Showing posts with label excursions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label excursions. Show all posts
Out in the world!
Caz
You know,  having these amazing days with all three of my boys home is really making me remember why I love homeschooling.  It will be a little sad to pack Merry & Sam off to school again next week, despite the fact that they both love it.    Some days I wish they didn't love it so much, so we could be having more time like this.  But, I remind myself that it's all about doing what is right for the child in question... and for those two, at least right now... school seems to make them very happy.

We have actually had two weeks of fun... Art gallery visits (see previous post!),  a train trip into the city with Nana to see Ice Age 4 and wander South Bank.

Oh hello there city!

Mum and the boys under the bouganvillea covered promenade.

This was an AMAZING tree!   We had to google to find out what it was when we got home... it's a Banyan tree.. it throws out extra trunks from it's branches to support them apparently.  The boys thought that was just bizarre & very cool.

We also made it down to Sea World one last time before our annual passes expired.  The weather had been just abysmal and rainy, so we had to postpone the trip two different days... but the day before the passes expired the sun came out and it was spectacular :)    The kids REALLY wanted to check out the new dinosaur island exhibits, and they were not disappointed!

From L to R:  Frodo, Sam, and Merry.  Merry is being sneaked up upon by a very crafty velociraptor lol (ok, so it's not actually going anywhere... but the pic of him nearly getting eaten Ala Jurassic Park was just too funny to resist.  I'm a bad bad mummy lol)

There were about a dozen dino's on the island.. they were anima-tronic and some oven had control panels where the kids could actually give commands to the creatures to make them move, grab, or make noise.   The boys had to have a go at every.single.one lol.  


We also saw the Imagine Dolphin show, which was terrific. The last couple of times we've been to Sea World, we got there too late for the morning show, and the boys were exhausted by the afternoon show lol.  So they were stoked to finally get to see it.  I don't think it's possible not to be amazed by the dolphins... they are just so gorgeous and graceful, and seem to have a real rapport with their handlers.   Merry OOOH'd and AAAH'd at their antics and the other two were just mesmerized by them.

Here are a couple of dolphins with their trainer, waving goodbye :)

We also explored a cool park I spotted a while back.. it has a wicked flying fox that the boys could NOT get enough of!  The younger two spend 20minutes flying back & forth.


May have to organize a homeschool park meet up here, it has something for everyone! 

Frodo found himself a perch way up high.

And we also made a trip to the library where Merry, who is mastering the basics of reading, applied for his very own library card :)  Ok,  I actually did the applying, he did the selecting of a pile of books hehehe.  I think we brought home about 40books between the 3 of us!  Frodo & I are going back next week to pick up some more books relating to his schoolwork, but this stash has kept them all going for bedtime reading :)  Should cause some interesting dreams... Sam picked out books on the solar system  and Star Wars.. I forsee spacey dreams.)

And, would you believe all of THAT has been done in the past 7 days!?!?!  Plus there was some baking of treats (peanut butter slice, Frodo made the list, did the shopping & bought the ingredients, all the kids did  the measuring and mixing and most importantly, eating!!!) and crafting with boxes (still finding cardboard bits everywhere lol) playing with kitties, and making bunk bed forts.  

Disclaimer:  This is what our lives would be like if ALL of my boys were homeschooling.. while we do a bit of 'bookwork' I love natural learning and getting out in the world so they can be part OF it! 






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The week that nearly caused Caz to unspool ..
Caz
Last week was a pretty busy week at the Hobbit house.  DH happened to score Monday off work, so we did a stealth trip down the coast to Movie World for a family day :D  The day was pretty good, not much int he way of crowds at all, which was nice!  There was drama, which I'll get to in a moment, but we had a pretty good time.   Here are me & Strider with my all time favourite cartoon hero, Marvin the Martian hehe. The kids were not interested in walking over to get a photo with the characters soooo..

A very rare photo of me & Strider ;)  Go me, just a smidge under 10kilo's gone! and 7 for Strider!

The characters came to them ;)  Despite his misgivings about people in large headed costumes, Merry got over his hesitance to smile for the camera... sort of lol. 

We had to wander a good bit into the park to get cash for a locker, as the 'banks' atm was out of service... this was probably a good thing (drama reference) as Sam got to check out the Batmobile & Batbikes,  as well as ride the Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster!!!  Hubby said it was very full on, but Sam was just thrilled with it and had a blast.  

