Theme parked out

Krysti, MJ and Jessica have gone back home to Canberra after visiting for a week. I think they will need a bit of a break when they get home to get over their busy holiday up here.

On Wednesday last week Lani took James, Jasmine, MJ and Jessica to Seaworld while Krysti did a bit of shopping.

On Thursday Krysti, Lani and the kids went to MovieWorld.

On Friday Krysti did some more shopping and the kids had a swim in our pool.

On Saturday we all went to DreamWorld for the day.

On Sunday we all went to the beach for a few hours. I took James and Jasmine's surf mats with us but unfortunately they both have an air leak and went flat soon after blowing them up. Fortunately Lani's surf mat was OK and James and Jasmine had some good fun catching waves. They are usually not too keen on going to be beach but hopefully after having a good time they will be a little more motivated next time I suggest we go to the beach. James and I also played some beach cricket. MJ and Jessica splashed around in the shallow water and played in the sand.

On Monday Lani, Krysti, MJ and Jessica went to MovieWorld again, while James and Jasmine went to school. I followed my usual Monday to Friday robotic routine herded into the city on a one hour long 'cattle' train commute with 100s of other strangers to my workplace where I try to work around the office politics and argy-bargy for 8 or so hours then get herded back into a train to return home. I think I just need a bit of a break and look forward to some time off over Christmas.

On Tuesday Lani, Krysti and the kids went to DreamWorld again. James and Jasmine had another day off school. We really aren't bad parents. They do go to school most of the time and are both doing quite well academically.

On Wednesday morning Lani, Krysti, MJ and Jessica went to MovieWorld before Lani dropped them off at Brisbane airport for their flight him.

Plasma...Tooth...Sea...Videos

On Saturday we finally moved forward with technology and bought ourselves a 42" plasma TV. What a massive difference it makes compared to our 68cm analogue TV. The digital reception is also far superior to the analogue reception received via some dodgy wiring to the roof aerial done by the previous house owner. We thought a 42" TV would be plenty big enough in our small living area but Lani and I both agree that we will have to go bigger next time we upgrade.

On Saturday night Jasmine managed to pull a loose top front tooth out. It was good to see the tooth come out because it was going all wonky on its way out and Lani was calling her 'Gargamel' (from the Smurfs). The other top front tooth is also loose, so hopefully it won't be too long before it also comes out. The 2 new teeth are both just breaking through. The tooth fairy also remembered to drop in and pick up the tooth, leaving some cash behind.

On Sunday Lani, James and Jasmine went to SeaWorld for the day with Jodie (Lani's friend) and her daughter Adina. They spent most of the day swimming in the pool and going down some of the water slides. I tried to go surfing on my wave ski but the surf was a bit too rough, so I did some body surfing for a couple of hours instead.

We are now looking forward to the arrival of Krysti, MJ and Jessica who are coming up late tomorrow afternoon for a one week stay.

I have posted some old family videos onto YouTube including Power Ranger - PowV. Just search for Australyons to see what I have posted.

New bikes...climbing high...church

Last weekend was another wet one here which restricted the activities we could do. On Saturday we went to the outdoor store Anaconda to check out some new bikes I was thinking of buying for the kids. They happened to be 25% off so we decided to buy them. We bought kids size mountain bikes (24 inch wheels) with alloy frame/parts, front shocks and 21 speed Shimano gears. Jasmine is only just big enough to ride her bike but at the rate both James and Jasmine are growing it won't be long before she fits the bike better. I also decided to buy a new bike for myself since my old bike had all sorts of problems with badly worn out gear levers, chain and rear wheel cluster. It was better value to get a new bike rather than repair the old one.

While at Anaconda the kids had a lot of fun climbing the cylindrical shaped rock wall they have in the store. James made it to the top at different parts of the wall and Jazz got about half way up. I had never tried rock wall climbing so I decided to give it a bit of a go myself. I was surprised how challenging it was. My poor flexibility hampered me a bit and I was relying too much on pulling myself up with my arms rather than using my legs. The ropes are setup with a mechanical belay system. When I was half way up I was suddenly hit by fear, realising how high I was and that I would be relying on some kind of mechanical system to lower me back down again. I had no choice but to continue to the top since the kids were watching and I didn't want to wimp out. Once at the top, letting go was a real challenge but the belay system worked a treat and lowered me down with ease.

Later on Saturday afternoon Jasmine went to her friend Jessica's ten pin bowling birthday party. I saw some of the kids bowl when I came to pick her up and it looked like a difficult task for the kids to get the down the aisle. They were running a bit overtime possibly due to the time is took for each of their bowls to travel down and bump some pins over.

On Sunday Jasmine and I went for a ride on our new bikes. At first Jasmine was quite nervous about riding the bike since it was such a massive step up from her little 16 inch kiddies bike which she was really way to big for. We just rode around on the school multi-purpose courts so she could get used to riding and changing the gears on a nice flat surface without anything to crash into. Thankfully we didn't have any stacks and it was a positive experience for her. She is still a little nervous handling the new bike but her confidence and skills are building and she enjoys riding it.

While Jasmine and I were riding our bikes Lani and James went to church to witness Nathaniel Tang getting ordained. James has expressed an interest in going to church from time to time in the past and after attending church has again expressed an interest in the idea. James does like to read, I might borrow him a book from the library on world religions to help broaden his knowledge on the subject. On Sunday night we went to Mark Tang's house for dinner with his family including his parents Bill and Meg who were visiting.

Damage...Debacle...Laps

The weekend before last I decided to go out for a bit of a fish in our boat. Things didn't start out too well when I accidentally reversed the car into the boat trailer cup link and punched about a 5cm gash into the rear bumper. The ground in the side yard where the boat is now located was a bit soft after we had a lot of rain, which made it difficult to manually push the boat around. Getting the boat in and out through the gate is also a little tricky and I needed to move the car into a better alignment to tow the boat out. Being on a slight incline I wanted to make sure the car didn't go backwards into the trailer when I took my foot off the brake, so I quickly applied some power once I released the brake. Unfortunately I had somehow decided to put the car into Reverse instead of Drive. Within a blink of an eye the damage was done. Lani was near the rear of the car at the time and I am so glad I didn't knock her over in the process. I still went out for a bit of a fish. I was intending to go outside but there were small waves breaking at the Seaway due to a very low and strong run out tide. I tried fishing some of the Broadwater but there was also a strong wind blowing making things a little unpleasant. So a took the boat for a run and explore up to the top of South Stradbroke island.

We continue to have some dramas with our furniture. We received another set of 6 chairs to replace the mismatched set we initially received. When Lani opened the boxes she discovered it was yet again another mismatched set. On Saturday morning we assembled 3 of the chairs and went back to the store and tried to manually select another 3 same and undamaged chairs to complete the set of 6 from the warehouse. We managed to get one more chair and they have put 2 chairs on order. What a debacle!

For the rest of the weekend we didn't really do anything exciting. Saturday afternoon Lani and I mowed and edged the lawn while the kids rode around on their bikes. Afterwards we all had a swim and play in the pool to cool down. Then while Lani prepared the dinner I played some cricket on the driveway with James and Jasmine until it was getting too dark and the mozzies were biting.

On Sunday Lani and the kids went to Sea World. I was hoping to go for a paddle on my wave ski at the beach near Sea World but it was too windy, so I went for a ride on my bike for some exercise.

Yesterday in an effort to get the kids doing some more physical activity after school Lani asked the kids to do 10 laps in the pool. They ended up both doing just over 100 laps each doing a mixture of freestyle, swimming with a noodle or whatever.