Search and Rescue hike

Here are some pics Simon took on his 3 day Search and Rescue hike this week. They went up near Arm River which I am told is up past the back of Mole Creek. Everytime Simon goes out, it seems to be up the back of Mole Creek somewhere. I really need to discover more of north-west Tassie as I had never heard of the Walls of Jerusalem until the day of our wedding anniversary when some lady broke her leg there and Simon had to cancel our dinner to go get her. Poor thing! (the lady that is, not Simon).

Simon love the nature shots. This outdoorsy Triffitt thing that Will loves to do, must run in the family Louise.

I hear the overland track is the thing to do - but in summer time. I have not even been to the Great Lakes and I have been here 34 yrs. I only visited the west coast of Tas for the first time 7 yrs ago. But having said that, my goal is to do the Kokoda Track. I know, I never want to do anything in my own country. We have the most beautiful wilderness here in the world but Kokoda is something I have always wanted to do. It's because of its significance, steeped in war history that I want to go.

This is a really old plane wreck they came across

I love the one below with the 3 of them with the compass. It looks like they are in the middle of woop woop and just a little lost. No point to the police S&R squad if that happened.

In a former life, I would have liked to be a war historian. Sounds macabre but the politics of war fascinate me, trying to figure out what possesses humans to act the way they do. How one seemingly insignificant event would trigger off a chain reaction until BOOM all out wars that we were all dragged into.What kind of strategies were employed to gain ground here and the mistakes generals made that lost ground there. Yawn, yawn for some but I love getting out war books from the library and reading them. My Dad is just the same. Anything to do with history of any kind. He has researched our ancestors right back to the First Fleet and found out about their families and how they came to be here in VD Land. And he is not even a member!

I know I would cry from exhiliration and exhaustion doing this challenge but it would be so awesome. I want to go to Gallipoli too and stand at Lone Pine and lie on the sand at Anzac Cove. This is coming from someone who has not even been to Qld or SA or WA or the ACT or NT (hey I've been to Melb, Sydney and Thailand) but they are things I have always dreamed of doing and am determined to experience.

So if anyone wants to buy me a Tattslotto ticket, I won't tell. Honest!

Binghams are on the move

Here are some more photos of our Bingham cousins in Canada. Speaking of which, Penny rang us last week to tell us they are moving to Georgia. We had a look on the map and it borders with Florida, North and South Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee. It will be so much warmer than Canada. On the phone Penny told me that she took the kids outside because at 2 degrees it was a warm day. Aargh! I am never complaining about our weather again.

Summer days

I am already lamenting the loss of summer even though we are having glorious weather. It's just that we are at the tail end of it and instead of it all stretching out before us, it is rapidly fading away. March will still be warm but the wind will start and mornings will be cold again.

But while it is still warm we have been taking advantage of the warm evenings and going to the park and playing outside.

Here I've tried the whole capture the family through the dappled leaves trick........ ha ha!!

typical little monkey

this is how high Hallie actually was

Moving on out

Today after going to the gym with Lisa King and Jackie Horsman, I went to Mum's to help her move to Bridport. Mum has made the brave decision to allow Jess to stay in the house and have some member boarders from Hobart come up and stay while they go to uni. So far Mum has only got Phoebe Menzies who is doing nursing but another boarder would be nice. All my family are teachers so they were all very tired this week and so instead of relaxing today, Mum had to pack up her room and go through things in the house to see what she could take to Bridport and what she could leave behind. It was a really exhausting day carrying boxes and packing stuff and cleaning but in the end we got there. I hope Phoebe has a lovely year up here and does not mind our weird I mean wonderful family too much. It's good that Jess is still in the house because now Collette can still come to Launy on weekends and hang out with the YSA gang. Otherwise according to Collette she would have had "no life". Because Mum and Collette are teaching at Scottsdale and Lisa is working full-time at Mowbray Primary this year, we have decided to copy the King/Triffitts and have a family feast once a month so we can all catch up.


Mum's room ready for Phoebe












Mum's room is real clean but look at the hallway. That was our next job and if you look real close in the right hand corner you can see Jess' room. There is a floor in there somewhere. If I actually took a photo of her room, she might never forgive me. :)

And then there was one

Yesterday was Hallie's first day of school. She was so excited and couldn't wait to get there to put her bag away and get started. Sarra is starting grade 2 and Hallie goes to kinder two full days on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Halie even dictated to me how she wanted her hair and yes under her uniform is her sipderman undies.

When we got there Hallie was a little shy and looked like she might start to cry, hiding her face behind Simon's legs but then she saw that her friends from last year were there and her teachers were still the same so she put on a brave face and went off to play.

I am all for pre-kinder because last year Hallie had a whole year of familiarising herself with the classroom, teachers and fellow students. It made yesterday such an easy transition. Sarra played the big sister role very well, making sure Hallie was all settled in before going off to her class. She loves having Hallie at school and even though they have different playgrounds, she can talk to Hallie through the fence.

Sarra with her best bud Naomi, joined at the hip since kinder

As we were coming in the school gate, all the other Mums cheered Hallie on and said she looked too little to be at school yet. (for Xmas her new 3/4 shorts were only a size 2 but mostly her clothes are a 3, sometimes a small 4 and she is 5yrs in April) Her school bag certainly looked too big. There are only 185 kids at Westbury so we all know each other and watch each other's kids grow up. In Hallie's class there is only 11 kids so I am loving the small class size. Sarra has about 23 kids in her 2/3 class.

