Strawberry pick in' and the Compass cup!

Yesterday, we all went to Mount Compass with my mum, my sister and a friend from Slovenia. If anyone out there reading this has kids, you may have heard of a Canadian cartoon called Caillou. Caillou is four and has a little sister Rosie. My two older kids, therefore, often assume these characters. They are amazing and remaining in character, to the point where they will only respond to Caillou and Rosie and will adopt a Canadian accent. It is very cute! Well, there is an episode where Caillou goes with his friend Clementine to the berry patch to pick strawberries. Sadly, this episode was, I fact, my overriding inspiration to go berry picking.

Picking strawberries was actually a really enjoyable outing. Alex and Anna don't really enjoy eating strawberries all that much, but they thoroughly enjoyed picking them! Benji, on the other hand, thought he was in Heaven... Every time he had smashed through a strawberry, he growled for a replacement. I think he probably had the most fun of all.

After some successful berry picking, we went into the town and had lunch at the bakery before heading into the Compass Cup. I had low expectations, but it was pretty awesome... The kids went on a ride, Alex and Benj went into the animal nursery (surprise, surprise, Anna was scared) and then they played on the tractors and at the playground.

The adults, however, had an absolute ball watching the races... The milk scull- hilarious! Contestants had to run to a straw bale, scull a litre of milk, run around the oval to another straw bale, scull another litre of milk and then run to the finish line... Every chuck got a resounding cheer from the crowd... The other obstacle races were also amusing.

Unfortunately, we had to leave relatively early because we had plans in the evening, but we had a great day out and may have to go back next year... After all, we didn't get to stay for the main event, the cow racing!

Weekly wrap up #3

Well, another very busy week! Last week of the holidays, so we have to try to cram as much non work related stuff in as possible. So, without further ado, here is the wrap up...

Monday was my actual birthday. Unfortunately, I had to go to a funeral (as I am the Church organist). I brought my mum with me so that we could drop in to an op shop on the way home. After he funeral, I went to the car and guess what, the battery was dead! (I'm not going to elaborate on possible reasons for the battery being dead, suffice to say, we weren't going anywhere in a hurry). Luckily there was a guy there who had jumper leads, however, he was driving a newish BMW and so jump starting my car could result in damage to his on board computer if we didn't disconnect his battery first... Too hard, so we just waited until a nice man riding his push bike offered us a jump start... Anyways, we eventually got going and I found a few lovely items at the op shop (score!). Once I picked up my children from my mum's house, I went home to see my husband, who just happened to have bought me a birthday present (I'm not big on presents, but he did a great job!) He thought he was being really funny, buying black plastic (I may or may not subscribe to the 3 days of darkness prophesy, which may or may not mention something about black plastic), but I thought he was being extremely practical and thoughtful. I'm going to use said plastics to build up a mound to plant strawberries (fingers crossed).

Tuesday- my daughter decided to paint her face with lip gloss while I was busy doing something with the Benj. The results were not pretty... Don't say I didn't warn you!

I spent most of the day cleaning up the bedrooms because they were pretty atrocious (thanks to Alex and Anna). The plan for the week was to have everything sorted out and tidy and organised, ready for the following week...

Wednesday- spent some time on the computer, typing out chore charts for my four and two year olds (yeah, 'cause that's going to happen). Well, most of their 'chores' are things that I already expect, I just added a couple of others to, you know, get them ready for things like doing the dishes... I don't know about other parents, but I am hanging out for kids who are old enough to do dishes. I know that in order to have kids actually do them, I need to start their training now, but I am naively optimistic at this stage :)

Thursday- I dropped the car off for a service and spent the day at my mum's. Funny story- I accidentally left Sam's phone on the windscreen of his car, and when he came to pick me up after I dropped the other car off, he asked me where it was. Well, we had driven about 12 km and his phone was still on the windscreen, next to the wiper blades. Phew! Anyways, spent the day with my mum, talking about stuff, you know, just relaxing.

All things Austen :)

A relatively short blog today...

