Xmas Frolic Fun Run - 7th Dec, 2008

Did I say you could take a photo? No, didn't think so.

So, I made it, the whole 5kms. I couldn't run the whole distance. There weren't any hills on my treadmill...lol. I think I came last, but the results aren't out yet so I can't tell for sure. Either way, I'm glad I did it. I had a few moments of self doubt there when a pack of grannies overtook me around the half way mark and again towards the end when I was overtaken by the guy twice my age who had cerebral palsy, but I didn't run off in the opposite direction and go to McDonalds, I just kept plodding along, feeling a bit stupid, but pleased as I ran through the finish line. No photo of that, Tim let Charli play with the camera as a distraction and she flattened the battery within minutes....lol.

It was heaps harder than I thought it would be. Oh and get this....I was concerned my knees weren't strong enough to run that far so I went out and bought some very expensive, state of the art, sports knee supports. Hence my legs looking like tree trunks in the photo, these things need their own postcode. Monday morning I woke up ridiculously sore, like unable to move sore and the only part of my body that didn't hurt was my knees. Maybe next run I should find a total body support. I'd look like a nutter, but the following week would be easier......80)

A Tale Between Two Races - Part VIII

So we've caught up to the weekend now. Saturday morning we all jumped in the wagon and shot off to town to see Santa at the Magic Cave. The girls were extremely patient through the two hour wait and were eventually rewarded with a brief chat with Santa (we got a good one this year) and a ride on the carousel. We had lunch in town and Ella got some very weird looks from the sandwich bar staff when she asked for a cheese, boiled egg and carrot roll, but it was what she wanted and she ate it all up.

After lunch, back to the car and out to Parafield Gardens for my SIL's 50th Birthday. Happy Birthday Auntie Valmai! The girls had an absolute ball playing with Valmai's poodle Bella and Amy's cockerspaniel, forget it's name. Not sure who wore who out, but they were all exhausted by the time we headed back to Glenelg for dinner and sleep. I was exhausted from watching my mum and sister "discuss" where Xmas was to be held this year. Not totally sure if a decision has been made. I offered our place but it's "too far away for everybody". How does that work? I live there so doesn't that make everybody else's place "too far" for me??? Oh well, I'm happy to stay out of those circular discussions, I get dizzy too easy.....

A Tale Between Two Races - Part VII

Last week it was Family Fun Night for Cati's kindy and we all went to Urimbirra Wildlife Park. The girls had a lovely time terrorising the kangaroos. It rained, but it was not cold. The highlight of the night for the girls was having sausages in white bread for dinner. They thought all their Xmases had come at once - two banned food substances in the one meal. They got brave and asked for Gatorade, I let them have fruit juice instead...lol

Above, Ella is talking to some kangaroos. Below is Cati and her friend from kindy Jordan.

Below, girls in the rain with an emu. Charlotte showing signs of having trust issues, but then it was a very large emu.

Okay so we've hit last week. This has been such fun for me to relive the last month or so of my life in montage form, but I have washing to do and I'm tired so I shall resume this noble quest to catch up to the present day on my blog tomorrow. Joanne, I tried, and I will try to finish it tomorrow. It really has been fun though, I might just neglect it in future and catch up once a month. My life in montage looks way more exciting than my actual life. I like it!

So let me finish with a quote from a guy who looks remarkably like Aleister Crowley, or is that just me?

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." – Sir Winston Churchill

A Tale Between Two Races - Part VI

This top photo is Charli atop Morrie, a beautiful (nearly) 17 hand racehorse belonging to our friend Alan. Followed by Catrina on Morrie and Ella on Morrie. We had a lovely day out at Alan's place a few weeks ago and the girls really enjoyed their first riding lesson with Alan and Morrie. We also met the newest additions to Alan's menagerie. A gorgeous new foal, who was a little bit shy but stood behind Mum and checked us out and 3 little black puppies (only 2 weeks old).

The weather was average, but the sun came out for a while when the girls were riding. Ella really loved riding and announced that it was her second time on a horse unlike her sisters who had never sat on a horse before...lol

A great time was had by all. Thanks Alan, maybe we could farm sit for you when you head off to South Africa in 2009. Hint, hint....

A Tale Between Two Races - Part V

Do all kids love face painting or do mine have a disorder? It seems whenever we leave the house together we return with three little painted indians in the back of the car. Hmmm, very strange.

Oh look, they all go through it....LOL. (Ella trying to take her own photo in the mirror)

Some kids smile when you say "photo", my kids pose like Charlie's Angels. Kent Reserve in the background, our local playground and park at the end of our street.

