School Holidays

We just had two weeks of school holidays and have been back at school for a week. I had planned on blogging during the holidays, but blogging just seems like more of a chore than fun at the moment, so I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my blog.  I love having our family memories here, but life is just so busy now and blogging is no longer the 'therapy' that it used to be for me. 


To be honest there is so much I want to say, as there are always thoughts running through my head about different things and no one to talk to about it, but it's hard enough dealing with it on my own every day, and writing about it just brings it to the surface more.  I just want to focus my mind on other things right now.  I think it's because there's only so much that you can deal with at once, and because I'm so busy with work and the boys I just have to focus on that right now, rather than writing about things which are hard. 


I'm aware that people still come here to see how we are going, and that means a lot as to be honest I feel very alone most of the time.  So to know that others care enough to keep coming here even when I'm not blogging regularly means a lot.  Hopefully you can stick with my two or three posts a month as I like having our family memories in one place, even if I don't write about absolutely everything that is happening or what we are going through.


We've all have all had a great term at school.  Working full time is exhausting but I like not missing anything at school.  It's nice to be able to follow up with things as I'm there every day and to see the kids the whole week.  The boys have had a great term too.  Kobe is probably the one who has struggled the most at school this year. It's been a big change with lots of new teachers to the school, and going up to grade 3 is a big change and I have found him to be very tired and emotional at times.  Jay is enjoying year 12.  I freak out a little when I think ahead to next year and what that will bring for him, so I try not to think about it too much just yet.


Harri is absolutely loving high school.  He's made a lot of new friends who have come from other schools, and comes home so happy every day.  He loves a couple of his teachers and they've made starting grade 7 so much easier for him as he looks forward to seeing them every day.  From the things he tells me about them, they remind me a lot of Aaron and how he was as a teacher and it's nice to be able to tell Harri that his Dad was like that at school.  I love Harri's school photo this year as it shows just how happy he is. 

Harri was very happy to have won two STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) challenges that he and his mate worked on together in class, and came home with some yummy prizes on the last day of school.

These past holidays I really wanted to just try to catch up on some rest.  I've now been working full time for two school terms and I love it, but it's hard when I don't have any 'me' time as I'm either at school with kids all day, or home with the boys all weekend.  I still get 'me' time of course, but I do miss my day off when I could get things done or could even just do things for myself without having to worry about the boys.


So I decided that wouldn't do too much these holidays - a few day trips, but mostly just relaxing at home and getting out and about close to home.  These holidays fell during the Easter break so we went to the cemetery to decorate Aaron and Noah's graves.

The weather was unusually warm over the Easter weekend.  On Good Friday we had brunch out on the deck.  

Last Easter we went camping for the first time and used my brother and sister in law's awesome pop up tent. I knew that if we were ever to go camping again that I wanted to invest in one of those tents for ourselves. Just before Easter I saw a shop had a special on them, so even though we weren't going camping I grabbed one as I knew it would be good to have.  Because the weather was so nice, I surprised Kobe and asked him if he wanted to camp with me in the backyard. He was so excited! Jay and Harri decided that they would rather sleep in their comfortable beds inside - party poopers!

We had such a fun night and it was nice to have power and showers close by :) We snuggled down with hot water bottles, snacks and watched ET which was Kobe's first time. He loved it. 



Jay had been getting a few more shifts at work recently, and was happy to be able to upgrade to a better skateboard.  This also meant that Harri now gets to use his old one, so one day we went out so Jay could teach Harri to skate.  He picked it up so quickly.

The boys were of course excited that Easter Bunny visited on Easter Sunday (Kobe is starting to question if Easter Bunny is real or not but was happy to keep believing this year) and we headed out to my Mum's to stay the night. 

Milly and Josie are always so excited to see each other, and know exactly what's going to happen when you say 'do you want to go and see Josie!?'.   I'm not sure who has the shaggiest hair out of these three!

We always love walking along the beach.

Mum always spoils us when we stay, and Kobe was very excited to have pancakes for breakfast.  

We would've loved to have stayed longer (especially as the weather was so nice!) but Jay had to come back for work.  We had fish and chips by the beach before we came home. 

Now that I'm working full time I feel like I never get to catch up with friends as much as I would like.  So it was so nice to have time to visit Simone and have a cuddle with Emerson. He is the cutest little man and just so happy. 

Jay spent his holidays working, hanging out with us and spending time with 'squad'.  

 I love that they love going on photography adventures together, and seeing what Jay comes back with.  He shares lots of his photos on his Instagram.

It was so nice to get out and about as the weather was so nice. One day we went for a walk with Tim and the kids (poor Helene had to work) to Tamar Island.  Tim was cracking me up as he absolutely hates snakes, and the volunteers told us that someone had seen a snake earlier in the day. This sign didn't help the situation!

Every time Tim would hear something rustling in the bushes he would panic that it was a snake!

 

They really do love each other :) 

 

 

The weather was so nice over the holidays that we even went swimming a couple of times....or at least the boys did (and Tim and Helene were also silly brave enough to!).
 We had a lovely day at Bridport. 

 The kids loved having a play in the awesome new playground near the water front.

Even though we were busy doing a few things, it was nice to have lots of sleep ins and some lazy days as well.  Now that school is back it's hectic again every day - racing from work and school to after school sports and work for the boys.  


Both Harri and Kobe are playing basketball and soccer this year.  It's Kobe's first year playing basketball and he's absolutely loving it. Both of the boys said they also wanted to do soccer, so I signed them up but they both changed their mind before the season began! I think they realised how busy it made things having two sports each, but I had already registered and paid and they had been placed on teams, so I told them it was too late and they just had to do it.  Now that the season has started they're glad they're both playing soccer, but if they could choose between soccer and basketball both of them would choose basketball for sure.

I'm hoping that term 2 goes just as fast as term 1 did, but then at the same time I don't want this year to go too fast as things may change a lot next year with Jay finishing 'college' this year. As exciting as it is for him, it's not a change I'm looking forward to very much.