Armadale Arts Festival

When I heard that little old Armadale was having an Arts Festival and that there would be an artist painting a massive mural over the weekend-long event, I reckoned that we ought to support it. What I didn't imagine was just how mesmerising it would be to watch an artist at work, especially when his work is a massive mural on the side of the building. 

El, Ollie and I spent nearly two hours watching him paint one Saturday. Ollie had moments of fleeting interest. (Lucky there was a playground just there.) But Elliot and I just laid on the bricks and watched the guy work, amazed by his use of colour and amazing spraying and rolling paint techniques. 

Book Worm

This kid inhales books.

Seriously. 

For example, the other Saturday Paul was out, and I wasn't feeling super great so we all hung out at home, and the boys were left to occupy themselves. Elliot had been MIA for a couple of hours, and I found him in his room reading. When I noticed that he was nearly finished with a different book to the one I saw him start earlier in the day, I said, "Wow, El! Have you nearly finished two books today?" To which he matter-of-factly replied, "Nope. This is the third one."

Let me be clear: these are chapter books!

I love this little book worm!

Mini Beach Holiday

Since we have such a big holiday just around the corner, Mom and Dad organised a little holiday on the beach right here in Perth. We all loaded up the car with bikes and beach toys and traveled to Scarborough beach where Mom had scored a Groupon Deal at a fancy hotel.

Once there, we headed straight for the beach to build sand castles and do some boogie boarding. Everything was going awesomely until Mom tried to throw Ollie into the ocean and ended up throwing her back out instead. She hobbled off to the chemists for some pain relief and Dad took Ollie and I for ice creams!

The rest of the afternoon was spent splashing and climbing all over the hotel's amazing pool and waterfalls. Mom mostly hung out in a lounge chair enjoying Happy Hour. Then we met Jeff and Debbie for dinner and the most amazing waffle with chocolate and ice cream for dessert!

The next day we stuffed ourselves at the buffet breakfast and then on the way home stopped for a bicycle ride around Herdsman Lake. The ride was pretty good, but the really cool thing is that we saw TWO tiger snakes, and they are really poisonous. Lucky we didn't run over them and get bit or anything. ~ Elliot

Fisherboys

The boys have been begging to go fishing again, so one of the days during the April school holidays Paul took the boys to Coogee to fish while I had to go to work. By all accounts, it was an awesome day. Here are the photos to prove it.

BMX Bandits

What would you do with corn?

So we were all chatting around the dinner table the other day about trying to survive on a desert island. Somehow we got to what we would do with corn if we were able to grow it. Ollie would make popcorn, and I'd ground it into a meal to make tamales. Elliot was quiet for a bit and then chimed in that he we would use the corn to lure a wild animal, knock it dead, and then eat its flesh. What a sweet little survivalist he's becoming!

Ollie's Camp In

Elliot's Cub Scout Troop says that I'm still too young, but I know that I'm plenty old a enough for a camp out. Just look at the epic fort that Mom and I made and camped in! Sure we had movies instead of a campfire, but Mom made sure that we had lots of goodies to eat too. I even got to go tree climbing and show Mom just how high I can climb now. ~ Oliver

Cub Scout Camp

Elliot was so excited for his first overnight Cub Scout camp, and even though we were sure that El would be a-okay, Paul decided to volunteer as a parent helper just in case. And both Elliot and Paul agreed that the camp out was awesomeness. The Scouts learned about setting up camp, building campfires, bush first aid, and getting water from a tree using a plastic bag and condensation.

They built forts in the bush, did Minecraft scavenger hunts, sang campfire songs, and made some really delicious-sounding brownies in oranges and S'mores in ice cream cones on the campfire.