Local celebrity.......

One of our nipper age managers, Kemble Cowan, is an excellent photographer and knows several of the journalists at The Manly Daily, our local newspaper.  The sports journalist approached him recently on the look out for a "good news" story and Kemble immediately thought of Tom.  Tom has been incredibly embarrassed about the amount of attention he has received from everyone following the story and when I suggested he might like to show it to his form teacher he said: "No Mum, that would be boastful".  As you can see, Mrs McPherson had rather a lot to say!

A rare photo of Tess on her first day back at school.  As usual there were tears when she found out her class groups because she was with none of her friends but 24 hours later everything was fine.  

Tom on his first day of High School  

I always hate it when the kids go back to school because I love having them at home even if they don't talk to me very much (Tess).  I suggested to them that we do a runner and skip school altogether and got 2 very different responses:
Tom: "Mum, I have to go to school, work hard and get good grades so that I can get a good job and afford to live in this area"
Tess: "I've done 2 years already, I'm good to go!"

Potentially one of the reasons I don't like term time is the amount of uber driving I end up doing.  Wednesdays are an absolute shocker for me as I have a pick up or drop off around the northern beaches at the following times: 3.30, 4.30, 5.00, 5.30, 6.00, 6.15, 6.30, 7.00.  It's a miracle anyone gets fed. 

We are still trying to work out Tom's extra curricular timetable because at the moment he has a 6.30am start Monday morning, 8.45pm finish, 7.20am start Tuesday morning, 9.45pm finish and a 6.30am start again on Wednesday morning.  Come Wednesday afternoon he is shattered and has both his music lessons to concentrate through - poor kid.  

Leaving water polo training late on Monday evening

Last weekend was Nippers Branch Carnival which is the qualifying carnival for State Nippers which is the culmination of the Nippers Year.  We have never been brave enough to do State Nippers but because Tom has really committed this year we felt we needed to give it a go.  Tom did incredibly well at Branch qualifying for everything except Board Rescue and he and his team mates got a bronze medal in Board Paddling.  

Tom with his good mate Levi and another boy I don't know

Tom had his first surf competition of the year with QBC on Saturday and ended up coming first in his age group.  His new board is making such a difference to his surfing.  He also tried out for the school surfing program and he was the youngest kid to be put in the Elite division.  It's been a very good week for Tom.  

Now the kids are back at school I'm trying to catch up with lots of my friends.  Jo, Hilary and I managed a walk with the dogs and we admired how colour coordinated they are.