Before going to get a locker for our sneaked in lunch ;) we stopped and had a go on the grown up roller coasters... everyone got to drive their own except Merry, who was quite happy to ride with one of us.  

THEN *it* happened.  Sam has an absolute fascination of all things small and his favourite souvenir ever is the pressed penny.   So we said YES at about 1115 that he could have a bloody penny, so he'd stop nagging us.  Oi vey, was that a bad call.  The pressing of the penny went well enough... but when the penny dropped into the chute Sam hopped down to grab it... and gravity took over.  The crank handle for these things is some type of cast iron, so heavy as... the penny drops out when the handle is at the top of it's turn (bad bad bad!) so just as soon as Sam got his hand in the chute to get the penny, the iron handle swung down and slammed him right in the side of the mouth!  OMG the blood... Frodo came unglued,as he does at the sight  of blood, and I had to pull him up short as he was frantic!   A security guard helped us get to the first aid building where they cleaned him up, gave him panadol at our request, and an ice pack to help with the pain.  After about half an hour, we were on our way... Sam did NOT want to leave despite the bash.  We thought a bit of quiet time was in order so he could gather his wits and recover a bit so we went to eat lunch.  It was then that I discovered his tooth appeared to be sheared completely in two from side to side *sigh*  Called, made dental appt for the next morning but he STILL wanted to stay a while longer so we soldiered on.

Carousels were ridden :D  Even by hubby & I ... Merry was having nothing to do with getting on top of a wile E. Coyote so we rode in the carriages.

After a circuit through Looney Toons kids world, we decided that was about enough.  Here is Sam after his altercation with the Press a Penny machine.  He was upset that he had to miss a 2nd day of school to go to the dentist... but as she HAD to pull that tooth it was non negotiable.  Since the poor kid already went through the trauma of the numbing (and so did I @@) I had her pull the front tooth with the root canal that just would.not.let.go!    He did about as well as an 8yr old having multiple needles stuck in his mouth is going to do I think.  Half an hour later, he was fine and talking about the LOOT the tooth fairy (mum, he knows but likes to pretend hehe) was going to bring him for those two teeth lol.  Thankfully our dentist rocks, and the whole thing only cost me 30bucks... would have been 150 even after the insurance, but they discount regular customers heavily.  Yeah, they know how to inspire customer loyalty!

Amazingly Mr. snaggletooth was ready to go back to school Wednesday! I really thought he should take another day, but he insisted, so I sneaked to chat with his teacher to let her know to call me if he was at ALL 'off'.  But he did fine... which is good since we would have had to miss James & the Giant Peach!

Frodo & I went in to see a theatre production with our home schooling group... I really enjoyed it, but Frodo was a little distressed by all the LOUD bits unfortunately.  So he spent a lot of the show with fingers in ears muffling the noise.. but he still managed to laugh a bit ;)   I now know to get some noise muffling earplugs for future events like this!  For keeping calm, even when I could tell he was having trouble, I rewarded him on the way home with an iced chocolate from Gloria Jeans, and a sushi roll lunch.  

He now wants to read the book (yeah, bad home ed. mum... I should have gotten it before the show but I did not :P) 

Of course, that wasn't ALL that happened in our week.  I have tendonitis in my ankle/foot according to my doctor (how does one get tennis elbow in their FOOT!?!?! lol)  Too much driving and having foot in one position apparently!  I had a massive incident at work which culminated in me going in Friday and putting in my two weeks notice... so OH you bet I'll be hitting the frugal mama blog scene for ideas to stretch the budget!  and on top of all that... my birthday was Thursday :)  Happy birthday to me!  I was given a lovely coffee gift bag my hubby made up,  MIL brought cheesecake, macaroons (OMG YUM), and Lindt ball chocolates (one day off the healthy eating plan won't kill me, right??? ;)  as well as a cool hand-knit scarf that I love, an adorable pewter owl necklace (I lurve owls), and some gorgeous tiny blown glass perfume bottles with lovely essential oil perfumes in them!  Plus cash... cash is always a fun birthday pressie lol (never the wrong size! might get a new pair of jeans for myself since all mine are too big now ;)

So.. it was a mad crazy eventful week for us!  (oh, I forgot to mention the TWO uni assignments that were due!  one being submitted even as we speak... which are the reasons I didn't make it in Friday to post lol) This week will be just as crazy busy... Wednesday is the Transit of Venus... so we're all about science until then, googling, video watching, learning all sorts of cool stuff about Venus and why this is such a rare phenomenon!   Wednesday I think we might be playing hooky from school ;)  so that the other two boys can go with us to the Astronomy cafe to view the Transit through filtered telescopes.. it's a once in a lifetime event ... too good to pass up for school if you ask me!

