Adventure Day and Sickness

This week was a BIG week. Yep, with a capital ! It certainly has not helped with me getting sick. :( "Just a cold"...turns out that I would lose my voice too! Oh well. The show MUST go on as they say...

Our school puts on "Adventure Week" for our senior students who dont go on school camp. The rest of the Education Support classes were invited to go along too. On Wednesday, we went to AQWA with all 30 students and 20 teachers and assistants. The weather was beautiful and the students all had a fabulous time. Luckily for me, my well organised assistants had sorted everything and all I had to do was walk around with my assigned student. Thankfully for me, I got the cutest student who is also in a pram.

Thursday was the day I was assigned. For eight weeks my assistants and I worked really hard to organise an adventure around the book "Possum Magic" by Mem Fox. "Possum food" was organised and we mapped out various activities that took each student to "stations" were they could earn badges. It was a fantastic day and thanks to the many prayers that were said, the rain held off. PHEW ! I had NO voice left at the end of the day but it was a huge success. I'm just glad its OVER.

Today is day 3 of Adventure Week. My boss determined that I looked and sounded sick enough to have today off...so I'm updating the blog, reading my book and watching very old movies on TV. Not a bad way to spend the day. :)

Prue's 9th Birthday

Prue's birthday was on a Sunday this year...and she was at her mum's on the Sunday...soooo we partied on the Tueday instead ! :)

On Monday we made the cake and decorated it...had a mini-crisis when we ran out of cake mix!? Eeekkkk! The cake decorating shop sold me some awesome "paste" that made the cream a true lilac colour...I think I turned out ok?



Julian played "Happy Birthday" on the flute




Daddy lighting the candles



Blowing out the candles and making a wish

Present time !

Catching up on our latest...

Its been awhile...Hmmm...Mother's Day was fun....got spoilt my the children and had a lovely day. I bought myself an ipod...now to work out how to USE it ! Had to watch a youtube clip to be taught how to download...instructions from and eight year old ! How tragic !

Mum and dad went on a three week holiday to South Korea and Malaysia, Kula Lumpur and Singapore. I missed them - like A LOT ! They had fun but didn't like that the Korean people were not too friendly. The food wasn't much to their taste but the good company made up for that.

Since there was no Grandparents around to chauffeur them to and from school, Michaela, Madi and JB has to learn to catch the bus. Bit scary for the ole mum to let them attempt this...but everyone has worked it out and its all good ! They are happy to have the grandparents home too...but especially ME since I know that the public transport system has some scary looking customers !

What else? Oh. My permanency has been confirmed ! YAY ME ! So no more looking for a job every year ! Woo hoo !

Oh yeh...we have booked our tickets to go to Tasmania in December! We got a good deal and took it in case we looked again for a better deal and missed out entirely...it happens a lot. No tickets home yet....but we will be there for Freed's birthday. The children are most excited - well Madison and JB especially since they have never been in a plane before. The girls aren't too exited about the fact that we are ONLY taking hand luggage ! Hee hee hee ! It will be fine I'm sure. Looking forward to having a very cool Christmas. I get to leave work two days early and I've already booked those two days off.

Michaela starts work experience on Monday. She will be a waitress at Miss Maud's in the city. It will be "interesting" to see how that all works out. She recently has to complete an assignment on "Moving away from home". She had to research 5 jobs in her area of interest, find out how much she would earn, find 5 rental places and work out her budget for the place she liked the most, work out a budget for furnishing the place, find 5 cars and work out the repayment for the car she liked the best, do a two week menu and work out a food budget and work out her fortnightly expenses for water, electricity and gas. It was a VERY good assignment! I loved that they were teaching her such good principals for budgeting and showing her the realities of what life is going to  be like!! Michaela actually got to see figures. She is now determined to NOT leave home because she said that she could not afford to live ! Ahhh....yeh....

Madison's 13th Birthday

Madison had a birthday on the 11th April and is now "officially" a teenager ! I am a bad mother, and I blogged about Michaela's ball on the official day of her birthday...OOPS !? Here is the time line of events as they unfolded...

So....our wonderful and terrific "Fred" (Harvey's dad who's real name is really Ian..) came for a "quickie" visit on the 7th April. The 8th was Michaela's ball night. (see previous blog) Since Fred lives so far away in Tasmania, it was a terrific opportunity for the family to get together. After dropping Michaela off to her friends house to get the limo Harv and I hightailed it off to Dianella and the very beautiful temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It was a truly magnificent place to be with family. So very special.

After the temple session, Harv, Fred and I went to Nando's for dinner. Delicious !

On Sunday the 10th April we listened to the inspired prophets and leaders of our time. I LOVE technology that allows us the privilege of doing that! SO uplifted !

The whole family  decorated a "Olivia" the octopus for Madi's birthday cake to take to the other "Oates" for birthday dinner ! It was fun to make and decorate.



Olivia the Octopus



"Happy Birthday Madison" in Japanese.



Michaela add her special "touch" the the cake with her inscription of "Happy Birthday Madison" in Japanese !

Harv and I made a "last minuet" trifle with all the left over bits of cake etc...

