This was on the kids to-do-list! Meanwhile Andy opted to find the few t-bars still running and make his own way back to Guthega.

It was a great little change in routine catching the skitube while giving the kids a rest. With the weather conditions not looking like changing, we headed straight back to the lodge, where we were greeted by a wombat who was feeding and ambling along Norwegian trail, the trail behind our lodge. The wombat made it's way to the front of the lodge, enjoying nibbling on a small patch of grass!

The kids were out once again later in the afternoon for more tobogganing fun. Andy and Susie headed out on cross country ski to explore farm creek before returning and spending a good hour or so digging out the cars as the carpark needed to be cleared of snow by the snow plough! Our car was the worst, with snow encroaching on to the bonnet and up to the windows! Some expert driving by Andy saw the car successfully removed from the carpark without damaging it or any other car!

And Another Awesome Day

We were all keen for our second private lesson especially in such perfect conditions! Everyone had something to focus on as we skied Guthega and then on to Mt Blue Cow. The group convinced me to ski Zarli's for the first time which I survived and can now add to my accomplished ski run list!

There were a few hours post lesson for us skiers to explore before returning to pick up Josh and Patrick from their snowboarding lessons. A quick loop of Pleasant Valley, Winter Way and Brumby was completed.

After lunch, the group split once again - Ella headed off with Andy towards Mt Blue Cow (where she did a bit of a black run and was very proud of it too!!) while the remainder of us made our way back to Guthega. Susie and I took advantage of Patrick returning to the lodge with the kids, and kept skiing around Guthega. It was so nice and enjoyable to be able to concentrate on ourselves for once without all the kid wrangling!