King Kong tears

Today Jasmine watched her first sad movie and the tears flowed. We watched King Kong (2005). It is quite a long movie and in the third hour she kept asking is it going to end soon because she wanted to do some other things. But the story kept her watching to the sad end, with both Jasmine and Lani suffering from watery eyes. When I saw the sadness on Jasmine’s face I had tears well up in my eyes also. I didn’t like seeing her suffering emotional hurt.

I thought the movie was OK. It was quite funny in parts and entertaining. It could have been shorter by cutting out some of the particularly lame scenes like the dinosaur stampede.

This weekend has been a hit

This weekend we didn’t hit the sand and surf; instead we hit a few tennis balls. Yesterday and today we went down to the local tennis courts where we have a family membership and I tried to coach Lani and the kids. It was a bit difficult because they are all at different levels of ability. At first I tried to hit balls with all of them together but it just wasn’t working, so I changed the strategy and got them to take turns hitting a bucket of balls one on one with me. The change worked and we actually made some progress.

In the beginning Jasmine was doing mostly air swings. She keeps swinging for the ball too late. But slowly she started to hit a few more balls and is making some progress. James on the other hand kept taking wild swings and wasn’t watching the ball onto the racquet. I worked on trying to get him to control his swing and he started to make some improvement. Lani was the most improved of the trio. I decided to play a type of mini tennis with her, where we are only trying to hit the ball within the service box area. The focus was to just gently hit through the ball with a controlled swing and it made a huge difference. As Lani gets stronger and more fluent in her strokes we will push back little by little until we are playing full court.

Yesterday I had a funny experience. I was walking past a shed in a plant nursery at Oxenford when someone said hello to me. I had a bit of a look around and at first didn’t notice anyone near me then realised that the voice was no ordinary voice. It was a cockatoo in an aviary (which I originally thought was a shed). He said hello to me again and said, “scratch” and bent his head forward. So will a little apprehension I gave him a quick scratch. When I pulled my hand away he said “scratch cocky”. So I gave him another scratch. The process went on for another 5 times or so. Every time I pulled my hand away he asked for another scratch and offered different parts of his neck and back for a scratch. He was such a beautiful bird and really made the trip to the nursery that much better, plus the plants I was looking for were almost half price, so it was an especially pleasant visit.

Anniversary

On Monday Lani and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. I went fishing with Dad early in the morning (with Lani’s permission and encouragement) and returned at around 10am. Dad caught an OK size flat head but somehow managed to drop it back in the water while getting the hook out.

Lani and I went down to The Spit not to far from the Seaway and had lunch by the water. While we were down there I noticed a man and a woman waist deep in the water just up from us in a strangely familiar stance. I told Lani it looks like someone is about to get baptised over here, and sure enough, the woman got dunked. It wasn’t a Mormon baptism; I assume it was probably Pentecostal but I didn’t here anyone speaking in tongues.

Mum and Dad have now gone. They left on Tuesday and will stop off at South West Rocks for the rest of the week to break up the trip. It was good to have them visit. Jasmine seemed to particularly enjoy having them visit. Poor old Dad is having a lot of trouble with his hip these days and is on a hospital list for a replacement. Getting in and out of the boat is a bit of a challenge.

More fun

We started today with an early morning Easter egg hunt for James and Jasmine. Tomorrow morning we will have another one. For the traditionalist, I believe Sunday is the day for the chocolate eggs but in our house we like to spread the fun and chocolate over a few days.

The weather was just perfect today and we spent the morning down at the beach. For the first part of the morning the surf was really good and I caught some good waves without getting too much of a battering. But towards lunchtime the tide was running out and the surf was more like a washing machine. James and Jazz keep getting better at handling the surf. James and Lani were doing some muck up fighting on the water edge and Lani accidentally face planted James into the hard sand. He was quite upset and I thought it was just because of the sand all over his face. But he thought he had broken his nose. He must have hit it reasonably hard because it started bleeding. His nose is OK now.

At around 1pm we came home for lunch and had a swim in the pool. With the warmer day today James was able to stay in for quite a while this time. It was quite refreshing to go from the rough, salty surf to a not so salty calm pool.

I have posted another couple of photos on Flickr. One of me on the wave ski and another of James riding high on the whitewash.

Good Friday fish

After a very busy week at work with a lot extra hours trying to meet a deadline after someone completely stuffed up a new system enhancement, it is good to have an extra long weekend, and it has got off to a pretty good start.

Mum and Dad are here and this morning Dad and I went for a fish. We caught some Herring for live bait and headed down to a favourite flathead spot of mine. It didn’t take too long before I hooked up on a nice flathead measuring around 70cm in length. It was nearing high tide and the water was very clear. We were in around 2 metres of water when I spotted a sand anchor on the bottom as we drifted over it. So we got our lines in and moved back to the spot and I dived in and retrieved it. Being only about a few hundred metres from the Seaway I didn’t waste anytime getting back into the boat. The water temperature is beautiful but it is very well known that there are a lot of Bull sharks in the Broadwater and canals in particular.

