Not Fair

A while ago Jalen was walking up our hallway and stopped to look at one of our family photos which was taken just a month before Noah passed away.  I watched him and didn't say anything but next thing I know he is sobbing as he looks at it, and he turned around and said to me 'it's just not fair'.

I agreed with him - it's not fair at all. 

I had my phone on me so I pulled it out while he wasn't watching and took a photo.  He later realised what I had done and said 'what!? You took a photo of me!?'.  I told him that one day he will look back and will see photos like this, and will remember how he was feeling and will realise how much better he feels. 

It's hard to imagine that we will ever feel better than we do right now, but I do see that the old Jalen is coming back more and more each day even though Jay can't really see it yet.  I know it's going to be a long time before any of us feel back to normal again, because life seems anything but fair right now.

I do hope that one day we will be able to walk past the photos in the hall and not feel so sad as we look at them.

Olympic Fever

For weeks my boys have been counting down to the Olympics.   Aaron absolutely loved the Olympics. It was one of his favourite times ever and depending on time differences, he would get up at all hours of the morning to watch his favourite sports and athletes compete live.  Of course he didn't always just go for Australia, and loved watching a lot of the athletes from other countries.  He was very 'unAustralian' like that at times :) Aaron even mentioned watching the Olympics with Noah in his talk at Noah's funeral.

Yesterday morning I recorded the beginning of the opening ceremony as I wasn't keen enough to wake up at 5.30 am.  When we woke up we started watching it from the beginning and the boys were so excited.   It's so strange to me that I can cry about Aaron at random times.  During the week a friend who has been away asked if I spend time sitting at the cemetery, and have a good cry at times.  I have only really done that once or twice just after Aaron passed away, which even I am surprised about as I thought that would be the place I would have a good cry.

Instead I'm surprised that it's the little things that make me cry - like when I'm out shopping and I see something nice in the men's section that I know Aaron would've loved and for a split second I start thinking about going over to have a look for him, and then I remember.

Yesterday morning was another one of those times. I found myself with tears streaming down my face as I watched the opening ceremony, and thought about how much Aaron would've loved it.  Kobe however was crying because he couldn't understand why the soccer and swimming wasn't on right then, and wanted to watch them.

Jalen finally got up, so we showed him the part with the Queen going in the helicopter as I knew he would love it, and he thought it was hilarious.

Last night we had an Olympic ward activity at church.  Harri and Kobe were so excited and loved being a part of the torch relay.

Jay then got to light the couldron - it wasn't quite as spectucular as the one in London, but almost! ;)

We were put into four teams.  We were happy being in the pink team :)

There were lots of different fun events and the boys had the best time.

Even the King got into the events and was a pro on the balance beam ;) Our Bishop is a great sport.

 A couple of the medal ceremonies.

The boys are loving the Olympics already and aren't liking the time difference as it's hard to catch any events live because they are in bed.  I'm sure Aaron is loving that they love the Olympics (almost) as much as him.

The End of Auskick

Oh the joy I am feeling now that Saturday mornings are again for sleeping in (as much as you can with a four year old that decides he needs to get up early and call out 'Mummy!! I'm hungry!) and having a lazy morning.

Last Saturday Harri had his last session of Auskick for the season, and possibly forever.   He loved it last year, but this year he hasn't enjoyed it so much.  I'm sure some of it is to do with the fact that Aaron isn't there with him and he doesn't get to have a kick of the footy with him every Saturday, but he said that he doesn't want to do it anymore because he 'already knows how to play'.

I think he's not enjoying it as much this year as it is a long morning and they don't do a lot of skill development, but spend a lot of time playing a game with a heap of young kids and you aren't allowed to tackle.  For Harri that is VERY hard and not much fun (he has been in trouble at school a few times because he just can't resist the urge not to tackle when playing footy at school).   He is one of the oldest there and it's pretty boring when you aren't really playing much of a game as you are having to play with lots of 4-5 year olds.

I'm (not so quietly) happy that he has decided not to play as I'm not keen on driving to Evandale early Saturday mornings, not to mention during the middle of our cold winter. If Aaron was here it would be different as we used to like going together and just spending the morning watching him play. 

He was excited to get his medal and certificate.

Today the kids played a game against the parents. I opted to take photos instead of running around in the mud, and it was fun to watch. Harri isn't in this photo, but it cracked me up as the kids were all yelling 'kick it to me, kick it to me!'.

It was nice having the Rogers and the Tai's join Auskick this year.  Harri had lots of fun playing with them.

I asked Harri what he wanted to do next year instead of doing Auskick. He said he wasn't sure and I suggested that basketball would be fun, and said that Daddy used to play basketball. He was shocked and said 'Daddy played basketball!!?'.   I told him that both Aaron and I did and he was so surprised.  I'm not sure what is so surprising about that - probably because I'm so old and unfit now :)   He said he still wasn't keen, but we will see what happens next year. 

