Saturday driving

Loaded up all the kids (plus bonus Flinthart offspring) yesterday morning and hoyed ourselves off down to Hobart. Dream run down (after 10 minutes by the roadside just after we left, when I realised all the podcasts and music were missing from my phone!) with no stops (no crying baby! no urgent toilet breaks!) to enjoy a lovely four or five hours with Tansy, Finchy & the girls. Far too many ideas now racing through my brain! I love having such creative friends. Not quite as good a trip home, but kids were generally pretty good. Was a lovely day, in all!

Spending today working on the very long list of completely and utterly urgent jobs that can no longer be put off. So much to do!

And since the holiday?

What have we done? Well, we’ve had Helen, Stewart and Julala visit off and on since last Sunday, as they try to find their perfect spot to relocate to. We’ve been house hunting ourselves, and have checked out those rentals suitable for us and put in a couple of applications. Fingers crossed one comes through quickly, because we have less than two weeks now until the move out deadline (though chances are we won’t be able to get out before then anyway – ah well!). I’ve been desperately trying to get a little ahead on the editing/publishing things I’d planned for the month, in anticipation of losing a significant chunk of time to packing/moving. And I’ve actually packed the first box! Fortunately (?) quite a lot of our stuff hasn’t been unpacked, which means less stuff to box, but there’s still a fair bit. And some boxes/bags which need redoing. *sigh* What else? A flying visit from the Flintharts while the Merrick-Woods were here. A couple of other quick social catch ups with local friends. An owner inspection of the house which forced a much needed tidy up. And working through a LOT of holiday photos and some blogging. Not all that a productive week, but a start has been made!! And now I am caught up on blogging. Woo!

Holidaying in WA

Tuesday 18th December

Very early start to get to airport for 6.30am flight. Love Launceston airport for ease of bag drop and parking! First time with FOUR kids on flights – they were very very good! Especially the baby, who slept through most of it. Master Two was a bit feral by the end of the second flight, and woke up very cranky from his too-short sleep, but coped okay. Was a bit hot to hang about waiting for car rental, both in airport and again when picking up (they had the wrong car seats so we had to wait for changes) but eventually we got on the road.

First stop to auntie in Perth, partly to say hello, partly to pick up keys to holiday rental which had been dropped there for us. Then made our way to Rockingham to drop the bags and have a little explore of the house (which was HUGE. With lots of stairs! And a fabulous view, which was dominated by kite surfers for most of our visit).

We then headed to the foreshore for a get together with Miss Seven’s old school friends – kids had a ball, I enjoyed catching up with the other mums. We were all getting pretty weary by then, but had to go shopping – reminds me of how much I prefer Click and Collect!

Late in the afternoon we discovered there were issues with lighting in house. Too exhausted to muck about with it after first texts/calls to owner so fell into bed, to deal with it in the morning.

Wednesday 19th

An early start thanks to M2, but nice when I messaged Lyn and unexpectedly she and kids free to come visit – great start to the holiday proper! Electrician came while they were with us, and fixed the problem, thank goodness.

Late afternoon saw us head to more friends, the Giblings, in Port Kennedy for play and dinner. (cut here for big photos and lots more reportage!)

A pleasant outing

We have had a busy couple of days, mostly being not at home. After soccer on Wednesday night, I had an online video presentation, for a CBCA-WA judge’s talk. I didn’t realise how challenging speaking to an audience you can’t see can be – I rely a lot on the cues from the audience to know whether to keep speaking on a particular point or move on, and I had none of that! Was tricky, but I think it went well. I received a lovely bunch of flowers from the CBCA-WA branch today (well, probably yesterday, maybe even the day before! They were on the front doorstep, but we hadn’t used that door since we left Thursday morning, so only discovered today!), which was nice

Thursday we got in the car and headed south. It was a lovely day, and even though we took a scenic (very bad) road to our initial destination, we still managed to arrive early to ZooDoo, a wildlife park not too far from Hobart, but apparently in the middle of nowhere. I love that Tasmania’s hills make it seem like you’re in a very remote place, when in fact a major settlement could be just around the next bend! There we met up with Emma and her daughter, and spent a very pleasant few hours checking out the animals. Master Two overcame his initial trepidation to touch the native animals and enjoyed running up to wallabies to “pat roo!”. The big kids were quite taken with the lizard man, the bus ride and the birds. We all enjoyed!

From there, we made our way to Tansy’s place on the southern outskirts of Hobart, arriving just before she got home with eldest daughter. We were very pleased that the children got along extremely well (mostly), with the big girls bonding over trampoline time at once, and even Master Nine didn’t feel too left out. The littlies were very cute Tansy and Finchy and I enjoyed face-to-face chat (interspersed with online interactions – normal for us!) and we even watched a bit of Doctor Who together, which was enlightening, Tansy being the long term fan she is, and Finchy being a scientist (what, Doctor Who not scientifically plausible? Never!)

We managed to head to bed at a respectable hour (darn you pregnancy!) but had a lovely leisurely start to Friday, which ended up with us wandering down to Big W (we don’t HAVE one in Launceston!) and surrounds for lunch. Not the cheapest of afternoons, but we had fun. We eventually said goodbye, as our cranky toddlers were pushed to the limits with no naptime, and the kids and I headed north again.

Today was another slow start, but then we had to brave the drizzle to take Master Nine to soccer. It wasn’t a pleasant time for spectators, but at least his team won! And today I’ve fluffled around doing not much except keep track of how Snapshot is going (launched yesterday!) and mucking about on the computer – more work tomorrow.

Not even worth posting the list – the only thing I’ve achieved is visiting friends!

     

Christmas Eve, and scary deadlines are approaching!

We’ve had a marvellous couple of days. It was my husband’s 40th birthday on Thursday, but he wasn’t home. However, as a surprise for him I’d invited his closest friend/surrogate dad and family over to celebrate with us and they came, arriving early hours of Thursday morning. We didn’t end up catching up with them until 1pm because I got sidetracked at Alisa’s and with some last minute Christmas shopping after swimming lessons (thinking they would be sleeping off their travels – they weren’t, entirely, but it worked out okay!). I picked them up at their holiday house and took them to a lovely restaurant on the foreshore for lunch (where we toasted absent husband for his birthday), which killed a couple of hours, then back to our place for swim and toast for dinner, with Master Nine going back with them to sleepover!

Friday was our last Vac Swim day (to my enormous surprise, Miss Six passed stage 5, after only the week’s lessons! Master Nine passed stage 6 as well, but he’s had more practise!), and we had our friends’ boy with us. Came home and got presentable, then went and dragged things out of the shed to take to the charity bins – a bit silly to do AFTER showered and dressed! But that meant once our friends came over, I could dash out and do all the last minute things I needed to do, which included a meander around the madhouse shopping centre, SANS CHILDREN!! Got home just after my cousin called in, so had a chat with her, and once she left, we all piled in the car to go pick up husband from the plane. He was very surprised, and very pleased, to see our visitors.

Today I had booked us on the Fremantle to Perth Swan River Lunch Cruise for husband’s birthday, which was very nice, but we were all (particularly the kids) getting pretty weary by late afternoon. Mutual decision to all have an early night (well, except me, but that’s normal) in the hopes that Christmas Day will be full of cheer, not tears! Fingers crossed. We’re having pressies here in the morning, then heading for the hills to have Christmas lunch with my rellies – and then I really MUST do some more packing! Eep *deadlines loom*