Our Family Holiday in July (day 2)

Day 2 of our Holiday in July

 After a goodnight sleep it was an early start to the day. No clear blue skies and shinning sun today. But that was ok. We got ready and caught the 9:00am cradle mountain shuttle bus up to Dove Lake. The girls enjoyed sitting right at the front of the bus, looking out the window and talking away. They did a great job at keeping the other passengers entertained. When the driver of the bus would finish telling us about some of the features of cradle mountain, Milly would say, "what did you say man?" Too cute!
Hanisi listened intently to what the bus driver said and would then tell us in her own words, what he said.
We made it to Dove Lake. As soon as we got there and saw the lake, Milly asked if their were crocodiles in the lake. HAHAHAH. We assured her that there were no crocodiles in the lake.

It didn't take long for the girls to head off bush walking or should we say bush running. They loved running along the track ahead of us. I think they were trying to loose us deliberately : ) This photo of them on the rock is one for you Grandad (Grandad is an enthusiastic bush walker), don't they look like great little bush walkers? They had so much fun running along the tracks and hiding we lost Milly for a little but there. Hanisi had told her to hide somewhere so we could find her, but she kept on running along the track (oh dear).

 We walked / ran down to the boat shed and had a look down there. Threw some rocks in the Lake. Milly tripped over while running, so that was the end of her bush walking adventure. She enjoyed a shoulder ride on Sam back to catch the shuttle bus. While poor Hanisi wanted me to carry her, but she is too big for me to carry these days. Instead she held my hand and we made it back to the bus, where they munched up their morning tea. Bush running is hungry work

This is Milly looking for Crocodiles in the lake.

 After our adventure at Dove Lake it was time to hop into a warm car and continue on our journey. We headed for the Promise Land to take the girls to Tazmazia. But much to our disappointment the weather turned sour and started pouring down. So our next stop was Sheffield where we filled up on some much needed lunch. After lunch we were then deciding whether or not to go to the Marakoopa caves. We had some tired girls. We asked if they wanted to go and they said yes. So we thought we would attempt it. We did have a bag of lollies to pull us through the cave tour if needed.

So our late decision to go to the caves men't that Sam needed to put on his Targa hat, the pedal to the metal and a prayer of Safety to get us there on time. The kids actually slept during the Targa driving and amazingly I didn't spew! We got to the caves with 5mins to spare. Sam ran in got the tickets we drove up to the cave entrance. Completly forgot about the kids being asleep, we opened their car doors and said, "QUICK LETS GO." The poor things they looked like possums in car headlights.

Once we told them we were at the caves. They were excited. We saw some beautiful formations of the stalactites and stalagmites.

 The girls enjoyed climbing the stairs  and walking through the narrow passageways.Hanisi thought it was great, that she didn't have to duck her head when walking through some spots, while everyone else had to duck down. Looking at all the glow worms was a big favourite for the girls.

Our tour guide was kind enough to take a family shot outside the cave entrance

A trip to the caves was the last adventure for our July Holiday. It was then time to go home. We had a wonderful time and look forward to heading back that way and taking the girls to Tazmazia on a nice day!
Oh how could I nearly forget. You can't travel home from that direction without a stop at Andy's for icecream!

Our Family Holiday in July (day 1)

On Friday the 6th of July at around 10am we embarked on our one night away holiday. We hadn't even left for our adventure yet and I already liked the idea of going away for only one night, because there wasn't much to pack : )

 This is what we were looking forward to doing.... However it wasn't so. We packed our two days so full of fun things to do that we came home more tired than when we left.

We were all very excited. It was a beautiful winter day, clear blue skies, no cold wind. It actually felt like Spring.

Our destination for today was first to head out to Mole Creek then onto Cradle Mountain. On our way out to Mole Creek we stopped to visit the one and only G.N.B (Great Nanny Bounds). We briefly saw Great Poppy, as he was heading out to a Funereal. Our visit with the G.N.B was nice, we had a quick chat (which was amazing heheh) and the kids got a couple of snake lollies each. We love G.N.B and Great Poppy.
G.N.B gave us some money so we could get an icecream from the Chudleigh Honey Farm.

The kids liked the Honey farm, they enjoyed watching the bees flying into and out of the hive, that is displayed inside the shop. They weren't too keen on trying the sample honey but when we said there is a pink honey (raspberry) they were keen to try that one. Sam fell inn love with the Ainseed honey and purchased a jar.

We each got an icecream. I got pistachio, Hanisi had chocolate, Milly had raspberry (the pink one) and Sam got two flavours, one was peach and I can't remember the other flavour.  Sam was in love with his peach flavour icecream so much, he took a photo of it. I must admit it was a really nice flavour.

