Wildlife Park

Today Kobe and I joined Noah's school on an excursion to Tasmania Zoo. I wouldn't consider it a zoo, but more of a wildlife park which it was previously named.

I love spending time with the kids from Noah's school. It's awesome seeing their faces light up when they hear different sounds and see the animals.


We had a great time as Noah was awake and alert the whole time.

Not sure which one's are the devils here - the ones behind, or in front of the fence! ;)

I knew Jalen would be so jealous that we got to see the Tasmanian Devils. He is always talking about them since learning about them at school a couple of years ago and learning about how they have been suffering from the facial tumor disease.

The kids even got to pat one! One of the workers brought one out for them to touch, and it was actually pretty tame.

There were lots of different native animals to see and other animals such as monkeys.

The Marmosets were so cute.

Down near the lake there were some wedged tail eagles and ducks. One of the aides picked up a duck for Noah's class to touch.


Kobe is starting to be a bit like Harri, and isn't too sure about animals. He was very cautious when it got close to him.

In the nocturnal house Noah's eyes really lit up as he could see the lights really well.

There was a skeleton dressed up inside, so one of the male aides decided it would be funny to hide behind it and jump out and scare everyone as they walked past. Kobe was not impressed at all and burst into tears!

After looking at all the animals we had a BBQ lunch before heading back to school. Kobe loved crawling around and socialising with everyone. He was asleep within a minute on the way home.

Young Women

Today I headed up to Burnie for our first official business in my new calling at church. Today was Burnie Branch Conference. Last week I was called to be 2nd counsellor in the Stake Young Women's Presidency. Sarah Parsons is the President and Toni is the 1st counsellor. I was really excited and happy when I was called - excited to be back in YW's and happy that I wasn't the President :) When Noah was born I was the Stake YW President and loved the calling. I was really sad to be released from it, but knew I couldn't really do it then as I had a lot to deal with at the time.

It's great to be back in there and I'm so excited about working with Sarah and Toni. I don't know Sarah very well, but from what I have already seen, she will be awesome. I'm feeling quite old though as both of them are younger than me. It was great to go up to Burnie and meet the awesome girls up there.

I'm not sure what Sarah thinks about working with Toni and I though! This photo cracks me up as Jaron caught Toni and I mid hair flick! Sarah is not looking impressed! :)

I brought home a box of old YW stuff for Sarah as it wouldn't fit in her car. Tonight I was having a look through it and came across and old journal that we had started when I was in Stake 8 years ago. It is so awesome to look back on! There were photos from camp and it is so cool seeing all the girls who are now all grown up - like Sacha, Fil, Toni, Collette, Mel and Nicki. The funniest thing is that Rob Rattray took the pics and is still the one taking all the pics and a lot of the leaders are still the same leaders now - including Jayne and Felicity! Some things never change!

I came across this photo of camp, which shows me holding Jalen (who was about 4 months old at the time). Boy have I gotten old in the last 8 years!

I'm looking forward to having lots of fun again and working with the new Stake YW presidency and the awesome Young Women and leaders in our stake.

Awesome Time with Dad

Tonight we picked up Jalen and Aaron at the airport. They had an awesome time in Melbourne. We spoke to them a number of times while they were there and it seemed like every hour or so Harri was asking 'can I ring Jay'? Harri was missing them terribly and was in tears half the day. I told him to just pretend that they were at school, but that didn't cut it for him. He kept saying 'I'm missing Jay, because he's my brother!'. Jay on the other hand kept telling me on the phone that Melbourne was 'awesome'.

After they got off the plane they headed straight to the MCG to watch the game. Jay was so excited to see the G for the first time.

They had excellent seats. Aaron has been over now for three school football trips, so he knows the great places to sit and even knew where to book so they would get padded seats. Jay thought that was really great for some reason!


It was obviously a great place to sit as they ran into two injured Hawks players up there - Stephen Gilham and Xavier Ellis.

It was an awesome game to go and watch - especially since Hawthorn made a huge comeback at the end and only just lost the game -despite so many players being injured. I was even laying in bed watching it yelling out 'Come on Roughy!!!, Go Buddy!!'. Aaron would've been very proud of me.

Aaron said that Jay absolutely loved walking back into the city from the MCG, with the huge crowd at night. They were lucky to be able to stay at our friend Marlo's house. Her sister lives in a cute little terrace house right in the city, so it was great that they could stay there.

They spent the morning having Maccas for breakfast, shopping and checking out the 'Telstra' Dome.



They still had some time before they had to be at the airport, so Aaron decided to surprise Jay and took him to the aquarium. Jay was so excited and rang me and said 'guess what Mum! I'm looking at penguins right now!'.

Harri got on the phone to him and Jay told him he was at the aquarium. Harri then said 'are you going to feed the wabbits Jay!?. I cracked up and told him there are no rabbits at the aquarium, and then Harri asks 'are you going to feed the ducks!?'. When Jay got home Harri asked him 'did you feed the sharks Jay?'. Jalen thought he asked him 'did you see the sharks' and said 'yes', and then Harri was so worried and goes 'did they bite you Jay!!!?'. He cracks me up.

