There has been a bit of a break between blog posts but the 7 week Summer school holidays are over and school is back.  I did post about our Christmas celebrations, but plenty of other fun was had over the (very hot) Summer break: parties, water play, movies, craft, and of course a trip to Queensland and a Bali holiday.

Bali pictures are coming up soon but for now, here are a few of our school holiday happenings, the camera didn’t get a total rest!

I thought the seven week break might drag on a little bit, but it pretty much flew by.  The kids thoroughly enjoyed the break from the routine of school, swimming, gymnastics and generally having to be out of the house at a specific time every day.  They didn’t bless us with a huge number of sleep-ins but did keep themselves pretty well occupied.  Especially with plenty of new presents and activities they received at Christmas!

With another extremely hot Canberra Summer, we spent plenty of time inside in the air con but it was the prefect time for lots of water fun at parties!
We squeezed in a few catch-ups with friends and rung in the new year in our usual style with a New Year’s BBQ with the Allen family.  The kids (minus the smallest one) even made it to the 9pm fireworks this year…..

By January Astrid was well and truly in need of a hair trim.  It hadn’t been cut in a year and had grown so much over the past year.  It’s hard to believe she barely had any hair at 1 and we couldn’t even tie it up until not long before her brother was born (at almost 2.5 years).   This is how long it was just before the big snip, it was even longer when straight!

Post-hair cut it is still pretty long, and Astrid had the most impressive curls for a couple of days after we took her braids out!
In the second week of January we headed North to the Sunshine Coast, Queensland for a visit to my Dad (aka Gramps).  The kids had been largely Canberra bound for the second half of 2017 and were excited to fly again, they love hanging out at the airport, especially when it’s us travelling rather than just Anto!

Up on the Sunshine Coast they had plenty of fun hanging out with Molly the dog, and playing endless games with giant bubbles!
We also paid another visit to the Ginger Factory, which we’d last visited a few years earlier.  The gardens were lovely and shady and the kids scored a train ride and some icecream……. some of their favourite things.

The weather was rather warm so we made plenty of trips to the beach.  For once the water was even warm enough for me!  The kids would have lived at the beach but it was so hot that we almost cooked despite rashies, and copious amounts of sunscreen.

Between beach visits we got out and about a bit, quite a few trips out for food and sight-seeing.

It had been extremely hot in Canberra and we had actually been looking forward to slightly cooler weather in Queensland (low 30’s rather than the high 30’s). As usual we timed it wrong though and we missed the only 2 cool days of the Canberra Summer, which ended up being near 40 degree days on the Sunshine Coast (plus humidity).  It was hot!
Back to the regular and dry heat of Canberra and the kids managed to con another few movie visits and lunches out with Granny, and walked to the top of Mount Taylor with Grandma.  They thoroughly enjoyed their grandparent visits during the holidays, especially the 2 night sleep over with Granny (boy was it quiet without kids for 2 days!!!).

For Christmas, Astrid received tickets from Grandma and Grandpa to the ‘78th Storey Treehouse‘ show at the Canberra theatre. A devotee of the books, she was rather excited to see the stage show.   This was her outfit for the show and lunch out with Grandma.  Soren and I had a much less exciting day of cleaning the house!

Astrid managed to lose yet another tooth, 7 gone now! Her smile has changed so much in the last year, those new adult teeth are enormous……..

The day before we departed for Bali was Trevor’s (aka Grandpa) 70th birthday.  Since round number birthdays should be thoroughly celebrated, there was a bit of a shindig that evening with lots of friends and family (many who flew in from afar).

The kids had helped me bake the black forest cake and we all scrubbed up pretty well!
The next morning we were off to Bali, for more sun and fun. Plenty of photos and stories to come from our Bali adventures soon.

The kids and I were back from Bali just in time for school to go back for Astrid (Year 2) and for Soren to start preschool.  A very exciting week was had, especially for me, with 2 kids at school on Soren’s preschool days!