“We are building a classroom at the bottom of our garden.”

I said that statement recently to a person I didn’t know and who I knew had no idea we are a home-schooling family. It was in response to her query about my use of the last school holidays. I braced myself for the requisite “why are you doing that, why are you home-schooling, are you mad?” inquisition followed rapidly by the usual excuses as to why they would find it too difficult (By the way, if you ever feel the need to do this, you soooo don’t need to apologise to me I really don’t care two hoots about your educational choices for your own children I imagine you put some thought into it and went with what suited your little ones best. I imagine if the thought to home-school even crossed your mind you dismissed it because you knew it would cause your whole family more stress than it was worth or you knew in your heart you children would be miserable. I know this because that’s the thoughts we have about school and that’s the reason we don’t go, not, big not, because we believe it is the best and only way to educate a child)

Anyway this women just paused for a nanosecond, said “Oh ok” with a small shrug of the shoulders and carried on with her conversation about the sales, I think. Apparently backyard classroom building is common place and I should really stress less about talking to people.

Classroom building is sparky.

We also have no working lights in the school room yet so big sparky tools are being used in the dark, emergency waiting room here we come!

Notice my Dad is helping us again, isn’t he cool, he is the King of Construction. If it wasn’t for Dad we would be living in a plastic wall panelled homage to the bad parts of the 70′s. Now we dwell in a perpetual construction zone….um….yay….

"Jocelyn: Better a silly girl with a flower than a silly boy with a horse and a stick. Wat: It’s called a lance. Hello? " A Knights Tale.

One of my most favourite jousting quotes ever and only made slightly creepy if you know what happens to Wat/Wash in Serenity.

Oh yeah that’s right we went medieval again.

Got a much better picture of Sabrina the eagle this time.

She even has sleepy cuddles on shoulders like our Sabi does, I wonder it the eagle minds getting called Sabi???

The kids and I went opp shopping to find appropriate costumes, they are big fans of Merlin so apparently they already know how medieval people should look so there!

The kids watched the adults bash each other up with sticks….

then they had a go themselves.

I’m very proud of Eli in this photo even though he has been brought to his knees by a small girl in a pink dress. Just last year that scene above would have been to much for him and he probably would have lashed out then ran off screaming but to our amazement he just got up and laughed it off, woo hoo!

Sabi had a go to, she not one to be left out when there’s swords involved. I have to say, even though I hate being negative, that the nights training school was now were near as good as last years. There was no theatre involved in it at all, the kids were just handed at sword and left to their own devices barely supervised buy a peasant and red knight who clearly weren’t suited to the task. The red night even dashed through the crowd of small children just after this photo was taken, knocking Sabi over and reducing a boy to tears by whacking ferociously on his shield. To his credit he admitted fault and apologised to the boy but the episode soured one of the reason the kids were so keen to come back which was a shame to say the least.

They did have more fun with the replica weapons though and the guys in that tent were just brilliant mainly because it was cute to watch men in full armour go all gooey over Lilly when she put that helmet on. One was totally punch drunk though from the hammering he’d just received in the sword arena, so totally think these historical dudes are going to end up just as bad as boxers.

And after only a small amount of training Eli was able to run one through so all in all an educational day was had by all.

Our sweet little angels with their deadly weapons.

Our friend proving the only knight in shining armour a girl truly needs is her Daddy.

Glenn proving the only moving target a girl truly needs is her Daddy

By the end of the day we had collected more children than we came with, seriously, couldn’t see their parents and they were asking us the important questions like "Can I have an other ice-cream please" Glenn was getting worried I’d try the old, "Look what followed me home"

What better way to wrap up a day of watching grown men and a few women bash each other with swords than to watch more grown men bash each other with swords. Well at least it gave us one final opportunity to call out "I am not left handed"

Then it was the turn of the men on horses with big sticks

to ride ferociously at each other and to our alarm at the spectators, in particular us, while we were peacefully spectating. As this charming example of equine glory came twirling towards us I had a small panicked moment were I realised that I was completely incapable of scooping all of my little ones into my arms and saving them. I am ever thankful that they managed to get this guy under control in the meter between the first barrier he pushed through and the one we were sitting behind because Glenn and I managed to pull three kids back but Lani just sat right in it’s path totally unconcerned waiting for the danger to pass. Must talk to that girl about removing ones self from the path of imminent hoofed danger. 

When one of the jousters shattered a lance they collected up the pieces and gave them out to the watching kids, Eli was lucky enough to get this piece. 

