Gorge Wildlife Park with Asuka....

We took Asuka to Gorge Wildlife park today, it turned out to be a beautiful day, the rain that had been with us most of the night had cleared by morning and then the sun came out. The ground at the park was a little wet and slippery and the animals did smell a little but it was lots of fun.

Asuka loved the Kangaroos and Wallabies and she also had her cuddle of Charlie the Koala, he was so sweet.

I have just thrown a whole lot of photos on here, you can click on them to make them bigger. Check out the pic of the ducks with the fancy feathers, they are so darn cute!!!!

Oh Boy, Reneé has her boat licence.....

Yup thats right, scary isn't our Renee is now licenced to drive a boat, she passed her practical exam today. We went to Mannum, with Asuka it was cold but the sun was out and it was actually quite a nice day!

Here Renee is, getting ready with the Marine's officer and then off she goes....

then she was rubber stamped, how exciting..with a pass!

and then she took me for a spin and drove the boat onto the trailer, she thought that was pretty groovy, LOL.

Here a few other pics, that I thought I would share, up a tree is an ideal spot for a little bit of Nintendo, Aaron sat there for about 45 minutes until he started to cramp up!!!!

A picture of Aaron and Asuka on the playground and then I think a really nice pic of Asuka sitting in the gum tree.

Asuka has arrived

Asuka has arrived and she is lovely, her English is quite good, which always helps! She was tired when we picked her up and took her home, understable really, she had done quite a bit of travelling to get here.

She had her shower about 8pm last night and then soon went to bed after that, didn't hear a peep out of her til this morning.

Here are the kids and Asuka exchanging gifts, and nope she doesn't think too much of Vegemite LOL.

Meet Asuka - our exchange student arriving Thursday

hmmmm two posts in one day

Meet Asuka - our newest exchange student arriving from Japan on Thursday.

We have received a letter and pics from her, which I have attached for you all to read. I have blocked out the personal details for privacy, if you click on the letter it will make it bigger so easier for you to read. She sounds delightful but I say that about all the students we have had.

We really enjoy having them come and stay with us, the kids learn so much. Asuka will be with us for 10 days and even though it's a short period of time, they really do become part of the family. I get quite attached to them, with every student that we have had so far, I have always cried at the end of their stay, I am such a sap, I dare say I won't be any different this time. LOL.

If you want to meet out previous students click on the link to the right.

As part of the exchange programme it is traditional to give a welcoming gift. This is ours to Asuka, a little bit of Australiana to take home with her. We are yet to find a student who likes Vegemite!

Harry Potter - the final chapter

Well it's here, we had pre-ordered our copy to ensure that we didn't miss it! The line was enormous yesterday morning according to hubby, Rod, he however managed to walk straight past it and be one of the first ones in to get the book, only he could get away with that LOL.

Once the book got home, we never saw Renee again only for food and water LOL. She curled herself up in our bed and read and read. She would have been further along with it, if it weren't for a Scout Meeting that she had in the afternoon, such an inconvenience!!!!

She slept with me last night - (the boys having movie night again in the spare room), I fell asleep only to wake up at about 1 am to still find her reading - she couldn't stop apparently it was sad!!! Oh dear, I don't want it to be sad LOL.

Anyway this pic was taken about 11.00pm last night and as I type this she is in the same position now, she won't stop until finished. I dare say that there are quite a few kids in the world right now that are doing the same thing, makes for a very quiet home, thankyou JK Rowling - it has been so peaceful, no sibling fighting this weekend!!

the most wasted of all days is one without LAUGHTER...

Aaron just before he left for school a couple of months back for a footy carnival, he was so excited. He was still smiling when he got home even though they didn't win a game LOL.

Renee thinks this layout is a little girly with the flowers, they were meant to make it look happy!

Haircuts and colours.....

Apart from what we have done over the last few days and also being the last week of school holidays, meant there were haircuts to consider. Aaron has been at us for ages to have his hair blonded again, he had it done about 8months or so ago for the first time and thought he just looked so hot LOL. So off we went tonight for the full on treatment, although I didn't get mine done, have put that off until next week.

I remembered the camera this time...

Here's Aaron with the streaking cap, he didn't like it much, particularly the part when they pull the hair through the cap LOL ( please excuse the dark circles under our boys eyes, hmm school holidays and late nights, they have a lot to answer for, dont they?)

and this is the end result, very funky indeed

Renee also had her hair cut and some foils, she however, was less than co-operative when it came to having her photo taken, I guess she knew that it would end up being blogged LOL. I managed to get this one though, of her kissing Rod (dad) goodbye, after he also had his hair cut.

