Crazy adventurers apply now!

I don’t know why, but for some reason we seem to attract crazy adventures into our life. Nothing seems to be simple, things always happen to change our plans and on top of that, we’re usually trying to manage with two toddlers in tow.


Let’s take Saturday as an example……

We decided to go for a drive with our friends late Saturday afternoon and have a BBQ dinner. Sounds simple right? Nothing unusual about having a BBQ dinner with friends is there? Apparently for us, there is.

The main track started to look more like a river

Firstly, a drive and BBQ dinner with our friends means getting 5 children under four-years old and 4 adults into 2 4WD’s and heading bush on a dirt track. We weren’t even off the bitumen road when the heavens opened up and the monsoonal rains we had been waiting for made an appearance. We decided to push on despite a few fun slides on the already muddy main track and just take a drive for the fun of it.

Onto the track to the Latram River and the rain started coming down harder and the lighting began. I think at this point none of thought we’d actually be staying at the river for dinner, but what the hell, we were half way there so we might as well keep going.



The "puddles" on the Latram track



Miriam loves the bumps and was giggling every time we bounced up and down on the track. Meanwhile I’m having heart palpitations every time we drove through anything bigger than a puddle.

I think the small ones were a bit disappointed that we got to the river and just turned around and went home again – Miriam especially was all ready to go for a swim – but with lighting around none of us wanted to go in the water.



Following the G's through the larger 'puddles'



So, back we went, more bumps, more puddles, more mud sliding, rain still pelting down. Everyone eating from a box of Pizza Shapes (cause by this point we were all starving) and singing along to “Hey now Rock Star” (aka All Star by SmashMouth, the theme from the first Shrek movie).

Back at our house with 5 very wound up kids, we put the potatoes in the oven and sausages on the BBQ in the backyard instead of on the fire. The kids got the picnic rug out and we all sat on our lounge room floor and ate dinner while the rain continued to bucket down outside.

Not quite the afternoon we had planned but fun nonetheless and definitely an adventure to remember.




"Jazz Hands"



Family 'selfies' fun







These boots were made for walking

Our little Ezzy-bezzy has decided it was time for her to get up on her two feet and walk. She’s been tottering around for a week now and has it pretty much mastered. It’s hilarious to watch her walking around and negotiate stuff that’s left on the floor.

She has pretty much given up crawling and moved entirely to her new mode of transportation. It makes her look so grown up!

This morning she decided to put on Miriam’s gumboot and walk around the house. Didn’t matter that they were at least 10 sizes too big, she wanted boots! She also likes to wear her tiny little Havianas we bought for her in Bali.

Maybe she’ll have a shoe fetish like her Mum?

Organisation rules!!

The beginning of 2013 has heralded a new era in our house. I have made the jump back into full-time work. While many might think this is crazy with two small children, I love working and the kidlets love childcare. Miriam proudly announces that she goes “5-days a week” now to Turtle School and Ezzy smiles when she sees her teachers and her little friends.

After two weeks of full-time work I can see how thing could dissolve into chaos quite quickly. Being an organisation/control freak I am determined this won’t happen. I have a schedule of when I am going to do the shopping, pick up the mail, run other errands and go walking with my friend. I’ve also put a meal plan together so I can have some idea of what’s going on in the kitchen each afternoon. Like any working parent, coming home from a day at work does not mean being able to sit down and enjoy watching the news with a glass of red. In our house it goes a little something like this:

1. Pick up kids from ‘school’ which involves collecting all the lunchboxes, drink bottles, sleeping bags and dirty clothes. Pile everything into the car and drive home singing “The wheels on the car go round and round” 

Get all of the abovementioned stuff into the house including my work bag, without dissolving into a pile of sweat.

Put all the abovementioned stuff in the appropriate place – bag hooks, kitchen, laundry, shoe box etc

Peel off my dirty work clothes while trying not the tread on the toys that have already made their way out of the boxes and all over the floor

Throw on something from the pile of clean laundry accumulating on the lounge, affectionately known hereafter as “Mt Foldmore”.

Turn on Peppa Pig to keep the ‘natives’ amused while preparing dinner

Spend 5 minutes in the kitchen trying to work out what to feed everyone and then realise you have a “Meal Plan” stuck to the fridge.

Organise dinner for the ‘natives’ including feeding Ezzy while continuously telling Miriam to turnaround and face the table and keep eating.

Finish dinner and try to clean up the devastation while herding the ‘natives’ toward the bathroom.

Undress and bath ‘natives’, cleaning off all the paint, glitter and glue while singing endless renditions of “Rubber Ducky”, “Galoomph went the little green frog” and “I had a little turtle…”.

Get natives dried off and into their pyjamas.

Sit down with bottle (Ezzy) and read a story.

Put Ezzy to bed and start to make dinner for the ‘grown ups’.

Keep an eye on Miriam as she ‘helps’ to make Daddy’s dinner

Get dinner on the stove/oven

Read another story to Miriam (or watch her new favourite DVD, The Australian ballet’s Sleeping Beauty)

Tackle Mt Foldmore while dinner cooks.

Sit down and eat while watching something pointless on TV

Clean up the kitchen, put on the dishwasher (yes dishwasher, Thank You God!) and prepare the kids lunches for ‘school’ the next day

Hang out the load of washing I put on that morning before work

Look at the rest of Mt Foldmore and decide it can wait till tomorrow

Finally sit down and relax ready to watch TV and realise there is nothing on I want to watch so I go to bed and watch re-runs of NCIS or Bones on DVD.

And the merry-go-round keeps going everyday until Saturday when I finally don’t set the alarm, only to be woken by the kids at 6am anyway.