Monday, September 17, 2012

Beechworth

An early mark from work on Friday afternoon saw us heading south down the Hume Hwy. Our destination - Lake Sambell Caravan Park in Beechworth. The purpose of our travels - the Victorian Orienteering Champs.

Despite a day at preschool, a long drive and arriving at the caravan park just before 9pm, Ella was still wide awake and pumped about staying in a caravan! In fact after tucking her into her sleeping bag on the bottom bunk, she still made several appearances. Finally just after 9.30pm and while Andy was in the shower, I turned off all the lights and finally she drifted off to sleep on our bed!

Saturday morning dawned - a little crisp but beautiful blue skies. Our first stop (of course) was the Beechworth bakery. Then off to orienteering at Rowdy Flat near Yackandandah for some very complex gold mining. There wasn't much of an assembly area, however we found the perfect spot at the base of a small hill, adjacent to the coffee van and next to a large muddy puddle. While the adults tackled the challenges of this orienteering area, the children amused themselves including by....


building a cubby house...


jumping in muddy puddles...or should I say swimming?

Back at the caravan park and after a good scrub in the shower, we were ready to hit the town for dinner. After a cruise up the main street it was decided that Indian was the pick of the bunch. Together with the Jones/Walter family we enjoyed a lovely meal. The children played I spy and scissors, paper, rocks (which was quite amusing) while waiting patiently for dinner.

Sunday saw us return to the much loved Kangaroo Crossing for the Victorian Long Distance Champs. For the children it was another busy morning building a cubby house. The plans for this cubby were markedly improved. Zoe had her super glue, Max added solar panels and there was even a garden at the front!








All the while smiley Alma crawled around putting anything and everything into her mouth!







And eventually we found time for some actual orienteering! The string course was as complex as the area - quite long and physically challenging although this didn't stop them from completing it a few times!




  

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Productive Sunday

It was all hard work and not much playing today...well for some. While Andy was on his normal sunday morning long run, the girls and I headed over to Nana and Grandpa's house to help shift the 8 cubic metres of mulch!

It was such a glorious day to be in the garden.We worked the morning - I loaded up the wheelbarrow and dumped the mulch in the garden beds, Nana spread the mulch out and the girls did multiple things including 'helping' load mulch, riding in the wheel barrow, playing and building fairy houses. By lunchtime after moving about half of the mulch, Nana called it quits.


Back at home the work in the sunshine continued. Andy tinkered with his new bike (more on that later), did the odd job around the garden and finished by cleaning our very dirty greasy bbq. I weeded the vegie patch, mowed the lawn, changed the straw in the chook house and did some general tidying up. The girls rode bikes, jumped on the trampoline, played hockey then assisted Andy cleaning the bbq. How is it whenever water is involved our girls end up naked!!!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Skiing Again

We've been searching for a window for a family day ski trip all winter. We've been trying to avoid weekends, days that I've been busy, Ella's school days, Nat's work days, swimming lesson days and bad weather days. Didn't leave much, so this Tuesday we took the plunge, Nat took a day off work and we went to Perisher all together.

We hadn't planned to get skis for Katy, but the guy at the hire shop showed us some tiny, cute skis which clipped onto her snow boots. Here is her first and only attempt at using them. She lasted almost a full minute before taking them off, but despite this she proudly proclaimed late in the evening how great she was at sliding on her skis!

This was Ella's third time on skis, and she is starting to get the hang of it. On a slight incline (up or down) she was pretty adept, but steep uphills were impossible, and her only way of stopping on downhills was to stack. Documentary evidence of the technique in the movie below.


But, skiing is tough work for scant reward. Tobogganing (or 'bogganing as Katy calls it) is all fun for little work. So, much of the day was spent 'bogganing down a little slope in our hot pink 'boggan. We tried most permutations -- individual, girl + Mum, girl + Dad, both girls together, both girls + Mum...