Merry Christmas!
Tuesday, 25 December 2012
Merry Christmas Dear (persistent and patient) Reader! From Left to Right below: Playing with pressys Chrstmas morning, The sign on the front door A&Z left for Santa ('Santa please shut the door gently because it makes a big bang') and on far right some of the 'offcuts' from our Christmas photos. 
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Pop Up Tour 2012
Sunday, 18 November 2012
 Today Zoe and I (jase) went to the Justine Clarke gig in town. For the uninitiated Justine is a Play School presenter who has gone solo with her own album, music clips, book and numerous other 'merch'. She's big in the under 6 demographic. Abby wasn't keen to go when we got the tickets a few weeks ago saying "the people are too big" which is her way of saying "last time when we went to Angelina Ballerina at Canberra Theatre I got pretty scared from the loud noise and lots of people and if you think I'm doing that again you're dumber than you look."
So Zoe and I set off today catching the bus in to the big smoke to catch Justine Live, The Pop Up Tour. It was pretty fun with Zoe excited but also a bit nervous. It was indeed pretty loud and that was without the 100 Under 6's below the front of the stage or in the "mushroom pit" as Justine called it. Justine ran through her album, read a story, couldnt find the book-eating monster while all the kids knew where he was and generally had the audience in the palm of her hand. For Zoe it was very exciting in a sit-very-still-on-Dads-lap-and-watch kinda way and the happiness on the way home was palpable. Also a bit of strut that she'd done it. As per in my 20s at a U2 concert I was a sucker for the merch getting a couple of t-shirts (for the girls - they didn't seem to have my size...) and we got home to yummy chocolate cake that Abby had made, with help from Belinda, while we'd been at the gig. Whats more after Zoe's description of the excitement Abby had a quiet word to me later on that she might come along next time... Waiting for Justine to come on: 
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Funny moments
Monday, 12 November 2012
There are plenty of funny moments with two 4 year olds that make you laugh - even if the 4 year olds don't realise they are funny. For reasons that I won't go into (as its a long boring story) we have a hire car this week - a little toyota corolla. We picked it up last Friday and the most pleasing thing as far as A&Z are concerned is that they can reach the electric windows switch from their booster seats and the windows go all the way down to the bottom of the window sill - not just about the 1/3 mark like in our subaru. As a result when we were at the Belconnen Markets car park on Friday the girls thought this was a great way to say hello to people - wind down the windows all the way and call out 'Hi' very loudly as we drive past slowly round the car park. The problem was the people they said 'Hi' too were gone (well we'd past them) by the time they said Hi back. This meant I (Jase) was driving along seeing all these quizzical people in my rear vision mirror looking round for who said Hi while listening to A&Z wondering to each other about why Noone was saying Hi back to them. Maybe you had to be there but I was laughing too much to explain why the people weren't saying Hi back - and anyway how does one explain to two 4 year olds how sound and movement work? I don't know! It ended when we pulled up at a Give Way sign and 4 rough-as-guts blokes (ZZ top style beards and two of them drinking from black cans of Jim Beam and coke) were waiting to walk across the intersection. A&Z of course cheery as can be yelled out Hi, the 4 rough as guts blokes smiled and two of them said Hi back! Great stuff.
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Bike trailer comparison
Wednesday, 26 September 2012
I took one of these photos last week (A&Z aged 4 and half or 53 months) and the other, which I had in mind for comparison purposes, was in July 2009 (age 1 and a bit or 15 months). The comparison doesn't quite come off so I will look for another but I still find the difference amazing. Note the helmets and trailer are the same although looking at these I'm not sure how much longer till both will be grown out of. 
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Snow!
Wednesday, 12 September 2012
 There's no denying it - Belinda and I are not big fans of the snow. Fall over lots, get wet and cold, generally expensive, don't have the right gear, ya-da-ya-da. We worked out, as we were driving to Mt Selwyn for our family day at the snow with the Manning family, that I hadn't been to the snow since 1997 and Belinda couldn't remember but it was pre-97. Still the girls were keen and it seemed like the family thing to do. And we'd have to say it was a great day. Beautiful sunshine, plenty of snow had fallen the day before and Mt Selwyn was great - easy to park next to the toboggan slope and nearly all families like us. Zoe seemed to be overawed soaking up the new experience and Abby was keen (very keen) to fall over repeatedly in the snow with great hilarity. We lasted a few hours before the wet and cold set in (mostly in Abby's gumboots) and I'd say we might make it an annual trip - certainly more often than every 15 years!
