Caz
This week we had a public holiday Monday, so there was much park time and tennis and fun! (which I have no pics of as Dad got to have the fun... I got to finish a Uni assignment in peace lol)  Tuesday was your avg school work at home day, aside from a trip to the shops to grab a few necessities.  I must admit though, a lot of time is being taken up by THIS....

Can you say AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!?!!?   The kitties came  home on Saturday and have settled in very nicely.  This is miss Dotti in her self declared seat at the dining room table lol... she simply has to be next to me when I'm at the laptop!  They are eating and playing happily ... they wait for the boys to go to sleep and then slink into their beds hehehe.   Smudge has a bad habit we are trying to break... he 'suckles' like a newborn *sigh*   He was found abandoned at about 3ish weeks of age, so we may never completely do away with that habit unfortunately.   But all in all, they are just delightful to have around.  DH doesn't think so at 430am when he wakes up for work and they think the only reason he got out of bed was to get a cube of mince out of the freezer to defrost for them LOL... but he loves them too :)

Wednesday we had our Wolston House excursion.  Wolston House was built originally in 1852 as a working farmhouse, it was added to over the years and has been pretty well preserved.  The kids (and mums & dads!) enjoyed getting a tour of the house and surrounds, as well as getting to play a bit of dress ups and try out authentic replicas of clothing that would have been worn by the families that lived here.

You see that chest she is standing next to?  it has hangers on one side and drawers on the other... totally want :)  She showed the kids all sorts of interesting bits & pieces from the time and let them pass them around so they could have a good look.  I think it was a bit long for Frodo ... by the end of the 45 mins I was having to whisper his name a fair bit  to get him to chill out!  But he didn't do too bad... all the kids were great :)

The tour guide also got out some games & toys that children on the farm would have played and the kids had a good time test driving those too :)  Another of the activities the kids got to try was washing clothes, the old fashioned way.  They had to pump the water from the well, fill their wash basins, and scrub, scrub, scrub!  

Frodo was a bit meh about it at first, saying 'isn't this optional?' lol  But once he got into working with his partner he had a good time... and even went back for 2 more goes hehehe. 

He really enjoyed the tour of the house... this is in the kitchen, where they had all sorts of typical kitchen gadgets they would have used during the various periods the house was occupied (it was occupied consistently until close to 1960 I think she said).  

Frodo spotted a paper on the table that suggested things to try to find during the tour, although I didn't know it at the time.  So he went around spotting a couple of the items and kept asking when we were going to the cellars.  The tour guide & I didn't know it, but there was a butter churn pictured on that paper that said ' look for this in the Wolston cellar' and he was most disappointed that he couldn't find it!   At the end of the tour the guide took us back to see the list... and then we went snooping around the cellars again until we found a butter churn!  Not THE one pictured, but it was A butter churn... so Frodo was able to mentally tick that off his list and was a happy camper :)

 Here's a pic of the doors into the cellars :) Frodo's much sought after butter churn was found on a shelf inside the first door on the left.  It was a great old house with beautiful sandstone walls in parts, lots of neat little bits of character... like wood plank flooring complete with occasional views to the cellars where the boards have shrunk lol.

He told me afterwards, that he had thought it would be kinda boring but he was surprised that he had a good time :)

There may be another, whingier, post later... having some homeschool frustrations with the boy and it's resulting in some hair pulling on my part!


2 Responses
  1. April Says:

    Hi Caz!
    The excursion looked like great fun. When you get a chance, can you send me an e-mail? I have a question to ask you.
    Thanks,
    April
    learningalongside@bigpond.com


  2. Caz Says:

    Definitely April.. incoming :)