For fans of Jane Austen, some women have started up a Facebook group called, The Motherhood and Jane Austen Book Club. They are reading all the novels throughout the year, beginning with Pride and Prejudice, and discussing the themes of each novel... The first discussion (about P&P) begins in Feb... So, get reading, join the group and join the discussion! Classics are classics for a reason and sometimes a cup of tea and an old school romance is just what you need to get you through :)

Weekly wrap up #2

This week could probably be summed up with one word: hot!! (Temperature hot, not attractive hot). In Adelaide, where I live, we had a short heat wave of five days (I think) of 40+ degree Celsius days. One of those days, our city reached 46.2 degrees! which made Adelaide the hottest capital city in the World... Impressive! So, this week was really a lesson in heat survival, and we passed with flying colours :)

So here are my top tips of how to stay cool...
1) Buy a house that is built in the optimal position (eg, sun does not stream through front windows). We did this unintentionally- but it's something that I would now consider if I was buying a new house.
2) Roller shutters! Once again, we were lucky to have them already present- but a great investment I think.
3) Dark days and open house nights. when nature is trying to kill you, work with it, not against it.
4) Kiddy pool. Under cover and with a few cups and funnels. Enough said.
5) Squirt bottles- just randomly squirting unsuspecting 'victims' during the day.
6) Fans- we don't use the air conditioner very often, but fans are on almost 24/7.
7) The final tip... Ice cream milk shakes! Because who doesn't love them?

The hot weather broke on Saturday, just in time for my birthday celebrations! Tomorrow, I will be 30, but we celebrated over the weekend. Sam and I took our older two to a hotel Saturday a afternoon for a swim in the roof top pool :) We had a really great time watching our son trying to drown himself because in his mind, he is a really good swimmer.

Then, we went back to my parents' house for dinner. (Side note: my parents are the best! Love you mum and dad).

After dinner, we left our kids with my parents for their first ever sleepover all together- this is an important step, one that I'm glad they have finally made. Sam and I went back to the hotel with my brother and his wife for some pre drinks, before our real drinking session. It was a good idea due to the fact that I was a bit stressed and needed a drink to relax... The rest of the night was indulgent, to say the least. As well as my brother and his lovely wife, I got to catch up with my sister, my little brother (who just turned 23) and his brand new fiancée!, a couple of my good friends and Sam's three sisters, their partners and my in laws. Now, I don't condone binge drinking, except when you are turning 30!! Luckily, a couple of the girls were keen to dance with me because getting my husband to dance is quite a huge task.
I ended up having an absolute blast for my birthday and to top it all off, I got to have a full night sleep, in a queen sized bed, ALL ON MY OWN!!! And to finish off this weekly wrap up, I have remembered to take photos of what I wore to Mass today :) God bless and catch ya next week!

Book review- The Book Thief

Just finished reading The Book Thief in anticipation of the movie. It was quite different to anything I have ever read before. It was written by the character, 'Death', and follows a young girl's experiences throughout the Second World War. Thanks to my husband's interest in all things WWII, I have developed quite a fascination for the human stories that date back from that point in history. Not a morbid fascination, but a fascination with the strength of character that some people had, and an appreciation for how difficult and confusing it would have been for people caught up in the propaganda.

This book presented a few different perspectives of how the German citizenry in small villages may have felt during the war. Although it is a fictional story, I like to think that the cross section of humanity that it represented is an accurate portrayal of opinions during the war. It is easy to look back on those times and think how could people have gone along with that propaganda, but this book serves as a reminder to me that even though people may have been against the government, it was easier and safer to just maintain a low profile. People could have instigated little rebellions in their own homes to alleviate their consciences and help to maintain their own sense of humanity in a world that saw some people as sub human...

 Anybody see a link with today's world? It is easy to silently condemn citizens of Nazi Germany as cowards or worse, but we too live in a world where some people are seen as sub human. Do we stand up against these atrocities? Do we demand rights for, as an obvious example, the unborn? The elderly? The sick? The disabled? Do we fight against proposed laws that would see our most vulnerable citizens subject to discrimination or pressure to seek euthanasia? Do we encourage those who are fighting for the rights of others or do we slander them? Are we really much better than those citizens in Nazi Germany who just went along for a ride? How do we want to be remembered?

