Nippers- flag racing

This week for nippers grandpa got to come along and take some pictures

 Here is Olivia with her board learning the technique 

 Next--Flag racing!

 See the kid turned around? Yep- that is Olivia- she is quick and she has to be since she is so small!

 Running

 and grabbing a flag. 

Every time you do the race there is one less flag (a lot like musical chairs)

 Fast forward...down to the final two

 Olivia sliding in...

and now a tug of war which resulted in a re-do... 

Final round again...

And Olivia lost... tears were shed, I know it's just a game but she lives for the flag races each week! :-) Can't wait for a nippers carnival where we get to compete with other beach teams!

Raspberry picking!

I am so sad cherry season is SO SHORT. After having such a great time cherry picking with the family I was going to bring my dad up to do it again...plus we were out of cherries. The season was over so we hit up a raspberry patch and picked there instead. It was also nearing the end of the season for the raspberries but we were able to still fill a small bucket.

You should all know that watermelon and raspberries are my two favorite fruits, so cherry season being finished was not that devastating :-)

Thomas, Papa John and Mary

Thomas would eat anything I picked so Papa John became the designated holder of the berry bucket. 

Sharing Grandpa's sunnies (what the aussies call sunglasses out here :-)

Hanging out with Grandpa!

A few weeks after Christmas my dad (Papa John) came to Australia for a visit. He loves to see the tennis (Australian Open) and has made it over here two years in a row for it (and to see us of course ;-)  The week before the tennis started we showed Papa John around the city. Here we are doing our Saturday grocery shop at the Victorian Markets. Basically a giant farmers market, right in the heart of the city of Melbourne. 

Here are Olivia & Mary being silly...and Thomas is trying to crawl a pole-

Yummy fruits and veg!

Dragon Fruit...we had to buy one even though they were almost $20.00 a kilo

All in all it was a great morning out!

Cherry picking!!

Since it is the summer break out here we have had lots of time with the family. A little while back we went Cherry picking. It was my first time and I loved all the cherries that were just hanging off the branches.  They were perfectly ripe and my kids were able to eat as much as they wanted. I think we brought a couple buckets home with us and they were gone in a couple of days!  I love summer time!

Wilson's Promanatory- Victoria's national park!

Since it is summer we took a few days to drive two house south to Wilsons Prom. If you look on a map it is as far south as you can get directly above Tasmania. We went on a beautiful day and as you can see the drive was stunning!

Wilsons Prom is a national park, so once we were inside it was pure nature. The kids had a fabulous time swimming around and exploring!

When the sun started to set we headed over to "squeaky beach" Squeaky beach earned its name from the noise it makes when you walk on the sand. The sand is very white and pure and it squeaks because of the high concentration of silica in the sand.

I wanted a picture with Thomas but he kept trying to do a super hero pose, so here I am holding his hands down :-)

Now he is "kissing me" but really he is trying to strangle me-

Miss Olivia

Our whole family! The sunset was beautiful- I wish we were all in decent clothes and not camping as we could have had a Christmas card photo for 2013 all ready to go!

Stanford!

While driving to our camp spot we spotted a wombat- we pulled over to chase it down... but it got away!

In the morning we woke up to this beautiful patch of country- we set our tent up in the dark so we had no idea what we were next too!

 

On our way home we stopped by a dairy farm for breakfast...it was SO YUMMY- we also got to pet the animals (Mary let a goat escape...but Stan got her back in before the staff realized what had happened) I love the outdoors, and another successful camping trip!