Happy Halloween

We've never really got into the Halloween palava. This year though both girls were horrified that Andy's annual work retreat was planned for that weekend. They pleaded and begged and yelled and yelled more and suggested different options all involving them staying in Canberra for Halloween. We weren't budging  though and were therefore very unpopular. The weather gods however took great pity on them and organised a huge storm resulting in the camping trip to be abandoned. Both girls were happy!

Halloween arrived and the girls donned their respective outfits - Ella went as the Queen of Hearts, having spent the previous two weeks creating and sewing her outfit. Katy went as a zombie! 

Both girls met their friends. Ella joined a very large group of girls who unfortunately after a short period of time splintered up. Ella and her friend Chen decided to go solo and after securing enough lollies and chocolates to sink a ship, made their way back to our place. Meanwhile, Al and I trailed behind the littler girls - Katy, Mira, Ari and Alma with her friends. As we wandered the streets of Cook bumping into various people - some friends, some strangers - we were very impressed by a few houses who had gone to exceptional efforts to create something special for those out. The Nightmare on Moss St did a stirling decoration effort as did another house that had constructed a downpipe to delivery one's chosen chocolate!

And so it really is pretty obvious as to why the girls have taken a sudden an interest in Halloween when their loot bag looks like this...

Cold Weather Returns

It's snowing inside - oh no actually that's Indi destroying her bed again!! The temperature has plummeted recently and we've resorted to lighting the fire again. Is summer ever coming?

 

Garden Harvest

A nice selection of produce from the garden - broad beans, peas, an abundance of lemons and the beginnings of micro greens.

Andy's Birthday

 Birthdays on work / school days are difficult but we did manage a birthday cake for Andy. I made up for it over the weekend when I made a lemon tart. It was delicious! 

Bookweek

Aranda PS book week was scheduled for Week 2 of Term 4, a little alter than usual. Katy's friendship group decided to choose characters from the book Lion Down which is part of the Funjungle series written by Stuart Gibbs. Katy's character was Lily Deakin an environmental activist rebel who saves all the animals. 

 

Pink Streak

Ella turned up to dinner with pinkish hands. I asked what she had been doing to have pink stained hands and got no sensible reply. We continued eating dinner and thought no more.

Some time later in the evening, I noticed pink splashes all over the girls white vanity. A little annoyed that this mess wasn't cleaned up and was difficult to remove, I once again asked Ella what she had been doing as I walked into her bedroom. There I was confronted with Ella who had her hoodie up over her head and securely fastened under her chin so only her face was visible. The penny then dropped - omg what had she done!

Calmly (but worried and furious inside), the rest of the conversation went something like -

Me - Have you coloured your hair?

Ella - Maybe

Me - Do you want to show us?

Ella - No

Me - You'll have to show us sometime. You do have to go to school tomorrow. When you are ready come and show us, we will be in the lounge room.

About 15 minutes later, Ella emerges with the hoodie still over her head. Nervously she finally reveals her experiment. On either side of her face are streaks of pink and the bottom few cm's of all of her hair is also pink! I'm slightly stunned while Andy says - it looks good. Are you happy with it? Ella says kinda. 

Eventually we learn that she has wet tissue paper to use as the dye to colour her hair! Not sure where she got the idea for that from. Anyhow her coloured hair lasted about a week before it washed out and returned to her natural blonde.

Later the next week Ella accompanied Andy to his haircut at the local shops. She was keen to talk to Bernie (the hairdresser) about the best way to colour hair. Some 15 minutes later and $15 poorer, Bernie added two pink foils to Ella's hair. She was so happy! Not surprisingly these lasted a little longer than the tissue paper attempt.

New Friends

After another clean out of the pond that was much required thanks to Indi's digging, we have decided to remove all of the plants, take a scoop of azolla from our neighbours pond and erect a more substantial fence. Also with only 3 goldfish remaining, we decided to purchase two more fish.