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Noosa 3
Monday, 10 September 2012
OK OK so now its becoming aaaaggeees since we went to Noosa and I have other stories to write but I feel I haven't put the full stop on Noosa. The final part of the trip was the drive home although we'd made this a less speedy trip so see some sights on the way. First day was driving though with a fabo stop at Southport in the Gold Coast where I had started the marathon a month or so before. While Belinda was keen to hear me give a km by km account of my run we instead hit a super impressive playground for lunch and then driving on to Byron Bay. We stayed 3 nights in Byron with the camping going well - each evening heading into the camp kitchen with the back packers, travellers and other families to eat dinner and catch Olympics highlights on the tele. We visited the Byron Bay lighthouse and managed to see some whales migrating by and had a day down in Ballina (about 50k south of Byron) checking out the beaches there. By the 3rd day though we were starting to think about home and with bad camping weather predicted we drove the final 1000km over two days, stopping in a cabin in Taree for the night. It was a ripper holiday with all members of the family having great fun. We look forward to the next trip. :) Photo: Zoe & Abby at Byron Bay 
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Noosa Part 2
Tuesday, 28 August 2012
Well Noosa Part 2, and the main part of the holiday, was renting a house with Nanny and Pa just back from the main street of Noosa and doing our darndest to both have fun and relax. We did a pretty good job! There were many highlights with the wonder of having Grandparents present, able and willing meaning Belinda and I even got to go out to dinner and for coffee on occasion. A typical day was Belinda getting up and going for a run in her continued marathon training before either all of us, or some of us, made our way down to Noosa front beach for sand play, lazing and the quest for a decent cup of (take away) coffee. Zoe and Abby were happy to spend hours on the beach building sand castles, digging tunnels, collecting water from the sea and Zoe partaking in her particular area of expertise - chasing away seagulls. On one day we decided to get down there quickly for a bakery-breakfast snack and were probably down the beach at 9ish. Zoe was willing to leave the beach at 1pm-ish and Abs had to be dragged home at 4! Of course generally ice creams were had on the way home and as a way of extracting A&Z from the beach. The evenings were generally spent by te adults with a beer or wine and chocolate in front of our Foxtel equipped TV watching the London Olympics. I never knew womens weight lifting could be so interesting! The non-typical days were highlights too. On one day we went to Australia Zoo (crikey!) which included close-ups with the koalas and elephants (not in the same enclosure), a bird and croc show and more info about the life of Steve Irwin than you could throw a snake at. Another day was split up with Belinda and I having a fabulous morning at the Eumundi markets while Abby & Zoe were honking the horn of the Noosa Ferry up and down the Noosa river with Nan & Pa. On one lovely morning Belinda and A&Z went for a lovely bushwalk in Noosa National Park. Oh of course there were regular walks and runs for adults. We love Noosa. :) 
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Eggs
Tuesday, 28 August 2012
Brrrraaaaaarrrrrkkkkk-ba-kark! What is that sound? Why its the sound of a chook laying! We got sent by our house sitter while we were in Noosa the following photo of produce from, presumably, Hattie & Rosie! We were very excited and there has been a reasonable amount of Brrrraaaaaarrrrrkkkkk-ba-kark since we got home to the point we are getting an egg a day! Woohoo! We even had 3 eggs one day suggesting Tinkerbell is on the job too. Yum. 
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Noosa Part 1
Wednesday, 15 August 2012
 A holiday!!! Not just a weekend but a real holiday!!! Woohoo. After planning and saving we have just returned from a real non-orienteering, non-visiting-Melbourne (both of which are fun!) 2-week holiday, mostly to Noosa. And I'd have to say every member of the family would say it was great. So to extend the joy, and fill the blog, I'm breaking it up into sections to report on. The first section was the long drive up to Noosa from cold Canberra. We were spending a fair portion of our budget on the Noosa accommodation so the family tent was roof over our heads for the 3-day drive north. 
