Random stuff

Not too much going on here at the moment, boys at cricket tonight and I have a few things on my mind.

We are at the stage where we need to choose a school for our boys. Our small school in our town is such a lovely school, but it only caters until year 6. Then you either have to send your children to the local public secondary school, or send them to boarding school.

Our secondary school doesn't have the facilities and there are a few issues with it socially and academically, so boarding school from year 7 is our priority now.

We are looking at two schools so far.

One is a city school and one is in the country. They both have pros and cons when we look at them. Both are expensive. The city one is expensive in the extreme. My husband is an old boy of the city one and he loved it. Only problem, it is about $20,000 more per year than the country one.

The city one has more bursaries and scholarships on offer, but that is because they have very generous benefactors who have set up wonderful scholarships.

The country one is closer to us (travel wise) and we have family in the same town, which is a huge bonus. It is co-ed, and I am not a massive fan of co-ed in the older years.

May I remind you, we have three boys to school!

So this is weighing heavily on my mind at the moment. We are going to take a look at both schools in the next month or so, and H is sitting a scholarship exam soon.

We will have to see which school wins!

When the prospectus comes beautifully tied with a ribbon, you know you aren't in cheap fee territory.

This is my husband's old doona cover from his old school. H uses it on his bed at the moment. I think it has preppy style potential! ;)

And to finish up tonight's post  I bring you my new animal print. I thought the only ones available were the hippo and the leopard. So I found this one on Temple and Webster a few months ago, and now I am in a dilemma of having an odd number of prints to hang! I want to find another one to balance my room, or my hanging will be all wrong. First World Problem - I know.

Hope you are having a good Friday night so far!

Jo.

Swimming boys

We had our swimming carnival yesterday.

H & F swim quite a bit usually each summer as there isn't much else to do in this heat, and they enjoy it immensely.

When I started out lessons with H he did swimsafe lessons when he was two, because I wanted him to be confident and happy about getting in the water. Also, because I am terrified that he could easily drown living here with dams and rivers everywhere. I can't swim, and my husband can't swim, and we were hell-bent on getting H swimming as soon as possible as it is just so important top prevent our kids drowning.

H actually started learning properly when he was 3. Because this is the age that they can touch the bottom of the bigger pool and they can work with a kickboard to get going.

By the time he was ready to start Kindergarten, he could swim 25 metres without stopping and doing his arms and breathing correctly.

The same story applies to F.

And now I am getting little N taught too, and he has progressed a lot this summer. He is close to putting his breathing/arms/legs together so he can swim without stopping. He just turned 4. So he is getting it together much earlier as he spends much more time in the pool than H & F did at that age.

This is mostly due to the fact H and F do stroke correction and training 3-4 times a week. And everyday in the pool mucking about at home.

Since we moved to our new house I have been terrified that N would drown because he couldn't swim at all. I was terrified that someone would leave the gate open, or he could climb in himself, so I am a bit hardcore on little N's swimming lessons.
I am still vigilant with H & F, even though they are good swimmers. Accidents can happen anytime, so I watch them all the time at home. N used to wear a bubble only a two months ago - he can swim without it now, so we are passing it on to a nephew to use.

Anyway, my ramblings have a message. And that is get your kids swimming! As soon as you can, and as often as you can. Swimming is something that needs working on all the time. And once or twice a week isn't enough time in the pool to get the little ones going, they take much longer the less you do, and it can be years for them to put it together. So do it early and do it often!

Ok, rant over - here's some pics of yesterday.

H & F went in every event yesterday. They tried their little hearts out. Surprisingly so, our little town has some amazing swimmers. Due to the time the coaches put into the kids and the kids working really hard at it. It is a great thing to see them so fit and focused.

F waiting his turn in the relay

H doing the I.M

The spoils

The boys won a few ribbons and H ended up with 11 year boys Champion trophy. They were both pretty stoked and happy with their swims. A few shaky nervous starts from H (he doesn't like pressure). But in the end they both relaxed a bit and enjoyed it all. I am pretty proud of how they have come along with swimming and I love the confidence they get from doing it. It translates through to all their other sports (fitness and strength) and school work.

I won't lie, the last few weeks has been hard for them with starting school again, and getting back into the swing of things (Cricket too). So they have been busy and tired and telling me they are sick of going to training. The weeks are long, and they have been hanging out to do the school carnival for a while, so it has been like waiting for Christmas - seems to never come quick enough.

Now they can swim to save themselves, they can give it up if they choose and I will be fine with it. I can relax knowing if they want to waterski, jetski, swim in the beach, etc. they have a good chance that they won't drown now.

2013 year of the snake

Apparently 2013 is the year of the snake.

I am not a fan of snakes. I have been trying to "get over" my absolute fear and phobia of snakes. It has taken me a very long time to get to a point where I don't go into panic mode. I can see a snake now without totally losing the plot, but I still hate them. They are evil animals with evil beady eyes that freak me out!

