The Murray River

During our recent trip to Victoria and back we (obviously) crossed the Murray River - the border between NSW and Victoria.  By chance yesterday at the library I found a book tracing the course of the river from the snow to the sea. 

Today I read the book to the kids over lunch.  It was great as the girls had first hand experience of what the book was talking about - the moment of crossing the border, the Tom Groggin camping ground, the Man From Snowy River, trout, bogong moths, etc.

This all lead to lots of googling about Australia's megafauna.

Leave a Comment Charlie, Erin, homeschooling, Natalie

Japan - Tokyo

In the October school holidays we went to Japan.  I have already posted a few photos about Japan, but the other day I tried to consolidate all photos, from all places, and I thought I'd post about each city we went to.

First off we arrived in Tokyo, and it was more humid than we expected.  We arrived early in the morning but couldn't use our hotel rooms till the afternoon, so after negotiating the trains and finding our way to the hotel so we could leave our bags we wandered around and found a bakery (Japan has cool bakeries - I imagine it is the French influence), and lay around in some gorgeous gardens close to our hotel (you could tell we were the Aussie tourists - the only ones lying on the grass with our shoes off!).

On the streets....

In the temples...

Eating yummy food ...

And back in the hotel...

Leave a Comment Charlie, Erin, family, holidays, Japan, Natalie, Rory

FLL - Term 4

Charlie competed again this year with a homeschool lego robotics team for a competition run by First Lego League.  The theme was space and the teams have to complete missions using a robot (coding) with lego attachments.  There is also other components to the competition - the team has to research a problem and show their solutions and they are judged on not only how well their robot works, but their problem and solution, their teamwork and "co-opertition", ie helping other teams out as well.

The team did really well, making it through regionals, state and nationals, winning a spot at the Asia/Pacific International competition which will be held later this year in Sydney.

Rory helped out at one event by volunteering.

Leave a Comment Charlie, FLL, homeschool

Hwkesbury Camp

A couple of weeks before Christmas, my friend Monique and I managed to squeeze a short camping trip in.  We always have our goals to get camping regularly, but it is so easy for "busy, regular life" to take over.

We went to a friend's property on the Hawkesbury river with our five youngest kids - it was wonderful to get away, even with the mozzies and the most impressive thunderstorm I had seen in a long time.

Charlie and Natalie

Very friendly and curious horses

Beautiful lichens

Hiding from the mozzies

Leave a Comment Charlie, Erin, holidays, Natalie

Japan #1

In the October holidays we went to Japan - what an amazing experience!

Travelling around a foreign country on public transport with four kids is not necessarily a chilled out and relaxing holiday, but we loved it.  Japan is also NOT the place to go if you are thinking to unplug your kids (I am always looking for opportunities to remove them from devices) - everyone there seems to be constantly on their phone.

We were there for 12 days and then stayed one night in Hong Kong on the way home, but it felt to me like we were away for much longer and I think that is because we were travelling around so much.

I haven't got all our photos organised at all, so there will be a few instalments on Japan.  These first ones are some that came off my phone.

Leaving Sydney Airport

In Tokyo - we couldn't get into our hotel immediately so we dropped off our luggage and went for a walk.  We discovered a beautiful park nearby where we were able to lie around in our exhausted state until we could check-in!

Brooms and other street cleaning equipment left conveniently, ready for use.

 Some interesting toadstools.

The view from our hotel room - you can see the park that we wandered about in.

Hachiko the dog

I started to teach the girls string games on the bullet train.

 In Hiroshima

A decent photo of Robin and myself

The Japanese love Halloween decorations (they were everywhere) and our hotel lobby in Hiroshima was no different.  Notice Natalie edged over to one side of the seat - she was a bit wary of the big spider!

On Miyajima Island where they have very friendly deer.  We stayed in a "traditional" hotel, complete with traditional dinner and breakfast.

The streets of Kyoto.

In Osaka we found the Pokemon centre - more fun than expected.

Leave a Comment Charlie, Erin, family, holidays, Japan, Natalie, Rory