We made it to a beautiful little town called Hawks Nest on night 1, Grafton night 2 (slightly less beautiful and apologies to my thousands of Grafton readers) and on to Noosa by the end of the 3rd day. Abby & Zoe it has to be said were very excited by camping and managed to collect some beautiful shells at Hawks Nest. I (Jase) got very excited by using my iPhone, or specifically the 'WikiCamps' app, to research which campsite would suit our humble needs. Hawks Nest was a winner but the campground I chose in Grafton was the Hyatt of camp grounds - a flat screen TV in the BBQ area, a better equipped camp kitchen than our one at home and a patio-pond area that could be hired out for weddings! The camping was cold at Hawks Nest but getting warmer as we headed north and the iPad and iPhone meant we kept in touch with the Olympics. Probably the most amazing thing about the drive was what good travellers A&Z were. Belinda had prepared very well with dot-the-dot books, colouring in books, a couple of new CDs (if I hear Dorothy the Dinosaur one more time...) and even what apparently is known as French Knitting (see Abby giving it a go below). There was bugger all fighting between girls, although the odd outbreak between front and back seat, and the girls did not watch one DVD the whole 1400km!!!!! 
We did break up the driving as much as possible combining family friendly stops with adult friendly stops. The family friendly ones were playgrounds, ice-creams and some touristy things - well one in particular the Big Banana! At what point as adults do things like the Big Banana become stop worthy? It certainly wasnt in my 20s! I guess its not till late 30s that we completely turn into our parents..... The adult friendly stops were based around my cool app called 'Bean Hunter' where people have reviewed cafes all over Australia. We found, although it was by chance not thru Bean Hunter, a cracker cafe called Harvest in a small town called Newrybar just outside Byron which served beautiful Coffee and we would have loved to spend more time at. So a great first part of the trip - the drive up. We were glad to get there though and get out of the bloody car!!! 
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Blueberries
Monday, 9 July 2012
Abby, Zoe and I have just finished our first term of Blueberries. Its a class for 3-5 year olds of mostly dancing but also drama, pilates (sort of), music and general fun. We've all enjoyed it particularly bopping to the music and learning a few dance moves. Last Friday was final class for term and thus dress up day. The girls chose their own dress ups and Zoe went as Tinkerbell, wings and all, and I'm not sure what Abby came as but she looked cool. 
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Big Nell
Friday, 6 July 2012
Big Nell has come to our house. Actually her official name is Nell but everyone seems to call her Big Nell and there is two of her. She is the Koalas (3 year old pre school where A&Z go) Koala. It seems everyone except A&Z have had a turn as the teachers waited for both Nells to be able to go home to the twin household (earlier in the term 1 Nell went home to our twin friends' Tom & Liams household and by all reports it did not go well). Our job, for the whole school holidays, is to look after the Nells, take a few happy snaps of what the Nells do and fill in a story book of their activities. Judging by the first day there will be a lot to tell: 
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Running
Sunday, 24 June 2012
The adults of this house don't get too much of a run on the blog but thought I'd sneak them in today. Its passed without mention for too long that over the past 12 months both Belinda and I have managed to get a good amount of running in. Belinda especially has got super fit running the Canberra Half Marathon last year in 104 mins but then, after great year of training, running it again this year in 95mins. While I trained hard for the 6 FT Track marathon in March, only to have it cancelled due to bad weather. But I have continued to train a fair bit and next week get a weekend away to conquer (hopefully!) the Gold Coast Marathon. Anyway one of the good things about running for us is it allows space to catch up with friends. On the recent long weekend we both managed to get out for different long runs - Belinda and Al running from Corin Dam up a sheer climb in the cold to Mt Gingera and back. While Rob and I, the day before, ran the surprisingly picturesque hills of Tuggeranong - Tuggeranong Hill and Mt Rob Roy rising above the early morning Canberra mist and frost. A few happy snaps below using the iPhones showing the pastime which at times keeps us sane! 
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Epic Day... especially for Molly!
