Easter @ Bendigo

With our departure to Oxford only 2 weeks post easter and without a car, we had pretty much decided not to take the trip down the Hume Hwy for Easter. However buying a new car, we made a snap decision  to enter with only an hour to spare!

With Andy taking the jump (some may say plunge?) to M40 and not running elites we could take advantage of driving the 7 hours to Bendigo on Good Friday. This included stopping at Holbrook and exploring the submarine (along with the hundreds of other travellers!)

With such a late decision to enter our only real option for accommodation was to camp on the cricket oval with a crowd of other families - both Andy's sisters, Jones/Walters and Candy's. A total of 10 children ranging from 1 - 8yrs in our gang. Great for keeping them all entertained! We were fortunate with the dry weather although it did get very nippy at night.

This year's easter had a fantastic string course. In fact it was so long, that we didn't feel the need to do a enter-on-the-day easy course. The string course focused on Bush Babies and was total SI. Each control had a specific character - with a representative toy too! The map was carefully and cleverly hand drawn and even had a story on the back.

And while they weren't on the string course, the kids were busy building cubby houses, climbing trees, playing in the dirt or generally soaking up the atmosphere in the assembly area.

As for the real courses, each day had different terrain to keep us on our toes - gold mining, granite and spur/gully. Andy enjoyed his battle with the other M40's and even managed to hold off the challenges!

Weekly Routine

After returning home from the coast, Grandad became involved in our general weekly routine. He did the Ella school run on Monday (which in the afternoon wasn't that enjoyable due to a 5yr old girl going on 15! Sorry Dad.)


Tuesday Grandad accompanied Katy to her gymnastics class where she showed off all her moves.


Wednesday we ventured into the The National Arboretum. Stunning views over Lake BG from Dairy Farmers Hill where an eagle guards it's nest! Enjoyed the architecture of visitors centre as well as  the bonsai exhibition.  Coffee wasn't too bad either. Will be fantastic up there in a few years when everything grows up and the playground is established.
Finished the day at swimming lessons at the AIS where both girls have shown great improvements in their swimming abilities.

Thursday and Friday were rest days for Grandad.

While I worked on Saturday morning, Andy and Grandad took it easy. The Aranda School Fete was in the late afternoon. The girls enjoyed face pairing, jumping castles, made a few small purchases while my bike had a service.

We had worked up quite an appetite by this stage and thought the Turkish Pide House would be a great spot for some dinner. We were joined by the Jones/Walter clan. Banquet was delicious and filling as always. The kids became quite rowdy by the end...I'm not too sure why!!!!





Sunday while Andy was out doing orienteering stuff for the Oz carnival, Grandad and I were doing the birthday party rounds - Jackson's 2nd birthday party in the morning and  a classmate of Ella's in the afternoon. Home for a few hours enabled Grandad to pack up his belongings, have a shower and head to the airport.

South Coast with Grandad

Ok so I'm quite behind with our blogs...Dad come over for 10 days before easter. The first weekend, we drove down to the south coast for Isa and Diego's wedding. Staying at Tuross Heads, our unit had beautiful views of the lake and ocean. We did try to swim on the Saturday however were slightly hampered by the chilly water and cool conditions. Instead we made sand castles and explored the rocks for the morning.

That afternoon we prettied ourselves up for Isa and Diego's Buddhist wedding at a secluded beach at Mullimburra Point, about 15mins north of Tuross Head. The ceremony conducted by a local celebrate was simply lovely. It was a pity that the weather wasn't so kind - clouds had rolled in and the wind was very chilly. After the ceremony, we dropped the girls back off at the unit, fed them and left Grandad in charge of bedtime and headed out to the reception held down the road in the local hall. Isa, Diego and co did a fantastic job of self catering for the 35 or so guests.

 The weather conditions hadn't really improved by Sunday, a bit disappointing for Grandad not to see the girls in full beach mode, however we left Tuross Head for our favourite haunt Mossy Point. A play in the river with the boogie boards followed by lunch at the Muffin shop was a great way to finish the weekend before driving home.

Kindy FIrsts

Thought I'd document some of Ella's first from Kindy. First of the first was the Student Achievement Award she received at the first junior assembly. The award was for being confident by settling into kindergarten as well as showing enthusiasm and a positive attitude to school and learning!

Next was the first home reader. Ella had chosen Little Red Riding Hood and enjoyed reading it to Andy and Katy. Both Andy and I are amazed how she can actually read..it's a wonderful process to watch develop.

We've had our first letter (and probably not last) home stating someone in the class has nits ...luckily Ella's head had escaped the infestation.

The next exciting first was the three kindy classes hosting the junior assembly! Andy, Nana and Grandad came to watch. Ella had 2 speaking parts - the first one was welcome to the country which included quite large words (acknowledge, Ngunnawal, traditional custodians). And although she had a bit of help with this first part, she breezed through the second part  a poem based on a book they had been reading in class.

