Winter School Holidays

We are officially half way through the school year tomorrow with the start of term 3.   Today is our last day of our two weeks of winter holidays.  Usually we are very busy during the holidays, but it's a tough time of year with lots of sickness, all of us being very tired and rundown and just needing a real holiday.  So I told the boys that we would be having a very quiet holiday this time.  I think they were all very happy about it, as they were ready for some lazy days at home.  

The night of the last day of school, I was so happy to be on holidays and couldn't be bothered cooking, so on the spur of the moment we met up with my cousin Tim and his wife Helene and kids and had Burger Junkie for dinner.   It was a fun way to start the holidays.

I actually feel really guilty when I have a really lazy day as I'm always so busy, but these holidays have literally been a lot of sleep ins, Netflix, cooking (which I never do) and catching up with family and friends. I'm actually glad that it's the middle of winter as it makes me slow down and makes it easier to just stay inside and do 'nothing' when the weather isn't nice outside.

We were lucky during the first week of holidays as we had lots of frosty mornings, but sunny days.  We spent a couple of nights at my Mum's house in the first week and had a lovely time.  In the last month we finally bought a new car (the last one we bought was just a few weeks before Aaron died).  A lovely dad of one of Kobe's friends was so kind and helped me have a look around and helped to negotiate a good price. 

I was so grateful to him as it took so much stress off me (although I was already stressed as I wasn't really ready to buy a new car, but needed to as our old one pretty much died).   But now we are absolutely loving having a really nice car to drive (we've never really had a nice car) and Jalen is now really loving getting his Learner hours up to hopefully get his Ps later in the year.

While we were at Mum's we went to the movies, walked on the beach, read and caught up with friends.   You know you're getting old when you're excited to read a book about finance.

We caught up with my friends Bec and Pip while we were at Mum's as Bec's Mum also lives in the same area (seems like it is the place to retire).  We all grew up together and went through school together from Kindergarten.  Mum and Bec's Mum had a lovely time catching up, while we took the kids for a walk on the beach.   My kids are a lot older than Bec and Pip's kids and we often laugh how I've got one about to start Uni, while Bec's youngest daughter is about to start Prep.

  

I love having such great friends, who have known me since I was four.  We still see each other regularly. 

Milly and Josie just love being together.  One morning I let them out and there was a huge frost over Mum's lawn.  It looked amazing and they still wanted to play even though it was freezing.

During the holidays the last game that Hawthorn were playing in Tasmania was on against the Brisbane Lions.  We've been so lucky this year with the weather being so good for each of the games.  We've taken Aaron's dad with us to all of the games and he loves coming along with us.  Mum also sits with us at every game.

I think Kobe loves the food almost as much as the footy!

 

We often go to Hobart in the holidays and spend a couple of days with our friends Sarah and Joe and their boys, but I really wanted to just chill out more these holidays. So we were excited to hear that they were going to come up and spend a day with us while Joe worked in town for the day. 

We had such a fun day with them and also Tim and Helene's kids who spent the day with us.  Luckily for Ava, Erin hung out with us too, or she would've been the only girl.

We couldn't get together without another trip to Burger Junkie.  The boys love trying the American soft drinks.

 

I love that these guys get along so well, even though they live at different ends of the state.

The last week of holidays has been very cold and rainy which  made it easier to not feel so guilty about watching a lot of Netflix.  I decided though that I needed to make a trip to the snow before winter is over, so while Jay had a day off work (he's been working a LOT a Maccas which is great, as he's trying to get some money together for his own car and Uni next year) we headed to the snow yesterday.

It always reminds me of living in the USA and although I was sick of it then, I love going for a play in it now and so do the boys. 

 They had a great time trying to see who could pick up the biggest piece of ice. 

Harri was so excited to find a piece that was shaped like Australia! It was just missing Tassie on the bottom :)

It's been lovely having a really laid back, relazing holiday.  I'm never keen to go back to work,  but really I love my job and always love seeing the kids again and getting back into routine.  I'm looking forward to some warmer weather as we get closer to spring, and we have some fun things planned in the next few months which we are really looking forward to. So finishing holidays isn't all that bad.