Christmas is Coming

A family tradition that is now in it's 5th year is the homemade advent calendar. This years creation was a branch of hanging large origami stars. All completed just in time for the countdown to start!

This year's list of treats -

1. Put up decorations and clay

2. Money $10

3. Magazine Christmas tree

4. Ornament

5. Act of Kindness – make someone smile

6. Lunch order

7. Handmade markets

8. Bake - Tim tam balls

9. Jigsaw

10. Xmas Movie Night

11. Bath bomb

12. Moisturiser

13. Earrings

14. Sunset cinema The Lion King

15. Gingerbread star tree

16. Shower gel

17. Calendar

18. Adopt a Koala

19. Tickets to Cirque Stratosphere

20. Lake Burley Griffin Aqua Park

21. Kids Choice

22. Bake - Joulutorttu

23. Breakfast at Oink

24. Dreamworks Exhibition

25. France & Japan Photobook

Big Thanks Grandad

After a busy few weeks hanging around with us first in Adelaide and then in Canberra, it was time for Grandad to return to Perth. We appreciate how much he did for us and can't wait for him to visit again.

Primary School O Champs

Under warm sunny skies, the girls participated in the Primary School O Champs held this year at Yarramundi Reach on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.

It was Ella's last competition at these championships as she will be in high school in 2020. Unfortunately for her, not her best race as she missed control #4 (and hadn't realised until the download) so incurred a 5min time penalty. Despite this she still picked up 3rd place.

Katy ran her course without incident and came 4th, only 2 seconds behind Mira in 3rd! Ariadna, another school friend finished 2nd.

The best news was that Aranda Primary School won (retained) the Champion School trophy with so many fantastic performances. A great day out!

Back Fence Project

To keep Grandad from being bored while visiting we always try to find a project for him to do. This week it was creating a storage rack against the back fence. Initially we recycled some timber from the garage to create the rack. However on a trip to Bunnings, we decided to add a couple of decorative screens. Glad we did as the decorative screens cover up the ugly decrepit fence.

 

 

Final Day of Play

It was no surprise that the ACT girls team was on the bottom of the ladder having lost all their games. After 5 rounds of cricket the standing were -

1. NSW
2. VIC
3. QLD
4. SA
5. WA
6. ACT

Having played all week at the Karen Rolton ovals, Ella and Andy were required to trek out towards the beach to West Beach playing fields.

WA was first to bat scoring 9/139 in the 35 overs. ACT tried their best but were all out for 83. Ella came in as final batter, facing 2 balls before being bowled out.

After their team debrief, the girls made their way back to the Karen Rolton oval for the closing ceremony.

In the grand final matches, NSW had a convincing victory over VIC in the girls competition (0/174 to 6/173). What was super impressive was that both teams had a batter score in the 90's!! Meanwhile in the boys competition VIC 6/158 defeated QLD who were all out for 141.

And so that ended the week of cricket. Andy and Ella had one more night in the cottage before returning the next morning on the super early direct flight to Canberra.

Reinforcements Arrive

Andy flew into Adelaide last night having been at a conference in Hobart all week. He was looking forward to being involved in Ella's cricket journey. Today was the final round before the grand final play offs. ACT was up against the home team SA.

SA batted first with one girl achieving an impressive 61 runs. Their total after 35 overs was 8/150. Ella bowled her first over of the championships, which I got to see minutes before catching a taxi out to the airport - I was flying back to Canberra to rescue Grandad!!

After lunch, ACT began batting their innings well and were 3/70 but then had a slight mid field collapse ending up all out for 105, their highest score for the tournament. Ella again got to unofficially bat and this time was got out lbw on the third ball she faced.

Ella was losing a little enthusiasm as the week went by. The main reason for this was the lack of opportunity at wicket keeping. She was under the impression that she was the back up wicket keeper and thus had hoped to have more than 5 overs in this role. Talking to a few other parents it seemed Ella wasn't the only one feeling low. We listened to her concerns and encouraged her to stay focussed on the positives fo this experience.

20°C Difference!

Amazing what a difference 12 hours can make! We were sweltering in 42°C heat yesterday only to be shivering in the windy and misty rain today!! Thankfully I threw my rain jacket in at the last minute before heading off to watch ACT take on WA.

ACT won the toss and elected to bat. Ella was last to bat, faced two ball and scored a run before her team mate was bowled. ACT all out for 94. WA was off to a shaky start with ACT taking 5/37. Unfortunately for the ACT one of the WA girls came up to the crease, scoring 46 runs off 31 balls and suddenly their advantage slipped away. WA won the match 6/95.