The Daddies thought the babies would be able to see the men with big sticks better if they were stacked up.

Which inevitable ended in an adorable game of catch uncle Glenn’s nose.

Until the men, suddenly aware of the intoxicating and unmasculine cuteness they were drizzled in, set the babies against each other in the bloodiest pink stockinged foot fight this side of last Wednesday.

We entered a game over at What we do all Day and were very lucky to be chosen. This pay it forward game is a little different to most blog giveaways, if you win you don’t just win a prize you win the opportunity to pass the excitement along to three other people.

The kids were so excited when our package turned up all the way from New York America. Inside was a large train map which the kids were thrilled about, way more than I thought they would over a map but you see they recognised so many of the place names from all the American movies and TV shows. They now believe they know people in Famous land. She also sent us a beautifully illustrated book called A Walk in New York which is a lovely story where the reader follows a father and son while they wander past the sights of New york. Lastly she sent a post card which was lovely, it’s always kinda nice to see a persons handwriting it feels more alive somehow and Lani really liked it because the picture on the front shows that it snows in New York ( see, her fantasy is to live in a place that snows. Oh and has stairs too)

If you would like to receive a pretty cool (not that I’ve picked what’s going in it yet) parcel from us and think that you would be able to pass something nice on to other people please leave a comment under this post. Don’t worry about where you live you can be anywhere to enter and if you don’t have a blog but would like to pay it forward on FriendFeed or Facebook that’s fine too.

As the term is coming to an end I thought I’d show some of the fun things we have managed to squeeze into into it. I mentioned that we have started fortnightly ice skating. Well we also go to a weekly music, art and activity group called Junior Jivers. Each term there’s a new theme with a different weekly focus this term was Community Helpers. The weekly programme includes music activities, craft, bible verse, story and prayer time and ends with free play. I have also notice since I’ve been looking into OT with Eli that a lot of the moving to music that they do is beneficial to brain development as well as just being fun.   

Each week the kids have the opportunity to do a theme based craft or activity. The above photo shows the little houses that they made when we were looking at construction workers.

This is the fire engine that Sabi made and then tried to eat.

Sabi is modelling the only right way to wear a police hat. We made these the week we had a police officer turn up to talk to the kids about safety.

They also got a show bag full of goodies from the police officer which included a very exiting crime prevention van. Lilly looks very pleased with herself because she was able to answer the most questions right apparently, aww my little know it all must remember to include humility in next terms lesson plans. 

We when to visit the local fire station and got freaked out my the fireman’s Darth Vader voice.

He also taught us very important survival skills and fire prevention skills which now that it is winter and I have the heaters on I get reminded of daily in the form of sentences like this "That heaters on Mummy, if you put a towel on that heater and walked away it would catch on fire, then the house would burn down and we would all be burnt alive…..have you checked the batteries in the smoke detector?"

They all had their favourite parts of the visit, Sabi liked the big hose best, Lilly and Lani thought the truck was pretty cool and Eli would not stop talking about the weights training room, one of the officers spent a long time talking with him about the correct way to lift weights and you would think that conversation was the best thing that has ever happened to Eli the way he goes on about it. 

We also learnt about the postman and the craft that week was to write a letter to yourself and leave it at Junior Jivers for the leaders to post to you. I was very surprised at how excited my kids were waiting for mail I guess they don’t get to do it that much.

Our Church celebrated it’s birthday with a huge party and Junior Jivers had a free face painting stall. I am in the brown top painting faces, I’m not sure how many kids faces I painted I lost count.

I do know I painted Lani’s though, she insisted on not having anything girly this year.

These are some iPhone snaps the kids asked me to take during the free play time we have at the end of each Junior Jivers day they like to have a permanent record of their block towers before they smash them down.

We finished the term with a crazy hair dress up party and I completely forgot to take photos of their costumes whoops.

We then went around to another junior Jiver mums house to look at their baby Guinea pigs aren’t they cute!

Lani is now desperate for a Guinea Pig and I think she has a better chance of convincing her Daddy to cave on that one than she did with her previous white Chihuahua campaign. 

So that was a terms worth of Junior Jivers, maybe I should do weekly updates next term and avoid a other mammoth post. Oh well I had to record it for home schooling purposes and also to just state how cool this Church has been with accepting and offering opportunities to our slightly left of centre family.  

If a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush how much is one on your lounge chair worth?

