Autumn Holidays

Two weeks of school holidays.

Making the most of it.

Slowing down.

Watching the waves

Taking a break

Picnics by the water

Enjoying honeycombs from our friends hive.

Horse riding and potlucks with friends

Sophie had the time of her life!

Checking out the water dragons by the river.

BBQ by the beach

Sharing the rock pools with the wobbegongs

Swimming and exploring

Camping along the beach with friends

Anzac Marching

 Another successful Full Moon get together

 Almost independent.

Date night with hubby: salsa dancing!
With a special Cuban birthday dance for one of the dancers.

Nights are getting nippy, the PJ’s have come out of storage...

Soccer, soccer, soccer.
It's going great, however I’m still a little frazzled with everything involved.
The kids have stepped up, taking on more responsibility. Sophie loves helping out with fundraising, and odd jobs like handing out balls with our new mascot.
Seeing them play from the distance, Alex is this blond tornado whizzing over the field, David with two hands in the air celebrating his first goals, Tim being a wall in defence.

And Sophie finding her feet. 

Playing in the backyard and swimming with the waterlily’s.
Even though the swims in the pool are getting very short.

Enjoying a lazy afternoon at home on this extra pupil free day,
tomorrow is back to school, work and play.

Autumn - Playing in the Back Yard

Our backyard is:

So many waterholes, to tramp through and to play with the dog.

It always amuses me, that the kids make sure they’re clothed, but barefooted, when we go out to play. 

Only to be stripping clothes as they go, running free, wild (and nude), climbing, splashing, jumping and exploring.

This is what I envisioned as a perfect childhood: space to play.

The dam, for sticks, stones and designs for rafts,

and swimming.

Many walking tracks, also doubling up as awesome BMX-tracks.

Coming up to the end of our forest, our gully, drains into the neighbours dam,
it’s such a serene place, about half a kilometre away from the house,
Just the birds twittering and dragon flies playing around you.
But don’t get tricked, it can get really spooky after prolonged rain, with a river pounding trough.

So many pretty mushrooms.

Checking out all the different types of waterlilly’s that are popping up in the dam and waterholes.
Sophie is in love with the blue tinged ones.

The one spot in the house yard that I’m not allowed to mow,

the kids tell me it makes a perfect spot for hiding games and Jedi fights.

All four kids and the dog are hiding and you wouldn't know if it wasn’t for their giggles.

Two found!

Laura has besides her paddock, the whole 20 acres of forest to roam, the girl loves running! 

Same as with the kids, it’s great for her physical development to have space to roam. The rocky, muddy and hilly ground is making her very surefooted. 

Last week we had her first training session, I enlisted the help of a professional trainer to guide me through the process.

Little miss bossy boots did great, accepting everything we did with her, no fuss. Plastic bags flying, noisy banging, sudden movements, overall touch or a saddle on her back. She was cool as a cucumber.

Until we got the part where she had to actually work. Like a belligerent teenager (that she is in horse years), she didn’t accept being told what to do and especially not by a man!  She threw a hissy fit that was just like any other strong willed three year old and then came back in for a cuddle.

We’ve got home work to do... 

Chaotic weeks, beach and saying goodbye

Making the most of the heatwave:
Safety Beach, awesome waves

 and great climbing rocks!
(The monkeys of Gibraltar)

Bathroom in progress, we’ve gone into week 3.
We survived the very stinky waterproofing with dragging our mattress into the living room.
The floor tiles are in, quite a feat when needing to accommodate curved shower screens!
Grouting the floors and putting wall tiles up are on for today.
The house will be a noisy construction site for another 2 weeks, I can’t wait to have a real shower again and cut out the stumbling out in the dark to use the portaloo...
The end result will be make it totally worth it.

Craft morning at the gallery.

I’ve picked up my crazy quilt again (on the right). Tidying up threads at the back are so much more fun under the shade of a tree, with a cuppa and great friends.

The last two weeks have been very busy,
with the kids starting school, they are tired and tempers fly easily.
Tim and David both got sick and the week became a mess.

Taking a breather and making sure we touch base, quickly falls on the wayside.
A cuppa fixes a lot of things...

The trip to the beach was perfect, with the waves crashing down on you. Do you stand your ground or do you ride the waves to back to the shore?

I’ve become a soccer mum+

Soccer sign on days are upon us...

The dragon fruit keeps growing, fascinating.

