2nd cousins...double digits...surf's up...lost!

On the weekend 7-8 July we looked after Lani's cousin Jacqui's kids Michael (14yr) and Ammon (3yr) while Jacqui and her husband had a mini break together on the Gold Coast. Both kids were not a problem and seemed to have a good time mucking around with James and Jazz. Lani took Jasmine and Ammon to MovieWorld on Saturday afternoon and Ammon really enjoyed it.

On the 10 July James celebrated his 10th birthday. He received some cash from family and plans to buy some good stuff for himself in the near future. We had his birthday party on Saturday. We picked up 3 of his mates in the morning and went to the 9:30am session of Harry Potter – Order of the Phoenix. For lunch we had McDonald's then came back to our place to play. During the afternoon we filmed a movie with a bit of a Ninja theme. It was a little chaotic with all the boys having different ideas on plots and scenes. Lani and I had to take control because they couldn't agree on things and were getting frustrated with each other. It was a challenge to complete the filming by the planned going home time of 5pm. Both Lani and I had headaches at the end of it all.

Recently I bought a sleeveless spring wet suit so I could surf throughout the year. Yesterday we all went down to Main beach and I tried my wet suit out for the first time. At first the water seemed a little too chilly (19 degrees) when I put my feet in but after some hesitation I just took the plunge and it was refreshingly fine. The surf wasn't too great but I really enjoyed getting out and having a paddle.

After I had finished my surfing Lani and James decided to go for a jog/walk up the beach to the next set of lifeguard flags and ended up going all the way to the Seaway and back (over 8km round trip). Jasmine followed along after them but Lani and James didn't notice her close up behind them. I watched them run off seemingly together, thinking Lani saw Jasmine then I laid back and relaxed. Unfortunately Lani and James were unaware of Jasmine just behind them and they ran away from her as Jasmine stopped to pick up some shells. Jasmine said that after picking up the shells she looked up and had lost them completely. Jazz continued onto the next flagged area but Lani and James were nowhere to the seen. She waited there for a while then came back to me saying that Lani and James had disappeared. I was a little shocked that Lani would run off and leave Jasmine behind and was concerned that Lani and James were possibly in a panic looking for Jasmine further up the beach. I decided to stay put with Jasmine and wait. Jasmine wanted to go tell a the nearby lifeguard about the disappearance of Lani and James, thinking we might also appear on one of the surf patrol shows on TV. Nearly an hour after Jasmine had returned to me reporting Lani and James had disappeared, they both returned totally oblivious to the drama they left behind.