Asking for help

THANKS EVERYONE who took the time to help out with this. I am presenting the feasibility study to the organisation next Tuesday. survey really helped me out.

THE SURVEY HAS NOW FINISHED!!!


I am finishing up at Uni in a matter of weeks and I need some help.

 As much as I love my Study Buddy, I need your help as well.

As part of my major assignment I need to do some market research into peoples perceptions of coloured vegetables and if people would be interested in eating a range of brightly coloured snow peas.

If you have a spare 3 mins and could complete the survey it would be greatly appreciated.

CLICK HERE

THANKS! :)

Fathers Day

I had to go to the doctors yesterday as I was feeling a little unwell. I was flicking through the newspaper when I came across an article titled "Fathers want more time with children." I was intrigued by the headline, so I continued to read. It was the findings of a survey that found that men are no longer so concerned with their salary, and are wanting to spend more time with their family.

I thought of my current situation and how lucky that I am that I am able to spend so much time with my children while they are young. I was saddened a little as I recognised that I often take it for granted, and do not use all the opportunities that arise.

As much as I could remember my Dad was always around, or I was around him. He and I are so much alike. We share very similar interests, we both carry the gene that prevents us from loosing our hair :), and we love to be outside.

This is my Dad with Chester a few days after he was born.

One of the fondest memories I have of a child was going wood cutting. I enjoyed going. I don't recall if I complained about going, but as far as I can remember it was a whole lot of fun.

I have been a few times since we have had our new home. I normally go with my brother, or brother in law, or by myself if no one else is around. I've always looked forward to going wood cutting with my own little family, as I know how fun it can be in the bush, with so many new and amazing things to look at.

 

Like lizards. 

And puddles. Muddy puddles.

Notice the snow in the background!!! Welll.......

It wasn't long before the girls discovered that these were VERY COLD muddy puddles.

I didn't take this photo, but the sequence of the events suggested that this was the moment the cold mud reached Hanisi's toes.

This looks like they were discussing how far it would be to walk home and wondering if they would make it.   **I don't know why this photo won't rotate for me.

Once the work was done, we joined together for some family photos.... well that's what I told them :)

Then it was Mariah's turn to have a go behind the lens. She managed to get in a couple of great shots. 

Sharp shooter! not just once, but twice!

Then we both abandoned the kids.....

We did get a family photo in the end, minus Chester, who was too busy sleeping.

What day would not be complete without a silly photo!

I loved the day we had together!

We topped it off with a stop at the lookout, where Chester got out for a quick look. We live in such an amazing part of the world. 

 It was a nice day. My very first family wood cutting day!

Chester

Let me introduce you to Chester Lloyd Terry, our third child and first son.

Tomorrow will be a week since we brought little Chester home from the hospital and I must say it is nice having a baby in the home again. So far so good, he is a good baby. He eats and sleeps when he should and is tolerant towards his sisters who just love him so much. 

I recall when Hanisi was born, she was so sensitive and cried at the drop of a hat. I recall kissing her one day as a newborn and she just burst out in to tears. If we sneezed she would even get upset. But Chester just takes it in his stride and gets on with things. Others have told me that this is a "boy thing."

Milly thinks he is "so cute." Hanisi just loves a hold and mother him.

 He was born late afternoon and by the time we called the girls it was getting late and they were most upset that they could not come for a visit. Grandma was looking after them, and stayed the night to help out. I am so glad that she did stay. I woke up at 5:30am and thought to myself, oh Milly slept right through. Gee that is good. (Milly is a dreamer and will often wake through the night). 

I praised her in the morning for sleeping through. She gladly accespted the praise. Later in the morning Mum (Grandma) was telling me that she has been up with her for 3 hours through the night. I must have been pooped. 

We waited for toots (Mariah's Mum) to arrive from Hobart before we set off to the hospital. Grandma stayed behind and did some cleaning for us. What a great Grandma, sacrificed a cuddle just so Mariah could come home to a house that was cleaner than what it was when she left. :)

 Milly didn't want a long cuddle, and is taking he time in building up the desire to have long cuddles. Milly is not a cuddler. It can be difficult to get one out of her at the best of times.

 The ever inquisitive Hanisi was looking to make sure he had feet. she was a little upset that she could not see any under all those blankets. They were there, she just needed to look a little harder.

Hanisi has been full of questions. What it this? What is that? Why does that happen? When you eat chicken, will Chester eat the chicken in your milk?

 Milly was more interested in the buttons than the Baby.

 He is a very attentive baby, when someone talks to him he will often look at you in the eye and it looks like he is listening to your every word.

 And a thinker.

 This was today, getting ready to go for a walk with the girls.

We love him so much. I look forward to my daily cuddles. We recognise that it is a great blessing to have him hear with us.
 


Here begins the next chapter in our lives parents to 3 beautiful children.

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)