Uncle Bradyn Pick Up in Perth

Cory's little brother, Bradyn, decided to come out and work on a mining project that Cory's company is doing out at Seracen Mine.  So we had him plan his flight to Perth on the same weekend that we had ward temple day and stake conference in Perth and it worked out perfectly.

Here are the kids having a fun time making Bradyn's bed for him the day before we left.

 They were having so much fun!!!

Then the trip to Perth began!! This is our first bathroom break, only like an hour and a half into the journey.  It was going to be a long day.  And it was.  We didn't get to Perth until 6 at night.

About 100 kilometers outside of Perth, this beautiful sunny day turned into a very wet, and rainy day!  And it continued for almost the whole weekend. So no beach sandcastle building for us, like the girls had hoped.  Besides, even if it had been nice there really wasn't much time for leisure on this trip.  Saturday morning we had to get up, get ready, drop the kids off at the stake president's house, whose wife graciously offered to watch our children before ever meeting them so Cory and I could go to the same temple session.  Our previous plan was to take turns watching the kids and going to a session.  So how nice was that of Sister Stake Pres? Way nice!  I do have to say the temple session was absolutely fabulous.  It is so amazing what living far from a temple will do for your appreciation. Now if only we could remember to keep the same appreciation and attitude toward it when we live a mile away.  Hopefully, it will stick if we ever get to be close to a temple again.  :)

After the temple session, we had to get out of there quick, pick up our kids and get to the airport because Uncle Bradyn's flight was coming in.

Here are the kids (sort of all of the kids) with Bradyn after we picked him up and went to Hungry Jack's for lunch.

After that, Bishop Cory had stake meetings to attend to, and it was still pouring down rain so we just headed back to the place we were staying and watched a movie.

The kids were super excited because Bradyn came bearing gifts from both grandparents!  :)  Thank you, Grandparents!!!

Here are the girls with their goodie bags chuck full of awesome stuff!  I could not get a good pic of Will on this trip to save my life.  But he got a goodie bag too and he also loved it.

 Here's Lily with her cool outfit that Grandma Kris sent.

 Here's Ava in her special outfit from Grandma Kris.  Ava loved this outfit so much she slept in it and put it right back on after church on Sunday, then slept in it again and wore it the whole next day.  She still puts it on every chance she gets.

 The next day, we went to Stake Conference and then we decided to take Bradyn to see King's Park before we started on the long drive back to Kal. It just so happened that they were having this Flower Power Festival that day, celebrating 50 years.  It was great.

 They had all these cool paintings on the grass.

 Can you see that it says Flower Power?

 Here we are at the whispering wall, whispering secrets to Lily.

 Here is Will, breaking the rules and going past the fence surrounding this water feature.  In his defense, there was a duck in the water so it was a little too hard to resist.  If you look closely you can see the duck.

 The great views of King's Park.

 We walked through some gardens on the way back to the car.

 I saw this van on the way out. I thought it was a perfect addition to the Flower Power festival.

Then from there we headed out of beautiful Perth and onto the boring open road to Kal.  We didn't make it home until 10pm, but the kids were all very good and we had some great movies to watch along the way.  :)  That made it bearable.  I hope the next time we go to Perth we have nice weather and we get to stay longer than a weekend!  :)

Book Week

So here in Australia, they do this thing called Book Week and all the kids get to dress up like their favorite book character.  It is the closest thing to dressing up for Halloween that my kids will get here.  They have a parade and even a competition for the best costume.  It was pretty cool.

Right away, when Lily heard she could dress up like her favorite book character, she knew that she wanted to be the Cat in the Hat.  I thought that would be simple enough to pull off.  All I would need is some red and white felt to make the hat, right??  Right.  I found a super easy tutorial online, which I failed to follow correctly and Lily's cat hat ended up with an extra white stripe.  It makes me crazy every time I see it so I finally took out the extra white stripe and fixed the hat.  But not in time for book week.  Lily didn't mind the extra white stripe.

Ava didn't know what she wanted to be, so I decided I would steer her towards something in her dress up box.  Ava ended up choosing Snow White.

Here is our little Cat in the Hat.  

 Cutest little Snow White I've ever seen.

 All the kiddos on the way to school.

 Lily in her classroom.  I went to her parade, but didn't take any pictures.  That was lame, there were so many great costumes.  One teacher dressed up like the gingerbread man.  It was incredible!

 Here is Ava's little kindy parade.

 Ava kept trying to grab Mrs. Hemley's cow tail!  What a cheeky little girl!

 Here's Ava and Sonya her best friend.

 And here's Ava's whole class. It was a fun day!

Kalgoorlie Art Show

Back in September, a good friend of mine entered some of her art work into the art show here in town.  Because she entered her artwork she got two tickets to go to the show.  I felt very lucky and privileged when she invited me to join her.  The event was super fancy and was invitation only. There were young men and women walking around with plates of appetizers and glasses of wine, so pretty posh!  And it was so much fun!!!

It was held in the Town Hall, which is a building I have been wanting to see the inside of since we moved here.  So that was also a bonus!

Here are two pictures of the inside of the Town Hall, which I really liked.  I thought the interior was awesome.  I should have taken more pictures!!

 Here are the paintings my friend had entered.  Aren't they amazing?  She is pretty talented.  I loved both and she sold both!  So pretty awesome night for all!

 This one she titled, "Don't Judge Me"  Any guesses to why??

 Here is a freaky entry in the photography portion!  Weird, right?  I took the picture of it because another artist friend of mine here is really into skulls right now.  But her stuff is way better than this.  They totally should have done this in black and white!  The color is just over the top!

 I liked this painting, and I thought it looked like my sister, Angela, so that is why I took a pic of it.  What do you think?  Am I crazy or can you see Angela in there?

 This is my absolute favorite piece!!!  Isn't it incredible?  It's Jimi Hendrix made completely out of broken records!!!  Amazing!!!  Not to mention, I know the artist.  He's in our ward out here.  Talented guy.

 I thought it should have won first prize, but it didn't.

 This did.  Wha...?  I obviously am not a great judge of art.

 And here is Emily, my friend's baby, who was an absolute angel the entire time.  I was just enjoying holding her all night long!  It was such a fun night out.  Something I haven't done enough since I moved here.

So thank you, Belinda, (my friend, I don't know why I didn't just say her name at the beginning of the post, I referred to her so many times!) for a great night!

In School Swimming Lessons

Lily's school is right across a parking lot from the Oasis Recreation Center. So last school term they allowed the kids to take a two week swimming course for a discounted rate. There was absolutely no downside to this awesome deal! Not only did I not have to worry about getting Lily there, dressed and on time, but it was discounted in price! Score;)

I did go over and watch her do her lesson one time. So here are some pics from her lessons.

Here they are all lined up and waiting for their teachers.

 Here's Will playing on the benches while we wait.

 Here's Lily with her class going over some safety regulations.

 Now they're actually swimming.

Lily was already an excellent swimmer before she went to this class, and I'm not sure she learned anything new, but she did have fun!  :)