Family Day at Lake Weeroona

We had a fabulous day at the lake today. We began the day with an Easter egg hunt for the kids. Imagine about 100 4,5 and 6 year olds digging for 60,000 mini easter eggs in a large pile of straw. They were given pink plastic bags to fill and we now are the proud owners of about 40 mini easter eggs.

Natasha is the first member of our family to ride a camel. She loved it and wasn't scared at all.

The girls drove cars on a round and round ride and even I had a ride with all three kids in a giant cup and saucer that spins around until you feel ill. (Not really my cup of tea:))

The day was finished sucessfully with Rhys behind the wheel of a Mack army tanker.

Other news is that Tasha lost another top tooth yesterday. Her grin is becoming rather gummy.

Natasha at Saddle Club and Emily on her new bike

Rhys and Emily

All the posts have been about Natasha lately so here are some photos of Rhys and Emily taken this morning. Rhys is eating a necterine for his morning tea.

Other exciting news is Natasha is biking like a pro without trainer wheels. Her Daddy is getting ver fit jogging around the lake with her every night.

We bought Emily a new bike yesterday and she is biking around the lake now too. Rhys keeps trying to climb on the bikes. He walks over to them and the little leg goes up and over the seat. Wayne was pushing him around on it yesterday and the big grin on his face was priceless.

Dan the Horse

Natasha has had a very horsy weekend, two pony rides at her school fair on Friday night and then Wayne led her around for half an hour on this horse walking and trotting on Saturday. She enjoyed herself so much that I took her back there today and she did another 30 mins with me leading her around. Emily and Rhys sat and watched from behind the fence. She seems very keen so we are starting pony club next Sat morning. This riding centre has a Pony Club for kids that don't own horses. Watch this space for more horsy pictures next weekend.

Melbourne

We also visited the Melbourne Aquarium. It is 4 levels and has all sorts of interesting creatures. We saw spiders, snakes, giant crabs, sharks, stingrays and jelly fish. Wayne took a lovely closeup of the biggest shark's smile for you.








We took the train into Melbourne today. Our first tourist stop was the Rialto Tower. Here are some pictures of the outside of the tower and the view from the 55th floor. It is 253m high so a bit shorter than the Sky Tower.

Hot Air Balloons over our house

This was the view out the back of our house this morning. They were waving to us and were nearly close enough to talk to. That's our TV aerial in the picture with them.

Natasha Updates

This post is for Nana. Here is the best photo yet of Natasha in her school uniform. She has just had two days off school with a swollen hand from a wasp sting on Monday. She had a large local reaction to the sting and she still has a swollen hand today, but it is starting to go down. It was soooo nice to see her go off to school this morning that I just had to take a photo.

Bendigo Pottery

Established in 1858, Bendigo Pottery makes some beautiful pieces. The kids had a go at Clay Play which took a lot of concentration as you can see.

Natasha's Milestones

Natasha had a pretty exciting day today. We took the trainer wheels off her bike today and Wayne and I did lots of running alongside her. I think tomorrow could be more fitness training for me also as we haven't mastered the balancing act yet. Terror keeps getting in the way and the pedalling stops and the brakes get applied as soon as she suspects that we might let go.

When we got home the wriggly tooth got a helping hand and we now have the lovely toothless grin. The tooth fairy will be visiting tonight so both girls went to sleep very fast so she could do her work.

Meet the newest member of the family

This is Jesse. He is 9 weeks old and already creating havoc around our house.

Emily and Rhys are scared of him and he is smaller than most of their teddy bears.

He likes to sleep in the dolly bath. Natasha loves him and takes care of him. He's very playful and likes company. While I'm typing this he's lying on the floor next to me, quite content.

Echuca

This is the paddle turning.

A lovely adult fairy did this lovely facepainting for the girls. Emily has a cat and a horse and Natasha has a butterfly and a dolphin.

Captain Natasha.

Three little monkeys sitting in a row

We went to Echuca yesterday to have a look. What a lovely town. It is on the border between Victoria and NSW and is about an hour and a half drive from Bendigo. We had a one hour cruise up the Murray River on Pride of the Murray. The kids had a turn in the wheelhouse. We saw some beautiful riverboats, pictured here: The Canberra and the Emmy Lou They date back to the early 1900s when the main way to move freight from the Port of Melbourne was up the Murray River. Some of you may remember the mini series "All the Rivers Run" it was filmed here and we saw the actual boat they used for it.

We also enjoyed the Jazz bands playing on the street, nothing better than a cold Victorian Bitter outside listening to Jazz. They were having a Jazz Festival so there were different bands playing outside every pub and cafe.

They had some Clydsdales pulling a carriage around the block so we hopped in and had a ride up the main street.

On the way home we had a ride on a minature train at Elmore. It had a three km track so was quite a decent long ride. Rhys loved it.

On the whole we had a really enjoyable day, it was a bit like stepping back in time for the day. We will be visiting again soon, probably the winter Blues Festival in July.

A few more photos of interest

Here are some more photos to bring you up to date.

Natasha has started school, she attends Golden Square Primary School. The Lizard is one that we released after it tried to live in our cabin on our curtain.

The Pelicans are on Lake Weeroona in Bendigo and the tram is also a Tourist icon of Bendigo. I have included an up to date photo of Rhys who is walking more than crawling now.

Welcome to Australia

30th December we arrived here and began our new adventure. Our rental car was a red Holden Commodore stationwagon which we had for eight days. Our home was a little self contained cabin at the Dunolly Caravan Park and our first mission was to buy cars. Wayne bought a Toyota Hilux for his gold prospecting in the State Forest and I bought a 1994 Mitsibishi Magna.

Our first morning we were up early and off to Waanyarra to see Kangaroos. We saw big groups of them in the clearings alongside the road. It was really neat to see them in the wild rather than a zoo enclosure. There is a really neat church ruin there as well.

The land here is so vast and so brown. There are long gravel roads everywhere. The paddocks are huge and the country towns are like stepping back in time with the old General Store that sells everything and the close community feel.

The caravan park was really friendly and we soon settled into the routine of afternoon drinks by the duckpond and woodfired Pizza on Friday nights. The people are really friendly and helpful. Most of them are Gold prospectors.

Natasha's first Ballet Production

Natasha was a rabbit in La fille Mal Gardee. Here are some photos of her in her costume.