Crumpled Home

(The kids have been making toys and figurines out of polycaprolactone, a non-toxic plastic that is malleable in hot water… While LR has been rapidly expanding her collection of bouncy balls and tiny dinner sets, RJ invented a new superhero… He has wings. He has a unicorn horn. He is simultaneously awesome, majestic, and devastating, and has an unparallelled ability to smell out truffles. He is… Unipig. )

RJ: Unipig soars through the air ready to fight evil!

Oh no! His ultimate enemy Doctor Zhu Zhu, an evil mutant mosquito, is attacking! He flys out of the darkness of hell to battle Unipig.

Luckily Unipig has his amazing watering trough of justice, the only weakness of evil mutant mosquitoes and Doctor Zhu Zhu drowns… Arrrgghghglurglurgblurblurrbglurrrghhh. (dramatic drowning noises).

RJ: … Most people don’t know this, but Unipig is allergic to cheese. No salty southern cheeseburgers for him. They make him throw up.

Unipig (a winged, unicorn-horned pig) takes a short break from fighting evil for a quick drink from the water trough.

Update: Polycaprolactone plastic is pretty amazing stuff and it isn’t just for the kids. We got one of the big containers from Plastimake. There are lots more ideas on how to use it at their website. Highly recommended!!!

It’s a beautiful, bright, sunny day and RJ and Mom are in the garden. Deep within a ferocious tangle of tomato vines, Mom is pulling up plants and getting the garden ready for a new season. RJ walks purposefully outside… He clearly has an agenda.

RJ: Mom, is there anything that I can do to help you? … And then maybe earn a prize? … Like a new Beast Quest book?

Mom: Ummm…Okay. You can empty out the pool so we can put it away for winter.

The pool is four metres in diameter and 80 centimetres deep… It holds a LOT of water.

RJ: And if I empty out the pool, can we go to the bookshop right away?

Mom: Okay… It might take a while though!

RJ starts industriously emptying the pool, tiny bucket by little, tiny bucket. After half-an-hour the water level has dropped a little, but not significantly. Mom feels sorry for him and steps in to help out.

Ten minutes later, she has had enough and is seriously considering suggesting that they just go to the bookshop and leave the job for Daddy.

RJ: I know it’s hard, Mom. But if we want that book, we just have to keep going.

Mom: (Feeling guilty, desperately wishing the child hadn’t just said that, wondering if it’s bad parenting to discourage such industry) Mmmmhmmm.

Time passes. More water is emptied into the garden.

RJ: We’ll just keep going, won’t we Mom?

Mom: Okay…

RJ: Because we might not like it, but it just has to get done.

Mom: (sighs)

RJ: Even if it’s really hard work. We just have to keep going.

Mom: Yeah…

RJ: Because if we don’t do it, who will? There’s just nobody but us. So we have to get it done.

Mom: (looking around for candid camera set up by Dad) Argh.

RJ: I know, Mom. But we can do it.

RJ: (pauses, thoughtfully) Maybe you should get a book too, Mom. You’re really working hard.

More time (and water) passes and eventually they emptied the entire pool.

All of it.

And they got a book.

And Mom got a coffee.

(Moments after jumping out of the shower, a bare RJ starts dancing around crazily, with a huge white towel hanging out of his mouth down to the floor. He is making bizarre wheezing noises as he leaps about and drops of water are flying everywhere.)

RJ: (muffled) Hey guys! (dance, dance, wheeze, wheeze) Guess who I am!?

Dad: (shielding himself from the water flying everywhere) Uhhh…

RJ: (wiggle, leap, wheeze, wheeze) Guess!

Dad: Umm… RJ, I have honestly no idea.

RJ: (wheeze, rasp) I’m an old water spirit! Do you like my beard?

(While playing in the waves at the beach…)

(RJ runs up to the ocean raising his fist into the air.)

RJ: (roaring at the ocean) I challenge you, Poseidon!!! My mortal enemy! YOU SHALL BE DEFEATED!!!

(RJ punches and kicks, throwing himself at the ocean with great ferocity. Meanwhile, a  huge wave sweeps forward towards him.)

LR: (from a safe distance) Look out RJ!

RJ: What the!? ACK.

