Fern Glade

Don River Railway, Devonport

A couple of weeks ago we spent a lovely day with friends at the Don River Railway and Penguin park.

Beach Babies and Break-Up Parties

 

Guide Falls Alpaca and Animal Park, West Ridgley

We recently visited Guide Falls Alpaca and Animal Park to help celebrate a tiny friend's 1st birthday. What a fantastic, child and budget friendly outing (adults $7; children $3).

The main attractions are the alpacas (particularly the friendly Ally whom the children got to lead around), but there are also plenty of other animals including a llama, peacocks, turkeys, pheasants, chickens, geese, ducks, swans, aviary birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, emu, goats, pigs, deer and trout. The owner of the park gave us a leisurely tour of the place and the children got to feed all of the animals.

  

  

Afterwards we drove a minute up the road to Guide Falls waterfall for a lovely picnic lunch. The children had a blast climbing the rocks and wading into the creek so that the water filled their gumboots and soaked their pants. Then Baby Bear tumbled head over heels off the low bank and landed, on his back and dripping wet, in the shallow water. Shortly after, Loo Bear slipped over into the creek and it wasn't long before Beanie followed suit. But at least they had lots of fun.

Being the slack Mama that I am, the only spare clothing I had in the car was a long outgrown 000 sized growsuit, woefully small even for the tiny Baby Bear. So we drove home with 4 happy and exhausted but naked little ones, snuggled under the spare baby wraps and blankets that I did have in the car. :)



(I have now learnt my lesson and have spare clothes for all 4 boys packed into our car bag.) 

A Lovely Day at the Park

Great weather and great friends...

Yummy food to share...

Bird watching, duck feeding, boat watching...

A wonderful, relaxing day :)

   

And home, late in the afternoon, where Shmoo's interest was piqued by a textbook on inorganic chemistry that he found stashed away on one of our bookshelves. He spent quite a bit of time poring over the periodic table and discussing the elements with The OH, fascinated with the diagrams of the various molecular structures in the book.

At the Park

A lovely day out at the park with friends... playing, climbing trees, exploring, making daisy chains, watching trains...

 

 

And then home for a special treat, breakfast-for-dinner (French omelettes, bacon, and pancakes with maple syrup). :)

Puppet Show

 

Shmoo, Loo and their dear friend, E, put on an impromptu puppet show at the library yesterday.

Peacefest

Today we spent a few fantastic hours at (the first and, hopefully, annual) Peacefest. It was a gorgeous, warm sunny day, perfect for such a lovely gathering. Shmoo got a cross-section slice of blue lace agate to add to his crystal collection; Loo got a pink tie-dyed singlet; and Beanie got a green and purple tie-dyed skivvy. The boys were thrilled to discover that a good friend of theirs was there too and, as always, they all had a blast playing together. Shmoo and Loo loved racing around the seaweed labyrinth. The food was amazing - vegetarian, great prices, and absolutely delish! A fun family day out...

 

 

Play/Learn

A morning at the park and beach with another homeschooled friend. The kids had so much fun playing in the park and then exploring the beach. They searched for shells and fossils (and Loo found lots of fossilised dinosaur poo apparently); examined the little creatures growing on the rocks; played in rock pools; explored the seaweed; watched someone kitesurfing; watched a boy spearfishing and then (cautiously) examined the pufferfish that he mistakenly caught; and so much more! Natural learning in action. :)

   

 

Wet Day at the Library

We had our regular library playdate today with the lovely Allana and her daughter. A perfect place to spend a cold, rainy morning. When we got there we noticed that the kids' play area had been rearranged. A little later we realised why - a rather large corner of the library was flooded, absolutely waterlogged, and the furniture had been rearranged to block off access to the wet area. It turns out that a pipe in one of the pillars had rusted through and had flooded sections on 2 floors of the library. 

So, we had to make do without any books from the junior nonfiction section. As the kids ran around playing and browsing through the books, I selected some books for the boys to read over the next couple of weeks. As anyone with a toddler knows, you can't turn your back on them for a second. I heard one of the library workers telling a child to come out of the wet area as their socks were getting wet. I knew it would be the Bean LOL. I looked up and there was Beanie, having a ball racing the toy stroller along the puddly carpet, cold water soaking his tights and up to the  knees of his pants. He was very unimpressed that I had to take him away from his water play! Luckily he was wearing a few layers so I was able to take off his wet things and leave him in his BabyLegs.

As we were getting ready to leave the carpet cleaners turned up so we decided to stay a little longer to watch. Vacuum obsessed Shmoo was, of course, fascinated. He was a bit cautious to start with and stood a safe distance away but curiosity quickly got the better of him and he soon sat down with the other kids to get a closer look. He didn't even startle at the noise!

   

The kids had a great time watching the water get sucked up; seeing the hose move as the water went through; and looking through the clear dome as the dirty water gushed out of the pipe and into the tank. It seemed to fill up very quickly. By the time we left, they'd only been sucking up the water for about 15-20 minutes with quite a bit more to do, and they'd already emptied the tank 4 times.

Just before we left Shmoo worked up the courage and asked the man how much water could fit into the machine. The answer: about 30L. 4 lots of 30 = 120L... that's a lot of water!

Home Ed Friends

We had a playdate today with the lovely Allana and her gorgeous daughter. The kids had a great time chasing each other around, bouncing on the trampoline and playing with the kittens.

Allana made some funky trousers for Shmoo and Look so will have to get the boys to model them and post some pics!