 

 

 Tomorrow is a rest day so Ella and I are off to watch Ride Like a Girl at the movies.

New Friends

Meanwhile back in Canberra, Skittles and Karri were making friends at Mia's house!!

Excursion Day

A busy day without any cricket! Today was excursion day for the ACT girls however it was scheduled for the afternoon. With a forecast of 42°C, we began the day with breakfast at Mr Sunshine before continuing a little further down the road to the Ice Skating rink. The girls enjoyed zooming around on skates for an hour.

 

Returning to the cottage we had lunch before I took Ella into town meeting the team at the South Australian Museum. Meanwhile Grandad and Katy were back at the cottage busily packing their bags ready for the return trip back to Canberra.

Thankfully the drop off was smooth and the tram ride short so I managed to get back to the cottage in time to see off Grandad and Katy. A great opportunity for Katy to spend a few days with Grandad back in Canberra going to school, netball, little aths....

I then had an hour to relax so grabbed a book and laid down on the couch! Ella was busy with the SA team on a digital adventure accruing as many points as possible by completing challenges and finding hidden objects in the museum. From all accounts it sounded like they had fun.



After sleuthing at the museum, the team headed over to the Adelaide Oval. Here they toured the stadium learning about it's history. Ella was particularly interested in the bird that made history...

In a Sheffield Shield match at Adelaide in 1969 Inverarity was not yet off the mark when a Greg Chappell delivery completely changed direction in mid-air, suddenly nose-diving to flatten the stumps. Bewildered, Inverarity looked to the heavens and trudged off. The new batsman was almost at the crease when the umpire Colin Egar signalled dead ball. A swallow, now also dead and lying some yards behind the wicket, was revealed as the cause and Inverarity was recalled, going on to make 89.

 

Competition Begins

Each day in Adelaide was much the same - Ella and I walked to the oval in time for the in a pre game  team meeting and warm up. I left her to it and went on my own jog around the lovely River Torrens or as the Kaurna people know it Karrawirra Parri, the River of the Red Gum Forest.

Sweaty and hot, I would return to the cottage, shower, pack a picnic and collect Katy and Grandad. A few hundred metres from our cottage was Mr Sunshine, an awesome coffee shop. We'd grab a few coffees and smoothie before continuing on to the oval.

The first day of competition involved 2 x T20 matches. The ACT girls played NSW in the morning. ACT batted first scoring 4/35 while NSW dominated the game winning 1/36. Katy was pretty bored quickly and ended up digging in the sand. It was a warm day but luckily there were a few trees around the edge that provided  some shade. In the afternoon ACT did a little better against QLD chasing a score of 5/98, they fell short scoring 4/84 in the 20 overs. Ella was happy to have a turn at wicket keeping for 5 overs against QLD and did a great job. By the end of the second game the ACT girls were shattered from being out in the heat all day. Ella and Grandad returned home, while Katy and I explored a nearby playground finding a hamster wheel!!

Day 2 of competition saw the ACT girls play VIC in a T35 match. The VIC team were a league above our girls. The final result VIC 8/152 def ACT all out for 66. As ACT batted second and were all out with 10 overs to go, the coaches encouraged the two girls that didn't get an offical bat to have a turn. Thus Ella got to face a few balls before her team mate was bowled!! It was nice to see the two teams eat lunch together and at the conclusion of the game swap pins and have a group photo.

Opening Ceremony

Sunday morning dawned and our whole family headed to the airport ready for adventure. Andy was first to depart on his slightly earlier flight to Melbourne. The girls and I boarded a short time later for our first leg to Sydney where we had an hour before catching the next plane to Adelaide.

Grandad had flown in to Adelaide from Perth and was waiting in the baggage hall for us. We located our luggage before catching a taxi to our accomodation. The airbnb cottage that we booked was fantastic in both size and location. We walked <100m to the local supermarket, stocking up on supplies for week.

It was rather warm as we weaved our way through the suburb of Thebarton to the Karen Rolton oval where a round of the Marsh Cup was being played. The Marsh Cup is the mens domestic limited (50) overs one day cricket competition and SA Redbacks were up against WA Warriors. While Ella disappeared off to her team meeting, we watched the game. It was an exciting match with SA chasing 6 runs with 2 overs to go. Unfortunately despite an impressive 127 runs scored by the opening SA batsman, they just fell short!  Katy however, got a little bored but found a very impressive tree to climb...