(The wave crashes over him, dragging him up the beach.)

RJ: Help! Help! Where’s the manual? I need the instruction manual! This isn’t working properly!

Our Halloween party was a huge one this year. All the big events made a return, as well as the truly terrifying haunted garage. We had three kids in tears and LOTS of screams, so all in all, it was a big success. We’re still finding spiders and webs around the place, even after cleaning up twice!

Even the young ones got dressed up for the party!

RJ is playing around a stream at a nature playground. He leaps across the stream, climbing stick in hand. Scrambling along the steep bank, he braces his stick and leaps across a yawning chasm between two boulders. He lands safely and sprints over a log that bridges the burbling torrent below. He briefly pauses to gauge the size of his biggest, final jump and with a mighty spring, flies across the gap to land at Dad’s feet.

RJ: Made it! That’s ten times around! I’m also proud to report that we have “Zero days without injuries”!

In October, we drove south to Eagle Bay with some friends for a few days, and north to Gingin for a weekend with Grammy and Poppa. RJ had his first t-ball game and… his team won! In the middle of all of this (and the Royal Show AND Halloween) we somehow found the time to visit Scitech with some friends to see some of their new exhibits. Wow! We need a break!

We took a trip down to Eagle Bay and had a great time in the water. It's a lot easier to do now that the weather's warming up!

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We had a great camping weekend planned down at Dwellingup, and had we been equipped with scales, fins and gills we would have had a terrific time. The skies opened up and happily alternated between a torrential downpour and a soaking drizzle for most of the time. Mum held out, despite a leaky tent and the kids tried to make the most of it before Dad took them home early…

LR discovered a passion for playing the guitar. She happily entertained the group as we waited for the rain to pass.

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RJ: Hey Dad! There’s a worm in the tadpole tank! I think he’s made of ham. He’s got red eyes too. I think he’ll be my pet, called “CheeCheese”.

Dad: What’s he doing?

RJ: Just doing the ham-worm thing. Wiggling around a lot.

(LR wanders over to have a look at the tank)

RJ: LR, I have some sad news.

LR: (sighing) What did you do, RJ?

RJ: Not me! Mum! She had to clean out the tank yesterday. There was too much algae in there. And… well… Remember your favorite tadpole, Goofy?

LR: Yes?

RJ: He got washed away. He’s not in there anymore.

RJ: Mum was really sad about it.

(There are about 15 tadpoles in the tank, all of them identical, and all of them very, very small. No one can tell them apart, and none of them actually went down the drain.)

LR: I don’t believe you. I can see him right over there.

RJ: That’s not him. That’s Gooby. I can tell the difference.

The next stage of our adventure brought us to Monkey Mia, where we met some friendly mammals with a taste for seafood and thousands of crustacean squatters before dragged through the ocean from a high speed catamaran. After a hair-raising drive through an extended muddy bog, we made it to Gnaraloo Station, a delightful paradise marred only slightly by a small infestation of surfers and a veritable plague of ecstatic, frisky whales.

After spending the night in Denham, we got up early the next morning and drove to Monkey Mia. Every day, a crowd gathers on the shore to wait for a pod of dolphins who have been fed there, every day, for years.

LR and RJ try to spot them from the jetty.

The water was incredibly still and calm... Dad had the rare chance to get some early morning photography done while waiting.

LR stands knee deep in water as the pod arrives.

One of the park rangers hands over some of the delicious booty.

The kids spent some time snorkelling and exploring the shallow waters of the bay.

LR and RJ discovered hermit crabs near the shore... There were hundreds of them!

LR heads off to collect another handful of crabs!

Mom booked us onto a boat cruise. It was a great way to get out into the bay and see some sharks, turtles, dolphins and perhaps even a dugong.

RJ and Dad rode in the net, trying to spot sharks as we cruised the reefs.

The boat stopped by a pearl oyster farm where we learned the ins and outs of farming pearls. As we watched the presentation, RJ suddenly darted forward between the speaker's legs to save this tiny crab from being stepped on.

RJ had an audience as he practiced his surf moves!

On the ride back, LR and Dad made up their own jokes to entertain themselves.

One of the wild dolphins had great fun riding the bow wave from the boat.

