First day at school

Today was Courtney’s first day of Primary School, Grade One. She was a little concerned over the weekend, she was told by one of the grade one kids last year that it was very hard. CJ was a little worried that she wouldn’t be able to do all the “hard work”

Seems like she had a pretty good day, although she came home with homework. She has a little book to read each night with sentences like “There’s an areoplane”. What ever happened to Dick and Dora?

Brooke has her nose out of joint again. Mum has made a new rule (for obvious reasons), Brooke is not allowed on Courtney’s bunk bed. She is very upset and we’re sure she’ll be breaking that rule (hopefully that is all) very soon.

CJ's new bed

On Saturday, Courtney got her new bed. As you can see from the picture, it is a bunk bed with a chest of draws and a school desk underneath. CJ is still getting used to climbing a ladder to get up to the top but she is pretty excited and looking forward to her first nights sleep in it. No more jumping on the bed for the girls.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAISY

Adventure World

Today the girls, Mum and Dad went with Dad's work to Adventure World. It was a good day, nice and warm. Firstly the girls played on the little water slides although Brooke wasn't very keen on them, Courtney was having a great time even though she kept complaining that she was hurting herself each time she landed in the pools below. We all went on the skyrail and on the paddle boats and later the girls went on a few other rides and checked out the Koalas. There were also a few trees for Courtney to climb.

One of the highlights was the girls first roller coaster ride. Dad was quiet surprised that the girls demanded to go on that ride... the girls were surprised (scared) at how fast the ride was... they don't seem very keen on going on another roller coaster again.

Most of the day we spent waiting in a cue. Each and every attraction had at least a twenty minute wait, including the toilets. Dad was not very impressed with the place at all and his advice would be to give it a big miss.

Courtney Returns

We've not long been back from the airport. Brooke was over the moon to see Courtney, covering her with lots of hugs. Brooke got really upset when Grandma said goodbye because she thought that Courtney was going with her again - all is well now.

CJ has lots and lots of stories to tell about her time up north. Sounds like she saw all of the exciting sights like the pile of salt and the water tower... she was impressed. Courtney thought that it was pretty special to fly in a plane about the clouds and her pilots name was captain Booboo, which she thought was a funny name.

We just wonder who is going to keep Mr. Bossyboots, the greedy goldfish, under control now that Courtney isn't there at feeding time.

News from the North

The week we've been getting daily reports from Courtney about how her trip is going. In short, she is having a ball. She has so many stories to tell each night about swimming, visiting her cousins and all the other things that she manages to fit into a day.

Grandma and Pa sound like they are having a great time as well although we bet they are looking forward to a quiet cup of tea with their feet up at the end of the week. CJ is home on Sunday afternoon.

Brooke is still pretty upset about CJ being away. She talks to Courtney on the phone and there is normally a huge protest to get to hang the phone up. This afternoon, Brooke climbed up three stairs and then announced that she was bigger (taller/higher) and that she could go on the plane.

It'll be interesting to see how they greet each other on Sunday and how Brooke goes when Courtney tells her all about her week in the Pilbara.

Brooke learns to punt

Tonight Brooke and Dad went to the Greyhounds with some friends. It was family night so Brooke got to have her face painted and she 'talked' a lady into giving her a few balloons that were part of her table decorations.

She was also quite interested in the dog but it seems that she still thinks Chloe could run faster than any of them.

So far Brooke has a 100% strike rate with betting. Two bets, Two losers.

The Hedland Trip

Today was the start of Courtney's big trip to Grandma and Pa's house. Any fear that we had that she might have pulled out at the last minute were put to rest as soon as we go to the airport. CJ was getting around like a seasoned traveller. She thought watching the planes take off and land from the Frequent Flyers lounge was quite good fun. So anyway, she travelled the two hour flight without a problem and is now up in Hedland, swimming in the pool, playing the piano and generally running her grandparents into the ground.

Brooke has her nose right out of joint. She thinks she is big enough to go on the plane as well and she has been giving Mum and Dad a little bit of grief, just letting them know that she has missed out on something.

She will be up north until the end of the week and Grandma and Pa are thinking about taking a trip to Karratha during the week so she can go and see Marcus, James and Cameron.

Returning Home

Today the girls and Dad went to a café for breakfast, They must have enjoyed it because Courtney even ate all of her bread crust.

Odd as it may seem, after breakfast the girls went a cemetery in Albany because Courtney wanted to know about tomb stones and what they did etc. Of late she seems to have grasped the concept of her heritage and such things. The visit wasn’t as morbid as it probably sounds – just Courtney wanting to learn about new things.

