Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Ella's Escapades

Ella's first cricket season has come to an end. What a season, what a learning curve! They all improved so much over the summer and had lots of fun doing so. On their final match, their coach Zoe Cooke, a former member of the ACT Meteors, playing in the Australian Women's Twenty20 Cup (the precursor to the WBBL), presented each girl with a bag. Inside was a cricket shirt from Zoe's or her good friend Sam Bates playing days. Ella and Mia received a Sydney Thunder shirt signed by Sam Bates! They were both extremely happy. Ella wore the shirt non stop for the next few weeks!!


Next came the Western District Cricket presentation day, where it was revealed that the girls made history! It was the first time in the club's 28 year history that a junior all girls team competed in an all girls competition. Each girl was presented a team medallion. Ella scooped up the Best Bowler for her team too.


Then it was off to school where Andy watched Ella's class assembly. She read out her limerick.


Also during this assembly, the swimming ribbons were handed out and Ella placed 2nd in the 10yrs 50m freestyle. Her time qualified her to compete in the next round 'the zones.' The competition was much tougher at zones. Ella did her best, swam fast (in her words) and was happy with her swim with Nana watching on. Her time of 51s for the 50m placed her 26th (out of ~45). Well done Ella!

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Exploring the Trails

While Katy was off playing at a friends house, we organised to meet Cath and Aoife for a mountain bike ride at Majura Pines. Not wanting to waste our energy levels by riding up and over the saddle from Hackett, we drove around to the main carpark located on the east side of Majura Parkway.

Access from this point provides the variety of tracks we were looking for. The first loop we rode all together was the Flash. From there Cath and I peeled off while Andy, Ella and Aoife explored the jump track and Crazy Crab loop. Our aim was to meet up somewhere on the otherside!

Cath and I headed on up to the northern most section of Majura Pines, known at Winery Hill. In on Mata Hari to Mr Squiggle before making a wrong turn down. Luckily we realised fairly quickly and turned around. Successfully up the switchbacks of Batcave. Emerging at the top we enjoyed the views overlooking the vines of the Mt Majura Winery. Fast down Pinot Grinio and on to Bombora, a great little track criss crossing an erosion gully multiple times. We popped out on to the fire trail to discover Andy and the girls riding along.

It was tough going for the girls along the Bogs and Logs track, living up to it's name! Certainly put their bike handling skills to the test. Both did a great job emerging from the trails via the 20m curved Monkey Bridge. The ride hadn't finished there. We were taken back to the jump park for a few more laps.

Lunch back at Cath and Eoin's completed the morning!

Thursday, March 9, 2017

Updating and Recycling

Ella's little wooden bird feeder which hangs in the snow gum was looking a little worse for wear but nothing that a new coat of paint couldn't fix! The feeder now lives in the crepe myrtle as Ella decided that the birds needed a bigger feeder.



Searching around for something suitable and she came across the bottom of the old chicken water container. A little tinkering with Andy and the new feeder is now hanging in the snow gum tree. It wasn't too long before the first customer arrived, giving the feeder a tick of approval!



Meanwhile elsewhere in the garden, it was a green harvest from the veggie patch - a capsicum, a green chilli and a zucchini!


Also came across these 3 large ?cocoons in the grevillea bush...an internet search revealed that they are oothecas, otherwise known as an egg sac belonging to a praying mantis. I learnt many new interesting facts:
 - the sacs can hold hundreds of eggs and will take up to 5 months to hatch (as long as Mr Hairylegs the White Stemmed Gum moth we had!)
-  they have 5 eyes...yep - 2 large compound eyes and 3 eyes on the top of their head known as ocelli!
- and lets just say that I am glad I'm not a male praying mantis after reading about the female cannibalistic ways!


Sleepovers

In the land of sleepovers.....Jessica and Aoife came over for the night! All went smoothly. In the morning the bigger girls made pancakes for brekkie!


Bowling

To celebrate and farewell Cat, a PhD student at RSES, we joined Andy and his work colleague for lawn bowls. It was a warm evening as we graced the grass at the Turner Lawn Bowls club. There were lots of novices, including Katy, who found this sport challenging but lots of fun at the same time. We had several games going on at once, with people swapping in and out of groups. Towards the end it seemed that our girls were more interested in doing cartwheels and handstands only to be egged on by Alice and Paige who were doing all sorts of gymnastic manoeuvres! It was all short lived though as they were reprimanded by a staff member...luckily by then it was time to head home...