The Nutcracker

Tonight I took Jasmine to the Queensland Ballet performance of The Nutcracker. It really was quite beautiful to watch. I have always enjoyed listening to Tchaikovsky's music and combined with the sets, dance and costumes it was a magical production. I was totally absorbed by it. I think I may have just become a fan of ballet! Jasmine liked it. I was a bit worried after around 30 minutes when she tapped me and said “This is a really long dance”. The whole thing went for 2 hours. Once she got into it she really did enjoy it except for one thing, she wasn't a big fan of the guys in tights. For most of the time they weren't too “exposed” with their costumes covering them up but when one of them was dancing a solo part she said “I think his costume is too small, his 'things' are all scrunched up, I don't like that”.

Recovered...Wii...Dancing...Games

I thought I had escaped the recent family illness but last Sunday night I became really ill with sharp cramps in my lower right abdomen and kidney, similar to when I had appendicitis but not quite as intense. Combined with some nausea and vomiting it really knocked me around. After around 5 hours the cramping subsided but then the illness that Lani and the kids had took hold. I had 3 days off work and today I finally feel like I am pretty much over it. I had a post op follow-up appointment with a specialist on Wednesday and he reckoned the cramps were probably due to my insides not settling completely right but it should sort itself out. I hope he is right.

James bought himself a Nintendo Wii with some money that he had received from his last birthday and Christmas. So he passes his thanks onto grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc that gave him money. You now know what it was spent on. I think James paid at least half the cost, Lani put in a contribution from us and I think Jasmine also bought some shares into it. I played the included sports game the other day and had a bit of fun playing tennis.

Jasmine is now attending dancing lessons again but on Saturdays. The teacher incorporates a lot more fun into it and she really seems to be enjoying herself. The class goes for 2 hours and she always comes home red in the face and sweaty, so she is getting a good cardio workout while having fun dancing.

We had a pretty quiet weekend. We were thinking of going on a picnic today but it rained so we had fun inside playing some games including Ticket to Ride (Europe), UNO and Pictionary. The kids have improved so much since we last tried to play Pictionary; they really enjoyed it.

House of sickness

We have had a bit of sickness in the household over the past week. It started with Jasmine suffering from sneezing, fever and headache, then James picked it up with the addition of a chest infection followed soon after by Lani picking it up also. Fortunately I haven't been affected and hopefully I will be bypassed.

Poor James had a mate's birthday party at Wet n Wild on Sunday when he started to feel very ordinary in the morning. But he is pretty resilient and we dosed him up with some drugs to enable him to go but by the end of the day he was feeling quite unwell. He still managed to enjoy himself despite not feeling too good.

James and Jazz have now pretty much recovered and went to school today. Lani is starting to recover but is still not too well.

R.I.P Telstar...Hello Jazz

Sadly, today we retired the Telstar. After 13 years of loyal service it was time to let her go, time to move on. She still had a strong engine, good fuel economy and 4 near new tyres but with only a week left of rego, seriously fading paint, 2 broken power windows, a leaking boot, a faulty rear muffler and worn out brake pads we decided to sell her to a car wrecker for just $200. Strangely it was a little sad to walk away from her.

But now we have a new arrival, a new beginning. My car is now the Honda Euro and Lani's is the Jazz.

Mostly recovered...Good work...Another Jazz

My parents returned home via South West Rocks nearly two weeks ago now. While they were here Dad mowed the lawn for me and Mum cooked dinner on a few nights to help out. I always like to go fishing with Dad but it just wasn't possible for this visit.

I'm now mostly recovered from my operation and have been back at work for a week now. Thankfully I only sit at a desk and look at a computer screen for most of my workday. If I had to do any heavy lifting I would have been off work for much longer.

Unfortunately my previously good-looking belly button (if there is such a thing) is now ugly and disfigured as a result of the operation. But I really should not complain, a relative of a colleague at work also went into hospital around the same time as I did to discover he had an aggressive brain tumor. Kind of puts things into perspective.

James and Jasmine have had an award winning couple of weeks. James received a class award for great sentence structure and variations in story writing and Jasmine received an award for a perfect score in spelling and number facts.

Lani is still going strong with her work. It was a tough couple of weeks for her with me being more lame than usual and trying to get things rolling with her work.

Over the past 2 weekends we test-drove several cars and haggled a little with some car dealers. We wanted to bypass the haggling and go straight to their best price but naturally they were also looking for the best deal for themselves. It was a frustrating experience and Lani created a bit of a scene in the Honda showroom when she stood up from the desk and politely told them she had had enough of the games and wanted to leave. It had the desired effect, they promptly revealed their price that still wasn’t good enough for us and we left. In the end we settled on buying a used 2003 Honda Jazz (ice blue in colour) with only 10,000km on it. Apparently an elderly couple previously owned it. We have the Honda service logbook to show there has been no tampering of the odometer. Sadly the Telstar is going to be retired to a wrecking yard unless I can find a buyer before the rego runs out in a couple of weeks.

Had a funny but sad moment on the train the other day. Just before my train pulled into the station a little boy about 4yrs old with a number 1 shaved head got up and start to climb the wall next to the doorway. His mother promptly told him to get down (to which he obeyed) then told him that when he gets out don't yell and don't spit on anyone. Who would say such a thing? When the train stopped he ran out making lots of noise and headed straight for a vending machine and madly pressed the buttons but no spitting. You get all kinds on the train.