Who says clothes and jewellery don't buy you happiness? Look at the hat and look at the face. You can't deny proof like that...LOL

Maybe a photographer, maybe a model, Charli just can't make up her mind. She feels at home on either end of the camera (obviously!)

Yes, this post was just a shameless excuse to put lots of cute photos of my kids on the internet. Information is over-rated......

A Tale Between Two Races - Part IV

Yes, as Xmas approaches so do the inevitable Xmas school plays, concerts and other events. This one is Ella's school. The top photo is the cast from Wombat Divine, a play put on by the older primary kids. The photo below is most of Ella's class up the front with Hailey as Mary and all the kids held star wands they had made.

In the below photo, Ella is 2nd from the left sitting on the stage. On her left is Sam, who Ella is not going to marry because Hailey says she is going to marry Sam. On the right Amelia, Zoe (from Geelong not to be confused with the other Zoe) Coen and Corey. Thanks for looking into the camera mate!

This performance was a rehearsal for Ella's class for the end of year concert at the Town Hall that we all got home from a little while ago today. Haven't downloaded those photos yet, but you'll have a strange sense of dejavu when I do.

A Tale Between Two Races - Part III

Okay, November brought a new interest for Charlotte (above) - self portraits, both photographic and hand drawn. Such a serious face, very unusual for Charli....lol

Ella got a new room, the old main bedroom. We painted it a neutral sort of colour and let Ella have one wall in her fave (yellow). I sponged it over the base, it looks better in real life than in the photo. Ella's pretty pleased with the whole affair.

And November brought heaps of gardening and unusual flowers. Here above is Tim's Dragon Arum Lily. It may look unimpressive in the photo but the flower petal is longer than two foot and the colour is a really, really deep magenta red which looks nearly black. It is supposed to be a rare plant but they grow like weeds at ours. They are kept down the back away from the house because they smell like fly spray or rotten meat or something gross.

This photo above. These are my pride and joy. I got the seeds of these gorgeous girls from a friend in Amsterdam. Black Hollyhocks. They are the blackest flower I've ever grown and I've been trying for a lot of years now. They are a really deep purple with red middles, but from further than a foot away they really look black as night. Absolutely gorgeous.

This bearded iris is a hybrid I bought from Dandenong (I think). I forget it's name, but it's pretty nice and has about 5 different colours in the petals from orange to magenta. We transported about 200 irises to the front garden, but this one and another rare one (yes, fine, it's a black orchid, I do not have OCD though, it's a hobby, people have hobbies surely...) have stayed out the back and survived the ducks. I repotted all my cybidium orchids this month, but left my dendrobium orchids in the same pots because they flowered for the first time this year (can't believe I didn't photograph that...lol) after buying them all about 5 years ago.

A Tale Between Two Races - Part II

We renovated the room previously known as "The Playroom" (translation...a room so messy it defies description). I concluded that the only thing worse than MacDonalds serving nutritionally devoid substances under the guise of food is the stoopid little plastic fantastic toys they give out with kids meals. OMG, so much garbage.

As you can see from the photo above, I had plenty of help and we created a lovely new Main Bedroom which I don't have a photo of....lol

Off to Ella's Xmas School Concert so I'll get back to Part III onwards later.

A Tale Betweeen Two Races - Part I

It's been brought to my attention that I don't "blog" enough. Thanks Joanne for trying to adjust my attitude. So today I plan to rectify it. Yesterday I ran in the Asthma Foundation Xmas Frolic, today I can't walk so let's go back to last month and catch up.

The face painting, fun and frolics is the Port Elliot Show where the girls and I enjoyed a day. Charlotte is a butterfly, Cati is Spidergirl and Ella has goldfish kissing in a bowl on her face. We met Ella's friend Hailey and lots of other people I didn't photograph....lol

We have been keeping up our walking, including this beautiful day where we walked the causeway and "did" Granite Island. Most perfect Spring day for it. Pretty windy, but only on one side of the island. The girls loved the steps on the Eastern descent, possibly because they could see the kiosk from there. There was heaps of people, it was a great day. We decided to forgo the horse drawn tram ride on the way home and opted for walking the causeway back and a ride on the ferris wheel instead.

City to Bay Fun Run - Adelaide - Sept 21st 2008

Yesterday morning I participated in my first Fun Run. The City to Bay had 29,000 people enter this year and Adelaide put on some incredibly awesome weather for the event. I started from the Kurralta Plaza 6km start point and completed the walk in just under an hour. Technically challenged as I am, I can't seem to find either my official result or my finish line photo on the site online so you're stuck with this terrible photo of me just before the race on the balcony of the Hotel we stayed Saturday night. Yes, that's the Buffalo and the Marina in the background, 10 points to anyone who can guess the said Hotel and 20 points if you get the room number right. Check out the sunshine! And this is like 7am - it got better, how cool is that?

