Thursday, February 28, 2013

Visit to Whiteman Park

Whiteman Park is a 40 square kilometre bushland reserve not far from Perth (around 30 mins drive from our place). The park has heaps of attractions:

  • Lots of open lawn space for picnics;
  • Playgrounds;
  • a Water Playground;
  • A 4km electric tram journey around the park;
  • A 6km railway line around the park;
  • A tractor museum;
  • A car museum; and 
  • The Caversham Wildlife Park.
We visited on the weekend and did the train ride, tram ride, playground and soft serve icecream (yummo). We will have to go back for the wildlife park and other attractions!

The Train

Ethan and Dad on the train waiting to leave the station 
Ethan getting excited about the train trip

"Train mama, train mama"

Some of the local bushland from the train!
 After the train we took a walk down to Mussel Pool.
 Some of the scenery down at Mussel Pool was great!

 Ethan and Dad had fun spotting tadpoles and turtles
Look Dad, there's a turtle.
While I spotted a pretty big, nasty looking spider.
After exploring the pool area we headed back to the village on the tram. Here's Ethan waiting at the tram stop. 
 And Ethan and mummy on the tram!
 After playing in the playground for a bit we all had a soft serve ice cream to tide us over until dinner!
All in all a great day, we will be back as there's plenty more to see! I am especially looking forward to taking Ethan to the wildlife park!

Busselton 10km race

A few weeks ago Jason, Ethan and I headed off to Busselton for the weekend for a 10km race. This was my first race since the knee injury and I was hoping it was going to go ok!

Busselton is a 2.5 - 5 hour trip depending on traffic! We left at 3.30pm so our trip (with a stop for a play and some food) was around 3.5 hours. Ethan was ok on the drive given we had picked him up straight from daycare!

We arrived in Busselton and it was idyllic! We went for a walk along the beach, grabbed a takeaway pizza and let Ethan have a play at a playground! I could actually feel myself unwinding after just being there 15 minutes! Ethan slept really well that night as well - given how difficult it was on our last away trip I was really happy! Ethan woke at 6.15 ish which was when I was due to get up anyway! So it worked perfectly!

The race itself was good, I didn't set any time records but I came 7th and I was happy with the effort and I made my time goal with 15 seconds to spare!

Here is Ethan on his All Blacks camp chair eating his breakfast on the foreshore while I am out doing my warm up!

Here's Ethan checking out the birdies and boats (two of his favourite things in the world) while I am racing!
All in all it was a successful weekend away!

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Jungle Cub Sports

We have started Ethan in Jungle Cub Sports for a term. Its all about introducing 18 - 36 month old kids to a variety of sports. The program is about having a lot of fun with you children and also developing co-ordination, ball skills and listening skills etc. Sports covered in the sessions are soccer, rugby, AFL, basketball, cricket, athletics, obstacle courses and more!

There is a 9 week term and the kids have a cute little uniform to play in!
I would be lying if I said that the first week went well. As you can see below we had the kid rolling round in the goal in the background while others were passing the ball with their parents! It was a little struggle to get Ethan to concentrate and participate but we had to start somewhere!

Our second week was much more successful, it started out with some running relays and if there is one thing Ethan likes to do, its run! Just like his Mama! We then moved onto rugby which involved "scoring tries" on the mat. Ethan enjoyed rolling onto the mat (with or without the ball!).

I wonder what next week's class will bring!

Sunday, February 17, 2013

New fence and landscaping part 1

Part of our side fence blew down in a winter storm and since then we have been working on getting it replaced.

First we removed the 4m high hedge that was down in the back half of the fenceline (which revealed a much more broken fence that we realised... in fact the hedge was pretty much all that was holding the fence up).

Jason and his Dad then worked on removing all the other plants and very deeply embedded roots from the hedge. We don't have a very beginning before photo, but here we are halfway through the job!

The three boys worked hard digging up all the tree roots!
But some of them proved far too hard for man power alone... so Betty was put to work!!! While Ethan and his Grandad Papps supervised!
Ethan showing the boys how its done!
Sheesh after all that hard work Ethan needs some sultanas and some milk!
After the plant removal the fence repair stalled for a few months as we submitted (and waited) for our insurance claim. Then we had to negotiate with the owner of the vacant block next door over the colour of the fence, the height of the fence and whether she would pay now or later (the law states that if there  is a vacant lot next door they only need to pay for their share of the fence when they erect a substantial building on the site). Lucky for us she agreed to pay her half, and agreed to the full height fence along the whole fence line. We did need to negotiate on the colour, but all in all it wasn't too difficult to get a satisfactory outcome.

So we were onto phase two! The fencing contractors came in and demolished the old fence (and old garden bed). This was not without drama as they broke a sewerage pipe and cut our internet cable. The sewerage pipe was fixed that day but it took around 10 days to get internet back!.

Look at the big hole we have with the old fence and garden bed gone.
You will see in the original photos above that there was a garden on the inside of the old fence, it was about a metre wide and slightly raised. We have decided to widen this garden and will eventually plant two citrus trees, herbs and a small vegie patch as well as a more established tree (or two) - that is phase 3 of our project.

Here is the new fence from the outside.
Here is the new fence from the back courtyard. We are now waiting on the fencing contractor to come back and put our new limestone wall in for the new, bigger garden. This should be done in the next week or two.
Watch this space for more developments as we finish the landscaping off! Is anyone free in the next month or so to come and help us move a couple of trailer loads of dirt into the new garden beds???