A Turtle Graduate

Sophie proudly received a certificate today, after her 2 week accelerated lessons, she graduated from the Turtles swim group. She is now a Seal! After she graciously accepted her certificate she said "mum, what's a tificate? why did Miss Sally give it too me? can I have an ice cream now!" (all in the same breath mind you. The hilight of her week of swimming was the lolly pops that Miss Sally handed out to all participates today!

The "Girls" are excelling

The Egg Collector

Are they the biggest eggs you have ever seen?

Size really does matter

The double yoker

Well! after a slow start (Auntie) Linda Darling, Valerie and Lori appear to have hit their straps. Most days now we get 3 eggs and some of them have been beauties, including 2 double yokers so far. Nick thinks he has worked out who lays what eggs based on the differing colours of the eggs! The two larger eggs in the carton he believes belong to (Auntie) Linda Darling, who would have guessed she would turn out to be such a fine layer after her earlier attempts?

Sophie is our chief egg collector with this being her MOST important job each morning, she is sometimes up and ready to collect even before the poor girls have finished the job. But the girls get all excited when they see her coming as they know they can get out and roam the yard for the rest of the day.

Diving for Boot Hey!

Sophie is getting sooooooooooo good at diving, to the point that she looks for things at the bottom of the pool ie rubbish, leaves, ear rings and any other bits of crap that has been left behind - bit of a scavenger is our Sophie. Nick has spent a lot of time showing her how to push herself down to the bottom to collect her booty. She is now a pro and spends most of her time scavenging. Her new flippers make it even easier to get down and up in record time (note that the end she is diving is 1.8 metres deep - not bad for a 4 year old!)

Oh Daddy you are tooooo slow..........

The race was on - Sophie in lane one with flippers, daddy in lane 2 no flippers but has the advantage as his legs are longer (only by a bit)..................................... AND the winner is..........................Miss Flippers SOPHIE

Flippers are a go.go...................

She is Dynamite in the water - For Christmas Sophie received snorkel, goggles and flippers, the snorkel posed a slight problem when trying to talk underwater! but the flippers have been a hoot. She just loves the pace the give her and whilst this might be a surprise to some, she has NO difficulty walking in them - this is most likely due to her early exposure to stiletto's!

(Auntie) Linda Darling - the coming of age.......

FINALLY - (Auntie) Linda Darling has realised just what her job is....................laying eggs, not lulling around like a 5* free loader! I think it may have been Nick's not so subtle comments about "I feel like chicken tonight!" that got her moving.

Bubble arm, Breath arm in motion

Bubble arm, Breath arm

At the tender age of 4 Sophie is already on her way to freestyle swimming. Miss Sally uses a great technique called "bubble arm, breath arm", which quite simply is when you lift your first are it is face down and blow out bubbles, with the second arm turn your face to the side and take a breath! Simple you might say - yes, but then, Miss Sally also wants you to kick your legs! How is a girl to remember all of this? ]

Now, if Miss Sally had asked her for bubble arm, breath arm, lipgloss there wouldn't have been a problem:)

The Dive

Sophie and Nick have spent a lot of time working on her diving skills - changing it from a "belly flop" to a very refined DIVE. Some of her belly flops brought tears to our eyes, so it is with much relief that she is getting the hang of it.

Accelerated Swim group

Goggles on - checkKick boards - check

Go!

Kick, kick, kicking

Ahhhh the end

Sophie started a two week intensive swim group and she is loving it. Today (Thursday) saw both little girls (both 4) a little lacking in the concentration department, doing more sinking than swimming, but hell I am tired by the end of the week! Initially there were 4 kids in the group but 2 dropped out, which is just great for Sophie and Annabell as they get Miss Sally's undivided attention:)

After her lesson Nick and I join her in the big pool for a further half hour or so of water play. Although having said that Nick has been on afternoons since Tuesday so it has just been Sophie and I - it is such a refreshing way to Finnish the day.

Here Chooken, Chooken........

mmmm smells like breakfast is onI'll call the girls

"Valerie, (Auntie) Linda Darling - Breakfast" mmmm Linda must still be on the nest!

Our girls are way too friendly - they have started coming up the stairs, mostly at breakfast time!

Thanks POP

we now have photo's of Nick in his scuba gear in the "training" tank prior to his dive with the Sharks. Yeah no wonder he looked calm, the sharks were in the other tank!

Bouldercombe Beauty - The final stages

The "Beauty" Outside Entertaining area

Feature wall in main living area - love the colour The "Hub"

The hollywood style ensuite

On our way home we called in to see the progress on Tegan and Mick's beautiful new home. On our last visit the building was really only a shell, no gyprock, no electrical work, no painting, so it was amazing to see the transformation with all these things done. Unfortunately my camera hasn't done the beautiful feature wall justice and my battery went flat after only a few photo's but I think you get the picture of how stunning this home is going to be. The ensuite is still my favourite room and I can't wait to see it completed.

Your attention to detail is amazing and the wait to move in will be worth as you have built yourselves a beautiful nest.

A couple of dates keeps a girl happy

We made the of our time in the "big smoke" by getting our fix of playgrounds, junk food and the movies.

A night out through Sophie's lens

Sophie has always loved having her chance to take a photo, but even more since I have had my little camera. Being that it is so compact and easy to use she will often grab the camera and starts snapping away. You can easily identify shots taken by her due to the angle of the photo, heads are often only half captured and she just LOVES the close ups! She has actually captured some lovely photo's on ocassions.

On the weekend we headed into Rocky to do a little shopping, catch up with friends and enjoy some fine dining. We tried the new Indian Restaurant in East St, when we first walked in Nick was a bit nervous, stating that "it is always a worry when you walk into an Indian Restaurant and there are no Indian's?" But no sooner had he made that statement when an Indian lady returned from the kitchen and we could see through the open door that several Indian men were cooking! So we decided to stay:) Had a great feed with Tegan and Mick, our eyes were bigger than our bellies as there was way too much food - But we did our best.

Our night out was captured by our budding family photographer..