Yesterday evening was hard. Our little Moon Dancer (Mooney) didn’t turn up for dinner.
The horses are normally calling out for me at the fence, together, but only Laura was there.
I found Mooney laying in the corner of the paddock, alive, but with heavy, laboured breathing, frothing from her mouth and thrashing around. Our little girl was unable to stand up and was in a very bad way. With the small chance she would have contracted Hendra, I knew we had to keep our distance, the hardest thing, you want to comfort her. The veterinarian was called and it was fairly obvious there was no coming back from this, putting her down would be the most humane thing to do.

This morning we had to tell the kids that their friend had passed away. Remembering together all the happy memories we made with her. She will be missed.
The kids are at school again and I’m waiting for the bobcat to turn up...

Sweet dreams little Moon Dancer, may the Milky Way be your dance floor.

First weeks of Winter

The upside of doing an on call weekend with clinic duty: you get the following Friday off.

With all the kids at (pre)school we made the most of it and spend a day at Red Rock, with it’s glorious walking tracks along the beach and Corindi River it's a great way to recharge the batteries.

Namesake 

Traffic jam, 

(just a friendly, rather sleepy python)

Cold mornings,
4 degrees demands rugging up, a novelty for our kids...

My friend Erin send us one of her daughters, to babysit, we got to have a night out!

Tullara is such an amazing talent, grateful to have seen her live.

Sunday morning walks...

Life is so much better with mud...

Checking out the waterholes

And the fences

Our teddy bear horse, so fluffy in her winter coat.

Sophie is thriving at the moment, she has started drum lessons, a dream come true for her. 

The reading bug has bitten her, something that makes my heart sing. 

Even caught her doing the book walk (read and walk while you go to the toilet, get a drink,... too enthralled to put the book away). 

With increased alertness and energy she’s making the most of it, even took up aikido again!

We’re letting her set the pace, we never know how long this period will last.

Alex his turning 5 next year, that means he could start school. 

However, he’ll only be just turning 5 when the school year starts, which gives us the option to hold him back another year. It has been going around and around in my head, what is best for him?

Kindergarten is hard, with the curriculum demanding so much of these still very young children. Reading, writing and maths, including homework and sitting still for long periods is a lot for them. 

I hesitate. But have seen with Tim (also from February) that he needed that challenge and now in year 4 is still thriving on it. 

For now, we’ve decided to take the middle road. Next week, Alex is going to start the pre-kinder program, that our school offers for one school day a week. While keeping with preschool which is all play based. We’ll decide at the end of the year what we think he’ll need: another year of play, or “big school”.

Morning with warm porridge (and pappa).

Tim’s creation

The Grafton bridge, the only crossing for cars, pedestrians and trains over the Clarence River. 

Traffic has been increasing for years, to the point that it has become a huge bottleneck, while the bridge quickly deteriorates under the strain.

Work on a second bridge has recently started, working from both sides of the the river, country town Grafton has now the novelty experience of four cranes and a barge at work. 

Our kids are mesmerised and closely following the progress.

Climbing wall in action, some people just don’t seem to be hindered with gravity...

Rain, rain, rain, the garden is looking like a bedraggled jungle. 

Even though the surrounding area has had frost, our veggie garden doesn’t, I’m still picking chillies, while the king parrots feast on a sunflower, very surreal for a winter garden!

Another Full Moon Gathering. With countless weather and flash flood warnings it was a small one, the kids didn’t seemed to be bothered too much with the rain. Getting a couple of hour of spotlight in, only to shelter in the treehouse when the rain picked up to torrential again.

The quince trifle was a hit.

David got bitten again, the last time that ended with surgery after two horrific weeks. Not knowing what bit him, we were on high alert straight away. The swelling has come down, no raging fevers, so it has probably “just” been a bull ant, opposed to the overnight spider bite in our previous episode. 

Having a cuppa at Big Oma’s Coffee House, where they serve many Dutch specialties (kroketten!), taking a break from running errands in Coffs Harbour. Managed to stock up on (real) liquorice as well...

Wet Spotted Gum Tree

Welcome to the jungle... (without Roses)

Wondering if this rain is ever going to stop, the rivers are coming up, roads are going under.
It has given “a long weekend", a whole new meaning... ;-)

Our house, serene on the outside

 Chaos on the inside

The pool filter split a seam and needed to be replaced (under warranty), the new filter has different connections and heights so Sander has been holed away in the pump shed playing with cutters and glue.

The upside, with all this rain we can use rainwater galore to refill the pool and clean the new filter medium.

All baked out, I’m hogging the best place in the house, 

right next to the fire.

Making great progress with my quilt (and blogging). While Sander is playing with his new mitre saw,   Tim’s build-in-wardrobe coming up soon.
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