Then we went to the oceanarium in Albany and saw a lot of different fish. Courtney was a bit scared of the cuttlefish and thought that it looked a bit evil but both the girls thought the Port Jackson shark and its egg were interesting. They also took a fair bit of interest in the fish that looked like the characters out of Nemo namely, Bloat and Dory.

Then the inevitable long car trip home came up and we all got home just before dusk. The girls were really well behaved all weekend and Dad was especially pleased with how well they travelled in the car, both down and back.

Mum was also grateful for the little bit of peace and quite she got over the weekend because she has been suffering from tonsillitis, leaving her stuck in bed all weekend. Thankfully Mum appears to be over the worse of it (touch wood) and has started to feel a bit better.

One point to remember, Courtney has taken to having Brooke say sorry for everything, and we mean everything. If they bump hands when walking side by side;

Courtney: “Say sorry Brooke”
Brooke: “Sorry”
Courtney: “No, say sorry Courtney”
Brooke: “Sorry Corky”
Courtney: “That’s better”

Cute maybe – but every ten minutes? – and it will be that exact passage, without fail.

All up, it was a really big weekend for the girls with lots of new experiences. No doubt they’ll want to do it all again very soon. Courtney will get her chance with a trip to Hedland coming up in the very near future.

Chicken Eggs & Emu Point

After a big night out, the girls (and Dad) had a little sleep in and then went to McDonalds for pancakes. There can’t really be too many more McDonalds in the southern hemisphere that the girls haven’t been to (stay tuned)

After Breakfast, we caught up with Lilly and Fin again and went to their Aunties house. She had sheep, ducks and chickens. Courtney got to collect a chicken egg right out of the nest and she thought that was pretty special.


Patting the sheep at Lilly and Fin's aunties

Then we went to the beach at Emu Point for swimming, collecting shells and making sand castles. Even Dad was surprised when the girls followed Fin and Lilly’s lead and jumped of the jetty to the water a meter of so below… a big difference from leaping from the side of the pool. It was a beautiful beach with crystal clear shallow water, and clean white sand. Hopefully it’ll still be like that next time the girls visit.

After a well earned afternoon sleep the girls had fish-n-chips for dinner and played in park until well after the sun went down.

The Albany trip

Today, the girls and Dad went to Albany. Before we all left, we jumped in the car to go and do some shopping and the girls were talking about the Playstation and Courtney’s Gameboy. As we walked into the shop, Brooke started getting upset, saying “I want the Playboy…. I want the Playboy” until she was quickly silenced by Dad.

After a long car drive we arrived in Albany and then went to see Lilly and Fin who were also on holidays. Then we went to the Vintage Blues Festival at Wignalls Winery, a cunning plan on Dad's behalf so the girls could see The WAiFs


The girls getting ready for the Festival to start.

Brooke wanted to go up to the front of the stage to go dancing and watch the bands whereas Courtney (most of the time) thought that the bands were too loud and was happy sitting back in the crowd. Brooke was fascinated by the live bands and when she wasn’t trying to dance she was more than happy sitting on Dad’s shoulders, staring at the musicians. Courtney did come up near the front once for a couple of songs and I looks like she has defeated her fear of loud music however, it’ll be more likely that she’ll be sitting back and watching her sister from afar in years to come.



Thanks to Lilly and Fin’s family for helping Dad out. He was getting stretched out between the conflicting interests of the two girls. We should mention when Courtney (who knows why) thought that she had left her chips in the toilet and put on the tears until Lilly and Fin’s grandma took her to check out each and every cubical.

Happy New Years

Dad has been away working for most of the week. He got back on Friday afternoon, New years Eve. Courtney decided that it she would like to go with Dad and visit Leighton for New Years Eve and Brooke wanted to go with Mum to Aunty Kirstie's party.

Both the girls had a very big night and they both managed to see in the new year. Courtney liked popping the party poppers but got a little worried about what happened when the sparklers burnt down.

On Saturday, Courtney played, and had a really long swim. She is getting really confident in the water now, knowing the she can get herself in and out of trouble.

On Saturday evening, Dad and Courtney went to Mum's house and picked up Brooke for sleep over. Needless to say, Courtney was fairly worn out and didn't put up too much resistance to going to bed.

Today we played mainly inside and tried to keep quiet as Courtney has been complaining about a sore back lately, so we played some play station and kept busy with mainly quiet games.