Cock-a-doodle-do #2

Not long after rehoming Soup, another chick decided to start crowing. This time it was the grey Australorp, Penny. Thankfully we found him a new home too before the neighbours could complain!

Indi and Mokoko

Indi was really unsure about Mokoko. You could see her thinking who is this unpredictable yappy fluff ball and what does he want me to do? At least I'm safe on the couch...for the moment!

We left Indi at Cathy's for the weekend while we drove to the Central Coast for another set of orienteering races and the NOL dinner. We had Gemma staying with us and Andy also joined us as he returned from his overseas work trip.

The weekend was wet and muddy but fun! Our accomodation was...interesting...with a big frosted glass bathroom taking up one side of the girls bedroom! Not ideal but hey what can you do?

Little Aths Wrap Up

I think that this might be the end of the road for Katy competing in Little Athletics. I believe she will be more interested in coaching (and earning money) of the Under 6's group! Ella took the opportunity at the presentation afternoon to launch her coaching business - offering to coaching children on Wednesday and/or Fridays. Fingers crossed she gets some business!

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.