June 9th - Pork belly with the Howes and McPs

We had a lovely dinner with the Howes and McPs - slow cooked roast pork belly and all the trimmings. The McPs had just returned from Fiji so were sun kissed and relaxed and pleased to hear they had missed little else other than heavy rain. Pumpkin got wrapped up like a little doll by Tess and Iona and didn't seem to mind. 

May - Mother's Day artwork

I was very flattered to receive the two 'Mum' portraits by Tenzin and Iona for Mother's Day shown below. Spitting image I hear you say!

May - Lulu's 1st birthday

Our Rhodesian Ridgeback/labrador cross "Lulu" had her first birthday in May. The owner of Mia (the chocolate lab Mum in the picture) contacted all 8 puppy owners and suggested that we get them together in a dog park for a birthday romp! Six of the eight huge 1 yr old 'puppies' made it there as well as Mia the mum and the Ridgeback Dad 'Felix' pictured below like a lion at the front of his pride! Pumpkin on the right (our lab/spaniel cross) came along for the fun too.

May - Treetops

We drove to the Central Coast to meet several families from school at Treetops Adventure Park. Barney managed to pass the height test as a ten yr old so he went with Dunc and Arthur on the 10-15 yr old high climbs through trees and sliding down huge flying foxes. I stayed in the 3-10 yr old area with Tenzin and Iona. She was too small to do it alone and parents weren't allowed up on the climbing equipment so she managed to sweet talk an instructor 'Tim' into giving her one-on-one assistance for two hours! Dunc and the other Dads had a ball on the enormous black run climbs at the end and seriously high flying foxes.

Barney and good buddy Lachy.

Arthur on the training ropes before being let loose on the 10-15 yr old climbs.

Iona and her new friend 'Tim'.

Dunc on the grand finale flying fox.

Iona on the wee flying fox.

Tenzin doing his thing.

Iona's new bike

Iona and I decided it was time to trade in the small red bike that the boys had learnt to ride on and get a 2nd hand pink one with all the tassles, teddy bear baskets and back seats. Much better!!

Ocean swims, dusky whaler sharks.

Dunc and I have not done as many ocean swims as we'd like to due to busy schedules, bad weather etc. However, we did manage to get a baby sitter for the early Anzac Day swim with the Bold & Beautiful group for the usual 1.6km swim from Manly Surf Club to Shelly Beach. It was glorious in the water but a bitterly cold wind above the ocean surface. At Shelly Beach, one of the regular swimmers, Greg, played 'The Last Post' on his French horn and we stood in silence as the water lapped at our ankles and we shivered in our wet swimmers in the bitterly cold wind. I shut my eyes and visualised the scene at Gallipoli - it was quite haunting hearing the lapping of the small waves and imagining being there at the time.

A few days later Laura and I did our weekly swim and counted between 20-25 baby dusky whaler sharks (about 1 metre long). They were so stunning that I took Dunc and the kids back to Fairy Bower a few days after that and we took it in turns to stay in the sea pool with Tenzin and Iona or to snorkel out with Arthur and Barney to see the baby sharks. I went out first with the boys and we didn't go far enough as they both got nervous but when Dunc had a turn they seemed to have more confidence and loved seeing the sharks swimming below.

May - Tenzin starts taekwondo

Tenzin has decided to follow in his big brother, Arthur's, footsteps and start Taekwondo. Barney has taken up rock climbing instead and in less than 6 weeks of attending he was asked to join the climbing squad (which involves two x 2 hour climbing sessions per week rather than one session) in order to prepare for competitions and to get ready for climbing real rock faces with the team. Yikes!