Time for the Fire

As the leaves begin their beautiful journey of changing colour as the temperature drops, it means the first fire of winter is close by.

Meeting Mokoko

We were all very excited to meet the newest furry member of the Hogg clan - Mokoko! He is so cute and Bekele is very patient.

An Adult!

Ella has turned 18! Landing on a Saturday, Ella thought it would be fin to run 18km on her 18th birthday with the final 5 kms at park run at Weston Park with the family and friends.

So she headed off early and we all drove later to meet up. There was a large group including our family, Ryan and most of his family, plus a few o friends!

Breakfast after was at Ryan's Dad's house with egg and bacon rolls.

Then finally it was time for presents! Ella and Katy have an agreement about spending $50 on each other at thrift stores for birthdays. They do seem to find some real bargains! This time though Katy found a cool pair of pjs - she really loved the bottoms but not the top but they came as a set. We all had a great laugh about the top when Ella did her parade!!!

After a few weeks of deliberations Ella decided that she wanted new touring skis, boots, skins and poles for her birthday. We were pretty happy about that!

Andy subsequently left for a two week work trip the Europe and UK that night. Family celebration dinner was put on hold. Ella decided that she wanted to make dinner with just Ryan! Katy and I cooked separately but we did put together a small cake to celebrate!

Birthday celebrations continued the next day... with friends and cocktails on the deck!

Easter Three Days

This year Easter was held in the Loddon Shire in Victoria. We were too slow to secure a spot at the close caravan park, instead basing ourselves in Bendigo which meant driving a little way each day to each event.

The overall carnival was great. The four maps had variety of terrain and complexity. Andy placed 4th just out of the medals. Katy had largish mistakes on two of the days dropping her down the field in 7th. I didn't do the whole carnival opting to run only on the prologue and middle day.

Ella was trying out for JWOC so she definitely felt under pressure. She ran consistently with no major mistakes. Her best run was by far on the last day where the W20E had a chasing start. Ella started in 9th, with two girls 6 secs either side of her plus another 2 girls about 40sec in front. A pack formed which whittled down to three runners with Ella just off the back. Digging in for the last part of the course, Ella was rewarded when the two girls in front slightly missed the last control. She swooped in on the opportunity and had an exciting sprint finish with Kate. They crossed the line together, finishing in equal 6th place! A really great result for Ella and we are very proud of her. Easter did show that her hard work since Nationals has paid off. Unfortunately though, the result was not enough to be named in the JWOC team.

Happy Birthday to Me!

After putting off the firewood delivery as we thought the renos may have started by now but no luck there... it arrived today! Luckily for my birthday I got a new firewood holder! Perfect!

Watch Out Canberra...

...there is another Hogg driver on the loose! Katy was impressed with herself! Now another nervous 100 hours begins!

Cock-a-doodle-do!

We woke to someone making a noise like a rooster...surely it couldn't be one of our chickens?? Sure enough, we caught Soup, the one we least expected it to be, on camera doing his best rooster impression! Fortunately we found a new home for Soup...someone was looking for a silkie rooster to breed from. 

 

Another Weekend at O

We headed to Cooma for a double header - ACT Middle and ACT Long distance Champs.

New map for the ACT Middle - Pine Range - a rocky thick hill on the edge of Cooma!

The Long Distance champs was held back at Highlands, at Nimmitabel, 45 mins from Cooma. It lived up to its cold reputation once again!

Ocean and Mountains

 ...are our favourite places to visit. Our latest purchase - dolphins made from recycled timber.