Jet Lag and Successes!!

The second night at Sun Peaks, the kids were absolutely exhausted after skiing and playing in the snow. They went to bed early but unfortunately the clothes dryer woke them at about 11pm. This is about 6am in Sydney and they thought it was playtime!! We tried everything to get them back to sleep - showed them how dark it was outside etc. but nothing worked. So Simon and I gave up and went to bed. However, you can't really sleep with three kids playing in a hotel room. Nothing worked, but they eventually keeled over at about 2am. Thankfully, the next night they slept through, probably from the physical exhaustion.

The next day was Wednesday and the true skiing days started - up early and out the door for a full day of skiing. We decided to put Arabella and Thierry into daycare with private lessons and Coco went to ski school.

It is Thursday night now and Arabella has learnt to stop, still skis a bit too fast but will go into ski school tomorrow. Thierry will continue with his daycare stints with private lessons and has slid down the Gentle Giant run on his own. He has a great ski instructor. Coco has progressed to Level 3 and is going down the easier blue runs. I am amazed how fast she has picked up skiing and that a full day of skiing does not faze her. She has well and truely picked up the ski bug!

The children are enjoing swims in the outdoor pool and spa area at the hotel and look forward to that in the evening after a day of skiing. Last night there was the added novelty of sitting in the spa while it was snowing. The snow was welcome since the weather here is very mild and during the day there was a bit of rain in the village however at the top of the mountain, where it was colder, it was snowing. The area needs a good dump of snow but it is still a lot better than the Australian snow fields.

Simon and I felt a bit adventurous today and skied some challenging blue runs and some black runs. We are trying to get as many hard runs in until the kids ski with us and then it will be back to the green and easier blue runs. The ski area is so big that I am sure we won't ski all the runs by the time we leave but we will attempt to give it a go.Coco practising her snow ploughs.


Arabella skiing with her instructor before she learnt to stop.



Thierry skiing with his instructor - she's the one going backwards.

Sun Peaks, Canada

We had a bit of a false start with our Sun Peaks holiday . The kids were really excited about our Maxi-Taxi ride to the airport on Sunday morning. We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare and instead we were turned around since our plane on its incoming flight had to make an emergency stop in Honolulu due to a medical emergency and due to crew work times, they had to have an overnight stay there. So as a result our journey was delayed by 36 hours. Luckily the day was warm so we came home and had a swim and sunned ourselves and pretended we were on holiday.

Simon became busy on the phone and wasn't going to miss a day of holiday so we managed to move all our flights back a day and since Air Canada caused the delay they made the changes at no cost to us. We just have to find one nights accommodation now....fingers crossed.

Today is Tuesday here and the girls had a 2 hour lesson at 1:30pm. It was a bit of a stretch for them since we arrived at the hotel at 12:10am the previous night. Coco has the hang of skiing and can turn and stop quite easily but Arabella may need some more private lessons tomorrow before tackling the group lessons. She is a bit speedy and does not want to slow down.

It is 8:50pm and I feel absolutely buggered. For the last hour of the girls lesson we took a peek and discovered the ski instructor was pushing the girls up a slight incline to teach them their "pizza" skis and so I helped which meant more time for him to instruct and not push them back up the hill.

Thierry will start his lessons tomorrow and is looking forward to it. We also discovered that the daycare was limited to 40 hours a month due to the daycare licence so we will actually have to look after Titi for some of the holiday!! Imagine having to look after your own children!!!! Anyway, I'm sure we will cope since I learned some tips from the girls ski instructor and I am prepared to be a manual T-bar which may mean that we can get Titi to ski with us towards the end.........hopefully.

Moving on up

We have finally moved upstairs. This renovation has gone on far too long. Delay after delay and we are still not really finished. However the children are settled comfortably. They are enjoying having baths again and no they weren't dirty just having showers instead.

At the moment we are waiting on fabric for our bedroom's curtains. The childrens' bedrooms have really cute curtains and blinds but we chose an "exotic" fabric for our room and waited patiently. Then after 2 months of waiting and pre-paying still no fabric. Finally got a refund then chose a different fabric with a different shop and then only to find out there is no ETA on that fabric since the manufacturer is out of stock and so it is back to the drawing board. Tomorrow we choose another fabric and hopefully it will be in stock!

