(Week of) August 22nd....

And my blog is 100% caught up!!! Look at me go.. I know it took me a long time to get there - but hey I'm here now!

This week is pretty low key - tons of homework to do.. so that pretty much sums up my weekend yay...  :)

So here's to trying to keep this thing updated... I'll try and touch base at least once a week and if I have nothing to say I'll have a picture of the week or a quote of the week... so here's to trying...

The picture of the week:

Here's to Havelock and all the fairs in full swing at home at the moment - oh how I miss them! I hope everyone is enjoying the last couple of weeks of summer!

(Week of) August 15th!

Finally a relatively quiet week! By that I mean first time all semester that I have nothing going on Thursday and Friday - and I can get some stuff done!

We're right into school at the moment so that's taking up a lot of my time.... but it's all good. Didn't get up to too much this week but on Saturday we decided we needed to get out of the house... So we went to EKKA! Apparently that is short for Exhibition here...

We went to a fair!!!!!! And it made me feel at home - I won't talk too much about it cause we all know what a fair is like - but it had everything rides, games, horse shows, monster truck shows, and even a lumber jack show! It was sweet as.....

Here are the pics!!!

haha funny band... and pants

ps.. father's day is in September here

Whoa Baby!

Nicest car I've seen here!

Oh yesss.. they are riding bulls... Bulls with cowboy hats on too.... There are hillbillies (Bogans - as they are refered to here) in Australia!

 Ohhhhh - Gator Races... haha

(Week of) August 8th - Camp Week!

Another busy week ahead – but I’m really looking forward to this week! I only have two days of class this week because on Wednesday I am heading back to the school I did my prac at to help them with their year 5 camp.

They offer camp to all grades starting at year 3… but this camp was the longest that they had been staying away from home. We went to Somerset Dam which was an absolutely beautiful spot overlook a lake. The first night we slept in cabins – that had kitchens, and a bathroom and a living room that looked out onto the lake.. it was spectacular. I had a room to myself and was watching 8 girls in the bunk up a few stairs from where I was sleeping.

We did activities over the next three days that included canoeing, low ropes, orienteering, bush cooking (we made damper! Yumm) and archery. The meals included lasagne, roast chicken, potatoes, veggies, pancakes, omelettes, sticky date pudding, ice cream and Sunday sauce! I ate so good away at camp!

The first night went alright – I had two girls completely spooked by what two other girls said. Two girls spread the rumour that they thought they saw rat (red) eyes underneath their bed and of course scared the rest of the girls. I managed to talk them down and convinced them that there are no animals under their beds and they stayed the night in the cabin. The second night we slept out in tents – freezing and the girls beside my tent talked the WHOLE night.. not a great night but I guess it was up to me to make them stop talking – and that wasn’t working so well.. so in a way it’s a touch of my own fault. Oh well.. it was a great experience and it was great to see the kids again – and see them outside of the classroom where students who may not normally shine were fantastic on camp!

I took a few pictures – I’m not going to post many because of privacy reasons but I did take a few of the back of heads which I’ll post because you can’t see who they are (not that you’d know them but – ya know…)

This was the view from my cabin's porch... the view from the dining hall was even more spectacular...

One of the awesome activities we did - with their helper 'Des'

More Archery - And 'Des'' Partner in Crime 'Troy'.... get it Des and Troy... DesTroy....

Busy Week! (Week of) August 1st

Late night and back to school for a bright and early 8am start…. Sucked…. But again I only had to get through 3 days of school before I was back enjoying another long weekend! That’s never going to get old….

It was another busy week though – I had class and meetings because I was volunteering at a learning conference on the Friday. So Friday rolled around and I had to be at the school for 7:30, Lise and I (and lots of others too) volunteered for the whole day – we had to speak and thank the speakers and present them with gifts and usher people in the right direction. It was a good learning conference though – very interactive and very helpful. So the conference went until 3:30 or so and the volunteers stayed until about 3:45-4:00 and then us Canadians went to another conference from 4:30-6:30. We had to go to a ‘CANTEACH’ conference where Mike – who is the guy who got us here – was holding a conference on how to apply to Ontario. Yep – it was an ecstatic and exciting Friday…. Whoooo….  But it was all good…

Dad and Linda Visit - Day 3 - July 30th

The last day of the visit was spent cruising around the reef! We took a big boat out to the reef… which was even rougher than the boat cruise…. This time I was reallllll close to losing my lunch – it took some serious will power not to throw up… The three of us weren’t sick – but everybody around us was… even the staff said it was unexpectedly rougher than normal – it was unpleasant and I was very happy to get off that boat! We spent the day on the water, we went on a little glass-bottom boat tour to a little island that was invested with annoying birds… that smelt and basically everywhere we stepped we were looking up to make sure we weren’t about to get…… well you guessed it… But we did see turtles in the glass bottom boat which pretty cool!

Big Boat for the day!

Zebra Fish

Glass bottom Boat

Turtle! Glass bottom boat

smelly annoying birds...

Swing in a tree

Sea Cucumbers!

There was also a half-submarine boat that we went out on – which was awesome because we could see all the fish and the reef and we saw at least 10 turtles! Soooo cool!! They were swimming right beside us! Then we spent the rest of the afternoon snorkelling – and looking around.

 I believe there is a turtle in this picture - really hard to see though... 

We then jumped back on the big boat and headed back – luckily the ride home was nowhere near as rough as the way there!

Dad and Linda dropped me back off at school – where we departed ways for the next 4 months or so…. It was a great weekend and it was so nice to see them!

Dad and Linda Visit - Day 2 - July 29th

Day two of the visit… we decided to try out surfing….. you have to surf when you’re in Australia… right?!?!

We decided to do the 10am lessons – so we got up early got some brekky.. and headed to the ocean…  We put on our wetsuits, met our instructor, grabbed our boards, and crossed the street to the water. Unfortunately we didn’t have the best instructor and the conditions were a little rough but we went surfing in Australia! And I think we all managed to stand up at least once… even if we did take a few rolls and dives into the water and sand multiple times – but it was really fun! Unfortunately we weren’t allowed pictures when we were down there so I only took some before we went to the water…

Dad & Linda Visit! July 27th & 28th)!

So after my verryyyyyy long week (hehe) at school, my class on Wednesday ended and I went and met my Dad and Linda. I saw them right before class but I had to run to class because they messaged me last minute and I was running late. After class I met them on Campus and we headed to the Gold Coast.

The view from the hotel room

We had a busy weekend planned so first thing Thursday morning we got started! First thing in the morning we got up and got going. We toured around, spent some time on the beach and then decided to go whale watching! Yay… the company guarantees that we will see whales – or they will take us on another tour! So here we go – let’s find some whales – shall we! First thing is first – we had to take a little river cruise where we saw celebrity’s houses – some of them were worth millions of dollars and they were gorgeous! We actually saw Jackie Chan’s “beach house”….

Once we got past the river we hit the rough, choppy water… I had no idea it was going to be that rough! It was strange… I think only a few people were sick though… The three of us weren’t – but we sat at the back of the boat and we did get soaked! As for the whales we didn’t see any at first – it took a while to get out to sea and then it took a little longer to find them – but we did! They weren’t being very playful with us – they weren’t willing to jump out of the water but the one kept waving us. She kept throwing her tail in the air and slapping the water – it was pretty cool… I know it’s a she because the commentator person told us so…. She also had a calf with her – We had only seen the one whale but in one of Linda’s pictures she managed to get the other one in the picture – by accident – it was the calf and it was closer to the boat than the mom was… so it was a pretty cool day!

Nice Day!

Spray!