School Holidays, Footy Grand Final, & the Royal Melbourne Show....

It is spring break here in Melbourne!  We have two weeks off of school until we head into our last term of the school year. On the last day of school each of the kids had to dress up in the colours of their favourite footy team (Australian Football League). AFL is really only a game played in Australia and in Australia only Melbourne is really into it. It is a mix between rugby and American football.

Saying Melbourne is "into it" is an understatement. The majority of people LOVE footy season. The games are on TV all the time, the stadiums are almost always packed and people can be quite "feral" (as the Aussies would put it) when it comes to team spirit.

Olivia decided to barrack for Carlingford (because her BFF and boy-crush, go for them (and on the last day of school you get put into teams with other kids who barrack for the same team).

 Mary cheered for the Swans (who I have a deep respect for). Long story short: footy was so big in Melbourne (a while ago) that a certain footy team (Collingwood) decided they  no longer wanted to share their sports training facilities with the Australian Olympic team. Collingwood said they needed the extra practice. It went to court and the footy team won. The Olympians had nowhere to train, so the Sydney swans gave the Olympians their training facilities and moved up to Sydney.

Thomas barracks for Hawthorne (which was the team that won the grand final this year). Stan and I are undecided. Most families barrack together and you cannot change your mind from year to year...otherwise you are called a "turncoat." In Australia you barrack vs. root for a team. Rooting is a very crass word which means "sex" in Australia, so to root for a team would be even more of a shock vs. rooting a person.

Once school was out we have had lots of time to play and hang out with friends. This Saturday we went to the royal Melbourne show, which is basically a big carnival. The kids had a blast.

 

 can't believe Olivia and Mary went on this one-

 Thomas and I did this one together-

 and the bubble balls (my kids favourite)-