Worth a whole lot of squealing excitement if what happened at our house is anything to go by. Which of course meant that the poor petrified bird took to the limited lounge room skies flying round and round pooping in fear.  

After my super human powers of persuasion finally kicked in and I was able to get all four excitable youngsters lined up at one end of the lounge room I carefully, so as not to send the poor frantic bird into another flying spiral of poop, opened the window at the other. I calmly but sternly told the children that if we stayed still so that the bird felt safe he would fly across to the open window and be on his merry way.

All was looking good till….

…the silly bird decided to stop off on the coffee table for a chat with our perturbed pooch.

There was absolute silence in the house for oh a good three seconds before Eli said "why isn’t he going out the window" I told them in hurried whispers that we just needed to wait and be very very quiet and very very still. Do you know how hard it is to keep still and quiet one scared dog, two giggly girls, one hyperactive baby and a boy who is sure the best coarse of action would be to run up to the bird and yell "Go out the window" at it while helpfully gesturing the intended direction with all available limbs?

I was pretty sure the backlog of noise that had been dammed up inside my children was ready to burst and I was already planning the poor bird who was surely just about to die of a heart attack in my lounge rooms funeral when believe it or not Sabrina saved the day. She saw her In the Night Garden book that she had borrowed from the library on the floor and asked me to read "Mi Mi oh no"

I thought well if it will keep the kids quiet I’ll suffer through another night garden read through. I was pretty sure that once I started berating the silly Nincky Nonck for Oh No once again leaving the poor Pontipines behind the bird would realise this was not the house for him and leave.

But no, I now have no respect for this birds taste in literature, he stayed for the whole book then as I read the last word nodded one last time at the dog and flew out the window.

Once a fortnight we join with a large pack of home-schooling kids and take to the ice. Well the kids do I stand around freezing to death occasionally calling out through chattering teeth "Yes sweetie of course I’m watching"

Lilly and Eli have actual real lessons with a actual real ice skating teacher who very excitingly has the same name as me. Poor girl has to listen to just how exciting that is every time we go. She is also the best teacher in the world because she knows about Doctor Who. She is even performing a Doctor Who inspired piece for an upcoming Ice dancing competition so she knows it well enough to hold her own in a conversation with Eli.

I am totally surprised at how well they have taken to the ice. I was sure we would have many gentle weeks of hanging onto the side and edging our way around the circle but no they are middle ice junkies. 

Lani hasn’t had a lesson yet she is to keen to hang out with the social pack but I’m going to strongly encourage her to next term. The other girls there are very nice and, although they can all skate competently, have slowed right down to accommodate Lani’s snail paced progress but there’s only so long you can dawdle when you are meant to fly so I’m hoping Lani will let the teacher giver her some pointers before the pack moves on without her.

Lilly, after initially being terrified of falling, now thinks it’s hilarious and intentionally throws herself at the ice constantly. Her teacher assures me it’s just a phase and most kids go through it then she kindly added "at least she’s not licking the ice while she’s down there" I get the feeling my name buddy has had some interesting classes in her career.

Eli has chosen speed over perfection and instead of concentrating on his Robot Stepping or Step Step Slides has stuck with a sort of wave pattern with his legs accompanied with frantic Breast Stroke swimming arms. This technique does create a lot of speed and momentum but looks strangely reminiscing of an octopus wearing skates. Again his teacher assures me that one in five kids learn that way and to just give him time. 

Who now probably hates me for posting this, oh well she lives ages away and death stares over distance just aren’t all that threatening.

A while ago I mentioned that I had gotten into a bit of a blogging block, not so much not knowing what to write just having to much and not knowing how to start. Well writing about the last time we saw Jill is still a major whole in this blog, if I’m going to think of this place as a record of very important stuff that is.

My gorgeous (as you can see from the photo above) little big Skin and Blister won a heap of money and instead of spending it having fruity malt loaf and walnut whips sent out from England she decided to use the money to ship us all up to see her, well we flew actually. I have been wanting to write about it since we went which was uh hum…last November, oops, but on top of all the stuff with Eli’s diagnosis how on earth do you figure out which of the hundreds of photos of the trip are the most important, how do you fit such a special time in our lives into one blog post.???  and then when you leave it so long how do you start writing about something that happened last year??? Also I can’t find the photo’s of the flight they are on here somewhere but the computer has sent them deep into the piles of unlabelled photos and not kept them with the rest of the photo’s from the trip. but I’ve decided, mainly because my conscience has been pricked by the fact that Mum and Dad are visiting her now, that I’m just going to write about the memories as they come. Stuff the order of importance of date and time and all that organizational stuff from now on if you read this blog you are going to be confronted with random "Oh that reminds me of one time in Mackay……. " posts like that really annoying friend that once went somewhere cool and now wont shut up about it.

oh by the way Skin and blister is rhyming slang for my dear sister in case you haven’t figured out who the crazy googly eyed lady is. 