Wednesday, 6 June 2012
It was a bit of an Epic Day yesterday. It was time for the now annual visit to Westmead Hospital in Sydney for Zoe's hip to be x-rayed and then examined by Dr. Little. Fortunately that went well - Doc happy with progress as Zoe's left hip (the one with the problem) has now 'caught up' in development terms to her right. Yeh! We have to go back again next year to check the hips continue to mature as they should and it sounded like we would be going back every year till Zoe is 7. It turned out this wasn't the real stressful moment for the day. After umming and ahhing when we left Westmead we decided to go to Ikea at Rhodes Shopping Centre in Sydney to look at couches. A move that was vindicated when we found the one we liked on run-out special. By now it was getting late though so quick reward of the girls good behaviour with some coloured texta purchases at Target, arrange for couch to be delivered to Canberra and off we went. We were in the midst of thick traffic in southern Sydney when the call from Zoe came - "Wheres Molly?" Uh oh. Stopped at the nearest servo, search the car to no avail. General racking of brains suggested last sighting was in Target and she may have been put on the ground in the excitement of texta purchasing. So as you can imagine there was much distress, mostly from Belinda and I, amongst the realisation that this bear was in fact the 5th member of our family. She went everywhere with us. So after calling Target and them looking to no avail we headed back to Rhodes Shopping Centre. Straight to Target and a search came up blank. Ikea, questioning of staff we had seen, various lost property bins, completing phone number details and descriptions should Molly be found (if anyone reading this lost a brown bear in Ikea - its in their lost property cupboard) and all to no avail. Sadness was descending although impressively Zoe was tentatively enquiring if this meant she could sleep with a different teddy. Zoe and I headed back to Target while Belinda and Abby went to another lost property collection point. We asked a staff member if she had been working all arvo, as Belinda had said in a kind of bad movie way: "Somebody in Target must've seen something!" No she hadn't but this other lady had, no she hadn't seen anything but Jackie in stationary had been on all arvo.... and Jackie said "Yeh I might've seen it". Hopefully we followed him to a completely different section of Target. He took us to the Teddy Bears for sale section, reached in amongst the pristine-looking new Bears and buried there was Molly! Tears of joy from Zoe as Jackie explained he'd seen Molly on the floor, thought she was from toys section and taken her over to the shelf with the other Bears!!! Ahh relief. Perhaps a large level of effort but the reality is Molly is the 5th member of the family - as I said I think Belinda and I were more upset than Zoe. A late trip home, via McDonalds, ensued but all was well. An epic day, especially for Molly! |
Chooks
Wednesday, 6 June 2012
Belinda spent a lot of 2011 devoting her spare time (so she did half an hour about once a month ;)) to building a great chook house/shed and enclosure/pen. It was ready at Christmas and, after a few stray comments from friends about whether any chooks would ever live in this house, Belinda's country-living colleague delivered 3 youngish chooks to our shed. All has gone well with food scraps now eagerly collected and fed to the chooks each morning. No eggs yet but we are assured that our chooks are a bit young and also not so keen on laying in winter. Zoe and Abby christened the chooks Tinkerbell, Hattie and Rosie and have spasmodic involvement in their feeding and general care. About the only real hiccup has been a general impression that Tinkerbell looked a little different to the others - a bit bigger, a bit of a crest and generally a bit bossy. Suspicions have been confirmed this week as Tinkerbell has started crowing each morning!!!! Loudly! Fortunately the provider of the chooks will be taking her him back in the next few days before their are too many complaints from the neighbours. 
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Organising O
Sunday, 3 June 2012
Today was a long day for the family with the days O event course set by Jase and organiser of the event being Belinda. We headed out very early with the girls very excited to be helping organise, especially when Grandma and Grandpa turned out to be first and second mate on the organising team. All seemed to go well and there was enough excitement that the girls finally wore their Blue Sparks orienteering tops to the event. The event went well although am struggling to keep the eyelids open now! A&Z always seem to take in more than you realise and when they got home they both made themselves watches (with paper and string) and ran laps of the house, taking splits by pressing their watches every time they ran through the kitchen. Zoe also did an awful lot of loud, deliberate puffing. 
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