Monday, 10 October 2011, Day 321/365.
This lavendar is growing near our house and it looks just gorgeous.
The flowers poke out through the fence and it makes the boring white picket fence pop.
I love it.
by Jen
by Jen
Saturday, 8 October 2011, Day 319/365.
I had to take my son to buy some shoes. He goes through a pair of sneakers every two months. He only really has the one pair of shoes and this is how long they last.
Am I alone in this? I just buy him cheap shoes because I’ve bought more expensive sneakers and they don’t seem to last any longer than the cheap ones.
They usually fall apart at the seams, or he wears holes in the bottom. It’s annoying.
After I bought him a new pair of shoes he got the tattoo pictured above. I couldn’t convince him not to get a snake and it’s kind of fitting as he was born in the Chinese year of the snake.
Sunday, 9 October 2011, Day 320/365.
I love looking at how dogs interact when off the lead. My dog (14 years old) still goes up to sniff other dogs but isn’t that interested in playing. I swear she thinks she’s human. She’ll have a sniff of a dog and then wander off.
If a dog wants to get too playful she’ll either ignore them or give them a growl to let them know she’s not interested.
The two dogs pictured above (The Surfer’s pup on the left, and a dog he met on the right) are both quite young and they just played with each other. The pup will run up to all dogs to say hallo and see if they want to play. He’s got so much energy, it’s tiring to watch.
It’s good to see him have fun at the beach off the lead and learn to interact with other dogs though. It’s very rare that another dog will be annoyed with him but that’s the beauty of dogs, they let you know. He’s been lucky not to have been in any fights yet.
by Jen
Friday, 7 October 2011, Day 318/365.
I had a great time in Melbourne a month ago previewing a new game (Skylanders) but this new game doesn’t have a playstation 2 version which is the console we have so I bit the bullet and bought an XBOX360.
I found it hard to buy without the Kinect bit as this is bundled with the console in many shops and we just don’t have the room to play Kinect so it’s not worth it. I could have bought the console by itself but thought I may as well get some games with it but the two games that it came with were both rated MA15+, therefore no good for my ten year old son.
Luckily we were able to choose two other more suitable games from the two for $40 section, so nothing too fabulous but JJ picked a couple of games he will play.
I had a look around at the other XBOX games and they seem to cater for the older male, ie older than JJ. Where are the games for women? Am I missing something? Not that I will play on it heaps but if there’s something good then I will have a crack. I will play the new Skylanders game, and already have as we received it yesterday.
by Jen
Thursday, 6 October 2011, Day 317/365.
I had last week off during the school holidays (the day that this photo was taken). I caught up with a friend who only lives half an hour away but because of our various commitments we hadn’t seen each other for nine months – yes nine months.
It was lovely to catch up with her and her three boys. My boy had a great time with them. He also had a great time watching them argue and fight with each other.
Why do older siblings pick on younger ones? It’s an age old thing I guess. I’m the older sibling and I used to pick on my youngest sister (I’m one of three girls). I suppose it gave me a sense of power in my otherwise fairly powerless world.
I hated it as the oldest one that I couldn’t get a way with anything because I SHOULD KNOW BETTER. I always thought my youngest sister was very spoiled and she probably got away with a lot more than I did because I’d paved the way and did the hard yards.
My other sister and I did exclude her from playing with us – our revenge at our perception of how spoiled we thought she was. Every time we used to visit friends of mum and dads, mum always said to us not to pick on the youngest. Yeah right!
What did I get as the oldest? I got a room to myself. That was pretty good. The other two didn’t like sharing with each other and I gloated about it a bit. I had more photos taken of me as a baby. There’s hardly any of my youngest sister. I got to be the only child for two years without anyone else although I was too young to know any better. There were probably other perks but I can’t remember them.
Now that we’re grown up I get along with her very well and don’t pick on her at all but I still think she was spoiled.
Did you experience sibling rivalry? What’s your story?
by Jen
Wednesday, 5 October 2011, Day 316/365.
Part of the track at the bike park.
See what other’s are doing on this Wordless Wednesday.
by Jen
Tuesday, 4 October 2011, Day 315/365.
Here’s a photo of the sign that mentions the rip I was talking about yesterday. You can’t miss it as you go down the stairs to the beach.
I really should have got a photo of the water so you can see where the rips are. It’s probably not a bad skill to have, knowing how to spot a rip if you go swimming at the beach a lot.
Have you ever been caught in a rip?
I haven’t thank goodness. If you are, swim parallel to the shore to get out of the rip and don’t panic – easier said than done I’m sure.
by Jen
Saturday, 1 October 2011, Day 312/365.
I don’t normally watch football on television. We have an annual outing to an AFL match and I get a large dose of football watching my son play and that’s more than enough for me.
However, it was the AFL grandfinal and if I’m going to watch it that will be about the only time. As our camping trip was postponed by a day due to The Surfer’s son being ill, we parked ourselves in front of the tv and watched the game.
Sunday, 2 October 2011, Day 313/365.
What a difference a day makes. Early Sunday morning we headed off for our shortened long weekend. At least we missed the traffic! This was the view from our campsite – not bad ey?
Monday, 3 October 2011, Day 314/365.
This photo is pretty much the same view but during the day. We were lucky that not many other campers were around the place, apart from our group of course.
It’s amazing how quickly the time goes when you’re camping. I must admit we didn’t rush out of bed in the mornings. Then when we did get up it takes longer to organise breakfast than it would in your own kitchen. All the charm of camping.
I took a facewasher so I could at least wash my face, and cleanse away the night’s sleepiness. I took too many clothes. It’s not worth putting clean things on every day apart from underwear. I would have thought I’d know by now that I only usually wear half of what I take away with me, but no.
By the time breakfast is over and cleaned up we’d decide what to do. We only really had one full day there, and that was the Monday and we went to a nearby beach.
Last year the dolphins came in quite close and swam with the surfers.
This year we saw them but they were a lot further out.
The beach we went to is notorious for rips and we told the kids where they were and to stay away from them but sure enough they drifted over into one. Luckily they were fine and it brought them into shore rather than taking them out so all was well. I didn’t learn until recently that you can tell where a rip is because there is breaking water either side of it.
I even went into the water with a borrowed wetsuit. The water would have been too cold for me without it although I did it last year for less than one minute.
By the time we got back to camp it was time to sit and watch our view out to sea while drinking some wine and having some yummy nibbles, oh and collect firewood for the evening fire. I love campfires.