I’m warning you now; this entry is in total praise of my children….. I don’t normally praise them up too much – it makes them too easy a target to get criticised by others, and I’m the first to acknowledge their short-comings. They are not MENSA kids and heaven knows they are cheekier than most - however I am so proud of them this week, I just have to mention it.

This week was their last week of term and they received their school reports. Sam’s is great, with every aspect saying he ‘consistently applies effort’; the highest of the achievement level’s available. His teacher wrote at the bottom of his report ‘As Sam has not only had a change of school, but also country, he seems to have coped extremely well. He has settled into his class work and friendship groups easily and is always one of the first to be organised between lessons. Fantastic effort, Sam!’ I am just so pleased that his teacher has acknowledged what a huge upheaval he has experienced and coped so brilliantly.

And to top that, on Wednesday in assembly, Sam received a Merit Certificate! He had to go up in front of the whole assembly and get presented with his certificate and shake hands with the Principal. He got the award for joining in consistently and his ‘fantastic listening skills’. WooHoo!

And, not to be left out, Darcie also got her report this week. Hers was fab as well and her teacher commented; ‘Darcie has settled quickly into the pre-primary routine and socialises well with her peers. She is a well mannered student who completes her work quickly, quietly and neatly. Darcie always enjoys spending time in the home corner and writing table. Fantastic start to the year, Darcie!’

See? I think I have a right to be slightly boastful this week. When you think that the kids have left a school that they loved and left all their friends and family behind, yet have taken to Secret Harbour Primary like they have never been anywhere else! They really love school. Sam today declared he had the best day that he’d ever had at school. His teacher brought her 14 year old son in with her and he interacted with all the kids and Sam now has learnt to compile his own powerpoint presentations. I’m not even going to guess what he’ll be doing next – probably our VAT returns, they’re all greek to me!

Darcie in full 'clown' mode

To celebrate the end of term, the school held another ‘sausage sizzle’ and the kids enjoyed that. Pre-primary also held a clown day where all the students (and the teachers :-) dressed up in clown outfits and played games and had party food. Darcie was SO excited and she had the best day! Here are a few pictures of Darcie in her outfit and the papier mache clown that she crafted (Mum – NO comments about the nose, please!). They’ve had such a good week, but they are really ready for a few weeks off. We’ve got a few things planned; Sam wants to go back to the Perth Museum, we’ve got a zoo trip planned with Darcie’s best mate, Amy and we’ll probably do the pictures and nice lunches. Some of the parents are getting together for a picnic every Wednesday, so that will be nice to break the week up for them. The weather’s still nice (low to mid 20’s during the day) although it is forecast to rain in the early part of next week – typical, school holiday weather!

Close up of Miss Pie-Flinger

Mr Clown - all Darcie's own work; just don't mention the nose!!

Adam is continuing to make progress with his potty training (if somewhat slowly!). He has become fixated with Bob the Builder toys and when I presented him with a scale model of Scoop (or Doop as he calls him…) I thought he was going to blast into the atmosphere with glee! Mum sent the kids some pocket money for doing so well at school and Adam immediately reeled off the list of remaining Bob characters that he was going to treat himself to. Sam immediately told Darcie what they could buy if they clubbed their money together – strangely enough, it consisted of things on his birthday list – hum!

Everything else is pootling along nicely. We are making friends and starting to know who to avoid ;-) Business is coming together slowly and the phones are starting to get a little busier. We have loads of quotes out there – particularly for Navman, so it only takes a few of those to drop in and the pressure will have eased a little. Paul has been really chilled this week which has been lovely – don’t know how chilled he’ll be over the next fortnight with the kids off school? Hopefully I have persuaded him that we need to chill out a little bit before the business really kicks in as six months down the line, we’ll probably look back, wonder why we were so stressed about everything, and wonder why we didn’t enjoy a ‘break’ while we had a chance. It just feels like we are on the cusp of something…… fingers crossed. It can’t be through bloody lack of trying, that’s for sure!

I had a fab coffee with a mate in Mandurah this week. We were sat in the café with Mr Cheese, (we had a window seat and could look out over the marina), when all of a sudden, Adam shouted out ‘DOLCHINS’. Everyone in the café turned to look at Adam who had spotted two dolphins in the water. A bit different to the view from Costa’s window over town, I suppose :-) Everyone in the café was laughing at Adam because he was so excited. Good eyesight though! We then took a takeaway coffee over the park and Adam had a play on the swings for a while whilst we swapped notes about husbands and kids. Always good fun and we’re never short of material.

Addy and Darcie on the 'bouncy bouncy' (as Adam calls it) in the Yard.

The golf club where we used to go for a BBQ on a Friday night are now offering roast dinners for $10! That should be good fun and seeing how crap our oven is, we'll let someone else do all the donkey work, I think. We'll try it out and report back! We're going to see if we can grab a few days away over the school break. I managed to get some of Paul's medical treatment costs back from Medicare; it's money we thought had been spent/gone for ever, so we might enjoy spending it again and having a few days in a hotel or something. Paul suggested taking the kids to Kalgoorlie - the biggest mining city in WA (and Australia), until I googled it and discovered it was a 7 hour drive! 7 hours of screaming, punching, kicking and 'are we there yet's??' (and that's only me and Paul!), I don't think so, so I'll be looking for something closer to home - like New Zealand ha ha ha!

Bye for now guys - keep in touch!