Next year I'm hoping to get Ella to join me on the walk, although if she doesn't want to it will allow me to enter the 12km run which would be totally wicked! I'll let you know...

The Bluff - South Australia - 13th Sept 2008

G'day sports fans. The funny looking hill you see in the photo to the left is a local point of interest for Victor Harbor on the gorgeous Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia. It is known as The Bluff and is a fantastic spot to view Victor Harbor and surrounds from.

Not a mountain by rights, the walk up is only about a ten minute slog, although the path we chose down got a bit hairy but only because the loose gravel on the track made it more like skiing than walking.

Again, the girls did great. It was a very windy day, so a lot of hat chasing went on once we got to the top and some adrenalin got produced on the trip down because I chose a very slippery, steep track. We all survived it though!


"I can see my house from here!" Yes, the lovely Thomas girls with a view of Victor in the background. I can actually see my house, but do not have the tech skills to circle it on the photo for anyone else.

This was a pretty short trip as far as bushwalking adventures go, so I don't have much else to say and so the rest of this post will be some pictures of the gorgeous Fleurieu coastline. It was a stunningly beautiful sunny and warm day. Sure it was windy, but unless you're a hat, that wasn't really a problem.

Waitpinga Beach - South Australia - 8th Sept 2008

Monday morning was a bright and sunny day down here in Victor. School was cancelled for Show Day and Kindy got cancelled due to lack of available staff(ie. Show Day...lol), so armed with buckets and spades, we hit the beach.

Waitpinga Beach is about 15 minutes down the road and is a really dangerous swimming beach, but great surf and fabulous white sand beaches as far as the eye can see. It was 18 degrees so we weren't planning to swim, we planned to sand castle with a vengeance.



We walked 1/2 a km south along the beach, crossed the river at the inlet and set up camp. As you can see, the kids got straight into some serious construction. I used the time to run some laps in the soft sand. Running barefoot rocks! Every so often, one of the girls would bore with the sand castle and come and join me for a few races, which they won hands down every time.

I wandered a bit up the beach and down the river, taking some photos, what a shock!

We ate some fruit when the castle was finished and admired the girls' fantastic creation. Then there was time for some hopping races and some jumping - soft sand is so versatile and forgiving on the joints - some admiring of dead sea creatures along the shoreline, some cuttle fish collection and it was time to go home.

Again the girls amazed me. They were tired at the end, but they had experienced a pretty athletic day and yet had not complained at all. Little champions!

Deep Creek Cove - South Australia - 7th Sept 2008

On Father's Day, we decided to go bushwalking and have a picnic. After having a quick look over the map, I decided that Deep Creek Cove looked like a nice walk and the bonus was we could have a lovely picnic down by the sea. For those of you who know me already, you would be aware that I am navigationally challenged when using maps or GPS units and this was definitely a fine example of that.

The leisurely 3.4km walk down to Deep Creek Cove was a treacherous and mountainous alley way, totally grown over in parts. I feared when we hit the top of the stairway( a wild generalisation of what I would traditionally call a stairway) that my three little angels, 6, 4 & 3, had not a hope in hell of making it down safely and even less hope of making it back up. The distance between the steps was higher than Charlotte's head in places. Me of little faith! The girls made it, well we all made it, but the girls did an awesome job and although they were tired at the end of the trip, we were all pretty pumped that we had done a rather athletic walk/climb in really good time.

The sign said that the return trip could take 2.5 hours but we achieved it in under two hours without injuries or tears(well not many tears anyway). The weather was gorgeous, 18, sunny and a cool sea breeze to stop us sweating too much from the effort. As mentioned, the "stairs" consisted of logs set into the mountainside every so often and Charlotte had issues with this because the "steps" were about 3 foot apart and she's about 2 foot high, so she adapted like the little champion she is and avoided the "steps", creating a slalom course down the mountain, around the logs, which she traversed mostly on her backside, much to the amusement of me, bringing up the rear, and some English tourists we met half way down. I figured that if the worst injury she sustained going down that hillside was a dirty bottom then we could all live with that. The picture to the left shows the track up the hill.

The following pictures are of Deep Creek Cove. It is a beautiful spot. We had a lovely picnic, an awesome day and the whole family felt like they had achieved something when we finally made it home again in one piece.