6 Months

It's so ridiculous to me that I have two blog posts titled '6 Months' and they are both about it being six months since two of the people I love more than anything in the world dying.

It's unbelievable that Aaron has been gone for six months. It has absolutely flown by, but at the same time the days are so long.

My lovely friend Simone texted last week saying she wanted to have Kobe for the day today, and I told her that would be great as it would be the six month mark for Aaron.  He loves going to her house and hanging with Jonty and they went to visit the cemetery together.  It made me smile to see the Hawthorn coloured balloons that Simone had left at the cemetery earlier this morning.   We also took some balloons up to release this afternoon.

 We met up with my friend Justine and the kids at the cemetery as they hadn't seen Aaron or Noah's graves yet.  She told her son Felix (who is three) that they were going to visit Kobe's Daddy's grave and he supposedly looked confused and said 'gravy!?' and had no idea what it meant. I was talking to Jus about how crazy it is that Kobe has had to learn so much about death and graves and funerals already, and how he doesn't think twice about where we are visiting, and where Aaron and Noah's bodies are. 

I miss my best friend so much.  I still can't believe he is gone and no matter what I am doing or where I am, all I can think about is 'Aaron died'.  I think about Noah too, but it's such a different feeling to when I think about Aaron dying. I still can't get my head around that he is gone. It feels like he is just on a really long holiday. 

Oh how I wish he was just on a holiday and would walk back in the front door soon. 

Would You Change Your Story?

My latest post is up at TOFW.  You can read it by clicking on the picture below.

My Crazy Family

On the weekend my brother Chrish came home from Sydney just for the weekend.  Yesterday we had a family tea to all catch up, except for the Watsons who now live in Melbourne. It's always very loud, crazy and fun when we all get together. 

Eden told me off when I took this pic as he knew it would probably end up on the world wide web.  I could've posted one of him stuffing his face, so he is lucky and should be thanking his big sister :)

It's Lachie's fourth birthday this week and he is into super heroes big time.  The boys and I bought him a set of super hero books, and he was stoked with them and kept saying 'I take these to my house!'.

Without fail whenever we are together Jared hypes all the kids up.  There is always a lot of wrestling and squealing going on when he is around.

Even Becky got in on the action!

Chrish was also attacked by the kids (and a snake!).

Hopefully next time Chrish comes 'home' to Tassie it will be for good as he is considering making the move back home for good.  All of us girls are thinking he would make a good live in nanny :)

WotOpera

At the beginning of the school year I met with Jalen's drama teacher at a parent teacher interview. She told me that she realised that Jalen had done some drama outside of school and wanted to give him an opportunity to extend himself more, and told me about a program called WotOpera.  She said that he would be one of the grade seven students chosen to do it, as it included students from each grade.

I didn't know much about what WotOpera was, but Jalen would come home after each session telling me all about the process and what they were doing.  As a group of students they had to create the characters, write the words and music, design and make the costumes and set and then perform it.  Jalen came home telling me how bad it was as they all had to audition and sing and he is definitely not a singer (he sounds just like his Dad when he sings, and that is very flat!).   He hated the singing, but was still enjoying the whole process and came home last week with a t-shirt that they had all been given, and had to wear on the night of the performance.

They had four sessions at school which only ended up being a total of 21 hours together before they performed it at the Princess Theatre.  There were four schools who did it all together including Exeter, Prospect and Kings Meadows High School. I felt sad when KMHS did theirs as I recognised a lot of the kids and I know Aaron would've loved to have been there to see them as well as watching Jay's.  Mum and Dad came with Harri and I to watch it (thanks Alison for babysitting Kobe).

It was amazing to see what each of the schools came up with.  I'm not into opera at all, but I was very impressed with their creativity and what they could come up with in such a short amount of time.  It was nice to see Jay up on stage smiling, and having a great time.  His friend George was also in it with him, so they had lots of fun hanging out together.

Before each school's performance they showed a short video of the process of them creating their opera.  It made us laugh as they showed Jalen quite a lot, and showed him singing different parts.  He was so embarrassed, but I told him I was proud of him.  Then Harri said 'yeah I was too Jay!' :)  The organisers kept telling the kids that it's not about how well you can sing, but it's about having a go. I loved what they had on the back of their t-shirts.

It's no secret that Jalen hasn't loved school this year.   It's been the exact opposite, and he's had a hard time settling into high school.  After WotOpera he told me that he is actually liking school now and loved being in it, because he got to know a lot of other people from other grades.  The day of the performance all four schools were together all afternoon as they practiced on stage and ate dinner together before performing for the public.  Jay said it was a lot of fun to spend time with everyone and it was so nice to see how happy he was.  I can slowly see the old Jay coming back.