Second Prize

Missy continues with her passion for art with an entry in the local show. Missy's painted gained second prize in the 8-12year section. The kids also entered horticultural creatures and H-Ho's chook won Champion Junior.

Swimming Carnival

Like the previous two years, Missy was keen to be part of the swimming carnival and increase the races she entered by one each year. So this year she swam her heart out in the Freestyle, Backstroke and Breastroke races. I've added a short video of her finishing a race with the crowd cheering her onto the finishing wall. Missy so enjoys the thrill of competitions, even if she isn't close to finishing with the others, she is excited by the opportunity to just be part of the carnival and swim in races with her friends. Who wants to sit on the sidelines?

Just a bit of rain

We were lucky to escape any real damage from the rain a few weeks back. The 5 inches rain we had actually fell nicely over five days. In the photos it shows a river near our entrance that flows to a huge dam, the water goes over the road on a low part of the road near the bridge and it closed the road for a day. The girls were checking the road and finding yabbies that were floating across it.

10th Birthday Celebrations

So much to catch up on this blog...

Back in February Missy celebrated her 10th Birthday, when I asked her what she would like for her Birthday, her reply was a "sleep over" no presents just a sleep over "yep" she said. She has never been a greedy kid or asks for lots of things.

So Missy had the difficult decision of picking just two friends for the sleep over. The excitement was building the days before and finally the night came, the evening was full of fun times, makeovers on each other, hairdo's , nail polish painting which had various effects with Missy landing more polish on her friends hands than nails, not that it worried them. Dinner and cake were devoured and time for a late night movie, followed by lots of giggling and then a little bit of sleep.

The morning bought more giggling, breakfast, tennis and motorbike rides.
Missy had a wonderful birthday, full of good food, goood times and good friends.

Getting into the swing

Where have the first few weeks of school gone?
Everyone is getting into the swing of things, Missy's new male teacher is getting his head around Missy's technology and adaptions to activities. It's a lot to take in, thankfully Miss H is there to guide each new teacher with what works best.
While Missys still uses her Dynavox V-Max for the majority of school work, the I-Pad2is increasily used as a reference manual, dictionary, thesaurus, camera, tables of information. We have also been using the Sound Note app on the I-Pad to record Missy's teachers explanation of concepts, which are proving really helpful at home for myself and Missy. She can replay the explanation over and over again, pause if necessary and everyone at home can be consistent with their explanations.

Back to School

Well, the school holidays are over and my kids are pretty pleased to be back, Missy especially. Missy is in Yr 5 and has a male teacher this year a first for her, she thinks he is great. H-HO is in Yr 1.
The girls had a great holiday with most things ticked off their wish list. I didn't get as much ABR done as I would of like, anyway we had fun.

Hitting the beach

Visiting the beach was on the Girls Holiday wish list, so we organised a trip to Collaroy Beach, booked the Beach Wheelchair and stayed the night before at Aunty K and hit the beach the following morning. We had a lovely day , enjoying the easy access to the beach, the surf and rock pool. Missy loved the beach wheelchair that goes easily over the sand and floats in the water, she loved going face first into the waves. H-Ho also loved the waves and has a boogie board on order for the next visit. We finished the day mid afternoon and started the long 5 hr drive home. We had a great day and will be sure to hit the beach again next summer.

Holiday Fun on a Gentle Giant

The girls were lucky enough to visit some friends nearby and have a ride on the Gentle Giant - Daisy. She is a beautiful Clydesdale mare 17.2hh and has had many kids on her back over her 20 year life. Daisy took a very slow pace as she knew there were some girls a little nervous on her big back . Missy's legs relaxed over time and she didn't want to get off.

Anything you can do... I can do...

The Photo shows Missy at her school Presentation Night doing the class dance performance. As you can see where there is a will, there is a way and Missy won't ever miss a chance to be on stage. The performance was to Penny Arcade and Missy was one of the hoop spinners(in between dance moves), she joined arms with one of her friends and they swung it to together. Great Performance.