Here is a cute photo of the kids enjoying their bath in the new bathroom. Oops sorry can't show any. Simon took the photos and there are too many moon shots. They obviously weren't being nice while the photos were taken so you'll have to wait!

Titi's Birthday

We celebrated Titi's Birthday this weekend. He was two and a very big two he is. He is a typical boy and loves all boy toys especially cars and trucks and heavy machinery. Sydney Water has been quite busy in our area laying new pipes and upgrading the system so there are usually plenty of diggers (front end loaders) on our streets and especially outside our house. He has become obsessed with the diggers or guggers as he calls them. So I decided to make a digger cake and here it is.

Spring is here

What a glorious day we have just had. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the kids were happy. It was 24oC and tomorrow will be 28oC. Spring is well and truely here.

We have finished tidying the yard after winter. The hedges were a bit hairy and they have all been trimmed. It took about three days to do this by doing a bit at a time. There are a lot of hedges in the garden. The garden has also been weeded which was a relatively easy job but there is more to come. Over all the garden is quite low maintenance since the last time we trimmed the hedges was in March. Luckily they are a very slow growing variety.

The kids have enjoyed keeping me company. Titi loves power tools and rakes and brooms, so he was in his element. Arabella loves company so she would chat all the way through, giving you a running commentary on what you are doing. It is so cute.

Simon took Arabella and Titi to a park in the morning and Titi came home absolutely wrecked. Apparently he was practising his balancing and walked round a low wall for most of the morning. He slept for 3 hours when he got home.

Coco's table won the table points for the week (got the most points for doing good work at school and listening) so she came home with a "Caught being good" card. They start the competitive streak early.

It was bliss today - no builders. The house was quiet and peaceful. We are still finding dust but that is a part of life now for a few more weeks (months?).

That Damn Bath!!

The bath may have arrived in Australia but it is still not here. Work on the renovation is at a virtual standstill. Luckily we are not paying for the delay.....yet. All materials have arrived except for this bath. It had better be worth it. Although it looks fabulous on the internet. Here is a link so you can see for yourselves http://www.vandabaths.com/aus/bath.php?b=nice.

The boat arrived today so hopefully it will get to us next week. However, this is not going to be some run-a-bout boat. There will be hundreds of containers and they all have to be unloaded, and transported on trucks. Please let the right container get to the distributor!!

Please, please, with acherry on top.

Wet weather weekend

It is absolutely miserable today. We have stacks of washing to do and it is pouring with rain. The house needs a good scrub after all the building work and dust. At least the builders have tidied up after the demolition.

We can now see what the end result will be like. The new walls are in but they still need to be gyprocked (plastered). The lights and new ceiling fans are in. The downlights make a huge difference since the place sparkles - even though it is very unfinished. I can't wait to take down the old curtains and tracks.

The building project has come to a standstill. The bath that we ordered 2.5 months ago has not arrived. Since it is a non-standard bath, the plumber needs to see it to make sure the plumbing will fit. Since the plumber can't do his thing, the floor cannot go in and since the floor cannot go in, the bathrooms cannot be waterproofed. It is a real snowball effect. Another week and the project should be moving again. Don't tell the builder but the delay is not too bad since I have ordered fabric for the master bedroom and it won't arrive until the end of the month. And we can't really move upstairs without curtains. But still it is delaying the painting and the re-carpeting.

On Thursday, Coco took part in a walk-a-thon at school to raise funds for the school. She walked for about 20 mins and I (Zanthe) was a marshal. Making sure the children and the teachers kept to the route. It was the perfect day for a walk. Overcast and not too hot. I think the children enjoyed being out of the classroom since a few said the walk was too short. However a few teachers were huffing and puffing and puffing and huffing.

The children are looking forward to Fathers Day tomorrow. Coco bought a present at the Fathers Day stall at school (another fund raiser) and Arabella is looking forward to the presents and the food. Titi is not really sure about it all. He will be 2 in a week and a half and he adds new words to his vocabulary each day. To outsiders he still needs a translater but we all understand him now.

Wet weather equals cabin fever......AAAHHHHHH. Can't wait for clear weather and the kids can have a run.