I meant to post these straight after the last post which was what? Three weeks ago now?? maybe Agggh! It seams a little weird to still be rabbiting on about our tenth wedding anniversary so long after the actual event, but hey you only get one don’t you and these photos were just too pretty not to post. (Notice how I’m neatly avoiding admitting to the reasons for the total lack of motivation of the last three weeks. It had a lot to do with kids and snotty noses trust me you don’t want to know)

Anyhoo begin random photo dump now!

These ones with the blue water were taken at the….wait for it….Blue Lake at Jenolan caves. Winner of most original lake title. The blue has something to do with calcium carbonate mineral deposits, Google it if you are interested I just think it’s pretty.

Water trickles out of crevices at the base of the mountain fed by the underground river system that lies hidden from view. A man made wall contains the blue water scooping it together in a giant bowl, protecting it from the natural fall of the valley walls around it. Until the ever-increasing water pushes its bounds and cascades over the wall forming a sheet of glistening white water as tall as a house. This intrusion into the natural environment was built to be a hydroelectric pumping station ages ago. Now the relicts of industry past look as comfortable in their moss and lichen coats as the ancient rocks they lie next to.  

There is a very good reason for visiting the blue lake early in the morning. And the reason is that patch of popping bubbles and the darting black shadow in the next photo. I was trying to get a nice shot of the colour when all of a sudden there he was, swimming around right in front of me. Squee!! I’ve never seen a platypus in the wild before they are notoriously shy and although it is known that a few live in the blue lake I just didn’t except to see him, I mean I’ve been to places were people have promised a sighting and stood for hours to no avail and this guy just popped up, how exciting.

Of course I had to get a better photo so poor Glenn had to stand around waiting and waiting for me while I waited and waited for…

…this and…

…this.

It’s such a beautiful and unearthly place bursting with opportunities to see the co-inhabitants of God’s creation that us suburbanites don’t usually have the privilege of meeting. We saw a platypus, possums, wallabies,lyrebirds as well as a myriad of darting tweety things too fast to attach a definite label to.

Oh and here’s my new favourite rock want a close up?

Doesn’t he look just like a dragons head, too cool. And I shall name him Smaug and I’ll love him and hold him and…. ok that’s getting weird.

Look Glenn’s feet on a rock

and some clouds

and a bird that goes this way

and that way. Have you ever seen a birdy go this way and that?

Us looking at water, looking at water is cool.

A banksia, when Lani saw this she said “Aren’t they the bad ones” May Gibbs has a lot to answer for.

Can’t say going up stairs is cool because you get hot, but otherwise stairs are cool. these ones, when they are not trying to fall off the side of the mountain go both up and down.

The rest of the photos are just pretties I just couldn’t resist capturing the beautiful glammed up trees in their living lichen dresses. Those trees are not opposed to a bit of foofaraw, nothing slinky about the Australian bush.

Wow just reread this post and it’s full of wired obscure references how funny didn’t even notice I was doing that, Glenn and I talk this way it’s kind of like our language. Have fun trying to translate, tell me in the comments if you get any references.

These are some of the spectacular speleothems found inside the Oriental cave at Jenolan. speleothems are otherworldly formations that seemingly grow inside cavernous spaces deep underground. They are created by a suspension of water and dissolved minerals from the limestone outer walls.  As the water seeps through flaws in the limestone shell it dissolves the minerals in the rock and carries them with it depositing the minerals with each drip.

The Oriental cave has some of the most spectacular and richly coloured examples of rock formations in the world. Glenn and I missed seeing this one when we were here 10 years ago for our honeymoon and we are so glad we chose it this time, it is just such a pretty cave. 

This photo shows the walk up to one of the domes where trapped water long ago carved a circular ceiling reminiscent of the ornate basilicas of Rome. The centre of the dome is hung with a chandelier of stalactites and framed with an ascending spiral of gothic flow stone. Walking deep inside these caves is so unlike an experience found on top of the crust of the earth, it seamed so fantastical I was half expecting Batman to slide into view along the top railing belting out "the Music of the Night" 

This small alcove off the larger cave system is affectionately known as the bacon shop. If you look at the above photo you can see an example of a Banded Shawl that does smell deliciously baconey if you stare at it for long enough.

