Wishing and Hoping and Thinking and Praying: February 2015

This morning Emilia participated in her 2nd Tadpoles triathlon. This one was in Rockingham about 45 minutes south of our house. So we were up a little after 4am, left the house by 5am and arrived to check-in by 6am. The Tadpoles started around 7am and we had the wrap-up at 8am where Emilia won a bike helmet! She entered into 3 more in the new few months.

So quick update. We went to New Zealand for 18 days after Christmas. I have a ton of pictures and I haven't edited them yet. Plus its summer so the wiring in our old house gets warm and the internet connection is super slow... (right now it's 117 kb/min so it's a small miracle that I even got these pictures uploaded!) NZ was beautiful! We saw a ton, learned a ton, walked and climbed a lot and covered the North and South islands.

We went to Les Miserables which finally came to Australia after 17 years! So now I've seen it on 3 continents (3 shows on 3 continents now - Cats and Phantom round out the classic theatre). We also watched 2 days of swimming at Challenge Stadium - Australia, USA, China and Japan plus watched men's Australia vs. USA water polo. We also went to the movies and saw "Big Hero 6" and "Paper Planes" and recommend that to anyone with kids. Plus it was filmed around Perth so that was cool (the pool is Challenge Stadium where the kids swim).

The kids started school 2 weeks ago. Emilia is in Year 4 and Beau started Kindy (4 year Pre-K. The cut off is June 30th here so he's one of the oldest ones in his grade). Both kids are in split classes which is pretty common at their school. Beau is in a Kindy/Pre-Primary (Kindergarten) class but attends 5 days over 2 weeks (Monday, Thursday and every other Wednesday). Emilia is in a 3/4 class. Beau's teacher this year is the same one Emilia had for Year 2 when we moved here so it's nice to already have a rapport with her. And if you ask, I'll tell you Emilia's teacher's name but needless to say it's very smart!

Beau and Emilia have swimming on Tuesdays and tennis on Thursdays. Emilia has violin on Thursday and golf on Saturday; Beau has gym class on Friday. So we're back in the routine of our life in Perth. Emilia's class also started the 1st 2 weeks with daily class swimming at the end of their school day and 2 days a week (Tuesdays and Fridays) she trains for the swimming carnival before school. So last Tuesday she was swimming 3 times. We figured that was one way for her to work on endurance but she said she wasn't too tired.

So onto the pictures from this morning.