So after all that excitement, I ended up being late to pick them up from school because I went to the hospital to see Mel and Tyren and got carried away holding him. What a terrible mother, late to pick up her kids on their first day of school. Yikes! Hallie and Sarra were not worried, they were too busy playing in the kinder playground.

After school we heading off to Kit's for tea. She decided that because Simon was working, there was no way I should be at home alone on my birthday. Oh yeah that was yesterday too. It started off beautifully in the morning when my good friends Phyllis gave me some roses from her garden and a loofah brush and some Body Shop shower cream. I don't know how Phyllis finds these things out but The Body Shop is my favourite place for stuff like that. I must take a photo of Phyll's garden as it is amazing.

This is what we had for breaky. Homemade choc cake from Simon and my fav choccie milk and vegemite on raisin toast. (seriously you must try it)

Kit had asked me what I wanted for tea and I said, 'whatever is easiest'. Kit said no my kids always get to choose so you are too. It meant alot that she said that because I love her to bits. She is a pretty special person. Well in that case............... we had roast chicken and vegies and baked raspberry cheesecake. Did I mention she is a fab cook. Between her and Mama Jackie and Mel I am going to have to start living at the gym.


The kids played outside after tea and Sarra took off with the camera. She loves Toby the dog. He looks big but is very friendly and gentle.



Because we knew yesterday would be busy Simon had prepared a surprise for my birthday last Saturday. I will post that soon. I have just not got round to it. I hope Oliver does not get too lonely without the girls at school but I certainly will love just one.

Adam Rouse arrived with a load of wood that Oliver thought he would help with in his pjs.

I had to give the kids a second bath after our birthday treat at Kit's as Bishop was keeping an eye on the kids outside and showing them around the farm which was very lovely thanks Bishop, but they had no shoes on!!

Big boy bed

Now that Oliver is nearly 3 (March 4), we decided that it was time for him to move on up in the world out of his cot and into a bed. The only problem is that Oliver shares his room with the computer, computer desk, printer, scanner blah blah so you can see how that kind of stuff just takes over the room. I need some feng shui for my blogging you see.

This is Oliver's old cot which used to belong to the Prebbles and before that Scott's sister Gwen Barf. We worked out that Oliver was the tenth baby to use it. It has been repainted but has bite marks, stickers and even on the boards underneath, Sam Prebble has written her name in wobby red texta. I don't think I would ever have wanted a fandangled new cot because this one had so much character and memories wrapped up in it that a new one would have been too boring.

Simon being very innovative, came up with the idea of a toddler bed. We found one at Target on sale for $120 and so brought it home and put up. In the post Christmas sales we got Oliver a pillow and single bed doona that I decided just had to go on his toddler bed. Problemo was that the toddler bed still only fits a cot mattress so I have wrapped his single bed fitted sheet and doona probably twice around the bed to make it fit.

Once we had done all that we sat back to survey our project. We looked at each other and burst out laughing. It is the poxiest bed you have ever seen (obviously why it was $120). It looks like a little dog bed, being so low to the floor but Oliver loves it to pieces and thinks he is such a big boy.

The miracle of birth.............

I have had THE most amazing day today. At 4.50am, Dean text me and said Mel was in the hospital in labour and if I wanted to come in, it would not be long now. Well I jumped out of bed, pulled on some clothes and tore down to the hospital, thinking the worst thing would be if I did not get there in time.

I arrived there just ahead of Jackie and the kids. Mel had decided long ago that Jackson and Charna could be present at the birth. Jackson is 10 today (Happy birthday mate - sorry you have to share it now with Tyren) and Charna is 5 in June. Kealin until today was their youngest at 3 but Mel already decided that he would not be at the birth.

having a break in the tea room about 6.30am

Mel was 7cm when I got there and doing real well. She was so amazing and being a real trooper through all that pain. I was so in admiration of her. Dean was a perfect support. Hand holder, back rubber and water boy all in one. When I held Mel's other hand, I expected to have it half squeezed off but Mel was kind to me.

By 8am, Mel had not shifted off 7cm so they decided to give her an epidural, well Mel decided for them! Jackie and I took the kids down to the cafeteria for breaky while they did this and Mark came and picked up Kealin. Kealin had his mind on McDonalds and nothing else. He definitely had his priorities in order.

When we got back up there at 10am, we just chatted and dozed until it was time for Mel to push. After nearly 1 hour of pushing, Tyren Corona was born at 12.57pm weighing 8.87 pounds. Jackie had gone to pick Mark and Kealin up and take Mark to an appointment at St Vincent's and would you believe it, she missed the birth by about 6mins. Aah!

Jackson and Charna were so good. I sat Charna on my lap right at the front so her and Jackson could see Tyren make his way into the world. It was so special and emotional. I loved every minute of it and am so in awe of Mel and what she did to get this little tiger here.

Funnily enough Mel was not up for photos just yet. Gee I wonder why!! She was just so relieved it was all over and was happy to watch us oohing and aahing over Tyren. What a precious experience that I will never forget and will always cherish. I tell ya it's so much better being the one not in the bed doing those hard yards.

big bro Jacko

Princess Charna

Proud grandma

PS To see some more photos of little Tyler check out Mama Jackie's blog, the very proud grandmother. Mel is going to hate that photo of her.