The OzMcPs: Sick house, Stephen and surfing

The kids have been off all week with terrible coughs. I think Tom's cough is worsened by his asthma because he has no other symptoms but his teacher sent him home on Monday so I didn't feel I could send him back to school. Tess has had a high temperature and a truly terrible cough all week. Whooping cough is going round the school but she had it 2 years ago so I think it highly unlikely that she has it again but we're off to the doctor tomorrow to make sure. By Thursday I had had enough of being stuck at home so we went down to Manly for a walk and some sushi. It was an amazingly warm day and whilst looking for whales (it's migration season) we spotted a pod of dolphins off the beach which was infinitely better.

Sick kids

Stephen arrived on Saturday morning from the UK. We are so lucky to see him so regularly and we always feel like we're on holiday when he's around. Jules met him off the ferry bright and early on Saturday morning so the boys went into Manly for breakfast allowing the kids to sleep in a little. Tess and I headed off to netball (she wasn't able to play due to her cough) and the girls had an amazing game with a convincing win. Meanwhile the boys went down to Manly with Tom's nipper board and he had a ball surfing on his nipper board which I can assure you is ridiculously hard because they are definitely not designed for surfing.

Stephen, Lenka and Jules

Tom surfing on his nipper board

In the evening Jules, Stephen and I went to The Pantry for dinner and ended up having drinks in the Steyne listening so some fabulous live music. We were a little disturbed by texts from the kids - Tom asking for information relating to his Minecraft account and Tess pointing out that her temperature was 39.3C if anyone cared. She soon realised that no-one did (at least not enough to come home) and so the 2 of them finally went to bed.

The weather was amazing on Sunday so we went down to Manly for some more nipper board action and had lunch on the beach. Poor Tess was feeling really rather rotten so we dropped her home and then went and bought me a steamer and surfboard. I've been threatening to start surfing for ages mainly because I need to get Tess back in the water and I think this is the only way. She has started saying that she thinks she was switched at birth because Jules, Tom and I love being down at the beach but she's less keen. In September we're spending 2 weeks on a nipper/surfing holiday and I have to get her engaged with the water otherwise she might be quite miserable. I have had surf lessons in the past and did enjoy them but realised that the only way to get better was to spend time in the water and I am rather scared of those grey creatures with large fins but I can't think about it. My mother once made me read a book called "Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway" and that's what I'm doing!

Tess feeling rotten

We decided to go and try out my new wetsuit and board immediately even though the board wasn't waxed which made it very slippery. Tom scored a new wetsuit that he wanted to try and too and because we were surfing Tess decided to give it a go despite not feeling 100%. I really enjoyed myself and was pleasantly surprised by how warm I was in my wetsuit - the fact that it was 25C outside might have helped - and I managed to stand up for about 1.2 seconds two times! With a little bit of wax I should be even better!