On the weekend we had the school fete! The girls had fun on the batman jumping castle and the giant slide, got their faces painted (Katy chose Hello Kitty and Ella chose a butterfly), I got my bike serviced and we made a few purchases.  The beautiful sunny afternoon made it even more enjoyable.

This week, Ella's class KZW are off on their first excursion to the tip sorry recycling centre.

Happy 100th Canberra!

Today was Canberra Day... and what a spectacular day it was. Just perfect for turning 100 although that's officially tomorrow. So what did we get up to ... started with a street breakfast - egg and bacon rolls at #13... chatting with most of the neighbours.

Next we joined up with a work colleague and her daughter for lunchtime fish'n'chips at the Yacht Club at Yarralumla. Hadn't know this place even existed. The fish'n'chips shop is only open over summer and is served from a window at the bottom of the building. More chatting in a beautiful setting with fairly good food. Definitely will be back.

Then we scooted around the shore of Lake BG to Reconciliation Place to see what the celebrations were all about! I've never seen so many people around the lake in Canberra, although (having not even glanced at a program) it wasn't easy to see what these people were doing, or planning to do. Unfortunately by the time we made it around both girls were flagging. Two fire trucks briefly caught their attention and improved their spirits but we knew that we'd done our dash and turned for home. Maybe when Canberra turns 105 we might have the stamina to last until the fireworks ...

Traumatic Tuesday Update

You probably read about Ella's bike Lucy having a run in with the garage door last month. On closer inspection of the car, it became apparent that the roof rack could not go back on the car due to the bent bits on the interior component of the driver and passenger doors. The doors themselves closed perfectly and the dent in the roof was minimal.

Anyway we rely heavily on the bike roof rack so decided to have it assessed to see whether to make a claim on our car insurance. Let me say we had never before made a claim and we were about to get educated!

Now our old car, aka Betsy, was a 2000 Nissan Pulsar, she had seen better days but was perfectly fine for us especially since we are off to the UK in 6 weeks time. We had just renewed our car insurance policy ($600 for the year) where Betsy had dropped $1500 to $3000. So it was extremely unfortunate that the garage incident happened 5 days into our new policy.

Thinking that we would be paying an excess of $600 to have Betsy repaired just so that we could use the roof racks, we were astounded when the assessor rang to tell us that Betsy was too expensive to repair and would be written off!  He explained further that the whole roof panel needed replacing, it would have to come from Japan which would take 6 weeks and following that the whole car would need to be spray painted all costing much more than the car was worth.

The words written off was Betsy's death sentence. From that point in time Betsy was no longer insured (except for 3rd party person). Even if we cancelled the claim, Betsy was branded as written off and still not insured. We had no option but to take the cash (minus the excess of course) and we were instantly without a car!!

Thank goodness for family, we were able to juggle using Nana's car and all of a sudden we were in the market for a new car. Luckily we had already been discussing the options of our next car envisaging to buy one towards the end of the year. These discussion were all pointing towards a small, front wheel drive SUV.

One saturday afternoon we left the girls with Nana and did a lap of the car yards at Belconnen. Our list quickly whittled down to Mazda CX5 and VW Tiguan. An annual leave day in the following week saw us test drive both as well as negotiate the best deal.

Introducing Loopsy, aptly named by the girls, the Mazda CX5 who we picked up today!

Sunday Activities

Sunday dawned and Andy headed to Slap Up Creek for the day (he is controlling the 2013 Australian Long Distance Orienteering Champs event to be held in October). Rather than go on the merry-go-round in town, we ventured out to the Hall Markets for a real pony ride. Ella was convinced that she was going to ride a Falabella (miniature pony) she had seen in a book.

Meet Calypso, a 20 year old chestnut pony who dutifully took Ella and Katy around after I had emptied my purse of money ($9 per child for about a 200m loop!!) Both girls beamed and were very excited by the whole adventure. We enjoyed some dutch pancakes and that was the morning.

Our afternoon plans involved attending Josh's 8th birthday party. He had decided to have an orienteering, code breaking, treasure hunt around his suburb.  Wasn't sure how Katy was going to keep up with 8 year olds so I threw in her balance bike which proved to be an awesome move. 

Maki, Ella, Katy and I started the course early and managed to mostly stay ahead of the pack. At each control, there was a symbol with corresponding letter as well as a little challenge e.g. go down slide 3 times, throw 3 water balloons at someone....there was even a monster who jumped out of a thicket...Ella looked worried, Maki said that's my monster mask and Katy just cried!!

Eventually we got to the last clue, cracked the code to discover the treasure was hidden in a nearby hedge! Susie, Patrick and Grandpa did an awesome job at organising and coordinating the whole thing without losing any of the guests as well as making a very impressive treasure chest cake!