At around 11am I dropped Dad off at the Broadwater swimming lagoon to meet up with Mum and some of their friends who came down to visit from Brisbane. Lani and the kids were there also. I went out for a bit more fishing before lunch but didn’t do too much fishing because I came across a small boat, probably around 10ft, completely swamped in the Seaway. I called the Volunteer Marine Rescue (VMR) and tried to help out. A couple of guys were in the water with the boat, which was almost completely submerged. Another boat was helping out and had attached a rope to stop the boat from drifting out through the Seaway into the ocean but they got into a bit of tangled with a channel marker and needed to cut the rope. I gave them my fishing knife and they cut the boat loose. I then drifted with the submerged boat to ensure no other boat crashed into it and the VMR arrived a short time later. With everything control I got my knife back and headed to the swimming lagoon for some fish and chips with the family. A boat also caught on fire and was completely destroyed just down from the lagoon, so the water police and VMR were quite busy.

Jasmine was keeping herself busy finding hermit crabs and collecting shells. Some of the Hermit crabs were very tiny. I have included a photo of one on Jasmine’s hand on Flickr but the focus is not too good.

I miss judged the tides a little this afternoon and the boat ended up getting stuck on the sand by the lagoon. So Dad and I had to wait a couple of hours until the tide came in before we could make our way out for some more fishing before returning home.

All going well we plan to head down to the beach tomorrow for a swim.

Work and play

This weekend has been a mixture of work and play.

Saturday morning we did some small jobs around the house then in the afternoon we went fishing in the boat. Pumped a few nippers on the sand flats and set about catching some fish. They didn’t fire for us but Jasmine managed to catch a whiting all on here own. At one spot we were fishing at there were small schools of fish getting terrorised by some bigger fish. Every so often the big fish would come up from the deep and a mass of little fish would start leaping out of the water trying to escape. It was quite interesting to watch.

This morning we did some more small jobs around the house and I went out for a surf on my wave ski around lunch time. The kids were having a bit of a lazy day and decided not to come. I check out the surf before I left at www.coastalwatch.com.au. The web cams are quite good. I went down to Main beach and the surf was a little too boisterous for me today. I really need to put a belt on my wave ski and learn to roll so I can go under waves when making my way out through the white wash. I caught a bunch of OK waves but it was hard work.

When I got back I had a swim with Jasmine in the pool, which is getting a lot cooler. James went in twice but only last about 15 seconds each time. We have had some cooler nights getting down to 12 degrees, which is about the average low for winter. The day temperatures have been in the mid 20s but it is the overnight temperatures that seem to have the biggest impact on the pool water. Probably only get another couple of weeks swimming in the pool before we give it a break until around September. Fortunately the ocean stays a little warmer so we should be able to swim at the beach for a good while yet.

The kids are now on school holidays. They seem pretty happy about it. My parents are coming to visit on Wednesday and will stay for about a week. I’m looking forward to some ‘serious’ fishing. This time next week hopefully there will be some photos of Dad and I holding some serious fish.

I’m not looking forward to this week in regards to work. I have been doing some work from home for the past couple of evening trying to test a new enhancement to our software, which is not going particularly well. We have to have it deployed by Thursday and time is running out. I think I will be doing some long hours to make sure the enhancement is OK.

The Jazz pushes it!

I'm not sure what started it but Jasmine did a push-up challenge tonight and we had to guess how many she would be able to do. Her form is not perfect but I have seen a lot worse. She first pumped out about 6. Then after a little rest pumped out 8. Then again after another little rest I thought she would only do around 6 but to our surprise she pumped out 13! We thought it was pretty impressive.

I installed the toilet tonight. Over the past couple of nights I also connected up the plumbing for the laundry tub and vanity. Only a few small jobs left but it still seems like it will never end. You can always find something to improve.

Well today we didn’t get quite as much done as hoped for but the big things were taken care of. The bathroom vanity and laundry tub are now fixed in place but we need to buy some bits and pieces for the plumbing work to complete the job. The good news is the messy stuff is complete and hopefully Lani will be less stressed about the ongoing mess and dirty footprints around the house. I will be able to complete my tasks in the evenings during the week and Lani should be able to complete her stuff. We also mowed the lawns today so next weekend looks free to do whatever we want.

This afternoon we went to the Broadwater adventure park at Southport. The kids rode their bikes around and had some fun on the play equipment. Unfortunately later in the afternoon there were quite a few midgees (sand flies) about. The skin reaction normally takes a day or so before you see the bites and start scratching. Only time will tell how much we were bitten. They seemed quite attracted to Lani so hopefully she won’t be too adversely affected.

I have posted a few more photos from this weekend on Flickr. We will upload some photos of our renovations when the job is done.

Another fine day

We had a really nice day down at the beach today. The weather was perfect topping around 30 degrees apparently with a light breeze. I was surprised it got to 30 degrees because it didn’t feel that hot. The ocean was quite calm with some nice sets of waves rolling in. We had some very nice crumbed fish and chips for lunch at the beach and then hit the surf. Unfortunately, I didn’t take my wave ski because my back was a little sore from all the tiling etc. There were some really nice right-hander waves, luckily I took the boogie board at least and had some fun with them. Even Lani had a swim.

After recent storms and also some big surf resulting from the cyclone, a sandbar has formed about 50 metres from the waters edge with a deep gutter running in between. We took the kids out to it to catch some waves. James caught one that made him feel like he was going 200kph, much more thrilling than the Tower of Terror at Dreamworld.

After the surfing action the kids played around on the beach for a while. When the tide was at it lowest, it exposed an area where a bunch of shells had gathered, so Jasmine collected a heap of shells to do some craft things with.

If I can get all my jobs done tomorrow morning including install the vanity, toilet and laundry tub plus mow the lawns and take a heap of rubbish to the tip, I might go for another trip to the beach or maybe some fishing in the afternoon. Probably a bit wishful.