Hoedown at VBC

It was all about Promenading, Doe-C-Doe's and swinging your partner at the VBC barn dance.  We had so much fun laughing at ourselves as we struggled to remember which was our left hand turn in time to keep up with the very texan caller.  What a great night!  We have decided this should be an annual thing, it was so great to see the older folk dancing with the young children, teenagers dancing with parents and everybody having a great time.  I reckon Marty would make a GREAT barn dance caller...

Inflatable world

I wrote this really awesome long post about our time at inflatable world...and it wouldn't publish.  then It was gone and now I have to redo it. Argh! Don't think it will be quite as detailed this time round sorry. Here's the highlights of our trip with poppa and Oma to inflatable world: 

The Velcro suit "fly on the wall" was really funny. I actually did stick for a few split seconds! Had Marty and I in giggles for sure. 

Watching the family on the horizontal bungy was funny. I reached to number 12 . 12 what, I'm not sure, but it seemed ok! Kate looked so funny as the cord snapped her back to the beginning, her head flung in the speed of it! 

That's me on the ground in the red sumo suit. I am in hysterical giggles, because I very literally cannot move even an inch on my own. If Marty hadn't rescued me, I may still be there. 

That's Marty and me in our race on the obstacle course - neck and neck at the beginning...and that's me fist pumping at the top of the wall cause I bet him. 

...what you don't see here is the movement afterward, when i dropped off the wall and landed on my ankle, twisting it and leaving me hobbling for the next few days. 

But this was by far the favourite Trowbridge spot - the big moving mushroom that the kids rode as Oma and I wiggled and shook it, trying to make them fall. They loved it! Giggles everywhere. Luke was funny, he would lie between his sisters, gripping their legs or hands tightly and squealing with almost true worry "don't let me fall" over and over again! Oma was the winner though, a true limpit who refused to be shaken off! 

I certainly got a good workout playing for hours, I felt sore all over for days afterwards (different sore then my ankle!). 

Popp had lots of fun pushing luke around on the cool bikes too, and then gymnast Oma and us girls had a handstand and cartwheel round of fun! A great day out for all of us :) 

Fireworks night

This year marked the first year we celebrated guy Fawkes at a "home" level. With an invitation to a bonfire, BBQ and fireworks at a friends home I purchased my first fireworks since becoming a mummy. I brought sparklers - feeling a bit tame asking for them in the shop that was teeming with people spending hundreds of dollars (really? Who can afford to blow up that much money?!). 

My kids were excited - they didn't even know what a sparkler was, I had to explain them. "But mum, is that safe?" Jaimee asked doubtfully as I explained the sparkling stick she was to hold. 

Luke was even funnier - he got within about 100 feet of the fire and started yelling "it's burning me, it's burning me" dramatically. No Luke. It's not. He screamed and cowered until I had him settled on a log and he realised it wasn't burning him and he was fine. 

Trying to get sparklers into his hand took about 3 sparklers of over exaggerated "fun" by mum with one, especially after witnessing Kate scorch a finger on her first try.  But eventually sparklers became swords/guns/light Sabres/ wands and he was having "battles" with daddy (2 feet away from each other of course!) 

They didn't pay a lot of attention to the actual fireworks except to cover their ears and complain about the bangs. We took them to the huge speedway show last year and I may have wrecked the coolness of home fireworks after exposing them to the big ones! 

However, they loved roasting marshmallows, staying out late and sparklers. They loved the farm and the friends. They had fun and we did too. Awesome xx

Brownies camp

What a weekend! Our light party was the biggest yet, with just under 500 paying kids (we only had 400 loot bags prepared!) and around 1,000 people on site. I was exhausted and had bruised feet by the time I got home from that huge day - but then it was straight to packing bags for brownies camp the next day! I hit bed at 11:30pm Saturday night! 

This was Jaimees first camp for kids, and she was so excited and nervous but glad mum was coming along. We got there at 9:30am, armed with "ditty bags" and torches. It was fun setting up sleeping bags in our dorm room before heading out to explore with the other 14 excited brownies from the two Hastings units. The guides were tenting in the nearby field and some acitivities were with them. We had a great morning doing jungle crafts - painting rocks and sticks up as animals, making sand gardens, doing chalk drawings and making alligators with celery, peanut butter and choc chips. 

After a lunch of yummy bread rolls that we made ourselves jaimee did our dishes camp style for us. 

In the afternoon we joined the guides and split into groups for team stationed games. I was in charge of a stepping stone game where the kids had to use logs to get across from one point to another without touching the grass. The excitement of the afternoon came when we all had to hit the ground as a busy swarm of bees flew down the meadow. Jaimee was amazed at how they travelled together. 

For dinner, we headed down to the river bank and cooked our own sausages, fish fingers and meat patties. We even made our own damper (scones) and cooked them on sticks before eating them with jam - they were delicious! It was really fun cooking our own food like this. 

Of course by the time we did dishes it was 7:30pm and even though that's bedtime at home it's not at camp! The girls all decorated a blanket badge in the fading light while we got the camp fire going. The all the girls sat around and we actually had a real campfire singalong! We sung so many classics - koombaya and edelweiss, bear hunt and some fun camp action songs like "there are no bananas in the sky". Jaimee LOVED it. When the fire died down we put the scooped out Orange halves we had prepared with a cake mix filling in to cook and also banana and choc chips wrapped in foil. We roasted marshmallows and ate s'mores. I was so stuffed!!! After all that it was bedtime, the girls were shattered (we hadn't stayed Friday night when they played night torch games). Jaimee had 2 other girls from her unit in with us, they loved the girl time. 

Unfortunately, we had a leader in with us who snores terribly all night long - jaimee started crying for home in tiredness and ended up with me awake until after 2am! I dozed with headphones in but didn't sleep properly at all. Early night for us! 

The next day everyone slept in till 7:30am, when we ate breakfast outside (we actually never went inside except to sleep all camp, Sunday was 30 degrees!). 

Then we took the brownies down to the bamboo forest to play hide and seek for a while, I love that even a little girl with CF in a wheelchair joined in with everything - we just all had turns carrying her through the bush! Then we cooled off at the river throwing stones and making dams, paddling in the cool. Jaimee had a drink from the river with her hands too! 

After a lunch of all the leftovers, we had "guide time" circle where all the girls shared their thanks and favourite things about camp. Jaimee and her roommates wrote a poem together that they read aloud. 

What a fun weekend, so many cool experiences and new friends. Jaimee earnt 2 new badges and loved her time. Bring on the next camp - a beach one in March! Maybe jaimee will be confident now to go without mum too!