In Our Backyard

Another caching afternoon with Cath and Aoife. This time on bikes aiming to find a few hard to get to caches close to home. We celebrated our 50th cache with our first find!

 

Taking a break at the Glenloch gorge (which I never knew existed) before visiting Glen Loch! Both of these areas are within the spaghetti junction of Glenloch interchange.

The surprises just kept coming. Our highest cache was on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin 4.3m up a tree!! The girls got their brave on and ventured up to touch it!

And the final cache was Groot's Grotto. Someone has excelled in their cache making on this one :)

 

We have a Teenager!!

Lord help us!! Ella has become a teenager!! Embracing this new phase, she was stoked to receive a new phone! Katy served Ella breakfast in bed - pancakes with strawberries drizzled in chocolate and a freshly squeezed orange juice. It was a generally quiet day thanks to covid but we did have Aoife over for birthday dinner.

  

 

Covid Projects

The covid projects have begun! Katy hasn't yet found a project but the rest of us have.

Andy is constructing a new work bench. Using recycled roof beams that were destined to become fire wood, Andy imposed one rule - the bench needed to be constructed using only hand tools!! The design evolved and this is the current status of top of the said bench.



Meanwhile, I came home from work one day to find Ella covid project on her door... She is also steaming along with her knitting.

As for me, the garden is doing well. The few packet of seeds that I managed secure at the start of the covid outbreak, have sprouted! Peas and peas plus leeks, red cabbage, spinach and lettuce have emerged.

Caching at Karma

Another round of covid caching, this time in the Karma Nature park. Glorious to be out in the fresh air and sunshine exploring this small area very close to home. A handful of caches including a letterbox one!!  We had a lovely time discovering these caches that came with a variety of difficulty. Tick tock dances  made an appearance thanks to Ella and Aoife and the rest of us young ones(!!) had to learn the moves. Also there was a stick javelin throwing competition. A squishy drive home with slightly more children than seats...

 

 

Happy Iso Birthday to Me!

It was a work day for me on my birthday so it wasn't in complete isolation!! Got some lovely gifts too - wrieless ear pods, new cheese knives, a 3 piece camping eating kit, a long puffy and a dwarf apple tree! With lots of spare time on the weekends, I must say the garden is looking great.

 

Keeping it Local

Eater = camping for our family usually at the Easter Orienteering event but not this year. Nevermind, again keeping things local, Katy and Mira set up the tent in the front garden and enjoyed a night of camping.

New Territory

As with many sporting events and covid, it was no surprise that the Orienteering Easter 3 Day Carnival to be held around Orange was cancelled. Instead we had to find something local to fill in our Easter long weekend. Cath and I decided on a long run and a long ride!

It was a super morning for our ride which saw us head through the arboretum, around the back of Denman Prospect (new territory for us) and into a bit of single track at Stromlo before returning through the suburb of Wright and back again though the arboretum. A glorious venture out!

Mixed Success

Sewing and knitting has been taking place in our house lately with mixed success.

Ella whipped up a couple of tops for herself made from scrap material and an old pair of jeans! Below is one of her creations. Then she turned her focus to knitting. This time she has decided on a cardigan and has already finished the back.

 

Meanwhile only 14 months after I started knitting, I was excited to have finally finished my jumper! The excitement was short lived though. I really like the colours, it is just a huge pity about the shape - too wide at the bottom and too short!!! So now I get the awesome task of unraveling it while contemplating what I should try next!!

Farewell Pippa

We woke up to a grey, rainy day reflecting our mood as we remembered it would have been Pippa's 16th birthday. Thankfully the sunshine broke through in the afternoon and we took the opportunity to walk up Mt Painter to scatter some of Pippa's ashes. We found a lovely spot on the west side overlooking the Brindabellas. It was very busy at the summit with loads of people up there enjoying the views and sunshine.

On the way down we detoured for a few caches. Ella and Andy left us after the first one. Katy and I ventured around the west side of Mt Painter to tick a few more off the list.

Back home, the rest of Pippa's ashes were scattered under our beautiful snow gum in the backyard and her tag hangs in the tree as a memory.