However, for now?  I have a mild case of the flu that is somewhat kicking my backside... so now that Frodo is all done with schoolwork... to bed with me.
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Playing 'hooky' ...and still learning cool stuff!
Caz
So after having tried to get to SeaWorld for several weekends... I said screw it!  Thursday the 2 school-goers got a free day off and the four of us road tripped to the Gold Coast for a day of fun :)   The weather was spectacular and made for a gorgeous day.  The first thing we did was take a  (round trip, the park was quiet) ride on the Sky lift to get a look at the place.


Who lives in a pineapple under the sea??


Sponge-Bob square pants!

 Here are Frodo & Sam enjoying the ride & the view.  I was really proud of Frodo, he's usually a nervous boy about these kinds of things, but he was pretty adventurous!  While up there, we got a great look at the dolphin nursery where the baby dolphins were playing with their handlers.
We were quite lucky,because the park was sooo quiet they were offering a lot of things that usually have additional costs... for FREE!  So we got a free peddle boat hire!  Here are my little conquering seamen all geared up and excited.  The ride was great.. but ye gods, my thighs were destroyed.. we all know who got to do MOST of the peddling lol 

Then we went into the Arctic Penguin exhibit, which was terrific!  Merry just adored the 'happy feet' as he dubbed them.. and was a bit amazed that they were nearly his size lol.   This was the ground level viewing area, and they also had an underwater viewing area where the penguins swam around  and, at times, appeared as interested in us as we were in them!

 Then we did some rides!  If hubby had been able to come along Sam would have totally ridden the log flume and other coaster.. but he was pretty happy with the ones in the nickelodeon section.  He did the beach ball bounce... this thing below that I can't remember what it was called.  You had to pull yourself up to the top using the rope and then hold onto the handles as you fall!
 Frodo & Sam rode the airplanes (which was again something for Frodo, he does NOT usually like things that leave the ground.. but this was ok because he got to control when it went up and down. Doesn't he look  like Joe Cool here? lol

Then we had to break for what was arguable the priciest lunch I've ever bought lol... not allowed to bring food into the park sadly so they have you by the short & curlies!  The boys enjoyed the splurge though.. and even here, Sam chose a big ole fruit salad and I shared my chips with him.

After lunch was filled with a play at Castaway Bay, which is the biggest play structure I've ever seen... all piratey themed, of course!  There are rope bridges and plank walkways and tunnels and all sorts of fun things.  We also hit the battle boats where we got absolutely DRENCHED lol... it was great fun though.  I had a change of clothes & towels... for everyone but me lol.. I cheated & wrapped a towel around myself before we got going so I was in reasonable shape.  

We also went to see the polar bears, who were doing nothing very entertaining lol... and to Shark Bay.  The sharks were terrific.. the pool was huge and there's gorgeous coral and a zillion types of fish.  I managed to snap a pic, sans flash since it's not allowed for the health of the animals, of a mamma and baby shark swimming just past us!

We also go to watch the 'Little Penguins' get fed before we finished up for the day.  They were adorable little things.   I wanted to wait for the Dolphin show... but the kids were just DONE by 3pm!  So we got our massive cup of lemonade refilled, picked up a show bag each for the kids.. and hit the road!   

I feel like I get the mom of the year... ok, week at least :) ... award for this day out.  It's not often I brave taking all 3 out to something major like that..my sanity wanes long before the outing is over usually lol.  But a brilliant day was had by all!
Farewell from the Baggins' boys Seaworld!  We may see you again in a month... the Dinosaur adventure is supposed to open mid June!!!!

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Out & about
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!


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Happy Belated New Year!
Caz
Hope you have all had a spectacular of a start to your 2012 as we have!   We have been thoroughly enjoying our family time since I last posted.    We rang in the New Year relatively early, by watching the 9pm fireworks on tv... we thought about driving into the city, but the weather was a bit iffy so we just played some Cluedo and hung out at home.