When I see one on the road I try to run them over if I can. We have a lot of snakes here, and I have grown up with my mother instilling a fear of snakes to the max. So, it is no surprise that I developed a phobia of them.

When I used to see them in the garden, I used to run squealing into the house having a full blown panic attack, and that awful feeling when the blood totally drains from your face.

After a few "Get a hold of yourself girl!" and "Snakes are everywhere and you probably walk past a hundred that you don't know about!". From my lovely husband, I have learnt to try to live with them.

I probably got better at handling my fear when I saw how calm he was when dealing with them. Somehow, it helped. I still sometimes jump up and have that horrible shivery feeling when I have a close encounter with them, but I am not a sobbing mess anymore afterwards.




My worst nightmare, but a pretty cool pic!
http://angelagilltrap.tumblr.com/image/37000664558

I almost stepped on a young brown snake yesterday when I was watering my fruit trees. It whipped around, and I jumped up and sprinted away from it. It was my own silly fault for wearing thongs out there! You don't have much chance of getting bitten with big boots or gumboots on, so I really should of been wearing better protective gear.

And I also realised that I am getting a bit better at dealing with them than I used to.

I read today that the Chinese New Year is all about fire and water colliding together. And that you should not do any landscaping or renovations on the South East of your home as the snake is making his way in that direction, and nothing should block a snake's path as he makes his journey through the year. Who knows if this is true? It sounds strange, but now I wish I had my verandah all completed since it is on the South East! Lucky there isn't any digging or major work to be done there, just a bit more gauzing and painting to go.

Also the year of the snake brings violence, which sounds pretty awful. Sept 11 happened in the last year of the snake. It all sounds very strange, and I am not superstitious at all about things like this. I just hope that I don't see too many scary brown snakes around my house anymore!

Hmmm will wait and see what it all means....

Hello

Hello,

I know, I have been rather slack on the blog front lately. I have been chastising myself every day for not posting something interesting or pretty when I have so many posts I have created in my head.

Time to get onto it and put it out there on the 'ole bloggy!

I'll start with a catch up for you....

I left my last post before Christmas so I will take it from there.

Christmas was lovely. Saw lots of family, had lots of fun with lots of lovely relatives and I was lucky to be gifted some lovely things.

Introducing my new love...

No, not the beer. The Nespresso behind it!

Although that is another love of mine too!

Next love is this baby.

Installed just before Christmas and just in time too!

The weekend before all the air-con units went in was so damn hot. It was 43.8 degrees.  Just unbearable really. I appreciate the chilled rooms I walk into, and sleeping is easy now. So good.

We did the lounge/dining and all the bedrooms with split systems. Ended up being a better decision to go for these than one massive ducted unit for us.

I had splits at my old house and I loved them. Never had a problem with them usually, frogs and geckos are the enemy though.

Summer isn't summer without a slip-n-slide.


Summer out here isn't really nice and we have been spoilt last year as we got weeks of rain and it was pretty cool.

We knew it was back to a normal summer this time though. We had quite a few weeks of 40 degree days. One day was 47.8 degrees.

I have NEVER in my life ever seen the mercury rise so high. I couldn't imagine a day like that, and I now know what hell must feel like. We knew it was going to be a hot day so I tossed the boys into the pool at 8am. I told them to have a swim, and by 9am we were inside bunkered in. We had a cousin from a cold climate staying with us and he was feeling it. He could not get over how hot it was, and I just kept feeding him iceblocks and ice and water constantly.

It was 43 in my kitchen that day. The air-con was working hard and we hung some curtains whilst we were stuck inside.

Amazing the difference a few curtains make to the temperature of a house!

Yes, curtains are pretty expensive to buy. But the heat they cut that day more than made up for that.

I had a Birthday after Christmas and it was lovely. My favourite champers, and my new butler's tray made from local timber by a local lady! (keeping it real....keeping it real peeps).

My Birthday signalled our one year anniversary in our house. Yes, we moved in on my birthday last year! It wasn't the most fun way to spend a birthday lugging a fridge in with my husband. We moved everything ourselves over a few weeks. Backbreaking times they were!

I am glad that we moved though. We love the house, we love the pool and I love that each child has their own bedroom. And we have space to get away from each other when we want to.

Little N turned four in the holidays.

I can't believe how fast my baby boy has grown up! Time flies when you have children - that's for sure!

Seems like yesterday he decided to make a speedy entrance to the world before I could get to a well-equipped hospital!


On that note I will love you and leave you. We have had fun these holidays, swimming all the time, playing, trying to keep cattle and sheep alive. We didn't find any time to get away as it is just too hot, and cattle need to have water checked every day. So we holidayed at home this time.

I was not looking forward to having a proper routine again! I am already over packing lunches and I am looking forward to next holidays already. Jam packed weeks ahead with swimming carnivals and school things.

Are you ready for the next holidays to swing around like me?