Crumpled Home

(while eating breakfast, the cat is sitting on the chair in front of the kitchen computer)

RJ: No kitty. No more searching…  Dad! She’s typing into Google again!

Dad: What? What is she searching for now?

RJ: “Will… I… catch… a… bird… today?” Uggh! Kitty! You’re not an outside cat!

Dad: Bad cat! No more Google for you!

RJ: Do you know what is really bad? I saw her watching Youtube last night. She was watching videos about catching birds.

Dad: That cat has no shame!

RJ: I know! And then she went on wikipedia and was searching for endangered species!

Dad: I never thought it would come to this… I guess it’s time to change the password.

RJ: Pick something harder this time.

Dad: No watching… It’s a school night. Bedtime, Mister!

RJ: But Mom said I could watch a movie!

Dad: Yeah, on the weekend, not for tonight. Move!

RJ: (threatening) If you don’t let me, then I’ll be the… Distressed Parrot.

Dad: Then I’m just going to have to deal with a distressed parrot then.

RJ: (in very loud parrot voice) Distress! No one’s getting the damsel! Arawwk! Danger Alert! Princess is in distress! Damsel in distress! Emergency! Panic!

This year, just like last year, many of the parents and teachers from the kids’ school head over to Rottnest Island for their school camp. There are various gatherings and get togethers for the kids and parents — it’s generally just a great chance to relax and catch up with everybody. The major events are the Students versus Parents Games, a sandcastle competition, and the “Fox Hunt” — a treasure hunt in and around the main settlement to find teachers (and some parents) dressed up in crazy outfits. This year the theme was fairy tale characters. Mom always gets roped into this.

RJ watches for dolphins on the fast ferry across to Rotto. LR was the first to spot them though!

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We’re back from our awesome holiday and the good news is: no monkey bites or life-threatening illnesses!

While we’re getting those pictures sorted out, here’s everything else we got up to during April: our neighbours visited with their new baby, we played real video games for the first time, we took some friends ice skating, we dyed some eggs for Easter and we also noticed that a movie character has been taking fashion tips from… Dad?

Our neighbour's mummy bobtail lizard had babies and they were super cute!

(while eating breakfast)

RJ: Dad, do you know what a horsebird is?

Dad: I’ve never heard of a horsebird. I don’t think they’re real.

RJ: They are real!

Dad: Maybe it’s another name for a pegasus? That was a horse with big wings — from greek legends.

RJ: No. I think it is little… There must be a horsebird…

Dad: Why?

RJ: Why else would they make horsebird food?

For most of the month of March, a massively diverse array of sculptures are set up on one of the beaches near our house. We go almost every year!

The kids had several trips down there, one with school and a couple with the family. It’s fun seeing some of the the bizarre creations that have been put up.

LR and RJ explore the two sides of a giant steel structure... vaguely reminiscent of a steam engine.

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Every night for the past six weeks, RJ has been telling us about his upcoming art gallery. We could tell it was a big deal, but we had no idea of the actual scale of the thing.

Rather than being five or six paintings that the kids had done, the gallery consisted of about 20 pieces for each child. Each piece focused on a different artistic style, technique or influence by a famous significant artist. Every inch of wall space was covered and several extra partitions were required to accommodate everything. Even the neighbouring classroom was annexed to become the food / wine / snack room!

RJ was excited to have all the important people there… Mum, Dad, LR, Grammy and even Heather and her mum came down. Poppa couldn’t make it because he was overseas.

Thanks so much to RJ’s teachers for all the effort and energy they put into this. It really was quite overwhelming and far beyond anything we expected – a fantastic job all around!

Welcome to RJ's Art Gallery!

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Despite the hot weather, we made it up to Gingin for the grape harvest, but Grammy, Poppa, Kath and Brad had already picked all the grapes and crushed them the day before we got there! We made the most of it anyway, picking a lot of figs and table grapes that were ready to eat. Mum cooked up some fig jam and we had a big sewing ‘sesh’ during the heat of the day, before going for an explore out in the paddock.

Our incredibly brave**, heroic** and good-looking** dad rescued us from this marauding beast** that had been ransacking the countryside and was intent on destroying the farm.

We found this guy having a drink from the dog's water bowl. He's a bobtail lizard which are pretty common around here.

**Hyperbole employed as official privilege of the author

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A few more pictures from our last trip to Gingin. Our friend E stopped by to visit and we had a great time playing in the shed and chasing the pinballs around the fields. The next day we had to prune the grape vines to get them ready for the next growing season. It should be a great crop this year!

RJ gives LR a lift on the block and tackle.

E, RJ and LR decided to bury a small finch, instead of feeding it to Mr. Bitey

Pinball wizards!

Playing fetch with the kids. Sticks don't work, but giant pinballs do!

Look out Poppa! Floating pinballs are dangerous!

Poppa had a bat take residence in his computer.

Mum gets to work on one of the more pathetic grape vines.

LR gets the low branches; Grammy gets the high ones.

RJ helps chop the weeds... unless it's one that he thinks is cute.

Scarlet helps by sniffing everything.

LR harvests the olives, lemons and rose hips.

These olives need to be pickled before we can eat them.

LR carried the bucket everywhere. Strong kid!