BFF

No better way to finish off the school term than to be sitting next to your BFF! Katy and Mira were pretty excited plus it makes the morning reading session special too!

Bird watching Expedition on Mt Painter

At the crack of dawn on a recent Sunday morning, Ella and I fronted up to a bird watching session hosted by the Friends of Mt Painter. Despite being a beautiful morning, perfect for spotting birds, it was not surprisingly only a small group consisting mainly of older folk turned out.

Ella was kitted out with her binoculars and bird identification book, the latter not needed as our guide, Nikki was a walking encyclopedia! Our bird spotting list included house sparrow, crested pigeon, the endangered superb parrot, red wattlebird, black faced cuckoo shrike, magpie, common myna, superb fairy wren, yellow rumped thornbill, crimson rosella, sulphur crested cockatoo, king parrot, eastern rosella, willy wagtail, fantail, galah, weebill and nankeen kestrel.

We learnt lots with many questions asked and answered. The most interesting bit of information, according to Ella, was about the superb fairy wren's nest - constructed in thickets about a metre off the ground, the entrance to the nest is located on the side, while on top an empty decoy nest sits. We heard about the parasitic mistletoe seen on numerous eucalypts in the area.

Our bird watching journey took about an hour only covering about 2km in distance. Nikki gave Ella an ACT Bird identification book, another bird book for her collection! The bird watching session finished just in time to drop Andy off at the airport (he was going to Lorne for most of the week).

Thanks to Grandpa for the tip off about the session...we will definitely be back :) Ella really enjoyed herself as did I. This is what the rest of Sunday looked like - Ella busy researching and drawing!

Cricket Craziness

With the introduction of cricket, our weekly routine has become slightly more hectic. Cricket training in on Monday nights overlapping swimming lessons while the match is on Wednesday afternoon continuing into the evening.

Ella's team is now known at the Western Strikers. It's gained a few more girls (and lost the 2 older ones).

We've managed to juggle life with cricket so far. It's handy having cousin Mia in the team as we can rely on one another to help out. One week post game Mia joined us at home. The girls enjoyed spending time together making up their own version of the twelve days of christmas. Unfortunately what started with an Australia theme slowly disintergrated into silliness!

One bonus with cricket is the free women international matches which occasionally come to Canberra. On a warm balmy evening we joined Susie, Mia and Josh to enjoy a picnic dinner while watching Australia's Southern Stars take on South Africa's Proteas. We joined the match with Australia beginning their batting innings chasing 226. It wasn't looking very promising early with the loss of several wickets. As the evening wore on the girls became more restless as the game slowed. We left the match with the the Southern Stars on 5-127 and headed home for bed. By the time we arrived home 25mins later, Australia had put on nearly 50 runs and were looking rather good again. The final score - Australia winning by 2 wickets with 1 ball to spare!

Bits and Bobs

Warmer weather has encouraged us to experiment with our icy pole moulds. We have had mango, strawberry and lime, pineapple and passionfruit mixed in with natural yogurt and honey. Yummo!

Nana from Perth is way ahead of everyone with a few boxes of christmas presents arriving for the girls. We figured as we will be in Perth well before Christmas, there was no point in waiting. The artist pencils were the biggest hit as Katy loves colouring in and Ella enjoys drawing.

Simple Equations

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This little job has been on my radar for sometime now and am glad to finally have completed it. Having never laid turf before I hope that I've done it right and that we can also maintain this beautiful area of lawn.

Newest Sporting Venture - Cricket!

After an extremely shaky start (the first team they joined folded due to insufficient players)
Ella and Mia played their first game of cricket!

Cricket training has been scheduled for Mondays from 4.30 - 5.30pm making our Monday nights a little crazy as both girls are tied up with swimming from 5.30 - 7pm! Anyhow we are living one Monday at a time and so far have made this work.

Last Monday night, the girls met their other team mates - two 13yr old cousins, plus 3 other 8/9 yr olds  (two of which also are at Aranda!). The girls were also introduced to their coach, Zoe who took them through their paces in the nets. The girls looked so little all kitted up in their gear!

Meanwhile to keep Katy entertained, we played rocket golf (an offshoot of frisbee golf).

Two days later, in their official Wests uniforms, the girls played against Weston Creek at Duffy Oval. It was a 120 ball match that was cut short thanks to a heavy downpour. Again Andy, I and Susie juggled life and all made it to the match.

Susie had a steep learning curve having to record the stats for the first half of the game. Each girl faced 17 balls, bowled 2 overs and played in all the different fielding positions (except for wicket keeping).

It was great to have a lovely team to play against and learn the ins and outs of the game. The older girls in our team also did a wonderful job in passing on lots of tips to the young ones.

Ella had fun. She scored 3 runs, enjoyed being the wicket keeper for half the match and bowled fairly well.

Latest Little Ath's photos

Got to love the club photographer. He is doing an awesome job!





 That would be Katy doing her first walk!