Snow Holiday

One big highlight of our holiday last week was a quick trip to the snow.  The children have looked at snowy travel brochures, stories, weather reports and websites for a couple of years, so this was a much anticipated experience!

We stayed at a resort in Jindabyne, and drove into the Kosciuszko National Park twice, to the snow fields at Perisher.  Despite being the end of the season, there was plenty of white stuff to play in ... just a little icy and slushy at the base of the hill.  The roads were clear and dry, not crowded, which made the trip a 20 minute breeze compared to Pete's tales of 3 hour bumpy rides using chains in a crawling stream of traffic.

The children built snowmen.  Elijah threw snowballs for us all to dodge.
Elijah's snowman video on YouTube

Pete tirelessly dragged the toboggan up the mountain, again and again, sometimes with Jasmine onboard!
Jasmine's toboggan ride on YouTube

I haven't skied before, and I'm not sure whether I want to!  Pete thinks I'll be a natural at it but I'm scared of the sliding sensation and the momentum ... so we'll see.  The toboggan was incredibly fun!  In a year or two we might all return for a week, for the whole kit and kaboodle of ski hire and lessons.  This will thrill Jasmine, who was begging to join the snow school we saw.

Driving through the country between Canberra and Jindabyne was delightful for me (aside from the good old 'are we there yet?' chorus ... partly alleviated with new CD's and audio books from the library).  So much about the countryside really tugs at my heart and makes me reflective and dreamy.  And I loved being on an unfamiliar road and seeing new sights, like these rock formations in the middle of sheep paddocks!!

It probably doesn't look that exciting, but I find rocks and farms aesthetically appealing and inspiring.  While Pete drove, I jotted down verses of country ballads which I might sing, if I was that way inclined!

It was warm enough for us to set up camp in the carpark for the day, right near the snowplay area ... a convenient spot for dressing, snacking and resting.  After an active morning, Jasmine and I stayed in the car the second afternoon, as she was tired and had enough of being wet.  We played connect four, and she even did some school work in the car!  That wasn't my intention when I threw in a few workbooks for the trip (mostly out of guilt about our recent month off "school"), but Jasmine seemed relieved to do something familiar, and I was glad as she stopped complaining.

Meanwhile, the boys were on the mountain and Elijah became fearless on the toboggan!

Perfect sunny days

The grassy dip around the corner.  

A perfect place to run, ride, kick a ball or lay back and look at the clouds.

A beach just 20 mins down the road.  

Just right for building sand castles, chasing sea gulls or burying a Barbie doll!

Our own backyard, local parks and the bush across the road.

  

It's all there for us to enjoy.

And we do! 

More days than not.

It's great to be a home schooler, always ready to seize the day!!

Loving Nature

It must be Nature Week for my family.  We visited stunning beaches, coastal board walks and lagoons during our weekend away.  We returned to knee high grass and a garden fertile with flowering shrubs and insects.  Regarding the creatures which share our yard, you could say I'm a bit jumpy.  

I'm in a pickle, because I want to raise adventurous kids, and do all the fun things like camping and bushwalking with them, but I dread encounters with ants and mosquitoes.  It doesn't help that we're all sensitive to bites, which cause excessive swelling and bruising.  Anyway, I'm trying to be philosophical and use these encounters as opportunities for learning.

Our resident Blue Tongue lizard has returned to our backyard after an extended holiday, wherever it is that lizards go for a break.  The kids know to keep a safe distance away from him, as last month we watched some you tube clips of people getting too close and being told to go away.  In lizard language this is communicated by a swift nip.

On a nicer note, we found a stick insect camouflaged on the brush screen wall of bush fort (cubby house).  The kids enjoyed watching him for a while as I read about stick insects from a handy book.  They were amazed to learn stick insects can grow a new limb if one is lost.

First photo in this blog ...  Miss 4 with the stick insect in a bug catcher just before we released him back onto the cubby house wall where we found him.  See our new hanging baskets?

We have just potted 5 hanging baskets with varieties of cherry tomatoes and strawberries.  We did this in the sun room, to avoid the ants which populate our back pavers.  I am hoping that by putting the kids in charge of watering, I will give these plants a shot at survival.  My record with potted plants is atrocious, perhaps due to my reluctance to spend quality time in the garden.  Nevertheless, I am determined to let my children have the pleasure of growing delicious, fresh fruit.  They already love picking lemons for our drinks.  Citrus trees seem to be more forgiving than vegetables :)

Back to ants, busy little creatures that give me the creeps ... we've removed 3 huge bull ants or jumping jacks from the backyard this fortnight.  They live at the start of the bush trail across the road.  I discovered this when one attached itself to my leg several years ago.  Green ants are breeding in the back yard somewhere, so its a quick dash to the swings for the kids, and hanging washing is very scary for me.  The kitchens in our holiday cabins last week were both sprinkled with little black ants.  Arrrrgh!

I have a love-hate relationship with nature.  I love looking at it.  I want to be in it but hate when it hurts me.  Can we happily coexist?  Will my children continue to love nature, as they now do, or succumb to the same paralysis as me, limiting their interaction to the audio visual and behind glass variety?