A few days later, we headed off to Wet n Wild for a day of fun in the sun.  This is Buccaneer Bay, which is specifically for kids under 10... great water slides, cannons, pools to swim in, and the ever popular big water dumping bucket.
Much fun was had by all :)  The lazy river, or Calypso Beach was also a big hit.  We found a small shady spot (NO mean feat that... I swear you have to get there at the crack of dawn to get a good shady spot with seats.  We rocked up at 950 for the 10am opening time and there was not  a free seat in the place.
 
Sam was all about the water slides, here he is on his first trip up surveying the scene to decide if it's something he *really* wants to do.   He did... and repeatedly at that lol.  He is totally Captain Adventure!

 Except when it came to the tooth that has been dangling for weeks lol. It was painfully obvious that he would leave said tooth to dangle till the cows came home without intervention... so hubby decided to give it a bit of help.  It was attached by the teeniest sliver of gum, but there was still copious amounts of wailing and carrying on like someone was murdering him... but out it came.  Now, of course, he is quite pleased with himself ;)  and looking mighty adorable at that!  He'll have that gap for all of about 5 minutes, as the adult tooth is already through!

On the school front,  we go in to get the little dude uniforms in 2 weeks @@, I can hardly believe it.  They are looking forward to the first day of school :)   I started buying Frodo's home school materials this week!  I've had most of it selected for a couple of months so it's more just exercising the visa debit card than much in the way of decision making.

We'll be using a lot of old favourites:
- History Odyssey ancients level 2 (history, literature, geography and a lot of writing) (books ordered to go with from Fishpond.com ... go the free shipping!)
- Math U See  (we'll be going through the multiplication & division levels for a bit of confidence building)
- Time 4 Learning (supplemental use, especially for math)
- Reading/ Writing a-z  (great online/printable comprehension activities and writing tools)
- Science -- I was really sold on Real science 4kids but ...I'm waffling lol, Mr. Q's chemistry is looking
             pretty sweet at the moment AND he has a half price special starting on the 17th!!
*Still trying to find a good source for a time line and a few other bits, so if anyone knows one that doesn't charge a fortune for shipping or is Australian, please share :)
-LOTE (Languages other than English) - We were going to do Auslan, but the classes that were getting organized didn't work out... they ARE doing Spanish, so Lucas said he'd give that a go.  We'll probably use Livemocha for practice in our own time.
-ART - Lessons with our home ed group for 2 terms, after that we'll use our Usborne Art Gallery book and trips to the local galleries.  Lucas is also interested in learning guitar (his dad & the Teen are both learning) so we may get him a 3/4 size instrument and lessons sometime later in the year.

Can't wait for the parcels to start arriving.. I LOVE a box of fresh home school stuff to explore... and it gets the boy pretty excited and interested as well!
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Oh wow, what a day :)
Caz
Today we christened our family gift by going to Movie World and getting our seasons passes made :)  It's about a 40minute drive from us and by the time we arrived the boys were beside themselves!   It was not too bad, crowd-wise, in the morning, but got a bit much after lunch time.  We arrived and took a wander down Main Street around 10am to find THIS coming up behind us!   Some evil villains were up to no good, attempting to wrangle a young lady into their clutches when the Caped Crusader himself rocked up on his very spiffy looking Batmobile to save the day.  There was a mock battle, just like in the movies, and in the end the damsel was saved by Batman and he rode off  into the sunset.

Frodo did not care for the rather loud Batman music playing, but thought the scene was cool... while Merry lost the plot and burst out in tears.   I think he actually thought it was a real fight and that someone got hurt.  So we sat down outside the Harry Potter shop (which looks JUST like a shop out of Diagon Alley) and explained to him that it was all pretend, just like watching a movie.... took him a few minutes but he perked up.
The boys thought this car was just awesome... it was full of 'bullet holes' :)


 On our way to the Kids Zone we passed THIS very evil shop!   Thankfully it was NOT open yet! lol
 On arrival in Kids Zone, Merry & Sam went on the Tijuana Taxi's, who's patron was Speedy Gonzales.  These taxi's were not terribly speedy though lol... but once he got the hang of it, Merry did quite well.  Sam sped past  before I could snap a pic of him (he must've gotten the fast car :P)
 While waiting for Dad & Merry to come back from the Yosemite Sam train ride, Frodo & Sam hung out with Taz for a bit and we had some fruit & cold drinks in the shade.  The boys all had a go on the bumper cars and thought it was great fun.  I noticed a pattern... Merry cops the poops about getting on every single thing, there are tears, he rides and has a blast... then wants to go again after LOL.
 Then we went back to Main Street to watch the Looney Toons Rock n Roll show, which included Bugs, some 'girl rabbit', Daffy, and Tweety...  Good fun!