Jay said that going to the MCG was the best thing about the trip, but he also loved the aquarium.


It was a big weekend in Melbourne with round 1 of the footy on, and also the Grand Prix. Aaron was lucky to run into one of the drivers at the airport! ;) Pity that Aaron's neck has shrunk so much on this wheat free diet he is on! ;)

Aaron said he missed having us all there to experience things with, but that it was really nice to just spend some time alone with Jay and not having anything to worry about (like grizzling babies and four year olds, or Noah needing meds, feeds or suctioning). It was so nice to hear all of Jay's stories when he got home and to know that he had such a special time with his Dad.

How Excited Are They!?!

When they announced that round 1 of the AFL this year was going to be Hawthorn V Geelong (a grandfinal rematch!) at the MCG, I knew how much Aaron would love to go over and watch it live. We talked about it for a while, and then decided it was going to be a waste of money, but as a part of Aaron and Jay's Christmas presents last year, I bought them plane tickets to go over as a surprise. Both Aaron and Jay have been hanging out for March ever since.

Today after school we took them straight to the airport. Jalen has been counting down the days for weeks, and kept saying 'this is going to be the best day of my whole life!'. I think he knows how special it is to be able to go over alone with Aaron and to go to such a big game at the MCG. I picked him up half an hour early from school and he was in P.E. I told his P.E teacher I had to take him to the airport as he was going to Melbourne and the teacher said 'he's not going over to the footy is he?', and when I told him he was, he was very jealous. As we were leaving school we heard lots of 'Go Hawks!!!', and a couple of 'Go Cats!'. I'm expecting Aaron to come home with a huge migraine from all the excitement and stress!

Harri kept saying ' I will miss you Jay' and as we drove off he said 'how exciting is it that Jay is going to the footy with Dad!?'.

I told Harri that we would have a special time without them and told him he could choose to go anywhere he wanted for tea. At first he thought about McDonalds and then decided he wanted to go to 'the place with the helicopter', which is Hungry Jacks. He was so happy to go and have a play - even if it was by himself. On the way there he said 'how exciting is it that we are going to Hungry Jacks!'. Harri is very easily pleased! Aaron has promised him Krispy Kreme's and a little present so he is hanging out for when they get back tomorrow night.

Noah doesn't seem very impressed that they have gone away for the night and has been yelling since after school. Hopefully he will settle down and we will have a settled day tomorrow while they are away.

Punchtahlon

During the summer the oval at the boys school was redeveloped and is looking so nice - almost as good as Aurora Stadium! ;) Before it was a dry, patch of dirt and a little bit of dead grass. The School Association raised money to go towards the redevelopment of the oval and the school also received some funding for it. The school recently bought a new ride on mower to maintain it, and today the kids all participated in a 'Punchtathlon' where they were asked to get sponsors for. The class that raises the most money is awarded with a class party including a DVD of their choice, pizza, popcorn and drinks.

The kids were split into 12 groups and had to participate in 12 different activities, which ran over 2 hours. Jalen was in the white group (which I was a parent helper for) and Noah and Harri were in the burgandy group.

I actually really enjoyed helping out and had a great group to work with. Jay was 'lucky' to be put in the same group with his best friend Braydon. It's so funny seeing them together as Jalen is so tiny compared to him.

As the parent helper I had to rotate with white group around to each station. I was surprised as to how much I enjoyed getting back into the teacher roll and putting on my 'teacher voice'. The funniest thing was that I was actually surprised when the kids would stop and listen to me! I guess I haven't lost all my teaching skills just yet. I asked Jalen if he was embarrased having me there and telling his group what to do, but he said he loved it. Especially as it meant Kobe was also there.


Kobe loved watching everything going on, and especially loved all the kids were talking to him. One girl said 'he's so cute! I just want to bite his head off!'.

Jay and Noah's teachers always want to have a cuddle with Kobe, so when we were at Noah's teacher's activity, she quickly grabbed the opportunity for a cuddle.

The kids loved all the different activities. There was gymastics, obstacle courses, long jump, games, parachute, water relays, and egg and spoon races. I was amazed as to how confident Harri was! He didn't care at all that I wasn't working with his group and would just give me a little smile and a wave if I came to see what he was up to, and would then get back into what he was doing.



Noah was quite bored by it all! ;) I guess it's not the same for him as the other kids.

Kobe was happy to see him, although I don't think Noah was very impressed that he kept pulling at his face.

It was actually nice that Noah was awake for it! He came out for a little while with Di to check things out before going back in to get out of the wind.

Jalen is now hanging out to see if his class won the class party. Harri was just excited that he got to go in the 'punchlines-tathalon' (the school newsletter is called 'Punchlines'!).