The thin stunning white speleothems are called straws and are formed when the water droplet evaporates slowly leaving the deposited minerals in a perfect circle the diameter of the droplet. Straws are hollow and water travels down the centre of them leaving behind more minerals and each droplet hovers on the end on the straw. Mostly they grow straight down as common sense and gravity would dictate but in this cave most of them are cheeky little freaks of nature and choose to grow sideways. This means they get a new name – helictites and even the scientists haven’t quite got their heads around why they act the way they do. The most likely theory is capillary forces, which to me just sounds like Colonel Jack O’Neal’s famous "Magnets" explanation (if you do not get the reference it is because your life has been deprived up until this point to remedy this you must begin to watch Star Gate SG1 immediately or at least look Here, Here or Here) 

In the above photo you can see the little bitty stalactites (the ones going down because they need to hand on tight) almost touching the stalagmites (The ones growing up because they might get there eventually).

When they do touch and morph together they become known as columns. Which you can see in the background. The white glowing stuff in the foreground is flow stone that has stopped flowing and dried which makes it crystalize and go all sparkly a little like Edward only this stuff scares me more, I mean there is a real chance I could slip and twist my ankle. 

More dangly cave bits or shawls if you want to be technically correct.

Columns and white slimy living flowstone, it’s ALIVE!!! Aaagh, grr Argh. 

More twisty little freaks of nature, somewhere in there is one that has formed a perfect circle that the guides call the Fairy Toilet, see it’s not only me with the warped sense of humour.

Look it’s Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, well it would be if Superman was the size of a leprechaun and didn’t mind troupes of tourists disturbing his ‘Me time’.

This shawl formation is the most famous one at Jenolan and is used in their logo. It is called the Indian Headdress and is supposed to remind you of the fancy ceremonial gear they put on Indian Elephants.

One last look, this is one of the larger caverns and photos don’t do it justice. If you ever have the chance go journey to the centre of the Earth (or at least just under the top layer a little way) and have the breath sucked out of you by the glorious majesty of God creation. 

You might remember that a few posts ago I mentioned that it was our tenth wedding anniversary. Well I thought that Glenn’s surprise of a day out together and dinner at Lillianfels was the end of the celebrations but sneaky Glenn had other plans. He had booked a weekend for us at Caves House at Jenolan caves. This gorgeous rambling building is not only seeped in the the riches of Australian history but in our history too. Caves House was the first building we entered as a married couple. It is where we spent our honey moon.

The building is nestled in a valley accessible through a colossal rock archway torn through the mountain side. To get to this arch however you must first venture up the steep road of certain winding doom. It is, as all rugged mountain roads tend to be, a very scary drive into the place. This was made worse on our wedding night because of the pelting rain, roaring winds and thick cloud that covered the mountain all the way up. As Glenn drove and I picked innumerable bobby pins out of my expertly tangled hair I couldn’t help but imagine the following days headlines. "Newly Married Couple Plunge to Their Deaths, How Honeymoon Destinations Can Kill You"    

Well ten years on from our wedding we dropped the kids off at Mum and Dads and once more set our wheels in the direction of the mountain of terror. As we started our assent the rain once again started it’s decent and a thick fog rolled in. The fear that grows in your belly at the thought of driving the road in these conditions actually had a nice tinge of nostalgia this time. There was one major difference between the two trips, I got horribly sick and we had to turn around and come home and poor Glenn who had secretly organised such a special weekend away had to nurse his sick wife shivering under a blanket on the lounge.

Luckily the kind people at Caves House transferred our booking and three weeks later we made it there, alive. It worked out quite well all things considered if we had gone when the first booking was made it would have poured all weekend but on our altered schedule we had glorious weather.

This has to be one of my most favourite places in the whole world.

One of the communal lounge rooms. Don’t you just adore the red velvet squee It felt kind of like we were visiting Mr Knightlys house.

`

When we got to our room there was a bottle of wine and a lovely note from two beautiful friends. I read it out loud a little to fast which caused a little giggle and every time we enjoyed something for the rest of the weekend we would turn to each other and say "Yes I’m so happy that we finally managed to get away from Steven and Sally too".

This was our room, if you look at the second photo we are the top middle green bay window.

I am so lucky, so in love and so thankful we have each other and also so glad we got away from Steven and Sally for the weekend.