Holiday Time

While we jetted off to WA for the national orienteering champs, Indi travelled a shorter distance to start her holiday at the O'Dowd residence. 

Indi actually left a few days before us allowing time to settle into her new home with 3 other dogs - Leo, Cooper and Echo! It was the the two older black/whites against the two younger sillier brown/white dogs! From all accounts Indi had fun and the dogs got along well.

We are all super impressed to receive photo updates by Nadine and Sean who without blinking took all four dogs on holidays to Fingal Bay a 5.5hr drive north! Crazy....

For us we landed in Perth late afternoon with Grandad picking us up. Both the Grandies look in much better health than they were in January which was lovely to see. 

It was a quick change though before making our way to South Beach in time to meet up with Annwen, Ashley and Nathan plus Jan, Russell and Jessica as well as Cath, Eoin, Aoife and Carolyn for fish'n'chips. A beautiful warm clear evening but unfortunately the cooking of the takeaway took longer than expected and we mostly missed the sunset.

The next morning it was back to south beach for a refreshing swim followed by coffee again catching up with the Candy gang and their pooches Amy, Bailey and Muss (although I didn't get her photo.)

Andy spent the day at UWA working. Meanwhile I did a bit of last minute shopping with the girls before dropping them off at the airport to meet up with the rest of the ACT Schools Team.

Pampered Pet

Normally Indi's haircuts have been around the $100 mark. Unless of course she gets a naughty (doesn't like being brushed or clipped) fee or a matted fee - then you can add on another $30 ish. 

Today however when I picked her up - she got compliments about how much better she was and that there were very few matted bits! Nice work Indi.

We proceeded to go through the checkout only to be hit with a $150 bill! That's a a little too much I thought and so questioned it. It had been put through as a large dog - but Indi is only 14kgs. Walked back to the lady who does the grooming only to be told it was cheaper than being charged for a medium dog and adding extras....oh and we've also put the prices up. I really think that they have too much business and are trying to cash in. I might need to learn how to use clippers...

So despite being 3 x as much as Katy's shampoo and hair cut done on the same day, Indi does look rather nice. All ready for a holiday....

Mystery Wood

 Which one to choose?? More details to follow...

Hard Work Pays Off

The ACT School Athletics Championships took place at the Woden track. Ella participated in her favourite throwing events - javelin and discus and her least favourite throwing event - shot put. Hammer trials were combined with a High Noon Seniors Athletics meet a few weeks ago.

She won both discus (29.72m) and javelin (33.84m) and placed =5th in shot put (7.86m). In hammer she only had one throw 36.64 and placed 2nd.

With these performances Ella has been selected in the ACT Schools Athletics Team which will travel to Perth to compete at the Schools National Champs in early December. 

Gym comp #2 - ACT State Champs

Katy participated in her 2nd competition for the season and had her strongest performances across all the apparatus. 

Floor 8.5 (5th), Beam 8.125 (6th), Bars 9.3 (3rd) and Vault 9.3 (=3rd).

Her consistency paid off with a 2nd place overall!

Rebuild Progress Report

Work continues on next door. It is slow going. We have had a few peeks inside too which seems to be more complete than the outside.

Last Skiing of the Season

After a week of work and conferencing, Andy took Paul and Kaihe up to Guthega to be in the last snow of the season. They managed a backcountry trip each day.

The first trip was supposed to be up Mt Twynam however poor visibility hampered those plans. As a result the guys stuck to the lower slopes of Crummer Spur. They found nice snow and had a good time despite the walk to and from Illawong.

The next day was a lap of Mt Tate and Guthega Trig in sunnier conditions! It was a shorter day allowing for the drive home in order to make the scheduled flights.

Blue Lightning Super Sprints

As a fundraiser for the ASOC Schools Orienteering Team, the Blue Lightning ran a Tri-O at Haig Park. The format was a fun new initiative combining a three 'training' type courses which one's time for each was accumulated. The fastest 6 women and fastest 6 men made the sprint final!!

  

There was lots of happy people running around and the final sprint was great to watch! Fun times!