Once we left the reef area and returned to deeper water, the captain loaded the net behind the boat with passengers and took off -- the ultimate ocean cold-tub.

The next morning, we were off again, heading north past Carnarvon and on to Gnaraloo Station. We stopped along the way to watch the blowholes, as whales happily flopped about just off the coast. Despite the best efforts from the blowholes, with deafening roars and tremendous columns of water blasting from the rock, the kids were still way more interested in the tidal pools.

LR did her very best to break her ankle by leaping maniacally from rock to rock across the puddles, but failed miserably.

Gnaraloo Station lies at the end of a dirt track that runs north of Carnarvon. During the Summer, there is so little rain that the track is packed hard and just about any vehicle can make it through. It turns out that during Winter, it’s a bit of a different story.

In our case, torrential rains had come through about three days prior, and the track had been completely flooded. What was left for us was a series of opaque muddy lakes and bogs of thick, sticky, orange mud connected by small sections of track. The owners of the station had put out the official word to the community that only real four-wheel drives should attempt the track, and even then to stick to the ‘chicken-tracks’. Chicken tracks are side tracks, usually weaving deleriously through the bushland for a few hundred metres, that avoid the worst of the bogs and deepest pools. They’ve been amusingly named by the four-wheel drive enthusiasts for those people who chicken out when driving the main track.

When we called the station and informed them about our rear-wheel drive, towing a heavy trailer, they said, “Sure, come on up. You’ll be fine.” We didn’t discover their ‘official’ recommendation until after we got there.

At this point, we had 80 km (50 miles) of this kind of track ahead of us. Every few hundred metres, we would encounter another massive bog which would require getting out and inspecting. We very seriously considered turning around and not continuing on.

We arrived, triumphant, but utterly nervewracked and exhausted. We took our place amongst the four wheel drives and tried to pretend it had been great fun.

At the base of the cliff in front of camp, there's a famous surfing spot. It was pretty spectactular, with great waves rolling in continuously, all day long.

Dog digging competition!!! On your mark, get set, go!

What's that, Mom? The water's a bit cold?

RJ really enjoyed snorkelling too. He spotted all kinds of fish, and thought he had made friends with two, but discovered they were just damselfish trying to scare him away from their algae farm!

At every opportunity, LR hunted for the most precious shells on the sea floor.

At low tide, we could explore the safer sections of the cliff face. There were lots of little caves and rock pools along the way.

We hiked lots of trails around Gnaraloo, climbing cliffs and exploring. It was a terrific place to watch whales happily flop and splash about, with a few showing up every ten minutes or so.

Some awful, terrible, bad parents set an awful, terrible, unsafe example for their children by jumping down into this sea cave to pick up some pretty rocks, and then frantically scrambling out before the waves came crashing into it.

RJ and his new favorite pet... A 'cuddle' fish.

Big news!!! We discovered RJ's first wiggly tooth!

These super cute bearded dragons were everywhere. They were incredibly curious and had absolutely no fear of people, but at the speeds they dart around, they have no reason to be.

Gnaraloo Bay is absolutely stunning -- some of the most spectacular coral and aquatic wildlife in the world, just a metre below the surface of a huge expanse of crystal blue water gently lapping against perfect, white, fine-grained sand, and aside from this amazingly great family that showed up, almost completely deserted.

RJ and LR gathered shells and rocks built an enormous city that spanned the beach.

These huge sand dunes were just a short hike from the campsite.

It took a while to climb to the top; they were bigger than they looked and we were weighed down by an impressive number of dead crabs.

We finally made it to the top, where we watched more whales springing about.

LR and Dad wandered off with their cameras to get some pictures of the surfers. They had to be pretty brave to attempt the entry from the reef into the crashing waves.

The kids made friends with the boys at the neighbouring camp. Ledgy, their dad, even set up a totem tennis set for them, which our kids promptly dominated.

Oh no! Camping hair!!! (and she still looks gorgeous.)

Being wintertime, we were allowed to have a campfire. RJ worked on his marshmallow chargrilling technique.

LR, to Mom's delight, worked on a careful, slow-roasting technique, producing a series of perfectly toasted marshmallows.

Click and explore this map to see where we actually went!

View NorthWest Australia 2011 in a larger map