 Hubby went off with the Teen, who was unable to ride the Superman Escape roller coaster without someone to hold his hat,glasses,wallet etc... and took Frodo with him.  This left Sam, Merry & I to our own devices.  We checked out the Kids Zone, but it was 1230 at this point and omg where did all these PEOPLE come from??  The lines were absurd so we went exploring the rest of the park.  We wandered down the little replica China Town, and then meandered over to the Wild West part of the park.  This was SO cool :)  There is a little old west style main street with decked walkways and fake shop fronts (nice shady spots to sit for a cold drink & a rest).   Sam & Merry thought Boot Hill cemetary was entertaining... I have weird kids ;)
They also thought the small 'Custom Coffins' shop, complete with deceased in coffin leaning against the wall, was great.  In the interest of brevity and bandwidth, I have graciously left that photo out... dude in the box looked a little ripe lol.

We wandered through the rest of the area and found a great spot to sit & eat in a 'barn' filled with picnic tables.  Perfect... shady, cool breezes, and off my FEET for a bit!  Eventually the Hubby, Frodo & Teen joined us where we noshed on some chips (fat french fries for my American friends ;) and had a look at this most awesome ride.  

Sadly we did NOT get to ride the Wild West Adventure, because while we waited for the rest of the crew, the line went from fairly short, to positively ginormous!  We did watch a half dozen logs full 'o people go splashing down though, and Sam is adamant that he MUST ride this next time :)

Such is the beauty of season passes,  from now until June 30 we shall regularly darken the doorsteps of the theme parks.  We are testing out Wet n Wild on New Years eve, as they have a special evening for littlies.  Free activities included with admission, and a movie at 7pm (Smurfs.. but I shall persevere) and they bump the clock at 5pm so the kids can enjoy ringing in the New Year at 9pm :D
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Where in the world are the Hobbits!?!
Caz
 
Well the hobbits & I have been busy busy the last few weeks... and obviously mama hobbit fell off the blogging bandwagon lol.  I did TRY to come post a few times, only to get interrupted or distracted, so I gave up *sheepish*    

The Uncles were over from New Zealand for a few weeks, and we spent a fair bit of time hanging out with them.  The boys dragged them along to swim class, played mah jong on the ipad with them, (Uncle M and Sam were on the ipad... Uncle N and Frodo were relegated to the 'old' laptop lol.  Old being 6mos old... but not new & sexy like the ipad)  and bubbles were blown & paper airplanes made.  They're back in NZ now, so hopefully they are enjoying some peace & quiet... cause they didn't get a whole lot of that when the boys were around!

This week we headed out on an epic journey, 1.5hours each way!, to the Abbey Medieval Faire Kids Day.   It was just me & the boys and I was a bit concerned, but in the end we had a fabulous day!  Mother Nature cooperated nicely with the weather... last year it was dreary & drizzly off & on all day.  This year, mostly sunny with a cool breeze... perfect!  Prepare for pics!

The boys had a ball!  There was junior jousting (sans horse, of course!), sword fighting, shield painting, cardboard sword making, animal petting and archery... among other things.   They got a kick out of all the people in costume and the 'funny' speech they used.  

  There WOULD have been a pony ride, and the boys were very disappointed that didn't happen.  That's the only thing I would say really needs improvement ... the company hired to provide pony rides was WOEFULLY ill equipped.   They had 2 ponies for 1000 or so kids!  I sincerely hope that those poor ponies got to take good breaks during the day... but with 60odd families in line at a time?  I'm kinda doubting it  :(   I've already made a 'suggestion that they plan for that more next year so children aren't disappointed, and more importantly, the animals aren't mistreated! 

There was no doubt they enjoyed the day, especially when the next morning I woke up to a mini tournament in my family room lol!

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