Anyways, enough with the hard hitting questions, and back to the book... Upon reflection, I quite liked the book. As I have already mentioned, it was written quite differently to other books I have read, but once I got used to the author's style, it was a good read. One criticism I have is that, even though throughout the book events are described in painstaking detail, the ending was very abrupt. I don't like abrupt endings! It's a thing I have. I like endings to give me such a sense of closure that I'm not left wondering about anything, at all. Apart from that, I would recommend this book as an interesting read- not light hearted, the subject matter is too heavy for that, but not heavy and depressing either- because if you were Death and narrating a story, individual deaths would be more of a matter of business than emotion- and that is the way it was portrayed in the book.

Weekly wrap up #1

This past week has been quite busy considering we are still very much in holiday mode. On Monday, we took a friend of ours on a wine tour... He is actually quite the wine connoisseur and goes on at least one annual wine tasting tour- we, however, were new to this whole experience. I offered to be the designated driver (because, even though I love the idea of drinking wine, I can't stand the taste), and off we went to McLaren Vale. I had researched (yep, nerd!) where we were going to go... There is a street that has a few wineries as well as a beer distillery (for my husband) and so I thought perfect, we will just lazily go from one to the next and have lunch at the distillery. Well, the first cellar door, closed. Good start Bec! The second, however, was open, and so we went inside and had our first ever wine tasting session :)

I can, at times, be really naive, and I had no idea how these sessions worked... Do you have to pay? Will they be annoyed if we try a whole lot of wine and don't buy any? The lady serving us did give us the option to do a tasting that did cost money ($15) and I decided that we would go for that option to alleviate my guilt when we decided not to buy any wine :) After this winery, we headed further down the road to the distillery for lunch... closed! Well, that ended our classy wine tasting session, so we head into town for food. I tried a couple sips but I have confirmed that I do not like wine, even when it costs $300 a bottle.

Later in the week, my husband bought a car. While he went to test drive the car, I decided that it would be the perfect opportunity for me to take the three kids on a public transport outing (one of their favourite things in the world!). First of all, we caught a train to the city. We got off the train and I asked Alex what he would like to do in the city... Catch the tram! (Of course). So we did, we caught the tram all the way to the beach. Then we got some hot chips and waited for the bus. After a relatively short (about 15 minutes) bus ride, we were at nana's, and I was ready for a rest...

Finally, we also went to the beach with the kids and my in laws to do a spot of swimming and fishing...lovely weather, great for swimming, terrible for fishing, and a couple of tantrums... All in all, a lovely little excursion :) Anyways, I had a whole lot of photos to add, however they are not loading (grrr). Hopefully next week's wrap up will be complete with visuals! Hope you all have a lovely week, God bless :)

And so it begins: 2014

Well, 2014 has got off to a good start :) I've started organising my folder to living the year liturgically... I used the saint generator to get our family's saint for this year- we got St Patrick. So this year, I'm predicting a lot of green and things that come in threes...

Also, Sam took Alex to buy a special kindy bag and lunch set, and we both took him to choose a special kindy uniform. The theory is that he will be excited to go to kindy, and may actually stay there without crying the whole time. Also, I'm hoping that eventually he looks forward to going :) kindy is a two day a week affair down here, so I'm sure I'll miss him, but at least I'll have the other two to keep me company.

Tomorrow is the feast of the Epiphany (when the three wise men visited baby Jesus) so tomorrow we are going to bless our house and I will bake a kings cake- basically a cake with coin or ring in it. Whoever gets the slice with the ring/coin gets to be the king/queen for the day. This will be our first kings cake, so I will interested to see how much fighting and arguing will ensue once the ring/coin is found- hopefully it stays pretty tame, it is a feast day after all.

Another first tomorrow, Sam and I are taking an American friend out to visit a few wineries. I've never been to a winery for lunch- it seems like such a sophisticated and classy thing to do... I'm quite excited to get dressed up and lunch like a lady :) There is only one flaw in my perfect plot for an elegant outing, I don't drink wine. I wish I did, it just looks classy to sip on a glass of Sauvignon blanc in the middle of a vineyard, perhaps nibbling on some brie and crackers... But, alas, I just don't like it, the wine or the Brie. Oh well, I guess I will have to content myself with a lovely lunch and water in a wine glass :) I'll post some pictures in my next blog...