An afternoon with friends and bowling...

School holidays are here at the moment and I have a week off, how nice is that. So we have been trying to do some family orientated type things this week. We we went to the Drive-in Saturday night and saw Harry Potter and Transformers - Note to self, 2 movies is far too long to sit in a car for!

Tuesday, Rod and I and the kids went to the pictures, we were going to go to Victor Harbor but we woke up to rain, so didn't fancy travelling all the way down there hoping to see the whales and then get there and not see any and get wet in the process, so the movies won out there. We saw "Knocked Up" was funny in parts, a little old for Aaron, however he came out of there having learnt quite a bit, to say the least!

Yesterday afternoon was spent bowling with Patty and the kids, had loads of fun, although it is a little tricky keeping 6 kids happy all of the time! LOL. Overall though it was a good afternoon and it was just nice to sit and watch, rather than run and run, if you know what I mean, that was once we got the kids sorted anyway!

To the right is Josh, the look says it "Argh, so close!"

and below is Renee and Ryan, Patty's youngest.

Below is Matthew (just) Aaron and Ryan

Lauren and Renee

and then there was a question of bowling style LOL. Rod used to bowl many moons ago and the kids have picked up some pointers from him on how to release the ball. Renee has this very delicate way about her of delivering the ball to its destination, foot gently sweeping behind with the hand out for balance LOL, Aaron has a full on kneel down approach, Lauren - well anything goes there LOL and Ryan - determined to say the least!!!!!! I never got a photo of Matthew and Josh, but there style also varied.

Check them out LOL, from left to right - Renee, Aaron, Lauren and Ryan

To finish up with, the kids used their tokens and won some tickets, so then they had to go to the prize booth. Picking out their prize took nearly as long as one game of bowls LOL, took them ages to decide what they wanted.

It was great fun.....

Fairy Tales do Come True.....

One of my most treasured pics, this was taken a few moments after Renee was born, I just love that she was so awake!

The layout is a lift of "Deebee's" layout, using the same Aussle pack from the Scrap Heap - so I hope you don't mind Debbie, I will try and see if I can do a link here to hers. I am so lacking in creative imagination at the moment, must be because I am on holidays LOL.

Ok here is the link

http://www.thescrapheap.com.au/gallery/data//4282/medium/044_-_Love_You_July_Aussle_.jpg

If you are interested in what I used on it, check out my gallery, all details are listed there.

Anyways, I had better get moving, need to have a shower, am going out with Patty and the kids today, lunch and bowling, should be loads of fun!

Leanne

Lego and Dress Ups...oh to be a kid again!!!!

Isn't it nice when you get to finally have a bit of a clean up in the spare room, Saturday was the day for this. The bedrooms are quite small in our house so as the kids have got bigger, some of their old favourites have migrated to the "games" room.

Over time, however some of these things have been forgotten about especially when the "games" room turns into mum's scrap room, playstation area and just a good old general storage area for anything and everything! LOL. After the clean up however, the lego was rediscovered by Aaron, was so much fun, he spent a good three hours or so, just building and playing and having an absolute wow of a time, I even got into it, was lots of fun. So much better than sitting in front of the computer screen or getting majorly hyped up in front of playstation, this was good old fashioned fun at a nice slow pace!

This is a sample of what he made, a little car for his Star War figurines.

He also used quite the imagination and built the empire state building!

I was very impressed with that, although he didn't take a photo of that, took a photo of everything else he made!!

Sunday afternoon, Patty came over to drop of Josh for a sleepover. Lauren was looking for stuff to dress up as a pirate, ( the whole family has to dress up as pirates for a Birthday party they have coming up). So out came the dress up box.

How much fun was that! I found the elephant costume that I had made a few years ago for Aaron to dress up in for a school dress up theme - now that is love, making a costume like this just for a dress up day.

I just had to get Patty's youngest, Ryan to have a go in it. How cute are these pics.....mind you he lasted about 5 minutes before he started complaining about it itching LOL, man that boy is so hard to keep still, ATTITUDE ATTITUDE ATTITUDE!!

Anyway, Lauren left happy she found what she wanted to make herself look like a pretty funky pirate LOL no one else got a look in, gotta keep looking though, cause I know that I have some other stuff somewhere, hmmm may have to do some more cleaning up.

Till next time

Leanne