Horseshoe Beach

Our trip to the "Dog Beach." There were about 200 dogs there, we only saw one scuffle - little dogs.
Charlie had a ball with the ball. The photo which looks like just the beach, you can see a dot, that is Charlie. Skye does not *fetch* but he does chase Charlie. Mark got very wet, well actually he swam and he forgot to take a towel, so for the umpteenth time he had to come home in the car in just his undies. I did get a pic of this, but due to decency I have not included this.

Vietnam War Museum

This is from when we went to Phillip Island. Dad and Mark went to the Vietnam War Museum and I let Mark take my camera.
PS. A huge thank you to Jen Hall for the instructions on how to do that. I jealously looked at her blog and wondered "that must be so hard", well she told her blog readers and now I know that it is simple as point and click.

Back to Normal - well almost.

Its lovely having Mark home again. Makes our family complete (as Tom Cruise famously said). The plan was to collect him from the airport and then go and play golf, well it was drizzling most of the day, so golf was off the agenda. We went to the workshop and Jamie worked on the boat engine for ummm about 9 hours. Mark got reacquainted with his dogs, we watched Djokovitch beat Federer in the tennis and then went to bed.

Saturday: Jamie returned to the shed to work on the motor. Mark and I went shopping for school supplies, it appears I was not thorough enough and he needed more. We also got a puzzle, 1000 pieces of a Holden SS Commodore which is REALLY hard.

Saturday was also Australia Day (or Invasion Day). Wikipedia states:
On 13 May 1787, a fleet of 11 ships captained by Arthur Phillip, which came to be know as the First Fleet, was sent by the British Admiralty from England to Australia, to established a penal colony at Botany Bay on the coast of New South Wales, explored by Captain James Cook in 1770. The settlement was seen as necessitated by the loss of colonies in North America. Captain Phillip found Botany Bay unsuitable and with two ships proceeded up the coast to Port Jackson, which he declared "the finest harbour in the world". The site decided upon for the first settlement was at a location where there was a potable stream of water, and some level land, unlike much of the steep and rugged foreshore. By 26 January 1788, the fleet was at anchor in Sydney Cove, the male convicts were unshipped and the flag was raised in the name of King George III.
Australia celebrates this with a public holiday and fireworks. Newcastle had its fireworks on the foreshore, which is gorgeous. We thought of going into town by the train to save on trying to find a park and "doing the right thing". There is a station really close to us, I found the timetable on the internet, then I looked up the cost $6.80 per adult and $3.60 for kids. How ridiculous. $17 for a family to go on a 15 minute train trip - granted it is return, but that doesn't make it worthwhile. So we drove and found a really good park, had a snack of donuts and homemade lemonade from a Russian vendor. It was really nice and at about 9pm the fireworks started, they were lovely, but boring at the same time.
There was also a carnival in town - Mark wanted to try all of the sideshows, but we are horrible parents taht said no!

Today - Sunday and for something completely different we went to the workshop so Jamie could work on the motor. I'm playing on the internet and Marko is playing with Emily. Its STINKING hot and I hate hot weather.

We are collectively very sad that Adam Gilchrist decided to retire. More in shock actually, he's amazing and I love watching him play. Can't wait for the tennis tonight. really hoping that Jo-Wilfreid Tsonga will win - its the battle of the silent letter tonight. Tsonga v Djokovitch.

Last kid-free day.

Today is Thursday, the last day of my relaxed holiday. I have almost had one month off.

Kind of weird that... early in the year I asked for 3 weeks off in January, from the 6th-30th so I could have time at home with Mark, Jamie would have him for the first week when he has time off and then I'd have him for the next three. Well I was knocked back in about August, there were already two full-timers have time off. Oh well I thought, back to the drawing board, might have to send him down to the grandies again. Well things got a bit weird at work, had half of the ward closed, and heaps of people were allowed time off, me included. So even though I had been knocked back for holidays I have ended up being away for one month. I've loved it, most of the time haven't even thought about work, except for when one of our long-termers died.

Today I went to Garden City (I'm trying to be more Novocastrian and not call it Kotara), bought some labels for Mark, thought I'd get them straight away, but have to wait about 10 working days for them. Got him some "Back to School" goodies which I hope he'll like, its HotWheels contact, hopefully he doesn't consider himself too old for that, I shall find out tomorrow.

Amazing stories

He has a fertile brain that son of mine! From Mark's school workbook which came home with him at the end of the year.
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Should we get unlimited pocket money.
Interesting title, should kids get UNLIMITED amount of money.
Discussion topic. Some people think we should and some people think we shouldn't.
Argument for. It would be great to get unlimited money. You can buy whatever you want. It would be great.
Argument against. You mum and dad could get poor. You would only spent it on stuff you want. You would just buy junk food.
Summarizing conclusion. I disagree because you mum and dad would get poor and then you would have nothing to buy at all.

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The Christmas Disaster

The night before Christmas Santa, his favourite dog "Scrappy" and Rudolph, Comet, Prancer, Dancer, Blitzen, Cupid, Donner and Dasher were eating their dinner before they left to deliver the presents. When they left the reindeer base, Mrs Claus was yelling out goodbye. The first ten houses went ok, but when he got to the 100th house Rudolph lost his red nose and they couldn't see where they were going. So they crashed and landed on my house's roof. I went out to see what was happenening and when I saw him I screamed out "SANTA'S HERE!" But not in one piece. Then we fixed him up with bandages and sent him on his way back to the North Pole.

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H - Holidays are fun.
O - Oh what a wonderful life
L - Laying in the sun.
I - I'm having fun.
D - Days are now glorious days
A - All go wild.
Y - Yell and scream at the end of school.
S - School is over for two weeks.

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The Best Present Ever!
The best present ever, I think is a remote controlle ute. It has an mp3 player, FM radio, spinners, black with red dark flames, 70cm long, 15cm high, and 20cm wide. I only liked it when I saw it. The thing I liked before was boat lego. The boat lego would be better because it is cheaper than the car. These are the Christmas wish list items I would like this year.