We all went outside to eat our icecreams. The kids enjoyed running around pretending to be bees. They each got a bee pencil to take home.

Then it was on to our next destination, Trowunna Wildlife park.When we arrived at the wildlife park we had only just got out of the car, when Milly asked, "where are the kangaroos?" We explained to her that we had to go inside the park first to see the Kangaroos, there were none in the car park. We entered the park and Milly did not stop asking where the Kangaroos where until she finally saw them.

Milly, as you can imagine was very excited to see the kangaroos and couldn't wait to feed them.

 Hanisi on the other hand was a bit unsure about how she felt about them.

 But with a little bit of guidance from Dad, her confidence built

 and she was feeding them on her own. Milly was a natural. It took very little coaching from us for her to do it by herself. 

 It didn't take long and they had all become friends

 We think this Kangaroo looks like a very pretty lady with her long eye lashes she just needs some lippy.


I put Millys' Jacket on one of the Kangaroos, for a bit of a joke. Sam, I and the other people at the park thought it was funny. However when the Kangaroo started hopping away with Millys' jacket on, Milly started crying and Hanisi started chasing the Kangaroo, yelling, "give back Millys 'Jacket." Unfortunately they didn't see the funny side nor did I get a photo of the Kangaroo in a pink Jacket. But we thought it was quite amusing.

Everyone else in the park managed to get a picture of it except us :(

 We took this picture without even realising that this Kangaroo had 2 babies. Strange place to put a second baby.

We met some interesting animals at the wildlife park, some more memorable than others.

 This is Kelvin the Kookaburra, officially named so by Hanisi. Kelvin and Annette are friends that we have known for years and just so happen to be our neighbours now. Kelvin has an artificial eye, but recently he has had some complications with it so is wearing a patch to help with the healing process. Well Hanisi is fixated with Kelvin's missing eye.

For family home evening we made some little flower people to give to people who we thought might need some cheering up. Kelvin was one of those people, and Hanisi wanted to make his flower. We had some googly eyes to put on them, and Hanisi insisted that Kelvin's flower person only have one eye.

So because this Kookaburra only had one eye naturally it was called Kelvin.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day at the park and all the animals were out getting as warm as they possibly could from the sun's rays. This is the position that we found most of the Tasmanian Devils.  

We were lucky enough to meet Suzie the Wombat. Suzie was a young Wombat that one of the workers at the park presented to the visitors  and gave a brief run down on their fascinating features.

This is the grumpy Goose, from Cape Barron. She had made a nest on the side of the path, and loved to hiss at people as they walked by. There was an egg in her nest which she was protecting. But Daddy being Daddy got a bit to close and the goose pecked at his trousers.

We ended the day at the wildlife park with a final feed of the Kangaroos, a play at the park and a trip to the loo.

Next stop was the Marakoopa Caves. We checked the times of the tours on our phone, and I read that the last tour was at 4.pm. We arrived at the caves at 3:05, to find that the last cave tour, during the summer months, is at 4 and the last one in winter was at 3.pm. Oh well, so we continued on our way to Cradle Mountain, our place of refuge for the night.

It was a long windy trip. The kids slept most of the way, I drove, and Mariah vomited. She doesn't like long windy roads, and this was an extremely long extremely windy road. She made it most of the way bust lost her lunch at the last corner. Poor thing.. She felt better afterwards, so I said she should have done it earlier so she could have enjoyed the trip.

Here we are at our mountain top cabin. The girls called it our new Little House. They loved it and cried when we had to leave. Milly asked the other day if we could go back to our little house with the pretty flower curtains and the bunk beds. Milly really liked the flower curtains, commenting several times about how pretty they looked. They each had their own set of bunk beds which was the real highlight for them. Climbing and playing. It was a lot of fun.

We would recommend it to anyone with a  family that wanted to visit the area. They were not 5 * but they were comfortable and warm.

Before we settled down to tea, we went for a short walk down to the visitors center, where Hanisi found a big wombat minding its own business. It didn't hang around for long when two little girls started chasing it.

After tea we headed out in the dark for another walk. While walking Milly looked up and noticed all the pretty stars sparkling in the sky. We enjoyed looking at all the pretty stars.

I have a fascination with hotel blow dryers and here I am playing with the blow dryer on top of Cradle mountain.

I guess feeling the wind go across my face is as close as I can get to feeling like I am riding a motorbike on a warm summers day. 

