Photos for Nana

Here are some photos of the kids and the kitten playing outside this morning. The "Big Wet" is meant to be heading our way so it was nice to have some outside time this morning.

Gold finds to date

Here is a photo of Wayne's gold collection to date. It's growing quite nicely week to week. To work out the value, gold sells for about $25.00 per gram. We hope to publish more nugget finds soon......

Friends of Thomas the Tank Engine Day

Today the kids and I went to Maldon. It's a small town about half an hours drive away towards Melbourne. We had a steam train ride on Jeremy in a carriage called Mabeline. The girls also enjoyed a horse drawn carriage ride. Natasha went for a ride in a rail trolley as pictured.

More Easter Fun

Here are some more photos from yesterday in Bendigo.

The dragon is made from beach sand that they trucked in and sculpted over the weekend.

The Gold Prospector in the Family

This is what Wayne looks like when he's gold prospecting. If you look in his hand you will see his nugget. His finding rate has improved with the latest detector the GPX4000. He found a small piece on Thursday and six small pieces on Friday.

The gold nugget was found with Wayne's previous detector the Minelab GP Extreme. It's sitting on an Aussie 50 cent piece which is a bit larger than the old NZ 50 cent piece. Latest update since he bought the GPX4000 he has taken it out 4 times and has now found 15 pieces of Gold.

Swimming Achievements

Natasha has just completed a week intensive of swimming lessons and Emily did an assessment of her skills as she is to do a term 2 weekly lesson. Here they are with their certificates from their assessments.

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.