School is Cool

Once we got home there was only a week before school started for Charlie and Elly!  We had to get last minute uniforms and supplies and do lots of fun things before they got stuck in school for the rest of their lives....  a bit dramatic I know, but it was sad to send them off.  Good thing both Charlie and Elly love school so far!  Elly asks me almost every day if its "her day" to go to school (she goes 5 days fortnightly)  I can't believe my babies are so grown up.

We didn't manage to get all the way to the end of the alphabet!  I think Charlie made it to "T" and Elly got to "U"
But for out "P" day we made paper dolls!  Charlie's are rescue bots of course

Hazel was so thrilled to get her very own nectarine!
One Sunday after church we lost power!  So we went back to the church for a few hours and the kids got to play with the nursery toys and we played tag and had PB and J for dinner!  They had so much fun and want to do it again sometime.

Look at these big school kids!

Elly loves that her kindy has swings!  She's at Injilinji kindy this year.

Charlie rocked his first day of Prep!

CRYSTAL CREEK

One weekend we decided to head up to Crystal Creek, which is just 45 mins or so north of Townsville and WE LOVED IT!  It was the kids "favourite place ever!"  It's up in the mountains and there are all these pools you can jump into and rock waterslides you can slide down.  There are actually 2 creeks: Big Crystal Creek and Little Crystal Creek, and they are only about 20 mins apart.  

The first time we went we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into, but it was gorgeous out and the water was just a perfect level for the kids. We swam under waterfalls and went down little waterslides and had a nice picnic.  Then on the way home we got Asian food and Baskin Robbins ice cream, so of course they thought it was the best day ever!

 The second time we went up to Paluma in the rainforest first for some little hikes and lunch, and then we came back down to the creek for a swim.  The water was quite a bit higher and running faster because it had bee raining, but we still had fun jumping in and then floating down a little waterslide.  The kids were a bit braver than me I think!  After that we went over to Big Crystal Creek just to check it out for "future reference".  We didn't see the waterslides that time because we didn't know where to look, but we saw the swimming area and it was really nice!  

The third time was on our last day in Townsville, Andrew was finished work at 11am, so I had everything ready to go and we headed off as soon as he got home.  This time we had done our research and knew where to find the waterslides!  Too bad Charlie and Elly were in a really bad mood that day and it was raining.... Oh well, Andrew and I still had fun!  There was one waterslide in particular that was super fun and would just shoot you up and out at the end.  I managed to get Elly to go down a couple of times with me, and then she was just done.  Charlie took a lot more convincing and we managed to get him to go down once with me, but we lost our balance a bit and he scraped his elbow on the way down and then banged his knee when he was trying to get out, so there was no way he was going again!  Andrew found a smaller waterslide a bit further down the creek that they went down a few times, but they were more interested in the cookies we brought for our snack.

All in all it was a really neat area and I would definitely go back.  Although the water would have to be just right, I learned after we got back to Mount Isa that a guy had drowned there just before Christmas!

Hazel spent most of her time testing out her new teeth by chewing on rocks!

Welcome to 2019

After New Years Eve it was back to work for Andrew!  And it was up to me to entertain the children by myself in a strange city... but I was up for the challenge!  We bought an annual pass to the museum because they had some cool extra stuff going on over the holidays - LEGO and science things - so Charlie was in heaven!  Elly really got into it as well and was building up a storm.  We found an indoor play place that the kids went crazy for, and inflatables place and the mall next to where we were staying had 2 fun play areas as well as a petting zoo for the holidays!  I'm not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure there is way more going on for kids in Australia than back home in Canada...

We tried to make it to the strand as often as we could, picking up Andrew straight from work
 and having a picnic dinner seemed to work well for us! 

We would bring a lunch to the museum and sit by the window to eat because it overlooked the water!
Sometimes we would see fish swimming down below.

Charlie lost his body in a science experiment!

Both this activity and the arch one above reminded me of our days at the train museum in Ipswich...

10 months old!

Elly was so brave to hold this snake!  There was no way Charlie was going to though!

At Chipmunks indoor play place Hazel loved these spinning teacups!
around and around and around...

We only really discovered these air guns the second time we went to Chipmunks,
Charlie and Elly loved shooting balls down below

Charlie did NOT want to go into the petting zoo! Elly was so excited, until the
baby ducklings and chicks would jump out of her basket!  

Charlie loves taking care of Hazel!  He's such a great older brother 

Elly fell asleep on the way to the waterpark so Charlie, Hazel and I climbed up to Kissing Point Barracks.
Elly and Daddy got to have a little rest in the van. 

Letter "N" in our summer of ABCs included making froot loop necklaces

More LEGO at the museum! 

Hazel is a watermelon monster!  All the kids are actually...   they're going to be sad when we go
 back to Canada and you can't get watermelon year-round!

Elly is a shell collector after my own heart!