End of Year Irish Concert

The girls all performed very well on the stage and they looked very cute. Their first dance was to the music "Lord of the Dance" and the second was a heel and toe polka. Their teacher presented them with medals at the end so they were well impressed.

Mmmmmm Muffins

Rhys and I whipped up a batch of Banana and Rasberry Muffins. They look really yummy, we got the recipe off the Weight Watchers website.

Camping at Ulupna Island

We really enjoyed camping here. There were Koala's in the surrounding trees and they were the first Koala's in the wild that we have seen. There was one right above us in our campsite that had a baby with her. When I was washing the dishes after dinner I looked up and there they were lying on a branch above me watching me tidy up. They looked very relaxed. Our campsite was on the banks of the Murray River and we had a nice sandy beach in front of us where the kids could play. Our first night was a bit unsettled as the kids were up and down. The Koalas make loud honking and snuffling noises at night and it got rather windy. The second day we were sad to see our pleasant camping area taken over with young guys intent on partying through the night. We ended up giving up on sleep, packing up and heading home. Another premature end to our camping :-(.
We are really glad that we went though, as seeing the koalas in their natural habitat made the trip memorable and worthwhile.

Camping Adventure

As we are considering going camping in the Christmas Holidays we thought we would give the kids and our camping gear a trial run. We picked a spot close to home so if it all turned to custard we could go home easily.
The weather forcast was threatening occasional scattered showers and the odd thunderstorm, but the sky was clear and blue so we set up camp. It was about 35 degrees (damn hot and humid). The tents were surprisingly straightforward and we soon had a camping site that we were pleased with.
A couple of bushwalks in the heat of the afternoon (6.6kms) and we took our too hot and tired bodies back to camp to cook dinner. Wayne (Masterchef of outdoor cooking) cooked us a delicious dinner and we were relaxing and heating up water for the dishes when I noticed a couple of lightning flashes in the darkening sky. We hurried through the dishes and I had just got them dry when the stom hit with all it's force. Wayne dumped the dishes water on the fire to put it out because the wind got really wild and the thunder and lightening was constant. The rain then dumped on us and a big gust of wind pulled most of the tent pegs out. I huddled with the kids in their tent as they were all hiding under their pillows (whimpering).
Wayne did an awesome job of packing everything into his ute. We then drove home to showers and warm dry beds. Went back this morning and amazed to see that our tents were still up and relatively dry inside. With the benefit of hindsight we could have probably stayed the night, but we had no way of knowing how many more storms were going to pass over us. Since the tents were nearly dry, we packed them up and went home to do lots of washing.