 

On conclusion of the match, the opening ceremony to the SSA 12 years and under Cricket Championships took place. The girls and boys teams from each state/territory were introduced. We sat through a few speeches, the student pledge and various trophies were handed back from last years winners. It was a pleasant evening and once concluded, we wandered back to our cottage for dinner.

Cricket in Adelaide

For the last three years, Ella has enjoyed playing cricket in a local girls competition designed to encourage participation and have fun. Aranda PS also takes part in a girls cricket gala day which this year was to be held the week we were at the snow. Luckily for Ella, there were only 2 northside schools wanting to take part and so the gala day was cancelled. The northside schools were invited to join in the southside gala day which was to be held the following week so Ella was happy once again. It was during this gala day that Cricket ACT spoke to the girls about the ACT Schools team and encouraged girls to nominate.

Ella was bubbling with excitement with the prospect of being in a team, however we (Andy and I) were reluctant to take this journey. We put the decision in the too difficult basket and got on with our busy lives. It seems though that wasn't what the stars had aligned for our family! The night before nominations closed and the final trial, one of Ella's teacher forwarded us the information and once again a very enthusiastic Ella broached the subject that evening. After much discussion the forms were submitted.

Ella attended the trials with about 25 other girls. There were a few familiar faces - one from her cricket team and another from band! Anyway they took the girls through various activities to help rank the girls according to their abilities. A few days later we received word that Ella had made the cut....we would be going to Adelaide in mid November!

Since then our Monday afternoons became crazy thanks to the extra cricket training requirements! We would leave home at 3.40 to get to cricket by 4pm. Katy and I would hang around while Ella trained til 5.30pm. From there we hightailed it over to band dropping Ella off before continuing on to Katy's 6.30pm gymnastic class. I stayed and watched Katy do gymnastic for an hour and then we'd drive back to pick up Ella and another school friend from band at 8pm. Eventually we'd get home just before 8.30pm!

We had this routine nailed down after a few weeks and would even wander over to buy some hot chips from the takeaway at Watson to eat between activities! Then Katy got promoted in her gymnastics class which meant a different and longer class! Thankfully it was on the same day beginning at 6pm and going for 1.5 hours. Thus we modified our route to go from cricket to drop Katy off, go onto band and drop Ella off before returning back to Katy and then back to Ella!! Luckily it was for only 5 weeks and we'd survived!

Upcycled Jeans

Inspired by the G-Force teacher at school, Ella took a pair of old jeans and created a mini backpack! With a little assistance Ella, over a few nights designed, cut and sewed together the pieces to create this very cute and functional backpack! It's already accompanied her on a trip to Adelaide and to various functions and outings.

 

Spring Sc-ore

Before school orienteering is back for 4 weeks in Spring. It means early starts on Thursdays for the girls especially as I was helping out at the events too. Anyway the series was based around schools in the inner north making commute time fairly short. The weather was mostly kind to us too.

The Sc-ore series visited St Thomas More, Ainslie, Turner and St Joseph's school, with the complexity of the courses slowly increasing in difficulty. Aranda PS was well represented, fielding 8 out of the 45 teams.

The few weeks were chaotic with the new students (and parents) figuring out how it all worked! Despite this all events ran smoothly and efficiently.

As for final results, Ella's team came in 5th and Katy's 8th. Aranda had 4 teams finishing in the top 10! With such promising results we are all looking forward to the ACT Primary School Champs in a few weeks.

School Opportunities

You never know what opportunities will emerge with kids. One of Katy's fellow classmates wrote a letter to the ABC Canberra 7pm nightly newsreader Dan Bourchier. As a result the whole class was invited to watch the live recording of the ABC 7pm news bulletin.  Most of the class took up the opportunity. The kids were under extremely strict instructions to not make a sound during the 30 min live show!

Prior to the recording, Dan explained how it all worked from the different cameras, to the pre recorded clips and as well as pointing out various personnel that make the nightly news go off without a hitch. I've never seen kids be so quiet and well behaved!

Spring Gardening

Vege patch is sorted and going well. Red cabbages are slowly forming heads (I've been informed that I should plant these in Feb/March). The winter plants have been removed and new seedlings/seeds planted. Tomatoes, eggplants, beans, fennel, basil, corn and spinach are in. With fruit budding on the nectarine, plum and blueberry plants, it was quickly time to net these.