The trip to Rotto with the school was full of all sorts of events, beyond the amazing LR learning to ride. A series of school competitions and activities took place on Saturday, despite the massive bursts of rain that showered down throughout the day!
RJ explores Longreach Bay on a final wander around the island.
(over breakfast)
Mum: (to Lorian) RJ and I need to go buy a birthday present for your friend.
LR: How about something from the horse shop?
Mum: Good idea!
RJ: How about something from the Indonesian Shop? They have lots of things and even horse stuff. It is expensive.
Mum: What do they have there?
RJ: Toy horses… and ones you can paint… You can even get food there! Like bagels, giant pretzels, juice… and almond dessert!
(For the record, we have never been to or even heard of an Indonesian shop, but it does sound pretty cool!)
On Tuesday, Mum and LR went on an excursion with the Year 2 class to plant and restore a local area.
We planted spinifex, knotted club rush, coastal daisy, fan flower, snake vine, and cotton heads. All these plants would once have grown on the site before rabbits and people destroyed the local vegetation.
Find out the whole story and see more pictures at Cottesloe Coastcare!
This morning, RJ spent a full five minutes being chased by a spot that moved around, but only on the wooden floor. This made getting dressed for school quite complicated and was only partially solved by a desperate attempt to cover the spot with his pajamas. Apparently, as soon as he got near the pajamas, the spot came out from underneath and he was off again.
In other unrelated news, my legs are finally feeling a bit more normal and less like twisted stumps of pain. One of the drawbacks of LR learning to ride her bike was that I needed to run to keep beside her. She spent a lot of time riding on the weekend. Looks like I’m going to need a new bike sometime very soon.
After months of practice running, pushing, holding, catching, steadying, balancing with dad, LR hadn’t yet got the hang of riding her bike without the training wheels on. The big motivator was to learn before the school camp at Rottnest — EVERYONE else was going to be riding without training wheels and LR was determined to have it figured out.
On Thursday, LR, mum and RJ took the ferry over to Rottnest Island for the school camp. They stopped at the bike shop and rented two bikes: one with training wheels for RJ, and one without for LR. On Friday morning, amidst cheers from her classmates, LR wobbled away on her first two-wheeled bike ride!
LR à Grande Vitesse!
(over breakfast)
RJ: I really want a pet angler fish.
Dad: There’s a problem. They’re really only happy when there’s thousands of pounds of pressure on them, and an aquarium that could do that would be very expensive and big.
RJ: Maybe we could change the fish somehow.
Dad: Like what, change its DNA and genes or something?
RJ: Yeah! Give it new genes!
Dad: What genes would you add?
RJ: Frog genes. Then it could be an angler fish with jumping legs!
… Is anyone else terrified by the idea of a 1.5 metre semi-amphibious predatory angler fish? I have visions of them lurking around coastal areas and leaping on unsuspecting swimmers.
We took a quick trip up to Gingin over the weekend and discovered that some of the trees had fruit on them. We also drove around the farm, stopping at the big pit for an explore. On the way back, we scouted for bones in the fields and discovered a complete fox skeleton, with teeth and everything else intact!
Foxxy made the rounds at the kids’ schools for show-and-tell, and was a big hit!
LR is fully loaded up with mandarines from the citrus trees.
(at the dinner table)
LR: I could be Wonder Woman! What does she do anyway?
Dad: Mostly fight bad guys, just like the other super heroes. She has an invisible jet to fly around in.
LR: An invisible jet? So you can’t see her when she flies around?
Dad: Not quite. You can see her, but no airplane. She looks like she’s zooming through the sky with nothing around her.
RJ: (suddenly paying attention) Are you talking about Martine?
(Martine is a friend of ours… and no, we’ve never seen her fly through the air in an invisible jet.)
During the winter nights, LR has a hot water bottle to cuddle to keep warm. It has a cute puppy cover over it and is great for snuggling up to.
I don’t think she knows that I make little yelping noises when I fill it up with boiling water at night.
On Saturday, LR and the Jets played the Nedaroos. It was a close match with both teams scoring and the Nedaroos jumping ahead into an early lead. The Jets came screaming back and nearly closed the gap, but couldn’t quite make it, finishing the game at 3 goals to the Nedaroos 4. After their stint in the international leagues, the Jets are still adjusting to the non-regulation, shorter games. All-in-all, a great match with terrific effort from both teams… (Not to mention the best looking coach on the field.)
LR is ready to get in the game!