 Exisiting fish Comet, Tiger-lily and Jazzy

New friends - Blossom and Delilah

Summer Sport

Roll on summer sport.... Little aths and netball for Ella (no photos) and Little aths (only 5 girls in Katy's age group) and futsal (the Puma's have a new uniform)

School for Indi

For the last 8 weeks on Thursday nights from 7 - 8pm, we all venture along with Indi to the Belconnen Dog Obedience School located in Mitchell. Along with 10 or so other puppies, Indi tries to learn how to behave! A difficult task when you get so excited to see all the other dogs! The girls complain about going and them being there and I don't blame them as it's usually dark and freezing. However we feel it's a non negotiable part of owning a dog.

Indi improved over the 8 weeks. She is generally a fairly obedient dog except when she meets a new person or dog! We were pleased to see that she passed Beginners Level and has graduated to the Bronze level. The girls are slightly less pleased to hear that this involves going to dog school for another 8 weeks!

To help reward everyone for their efforts, we usually stop on the way home to get an ice cream. During these trips to and from dog class, we have discovered that Indi loves the wind in her face! Too cute!

Exploring Micalong Creek

Overnight conditions were cool and we were greeted to bright blue skies in the morning! Breakfast was a two take affair - damper on sticks followed by egg and bacon wraps.

The whole gang decided on a short walk along Micalong Creek to the falls. The first part of the route was fine but the track quickly became rough. A bit of rock scrambling was necessary.

The falls themselves were fairly underwhelming so the girls decided to explore a path which headed through a blackberry tunnel and up the side of the hill away from the river. One of the dad's and I stayed down the bottom with Indi, waiting patiently for their return. Indi paddled into the water while waited and waited and waited. Finally worrying enough, we decided we should go looking, so the dad ventured off. Within minutes of leaving though, the sounds of the girls were wafting through the bush.

These intrepid explorers had found themselves in a few precarious situations scrambling / rock climbing up some steep slopes before finally Andy hauled them back in! Tales of their adventure could be heard as we wandered hot and bothered back to the campsite.

 

While the girls cooled down in the river, we cooked a few sausages on the bbq for lunch before packing up the campsite and making the return drive home. Katy was thrilled with her party and we couldn't have been more happy to host the occasion with a wonderful bunch of girls (and dad's!)

Belated Birthday Camping Party

Unfortunately for Katy, June is cold in Canberra, so not the nicest time to go camping. Plus with Covid, we decided to push back her camping party to sometime later in the year. After months of nagging, we booked into a dog friendly camping spot at Wee Jasper.

Five friends were invited which meant including Katy, all the girls could fit into out 6 person tent! Ella, Andy, Indi and I squeezed ourselves into a four person tent. We also had two dad's join us to help keep our sanity!

Conditions were perfect as was the location. We arrived at the Micalong Creek Reserve late on Saturday afternoon. The campsite selected, tents organised and dinner cooked. S'mores (sandwich made from chocolate digestive biscuit and toasted marshmallows) were devoured for dessert and sparklers were run around to burn off the sugar!

First Crop

I was super excited to spot these beauties n our garden! Now I'm hoping these cherries will ripen before the bird and possums notice them!

Rain at the Beach

On the way home, we were tempted by the rest of the gang who'd gone down to the beach to test out the surf. The water was still cold and choppy, but we all got in and had fun trying to stand up on our boards!

Rainy Day Out

With the forecast of rain, we opted to visit Potoroo Palace - a native animal sanctuary. Katy was keen to have a koala encounter! Having visited the Palace before, we knew what to expect. However we were pleased to discovery a few new additions.

The Spotted Quoll was out and about.

This goose was following this emu. We later learnt that it was love struck!

 

This swan developed a conditions called Angel Wing - where the last joint of the wing is twisted usually due to a high calorie diet that can be caused from overfeeding on bread. The things you learn...no more feeding the ducks.

Unfortunately due to Covid restrictions, the koalas encounters were not available and Katy has to resort to cuddling a Woma python after we listened to a very informative chat on this endangered species and snake in general. It was a great few hours.