My beautiful and wonderful sister-in-law made us an AWESOME lamb roast dinner ! It had never occurred to me to cook a roast dinner in the BBQ before?! Very delicious and WOW ! It was SO lovely to spend time with the family ! Madi felt VERY spoilt and special.

Blowing out the candles.

Cutting the cake.



Poppy Fred, birthday gal Madison and Julian.



School Ball

Once upon a time, you bought a ticket and you went to the school ball in your "best dress"....now a days...(boy do I sound OLD in saying that!?)...it's THE dress, THE limo, THE corsage, THE shoes, THE hair do, THE makeup, THE accessories and who has the HOTTEST date !? Go figure !

Michaela attended her year 11 ball on Friday 8th April 2011. It was a "BIG DO". Months of planning and saving went into this....with the final balance being very ...erm...expensive...I was VERY proud of Michaela who has been logging hours at Kmart and saving for her big night. She planned ahead and had decided wayyyy back in December 2010 that hiring her dress was the way to go since she would "never ever wear a dress like that again." Smart gal. She also decided that she wanted a "foofey" dress...aka a dress with tulle and "foof" as opposed to a dress that was slimline and more cocktail like...so "foofey" we did ! Her theory is that she will only get to ever wear "foofey" dresses twice in her life - ball dress and wedding dress. Sounds good to me!



The 2nd dress she tried on was IT !



We tried no less than SEVEN dresses before the big decision was made....but we found one ! YAY ! The lady at "After 5 Hire" was awesome. Once you book a dress, she writes all the details down and no one else from the school is allowed to hire the same dress. Sweet as !

The day before, we picked up the dress, matching wrap and matching tie. Michaela got waxing done- eyebrows, lip, legs - sucks being a hairy gal...and sorted last minuet makeup artist, our friend Amy...and we are almost good to go.

B day and school finished at recess time, Harvey picked Michaela up, home, lunch and a quick shower before going to the hair dressers. TWO hours, half a tin of hair spray, hair wax, mousse and 32 bobby pins later..... 

Our wonderful friend Amy came over to help Michaela with her makeup....the final finished, polished and dressed up Michaela was truly BEAUTIFUL !

I'm a VERY PROUD mama bear !



I have FUNNY children !

I have funny children - I mean, seriously hilariously funny as in a "Ha ha ha" way ! They sometimes LOOK funny, but mostly they sound funny ! Madison and Michaela have this awesome banter and great repertoire and they do it so seamlessly....must be all the practise they get at their brother's expense ?!

Over the past few weeks, Madi has decided that she needs to improve her vocabulary with some "bigger" words so that she sounds more "sophisticated". Last week's word was "pedantic" and she managed to insert the word into conversations quite flawlessly and in context, so we thought she was on a roll ! This weeks work was 'egotistical' and she may have used the word once or twice in describing her brother's actions....but it took us awhile to figure out what she was saying....ECO-TESTICLES !? Erm....not quite my darling ! 

I love that they have such FUN together and enjoy each others company so much !

Albany

Over the weekend, I went to Albany. It was  a LONG car ride ! 818kms round trip ! We left 1pm - ish on the Saturday and arrived home just after 6pm Sunday. Thankfully, I was chauffeured driven down there and I had the WHOLE back seat to myself ! Woot !

So WHY? Well, it was the Albany Branch Conference so as a stake leader, I went to support the Relief Society sisters in the far reaches of WA. It was awesome. Lot of happy memories of what fun a branch can be - everyone knows everyone...people serving diligently with three and four callings....hilarious activities and gatherings...half the branch getting up to sing for their visitors... :D Most of all I remembered the strength I got from knowing the unconditional love of being part of something special.



The Holder's place

 Upon arrival, the wonderful Holder family had dinner on the table..."Thermomix" dinner...butter chicken. Was delish and the dinner conversation lively and fun. The views outside spectacular ! Imagine...a two week old foal just outside the front door - literally ! Huge, big, sweeping gumtrees, birds twittering, sheep contentedly munching away....and GREENERY everywhere you look ! Was SO delightful !

The branch activity included "get to know the stake leaders" games...was hilarious. The members of Albany branch had to "guess" which foot was sticking out from under the stage curtains. The it was random questions to get to know us better...then a Scattergories game...fun.

I slept in a double bed all to myself...it was even COLD enough that I had to have covers on ! Imagine that huh? (56 days and counting since Perth got any rain?!) Was delicious having to snuggle under the covers ! I even read in bed ! Breakfast was oats...freshly cooked for us with home grown honey and dried figs....YUM ! SO delicious !

Meetings were so inspiring. Pres Pemberton spoke about his travel down to Albany and how he almost came "a-gusta" by drifting off two - three times because he fell asleep behind the wheel of the car ! He paralleled the story with every day life  - we don't mean to drift to the "other side" and engage in things we know are wrong ....it can happen at any time. We need to be alert and attentive for things that distract us from the path of "truth and righteousness".

The sisters appreciated our efforts to present a lesson for them - based on Doctrine and Covenants 101:16.



Jenny (lf) and Lorraine (rt) "hamming" it up !

 It was a good weekend. The road trip was a great opportunity for the three of us in our presidency to bond and get to know each other better. We are a terrific team and I am blessed to be motivated by these fantastic sisters !