After all the blow drying, the driving, spewing, feeding animals, and ice cream, it was time for lights out. Time to recharge the batteries and get ready for tomorrow, the second day of our adventure.(the next blog)

HOLIDAY ADVENTURES

It is school holidays for me. A quick 3 week break to
1) relax ready for next semester
2) Prepare for the birth of baby no. 3
3) Complete some much needed jobs around the house.

But most of all I wanted to spend as much time with Hanisi and Milly as I could. I have been luck to have these 18 months off to study, but it all comes to an end in November. I need to return to work and with that responsibility comes less time spent with my children.

So I was determined to spend time with them, and make the most of the three weeks.

One friday, it rained most of the day, and was quite horrible. So Saturday was a day that we needed to get out of the house. I thought of going to Trevallyn Dam. I had been there with the girls one and said that I would come back there with them one day to see it in flood.

This was the day. We stopped at Coles to get some picnic supplies and continued on. It rained on and off most of the way there.

We could have turned back, and I am so glad that we didn't. Had we turned back I am sure that our day would not have turned out as good as it did.

 We found a shelter that had some BBQ's to warm our cheese and bacon buns in preparation for our cheese, ham and pineapple fillings. Mmmmm.

 Milly was so exited her pants fell down!... No if you look closer, Milly found a muddy puddle to jump up and down in.

 Devouring the buns. MMMMM

 Eating slice after slice of cheese.

 Three beauties.

 Three silly billies

One cutie.


After taking a few silly photos. I decided that it was cold enough for snow and that we should go in search of some. Lucky for us, Mariah had packed all that we needed to keep warm while we threw a few snow balls.

So off we went to Mt Barrow.

We found some snow, about half way up the mountain. On our way up we passed a man coming down, who said that there was a fair bit of snow on top, however it was quite slippery up there and advised us not to make the trip to the top in our car. We took the man's advice and stopped at the next corner. It was snowing when we arrived, and we could not wait to get out and feel the cold snow. 

This was out view heading home. It was a slow and cautious, and warm trip back down the mountain.

We had brought with us a surprise. A surprise for some unsuspecting Perth residents. Last year we had an unplanned trip to the snow and returned with an esky full of snow. That was a lot of fun.
We had the same idea again this year except we didn't bring an esky. We looked in the boot and found some plastic bags and a couple of Coles cooler bags.

So we filled the plastic bags with snow, and then put them inside the cooler bags.

We decided on the way home that we would share the love this year and attack the Rogers. We had a great plan all worked out and knew exactly how we would get them. We were so excited, until we passed Joe on the highway. I asked Mariah to call Kym, just to make sure they were home.

I am so glad that we called. Kym had had a bad day and was feeling as crook as a dog. We decided that the last thing she needed was a snow ball down the back, and 4 wet kids to clean up after. So our sights were set back on the Tai family as we pulled in to Perth.

Leona gave birth to their baby that week, so we were not sure if they would even be home. Luck for Kelvin and Nettie, they were home. :)

As we drove up the kids were all out the front playing in the street. So we gave a wave and drove on by. We stopped at the end of the street to make a few snow balls in the car. It was going to be a drive by. Hanisi and Milly were screaming with excitement at the thought of throwing snowballs from the comfort of a warm comfy car.  

I'm not sure what happened to the video of that... It must have been deleted somewhere along the way.

 We dumped the snow in the driveway and the kids went crazy. We tried to get Job outside to join in, but he was being a bit of a chicken this time. He come out with a pot of water to throw on the snow, but we managed to foil his plan before he could reach our stash.

What a fun day.

Better luck next year hey Kym !!!

Getting Kids to Eat Their Dinner

Getting kids to eat their dinner can be difficult.

Mariah and I have tried so many ways to help the girls eat. They love to spaghetti bolognaise and need very little help eating that, we cant always eat spag bog though.

*some interesting facts about Spag Bog...

1). It is the meal most cooked by Australians at home
2). It is the second most favorite meal in Australia, after a roast.  


I have heard that on any given night, as many as one in 4 Australian homes are serving up spag bog... 


Not in this house. 


One particular night we were having chicken and cheese sausages with some veggies from our garden. It started off well, but went down hill quickly. We tried all sorts, helping them eat, the flying airplane, the loopty-loop, a little "If you eat this then you can....".


Nothing worked. So I pulled out the sauce bottle a dabbed a little sauce on a carrot, and it worked. 

One thing led to another and before you knew it, it turned in to an art class, and the food went from being eadable, to Dad (me) saying "don't touch it." "Not yet." "It's too good to eat." 


This is the little Afro carrot man that I made for Milly to eat. 

Just look at those lips. Milly couldn't wait to eat him.

Alll good things must come to an end... and so it was for carrot afro man.. 

Getting the CHOP

RIP Carrot Afro Man.