Jules took last week off to spend with Kristie and the kids and it was my turn this week. We had a very "normal" week with lots of trips to the beach, playground, zoo and swimming in the pool. Kristie and I had an eventful trip to the local shopping centre with the 4 children which ended up with the 3 biggest ones upturning a shopping trolley whilst they were in it. Kristie was in a shop at the time and on hearing the crash ran out of the shop to find 3 children in tears and me on the floor laughing - it had been one of those days!
One evening we went down to Manly beach to try and spot some penguins. We had Thai takeaway whilst the children built sandcastles and paddled in the sea. We waited until 9pm but unfortunately we didn't spot any.
Our zoo trip was fantastic and we spent 5 hours and 15 minutes there which I think is a personal best. Lisa, Hunter and Fletcher came too and the 6 kids had a ball together. Our 4 were particularly interested in the seal show as that's been a focus of their pool play with Tom being Mitchie, Tess Maya and Sam Max whilst Anna feeds them grapes in lieu of fish!
Anna had been a bit nervous of the sea during her trip and on the second to last day we finally discovered a beach that she loves which is Clontarf as the water is very shallow and warm for a long way out. We spent a lovely morning there making a zoo for Tom's animals (instead of sandcastles) and then spending hours zooming around on the boogie boards with the 3 oldest children taking it in turns to tow each other.
Kristie's last day was Friday and in an attempt to avoid it being a "departure" day I invited my mother's group round in the morning. It was very chaotic with 7 children running around until we threw them in the swimming pool - my main hope was that all the activity would thoroughly wear out Sam and Anna so that they would sleep the whole 24 hours back to the UK!! There were lots of tears all round at the airport but we hope we'll all see each other again soon.
The weekend was taken up with preparing for Rae's arrival on Tuesday putting endless loads of washing through the machine and making a vague attempt to tidy the house (it involved a black plastic bag and the disappearance of a number of old toys!). The Mennies came round for dinner on Saturday night - the last time we'll see them before Lisa has her baby on Friday. On Sunday Jules and I gritted our teeth and took the training wheels off the kids bikes. We want to take them to Coolendel next week and training wheels don't work on the uneven surface. We went to a local netball court and started with Tom. Jules was holding onto Tom's bike when Tom turned round and shouted at him to let go - that was it - he was off!! Once Tess saw her "baby" brother could do it there was no stopping her and although not as confident she was amazing and cycling around as if she'd been doing it for months.
One other very exciting bit of news this week is that we've booked a 10 day holiday to Fiji over Easter. Jules and I have never been on a proper resort style holiday before and we're both very excited. We're going with our good friends John, Leanne, Noah and Charlie so the kids will have an absolute ball and we won't feel guilty about putting them in kids club occasionally! In preparation for the trip Jules bought the kids snorkels and we tried them out at Clontarf on Sunday morning - Tess got the hang of it immediately - hooray!
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